Playgoing in Shakespeare's London, and: The Shakespeare Company, 1594-1642 (review)

Andrew Gurr's work is essential for anyone with an interest in the early modern English theatre. His books provide scrupulous research, engaging prose, and invaluable compilations of sources on acting and theatregoing. Cambridge has recently issued a third edition of his classic Playgoing in Shakespeare's London along with a brand-new study, The Shakespeare Company, 1594–1642. Both books enhance Gurr's reputation as a meticulous historian of early theatrical practice. The third edition of Playgoing is notable primarily for the significant expansion of the appendices, which assemble allusions to playgoers and playgoing, the former in alphabetical and the latter in chronological order for easy reference. The Shakespeare Company is the first study of the troupe that began as the Lord Chamberlain's Men and eventually acquired royal patronage. It also boasts a wealth of information in its appendices, with primary documents about the players, the company, the repertory, and the court performances.

Although both books cover an enormous amount of material, they are consistently readable, thanks to Gurr's use of period anecdotes and his own lively descriptions. In Playgoing, he paints a vivid picture of the havoc caused by the London playhouses, some of which were located in the more disreputable suburbs south of the Thames. His discussion of the (lack of) toilet facilities and the predominance of large hats, tobacco smoke, and rowdy patrons at the performances is particularly amusing. The books are also enlivened with numerous illustrations and other visual materials. This is particularly helpful in the third chapter of The Shakespeare Company, which analyzes the company's financial assets, and includes a number of tables detailing expenditures and earnings.

While Gurr relies heavily on the historical material that comprises the appendices, he is careful to acknowledge the contingencies and complexities of his research. He always makes the nature of his sources clear and consistently points out the gaps, contradictions, and ambiguities in his evidence. For instance, the section on company finances in The Shakespeare Company admits that his attempts to "register an individual company's business activities in modern accountancy terms" is "based largely on guesswork" (85). The chapter that follows, on the plays that formed the company's repertory, similarly recognizes the dearth of available material from which to work, particularly given the differences between the staged and printed versions of early modern texts. "Most of the 168 play-texts which give us our only access to the company's repertory stand at a disconcertingly remote distance from the staged events we all too comfortably expect them to record" (120). By openly acknowledging these issues, Gurr offers a model for writing about the often problematic nature of early modern research.

He also is very aware of the potential objections to his choice of the phrases "Shakespeare's London" and "the Shakespeare company." Neither description is accurate, given that both books cover the period up until the closing of the theatres in 1642, and Playgoing begins its analysis in 1567, decades before Shakespeare's arrival in London. He defends his use of Shakespeare's name at the beginning of both books, arguing in the new preface to Playgoing that it "is justified by the scale of his achievement, not least in the long duration of the company he helped to found and which ran as the theatre's leading light for forty-eight years" (xii). Despite this reasonable assertion, both books participate in the predictable elevation of Shakespeare above his contemporaries, both as a dramatist and as a sharer in the company. They also contain some bardolatrous comments, such as Gurr's statement in The Shakespeare Company that "this book is about the company which made the icon so many of us worship" (xiii). Although such remarks are...