Artigo Acesso aberto Revisado por pares

Who Owned the Blackfriars Playhouse?

2019; Oxford University Press; Volume: 70; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1093/sq/quaa013

ISSN

1538-3555

Autores

Lucy Munro,

Tópico(s)

Scottish History and National Identity

Resumo

In 1635 threeactors, RobertBenfield, EyllaerdtSwanston, andThomasPollard, petitioned the Lord Chamberlain to be allowed to purchase shares in the leases of the Globe and Blackfriars playhouses and, thereby, to take a larger cut of the profits.1 An answer to the petition was composed by a group of relatives of the Blackfriars playhouse’s former owner, Richard Burbage: his brother, Cuthbert; his widow, Winifred; and his son, William. They recount the history of the ownership and occupation of the playhouses, and contrast the Globe—built on land leased from Nicholas Brend and, later, his son Matthew—with the Blackfriars, saying, “Now for the Blackfriers that is our inheritance, our father [that is, James Burbage, father of Richard and Cuthbert] purchased it at extreame rates & made it into a playhouse with great charge and troble, which after was leased out to one Euans that first sett vp the Boyes commonly called the Queenes Majesties Children of the Chappell.” Later, they claim, “it was considered that house would bee as fitt for our selues, & soe [we] purchased the lease remaining from Evans with our money & placed men Players, which were Hemings, Condall, Shakspeare &c.”2 They present the playhouse not only as the possession of James Burbage, the man who bought the property in the Blackfriars precinct and converted it into a playhouse, and his heirs, but also of Henry Evans, who had a controlling interest in its profits during the term of his lease, which was drawn up in 1600 and projected to last for twenty-one years. With the “purchase” of the lease, the Burbages suggest, the playhouse returned seamlessly to “our selues,” and it is only now, in 1635, that the newcomers, Benfield, Swanston, and Pollard, are challenging their right.

Referência(s)