A Book of the Play: Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and CharacterCook, Dutton
History
A Book of the Play: Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character
Cook, Dutton
Theater -- Great Britain -- History
There can be no doubt, however, that Shakespeare's battles had
oftentimes the important aid of real gunpowder. The armies might be
small; but the noise that accompanied their movements was surely very
great. The stage direction "alarums and chambers go off" occurs more
than once in "King Henry V." The Chorus to the play expressly states:
Behold the ordnance on their carriages,
With fatal mouths gaping on girded Harfleur;
... and the nimble gunner
With linstook now the devilish cannon touches,
And down goes all before them.
Gunpowder was even employed in plays wherein battles were not
introduced. Thus at the close of "Hamlet," Fortinbras says: "Go bid
the soldiers shoot," and the stage direction runs: "A dead march.
_Exeunt_ bearing off the dead bodies; after which a peal of ordnance
is shot _off_." And just as, in 1846, the Garrick Theatre, in
Goodman's Fields, was destroyed by fire, owing to some wadding lodging
in the flies after a performance of the Battle of Waterloo, so in
1613, the Globe Theatre, in Southwark, was burnt to the ground from
the firing of "chambers" during a representation of "King Henry VIII."
Howes, in his additions to "Stowe's Chronicle," thus describes the
event: "Also upon St. Peter's Day, 1613, the playhouse or theatre
called the Globe, upon the Bankside, near London, by negligent
discharging of a peal of ordnance, close to the south side thereof,
the theatre took fire, and the wind suddenly dispersed the flame round
about, and in a very short space the whole building was quite consumed
and no man hurt; the house being filled with people to behold the
play, namely, of 'Henry VIII.;' and the next spring it was new builded
in a far fairer manner than before."
The paucity of Shakespeare's stage armies has sometimes found its
reflex in the limited means of country theatres of more modern date.
The ambition of strolling managers is apt to be far in advance of
their appliances; they are rarely stayed by the difficulties of
representation, or troubled with doubts as to the adequacy of their
troupe, in the words of a famous commander, to "go anywhere and do
anything." We have heard of a provincial Rolla who at the last moment
discovered that the army, wherewith he proposed to repulse the forces
of Pizarro, consisted of one supernumerary only. The Peruvian
chieftain proved himself equal to the situation, however, and adapted
his speech to the case. Addressing his one soldier, he declaimed in
his most dignified manner: "My brave associate, partner of my toil, my
feelings, and my fame, can Rolla's words add vigour to the virtuous
energies which inspire your heart?" and so on. Thus altered, the
speech was found to be sufficiently effective.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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