Lisle's Tennis Court
Encyclopedia
Lincoln's Inn Fields
Lincoln's Inn Fields is the largest public square in London, UK. It was laid out in the 1630s under the initiative of the speculative builder and contractor William Newton, "the first in a long series of entrepreneurs who took a hand in developing London", as Sir Nikolaus Pevsner observes...
in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
. Originally built as a real tennis
Real tennis
Real tennis – one of several games sometimes called "the sport of kings" – is the original indoor racquet sport from which the modern game of lawn tennis , is descended...
court, it was used as a playhouse
Playhouse
Playhouse is a common Elizabethan term for a theatre, especially those built in London such as The Globe and The Rose.It is also used as the name for theatres today:- Australia :* Dunstan Playhouse, Adelaide Festival Centre...
during two periods, 1661–1674 and 1695–1705. During the early period, the theatre was called "the Duke's Playhouse", or "the Opera". The building was demolished and replaced by a purpose-built theatre for a third period, 1714–1728. The tennis court theatre was the first public playhouse in London to feature the moveable scenery that would become a standard feature of Restoration theatres.
The Duke's Company
The building was constructed as a real tennis court in 1656. Tudor-styleTudor style architecture
The Tudor architectural style is the final development of medieval architecture during the Tudor period and even beyond, for conservative college patrons...
real tennis courts were long, high-ceiling buildings, with galleries for spectators; their dimensions — about 75 by 30 feet — are similar to the earlier theatres, and much larger than a modern tennis court.
After the English Restoration
English Restoration
The Restoration of the English monarchy began in 1660 when the English, Scottish and Irish monarchies were all restored under Charles II after the Interregnum that followed the Wars of the Three Kingdoms...
in 1660, Charles II
Charles II of England
Charles II was monarch of the three kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland.Charles II's father, King Charles I, was executed at Whitehall on 30 January 1649, at the climax of the English Civil War...
granted Letters Patent
Letters patent
Letters patent are a type of legal instrument in the form of a published written order issued by a monarch or president, generally granting an office, right, monopoly, title, or status to a person or corporation...
to two companies to perform "legitimate drama" in London: the Duke's Company
Duke's Company
The Duke's Company was one of the two theatre companies that were chartered by King Charles II at the start of the English Restoration era, when the London theatres re-opened after their eighteen-year closure during the English Civil War and the Interregnum.The Duke's Company had the patronage of...
, led by William Davenant
William Davenant
Sir William Davenant , also spelled D'Avenant, was an English poet and playwright. Along with Thomas Killigrew, Davenant was one of the rare figures in English Renaissance theatre whose career spanned both the Caroline and Restoration eras and who was active both before and after the English Civil...
, and the King's Company
King's Company
The King's Company was one of two enterprises granted the rights to mount theatrical productions in London at the start of the English Restoration. It existed from 1660 to 1682.-History:...
, led by Thomas Killigrew
Thomas Killigrew
Thomas Killigrew was an English dramatist and theatre manager. He was a witty, dissolute figure at the court of King Charles II of England.-Life and work:...
. Both companies briefly performed in the theatrical spaces that had survived the interregnum
English Interregnum
The English Interregnum was the period of parliamentary and military rule by the Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell under the Commonwealth of England after the English Civil War...
and civil war
English Civil War
The English Civil War was a series of armed conflicts and political machinations between Parliamentarians and Royalists...
(including the Cockpit
Cockpit Theatre
The Cockpit was a theatre in London, operating from 1616 to around 1665. It was the first theatre to be located near Drury Lane. After damage in 1617, it was christened The Phoenix....
and Salisbury Court
Salisbury Court Theatre
The Salisbury Court Theatre was a theatre in 17th-century London. It was located in the neighbourhood of Salisbury Court, which was formerly the London residence of the Bishops of Salisbury. Salibury Court was acquired by Richard Sackville in 1564; when Thomas Sackville was created Earl of Dorset...
), but scrambled to quickly acquire facilities that were more to current tastes. Killigrew and Davenant both chose a solution that had been used in France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
: converting tennis courts into theatres.
Killigrew's theatre on Vere Street (Gibbon's Tennis Court
Gibbon's Tennis Court
Gibbon's Tennis Court was a building off Vere Street and Clare Market, near Lincoln's Inn Fields in London, England. Originally built as a real tennis court, it was used as a playhouse from 1660 to 1663, shortly after the English Restoration...
) opened first, in November 1660. Davenant apparently spent more time in his remodelling: Lincoln's Inn Fields opened on 28 June 1661, with the first "moveable" or "changeable" scenery
Theatrical scenery
Theatrical scenery is that which is used as a setting for a theatrical production. Scenery may be just about anything, from a single chair to an elaborately re-created street, no matter how large or how small, whether or not the item was custom-made or is, in fact, the genuine item, appropriated...
used on the British public stage, and the first proscenium arch. Wings or shutters ran in grooves and could be smoothly and mechanically changed between or even within acts. The production was a revamped version of Davenant's own five-year-old opera The Siege of Rhodes
The Siege of Rhodes
The Siege of Rhodes is an opera written to a text by the impresario William Davenant. The score is by five composers, the vocal music by Henry Lawes, Matthew Locke, and Captain Henry Cooke, and instrumental music by Charles Coleman and George Hudson...
. The result was such a sensation that it brought Charles II to a public theatre for the first time. The competing King's Company suddenly found itself playing to empty houses, as diarist and devoted playgoer Samuel Pepys
Samuel Pepys
Samuel Pepys FRS, MP, JP, was an English naval administrator and Member of Parliament who is now most famous for the diary he kept for a decade while still a relatively young man...
notes on 4 July:
I went to the theatre [in Vere Street] and there I saw Claracilla (the first time I ever saw it), well acted. But strange to see this house, that use to be so thronged, now empty since the opera begun—and so will continue for a while I believe.
The Siege of Rhodes "continued acting 12 days without interruption with great applause" according to the prompter John Downes
John Downes (17th-century prompter)
John Downes worked as a prompter at the Duke's Company, and later the United Company, for most of the Restoration period 1660—1700...
in his "historical review of the stage" Roscius Anglicanus (1708). This was a remarkable run for the limited potential audience of the time. More acclaimed productions by the Duke's Company "with scenes" followed at Lincoln's Inn Fields in the course of 1661 (including Hamlet
Hamlet
The Tragical History of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, or more simply Hamlet, is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1599 and 1601...
and Twelfth Night), all highly admired by Pepys.
The King's Company was forced to abandon their own, technically unsophisticated tennis-court theatre and commission the construction of a new theatre in Bridges Street, where the Theatre Royal
Theatre Royal, Drury Lane
The Theatre Royal, Drury Lane is a West End theatre in Covent Garden, in the City of Westminster, a borough of London. The building faces Catherine Street and backs onto Drury Lane. The building standing today is the most recent in a line of four theatres at the same location dating back to 1663,...
opened in 1663.
Prince Cosimo III of Tuscany
Cosimo III de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany
Cosimo III de' Medici was the penultimate Medici Grand Duke of Tuscany. He reigned from 1670 to 1723, and was the elder son of Grand Duke Ferdinando II. Cosimo's 53-year long reign, the longest in Tuscan history, was marked by a series of ultra-reactionary laws which regulated prostitution and...
visited the Lisle theatre in 1669, and his official diarist left us this account:
[The pit] is surrounded within by separate compartments in which there are several degrees [steps] of seating for the greater comfort of the ladies and gentlemen who, according to the liberal custom of the country, share the same boxes. Down below [in the pit] there remains a broad space for other members of the audience. The scenery is entirely changeable, with various transformations and lovely perspectives. Before the play begins, to render the waiting less annoying and inconvenient, there are very graceful instrumental pieces to be heard, with the result that many go early just to enjoy this part of the entertainment.
Thomas Betterton
Thomas Patrick Betterton , English actor, son of an under-cook to King Charles I, was born in London.-Apprentice and actor:...
, performed out of Lincoln's Inns Fields until 1671, when they relocated to the elaborate new Dorset Garden Theatre
Dorset Garden Theatre
The Dorset Garden Theatre in London, built in 1671, was in its early years also known as the Duke of York's Theatre, or the Duke's Theatre. In 1685, King Charles II died and his brother, the Duke of York, was crowned as James II. When the Duke became King, the theatre became the Queen's Theatre in...
. In 1672, the theatre in Bridges Street burnt down, and the King's Company temporarily occupied the recently-vacated Lincoln's Inn Field, until their new theatre opened in 1674.
Betterton and Rich
The building was converted back to a tennis court and remained one for almost 20 years. During that time, the Duke's Company subsumed the King's Company to form the United CompanyUnited Company
The United Company was a London theatre company formed in 1682 with the merger of the King's Company and the Duke's Company.Both the Duke's and King's Companies suffered poor attendance during the turmoil of the Popish Plot period, 1678–81...
, performing out of Drury Lane
Drury Lane
Drury Lane is a street on the eastern boundary of the Covent Garden area of London, running between Aldwych and High Holborn. The northern part is in the borough of Camden and the southern part in the City of Westminster....
. Betterton was forced out as the head of the company in 1688, staying on as an actor (and filling a day-to-day managerial role) while a succession of leaders embezzled funds and cut costs by cutting actors' salaries. Under Christopher Rich
Christopher Rich (theatre manager)
Christopher Rich was a lawyer and theatrical manager in London in the late 17th and early 18th century, and the father of the important impresario John Rich...
, the United Company split. Betterton left with a band of actors and a newly-issued license to perform, and from 1695 to 1705 his company performed back at Lincoln's Inn Fields, refurbishing the abandoned theatre. The New Theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields opened in April 1695 with William Congreve's Love for Love. It was later the first venue for Congreve's plays The Mourning Bride (1697) and The Way of the World
The Way of the World
The Way of the World is a play written by British playwright William Congreve. It premiered in 1700 in the theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields in London...
(1700).
The building went unused as a theatre from 1705 until it was demolished in 1714 or shortly before, in preparation to build a new theatre. The man behind the new construction was none other than Christopher Rich, who after 16 years had been pushed out of Drury lane. Rich died in 1714, but his son John Rich
John Rich (producer)
John Rich was an important director and theatre manager in 18th century London. He opened the New Theatre at Lincoln's Inn Fields and then the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden and began putting on ever more lavish productions...
led a company at the theatre until 1728. On 29 January 1728, Rich's theatre hosted the first, very successful, production of John Gay
John Gay
John Gay was an English poet and dramatist and member of the Scriblerus Club. He is best remembered for The Beggar's Opera , set to music by Johann Christoph Pepusch...
's The Beggar's Opera
The Beggar's Opera
The Beggar's Opera is a ballad opera in three acts written in 1728 by John Gay with music arranged by Johann Christoph Pepusch. It is one of the watershed plays in Augustan drama and is the only example of the once thriving genre of satirical ballad opera to remain popular today...
(making "Rich gay and Gay rich"). The theatre was finally abandoned in December 1732, when the company moved to the new Covent Garden Theatre, built by Rich using the capital generated by The Beggar's Opera.http://instruct.uwo.ca/english/234e/site/bckgrnds/maps/lndnmprstrtnthtrs.html
The old building was used as a barracks, an auction room, a warehouse for china, and was finally demolished in 1848 to make room for an extension to the neighbouring premises of the Royal College of Surgeons
Royal College of Surgeons of England
The Royal College of Surgeons of England is an independent professional body and registered charity committed to promoting and advancing the highest standards of surgical care for patients, regulating surgery, including dentistry, in England and Wales...
.http://world-theatres.com/London%20Theatres.htmlhttp://www.coventgarden.uk.com/portugal.html