[See SEGMENTS below] Thomas Dabbs speaks with Heather Knight about theatre during the Shakespearean period. In this discussion, Heather Knight discusses recent archeological finds at the Boar's Head, Whitechapel. This conversation also covers findings that concern The Curtain Theatre, the venue for Shakespeare's 'Romeo and Juliet'. The Curtain was once thought to be a round shape, but digs and discoveries at this site have proven that it was a much larger theatre and also rectangular. This discovery has changed the way that theatre historians look at Shakespearean theatre and also the theatre of the times. Heather Knight is also an expert on the archeology of a theatre simply call, The Theatre, which was, according to historical records, one of the earliest large commercial playhouses in London.
LINKS:
The Curtain Theatre Site: https://www.mola.org.uk/blog/remains-shakespeare’s-curtain-theatre-discovered-shoreditch
Museum of London Archeology: https://www.mola.org.uk
SEGMENTS:
0:00:00 - Intro
0:01:37 - Roehampton Conference: Before Shakespeare
0:02:45 - MOLA, Heather's role in theatre archeology
0:03:35 - The Boar's Head playhouse
0:09:45 - Received narrative and global access to sites and records
0:14:05 - The Curtain
0:22:26 - Playhouses in Spain and on the continent
0:27:00 - The Curtain (again) and things lost, depositional signatures
0:41:15 - Positions and dates of theaters, space and the City of London
0:40:40 - The commercial theatre: economics, and expansion
0:49:05 - Future work at MOLA, documentation, digital public access
0:53:45 - Cross disciplinary collaboration
0:55:45 - The plague and theatres, then and now, and more on the future
0:57:14 - The future of the past: the Boar's Head, the Curtain, and The Theatre
1:01:08 - Closing comments: Collaborations then and now, money pots, selling goods
[See SEGMENTS below] Thomas Dabbs speaks with Heather Knight about theatre during the Shakespearean period. In this discussion, Heather Knight discusses recent archeological finds at the Boar's Head, Whitechapel. This conversation also covers findings that concern The Curtain Theatre, the venue for Shakespeare's 'Romeo and Juliet'. The Curtain was once thought to be a round shape, but digs and discoveries at this site have proven that it was a much larger theatre and also rectangular. This discovery has changed the way that theatre historians look at Shakespearean theatre and also the theatre of the times. Heather Knight is also an expert on the archeology of a theatre simply call, The Theatre, which was, according to historical records, one of the earliest large commercial playhouses in London.
LINKS:
The Curtain Theatre Site: https://www.mola.org.uk/blog/remains-shakespeare’s-curtain-theatre-discovered-shoreditch
Museum of London Archeology: https://www.mola.org.uk
SEGMENTS:
0:00:00 - Intro
0:01:37 - Roehampton Conference: Before Shakespeare
0:02:45 - MOLA, Heather's role in theatre archeology
0:03:35 - The Boar's Head playhouse
0:09:45 - Received narrative and global access to sites and records
0:14:05 - The Curtain
0:22:26 - Playhouses in Spain and on the continent
0:27:00 - The Curtain (again) and things lost, depositional signatures
0:41:15 - Positions and dates of theaters, space and the City of London
0:40:40 - The commercial theatre: economics, and expansion
0:49:05 - Future work at MOLA, documentation, digital public access
0:53:45 - Cross disciplinary collaboration
0:55:45 - The plague and theatres, then and now, and more on the future
0:57:14 - The future of the past: the Boar's Head, the Curtain, and The Theatre
1:01:08 - Closing comments: Collaborations then and now, money pots, selling goods
0:00:05.280,0:00:10.640
This is Speaking of Shakespeare, a series of conversations about things Shakespearean.
0:00:11.440,0:00:18.800
I'm Thomas Dabbs, recording from Aoyama Gakuin University in central Tokyo. This conversation is
0:00:18.800,0:00:26.400
with Heather Knight, senior archaeologist, Museum
of London Archaeology or MOLA. This talk will
0:00:26.400,0:00:33.440
feature recent work on two Elizabethan theater sites associated with Shakespeare: The Boar's Head
0:00:33.440,0:00:38.880
and The Curtain. We will also discuss another theater site that was simply called The Theatre.
0:00:40.160,0:00:46.880
This talk is funded with institutional support from Aoyama Gakuin University. The series is
0:00:46.880,0:00:52.800
also funded with a generous grant from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science.
0:00:53.520,0:01:01.440
Hello, Heather. How are you? It is so good to see you again.
Hi, Tom. It's really good to see you.
0:01:02.560,0:01:10.160
Unfortunately not in person, but we'll make do.
I had a plan, and it was not,
0:01:10.160,0:01:17.840
I was hoping that I could get you in
Japan. And I got some grant money just when the
0:01:17.840,0:01:22.800
pandemic started. And I had a plan to have a symposium and a short list of people I wanted
0:01:22.800,0:01:31.200
to come, in bring in to debate, congenially with about issues of the theater and and to
0:01:31.200,0:01:38.720
do. What we did when we last saw each other, it was the Roehampton Conference.
0:01:38.720,0:01:46.560
That was sponsored and done all by Andy Kesson at... Before Shakespeare Conference. Before
0:01:46.560,0:01:53.520
Shakespeare Conference. And I had no idea what to expect, I've known Andy in correspondence and
0:01:53.520,0:01:58.160
so forth pretty well, but I didn't know what to expect and that was just one of my
0:01:58.160,0:02:04.240
fondest memories. And you're part of that, and several of the other people who we met
0:02:04.240,0:02:10.720
made friends immediately. And what a great thing for Andy to do. And I'm going to be talking
0:02:10.720,0:02:17.280
to him next month, I think. And so, we'll find out what they've done since then, but I want to
0:02:17.280,0:02:29.520
go to that, because at that time, this was 2017, I think it was 17, so then The Curtain was still
0:02:30.800,0:02:37.600
wrankling people and probably still
is now. But we're going to go to The Curtain,
0:02:37.600,0:02:47.200
but I want to get to the first what you do at the Museum of London Archaeology and your role
0:02:47.200,0:02:54.080
there. You are senior archaeologist, is that right?
That's right, I am. So MOLA, which is as you say
0:02:54.080,0:03:00.480
Stanton Museum of London Archaeology. We're a commercial practice, and we conduct hundreds of
0:03:01.120,0:03:08.160
excavations and archaeological projects across the UK, and in normal times internationally every year.
0:03:10.160,0:03:18.000
But I just in a really fortunate position of over the last 14 years. I found a very niche place
0:03:18.000,0:03:23.360
to put myself and that's in theater archaeology. So I've been in the real estate, real privileged
0:03:23.360,0:03:31.360
position of leading the excavations on The Theatre, The Boar's Head, and The Curtain.
0:03:31.360,0:03:35.200
So those are your two... are you
still working on The Boar's Head now?
0:03:36.240,0:03:44.960
The excavation's finished, but I'm just starting to put together the post excavation assessments.
0:03:44.960,0:03:50.880
That means we kind of quantify the data that we have, and then we look at it and see what kind of
0:03:50.880,0:03:56.880
questions are kind of rising out of that data, and then we go on to further analysis. So it's in that
0:03:56.880,0:04:03.120
kind of halfway, halfway house situation, which is the same unfortunately for The Curtain and
0:04:03.120,0:04:08.720
The Theatre. They're all at that kind of stage, I'm just about to do the proper analysis of all three
0:04:08.720,0:04:16.640
sites. Well, there are two pressure points here that you've come across in your career in recent
0:04:16.640,0:04:22.560
times and particularly if we're talking about the histories that we study very recent times.
0:04:22.560,0:04:29.040
And that one of the pressure points is The Boar's Head, which is more recent. And The Boar's Head is
0:04:29.040,0:04:35.040
in the Whitechapel region. And the thing about The Boar's Head is you can show
0:04:35.040,0:04:41.920
that there was activity there before the 1560s. Now even people in Shakespeare studies might think
0:04:41.920,0:04:47.760
well okay, but there are people heavily invested in the notion that the theaters didn't start
0:04:47.760,0:04:54.480
until the late 60s and really didn't get going until there was one in the 60s and then the 70s,
0:04:54.480,0:05:00.400
when things picked up. And so you think you found some evidence there. Well, it's actually documentary
0:05:00.400,0:05:06.960
evidence that if we were standing there on the sort of 5th of September 1557, the play
0:05:06.960,0:05:12.960
we wouldn't be seeing is a sack full of news, it was deemed to be lewd and the actors run into
0:05:12.960,0:05:18.960
trouble with the authorities. And
the performance was halted. But it's that kind
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of, it's only because we know about that because they run into trouble with it. It kind of raises
0:05:24.800,0:05:30.720
the questions what other performance was going on. That was absolutely fine and every day and
0:05:32.400,0:05:40.480
wasn't newsworthy. That's the sack full of news it was. So yeah, now whether that continued
0:05:41.600,0:05:45.360
all the way through up to the one they built a proper playhouse, we don't know.
0:05:45.360,0:05:51.040
But we do have that kind of suggestion that it was a place of entertainment in the 15.
0:05:53.120,0:05:58.480
Well, this would have been one of the earliest examples of what we think to be the early
0:05:58.480,0:06:05.600
modern playhouse, something that might be different from the village festival and the types of
0:06:05.600,0:06:11.440
pageants that they had which were all very interesting. But this being an earlier version
0:06:11.440,0:06:17.120
of the Elizabethan theater that was a public stage where you had this activity that we see
0:06:17.680,0:06:23.760
years later in Shakespeare. And Shakespeare in fact one of the points of the conference that we were
0:06:23.760,0:06:30.640
and is to bring attention to. Shakespeare tends to eclipse what was before him because of
0:06:31.200,0:06:38.160
of course the Shakespeare. And so, you're gonna have to do a full
0:06:38.160,0:06:46.800
write-up of what you found at The Boar's Head. And who are you do people contact you and bug you?
0:06:46.800,0:06:52.560
I think I bugged you but in the past on email like with questions, can I say this in the book that I'm
0:06:52.560,0:07:00.240
about to publish? Do they do that?
Yeah, they do. And it's not bugging. It's people
0:07:00.240,0:07:06.160
wanting the most up-to-date information that we have, so that's not bugging
0:07:06.160,0:07:13.200
me, that's being... I don't know quite. I just imagine, I just imagine you,
0:07:13.920,0:07:18.480
I imagine you opening your email in the morning and it's all from all over the world, right?
0:07:18.480,0:07:24.240
I'm in Japan, and these people
small favor, anytime I see that in
0:07:24.240,0:07:29.120
the subject heading I'm going oh my goodness, it's going to be... and now I know what I'm doing
0:07:29.120,0:07:34.800
at the first 45 minutes of my day, because it would be fun. That is part of my
0:07:34.800,0:07:40.960
job. There's no point me taking a site and then going oh I know this thing. I'm not going to
0:07:40.960,0:07:44.960
tell anybody. I know it's difficult at the moment, because I say I'm in that halfway house, so
0:07:46.000,0:07:50.560
we're just about to do that final
analysis on all three sites. And then we
0:07:50.560,0:07:55.040
can actually say something sort of
pithy about them. But the initial findings
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absolutely got, I can't keep those to
myself, it must be. Well, what was
0:08:01.440,0:08:08.720
the initial? What got the MOLA involved in this project in Whitechapel? Was there something like
0:08:08.720,0:08:13.920
somebody scratched a wall and said oh, and they were happen to be experts?
0:08:13.920,0:08:21.280
It was our client, which is
unite students, they build student accommodation.
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They wanted to redevelop the site. So, it's through the planning process.
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It was known it was likely to be the side of The Boar's Head, so they had conditions that
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some archaeological excavation had
to happen prior to them building on the site.
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so our initial evaluation was to see if anything survived, what damage had been done by
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sort of previous development on the site, was there any archaeology, what was the level nature
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and extent of that archaeology? And those initial evaluations that was back in all 2017-2018 found
0:09:01.040,0:09:07.120
walls that were likely to be part of The Boar's Head. So then we carried out further excavations
0:09:07.680,0:09:15.120
in 2019. And what we've found is now being preserved in situ. So even though they are building
0:09:15.760,0:09:20.240
around the archaeology, they're not building through it. So we've identified where
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the archaeology is. And they've actually redesigned their building
0:09:24.800,0:09:32.560
to kind of fit around it. And so it will be preserved under their new structure, which they're
0:09:32.560,0:09:38.720
calling the playhouse, which I think is quite nice.
I think that's very nice, that's very nice. And
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the more playhouses we get the better, in particular when we can actually see
0:09:44.960,0:09:52.960
the physical evidence. In my training,
which is different from yours, you're out there,
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I think in one of our emails you say
I'm out there, I'm in the rain, I'm in the mud.
0:09:57.360,0:10:04.960
I'm on site, and when we talk
about evidence and my nerdy areas
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subfields and so forth, we're usually talking about print, credible
0:10:11.360,0:10:15.760
original sources or at least scholars with reputations you can trust, that sort of thing.
0:10:16.320,0:10:20.720
But I have thought many times since
meeting you, I wish that I could walk
0:10:20.720,0:10:24.720
with a pair of rain boots, one of those what Wellington's or something, I don't know
0:10:24.720,0:10:29.840
what you might wear, but walk out of a trench with something in my hand and said, here it is,
0:10:29.840,0:10:34.080
okay, and there's a lot of authority in that, right?
0:10:34.080,0:10:38.800
We've been down in there and this is what we found and this is what we're preserving.
0:10:40.800,0:10:46.640
It's making I think a physical connection to the past, it's the same way if you have
0:10:46.640,0:10:52.160
an original document, isn't it? It's whether you have an original document in front of you
0:10:52.160,0:10:58.480
or if I'm standing in the yard of The Curtain. It's the same thing. It's
0:10:58.480,0:11:04.880
making that physical connection, but I make that physical connection to place and to space.
0:11:05.760,0:11:11.040
Well, and also in your discoveries, you find out that some things that have been doctrinaire for
0:11:12.000,0:11:21.280
decades in some cases about the history of the theater. And works by some
0:11:21.280,0:11:27.920
really fine scholars, of course Andrew Gurr and many others I could name, and I think
0:11:27.920,0:11:32.480
that sometimes scholars say okay this is what I think from what I've been able to gather, right?
0:11:33.040,0:11:37.600
And I was talking with David McInnis about this too, you're talking about the loss, the
0:11:37.600,0:11:43.840
play we don't have, and he just had a book on lost plays released by Cambridge. And that you have
0:11:45.600,0:11:50.480
scholars who propose something, and then people just sort of jump on. And I've done it too, I've
0:11:50.480,0:11:56.400
been guilty of it too. You say, well, this famous guy said this, so I can repeat this. I think, yeah,
0:11:56.400,0:11:59.760
no, I think he hit the nail on the head because I think what he was saying particularly with
0:11:59.760,0:12:06.800
19th century theater historians was they had that privileged access
0:12:06.800,0:12:11.920
to sources. And what they said and what they wrote was very quite hard to challenge.
0:12:13.200,0:12:19.200
It's because people, they couldn't maybe access those materials.
0:12:20.080,0:12:25.040
And then those narratives kind of then get repeated and then distilled and then
0:12:25.040,0:12:32.240
they became facts and those facts then become permanent in people's imaginations.
0:12:32.800,0:12:40.160
Yes, they do. And it's not historians being particularly
0:12:40.160,0:12:45.280
in 19th century it's not being lazy. It's just they don't have access necessarily to those
0:12:45.280,0:12:51.280
resources. Well, I feel it all the time, because there's the book. I'm in Tokyo, I can get
0:12:51.280,0:12:58.800
most of the things I need, I can get now. But when I began 25 years ago in Hiroshima
0:12:58.800,0:13:04.720
in Japan, it was impossible to get the number of things, so I just had to rely on what
0:13:04.720,0:13:10.400
I could what was available in the libraries there, which was a lot but you need a lot more.
0:13:10.960,0:13:18.480
And also I think that because of we come from a print tradition that there's some
0:13:18.480,0:13:24.480
joy and maybe some fear, now that these fields there's a lot more, we're a lot more mobile now.
0:13:24.480,0:13:31.280
We have much more digital capability to reproduce and images and to get things
0:13:31.280,0:13:35.680
out there and information out there. So we're becoming much more multi-disciplinary.
0:13:36.240,0:13:41.120
And it's joyful to see something new, but I think for a lot of people it can be kind of fearful you
0:13:41.120,0:13:47.680
go oh no I just wrote this whole book based on a premise right or part of it based on a premise.
0:13:47.680,0:13:52.080
Or even I know from you feel the same way, you don't want to make any mistakes when you have
0:13:52.080,0:13:59.040
something that goes into publication. If it's 35.8 meters, you don't want it to be 35.6.
0:13:59.040,0:14:04.240
You want to make sure you get the dimensions right, because someone will be checking behind you.
0:14:06.240,0:14:13.280
I wanted to pivot because I'm being selfish. I wanted to pivot back to The Curtain,
0:14:13.280,0:14:20.640
because I remember that Holger Simon is the way, Holger
0:14:20.640,0:14:26.640
was and you had, I was at lunch with you guys. I had no idea but you guys got into an animated and
0:14:26.640,0:14:33.520
fun conversation and he did a wonderful paper, so did you just absolutely joyful to
0:14:33.520,0:14:39.760
have both of those perspectives, but the older being into the print and what the
0:14:39.760,0:14:45.520
university scholarly side and you being with and a working archaeologist, right,
0:14:46.240,0:14:52.640
and both wonderful personalities of
course. But I think that a lot of people were
0:14:52.640,0:14:57.760
really really shocked. And I talked with David also about this and I think Brett Hirsch too,
0:14:57.760,0:15:05.600
a great rehearse that the thing that
we tell people or have told people in the past
0:15:05.600,0:15:11.280
is that these theaters were round, that there's a round, it's round The Globe,
0:15:11.280,0:15:16.080
round. And the assumption was The Theatre and The Curtain now these were the two
0:15:16.080,0:15:22.080
earlier theaters in the 70s. We see records of them. Andy Kesson will remind you we don't
0:15:22.080,0:15:27.200
know they could have existed before then. It's just that we do start seeing records in the 70s.
0:15:27.200,0:15:33.600
And that's there does seem to be an uptick in the 70s of theater activity from those
0:15:33.600,0:15:39.280
two theaters in particular. But I think you are finding that there may be a more of a complex but
0:15:39.280,0:15:44.400
one thing the second point I wanted to bring up was the pressure point was that when you
0:15:44.400,0:15:53.840
found or when you guys found The Curtain, that it wasn't round. It wasn't round.
0:15:54.480,0:16:01.840
And that was very sad for a lot of people.
Well, I thought it was a round to start with.
0:16:02.880,0:16:10.160
So I went down the round
originally, and when we did the first
0:16:10.160,0:16:15.360
evaluation, that's when we do those
initial trial trenches that was back in 2011.
0:16:16.400,0:16:22.800
And the only available area for me to put some trenches in was a really narrow roadway that ran
0:16:22.800,0:16:32.800
parallel with Curtin Road. And I managed to get two trenches in there, and we had two quite
0:16:32.800,0:16:39.760
substantial brick walls with little doorways in, and they were 14 meters apart, sort of 3.8 meters
0:16:39.760,0:16:45.520
near four meters back from each of those walls was what appeared to be an outside wall of a building.
0:16:46.240,0:16:54.560
The outside space was half a meter higher than the inside space. And all of this matched exactly
0:16:54.560,0:17:01.840
the model of The Rose and what we were finding at The Theater. So at that point I had nothing to say.
0:17:02.480,0:17:09.280
This wasn't one of those polygonal structures, 22 meters across a gallery surrounding a yard
0:17:09.280,0:17:12.400
with these kind of ingresses
down into a gravel surface.
0:17:13.360,0:17:18.080
But I say I was really limited that I couldn't expand that kind of area I was looking at,
0:17:18.080,0:17:23.120
because there were still buildings on the site. So it's only when those modern buildings were
0:17:23.120,0:17:28.560
demolished because I then kind of look at other areas. And then we found a corner and it's
0:17:28.560,0:17:33.200
like, oh, hold on in a minute, that's a right angle corner and then we were thinking hang on a minute.
0:17:33.200,0:17:37.920
It's a corner.
Yeah, and then I had to kind of rethink, oh, what is it
0:17:37.920,0:17:44.560
we've actually got. And it was like the only thing I was kind of doubting more,
0:17:44.560,0:17:49.680
is it actually The Curtain at that point,
because this doesn't fit those preconceived those
0:17:49.680,0:17:55.600
narratives that says it's a round structure. But the more I looked, it was like, no, this
0:17:55.600,0:18:02.560
is The Curtain. But it's more like the Almagro, the playhouse in Spain. And when I was
0:18:02.560,0:18:07.440
looking at that thinking yes, they're virtually identical in the way they operate.
0:18:08.480,0:18:14.400
So what happens then is that you get a client who says we want to do some building and we need you
0:18:14.400,0:18:21.600
as part of the chain of, because we're in a historic designated, historic city of course,
0:18:21.600,0:18:27.440
you go through and you check and sometimes there's nothing of any importance and sometimes
0:18:27.440,0:18:31.120
there might be.
Well, with The Curtain, it was slightly different because there
0:18:31.120,0:18:35.840
was a big round brown plaque on the wall that says this is the site of The Curtain Theatre had
0:18:35.840,0:18:44.640
been there since the 70s. So, then client was looking at basically commissioned us to see if
0:18:44.640,0:18:48.160
any of The Curtain survived on the site and whereabouts it was because they were looking
0:18:48.160,0:18:56.560
to see if they could redevelop the site. They then, a new client then took that project on,
0:18:56.560,0:19:03.520
when they realized we did have The
Curtain. So they actively took on a site
0:19:03.520,0:19:10.560
knowing that it was the site of The Curtain Theatre. And that archaeology has been absolutely central
0:19:11.440,0:19:17.440
sort of physically and conceptually at the heart of that project.
Yeah, well, I've seen you
0:19:17.440,0:19:23.360
have some good examples online that are available and of course I got to see your presentation.
0:19:23.360,0:19:28.960
I meant to get I wanted to go to what would I see now if I went to the site of The Curtain.
0:19:30.240,0:19:36.080
The Curtain is still very much a live
construction site, and it's being
0:19:36.080,0:19:42.400
obviously the remains are being protected while they build a structure around it. And hopefully it
0:19:42.400,0:19:50.000
will be a space where you can then actually go and see The Curtain. So that's they're
0:19:50.000,0:19:55.120
actually kind of creating that sort of visitor center around it at the moment.
0:19:56.000,0:20:05.360
Maybe a couple of years. Yeah, and for maybe some of my students, The Curtain Theatre is famous,
0:20:05.920,0:20:10.400
well, first of all, that's where probably Romeo and Juliet I think almost certainly Romeo and
0:20:10.400,0:20:16.160
Juliet they've decided, that's where it was played first.
Well, whether it was first there or
0:20:16.160,0:20:21.760
first the theater, he was played there I think it was played by The Curtain. It's a shortage play.
0:20:23.040,0:20:30.000
Yeah, so that's one reason but if The Theatre by the time Shakespeare came on the scene had
0:20:30.000,0:20:35.680
been in existence for let's say decades, two decades...
0:20:36.880,0:20:40.240
I thought I kind of I was thinking about this the other day he was probably about 12,
0:20:40.880,0:20:46.560
when The Curtain Theatre was built.
About 12 years old. So, he walked right into this
0:20:46.560,0:20:53.920
infrastructure that was already there.
Already up and running and a thing. Yeah, so,
0:20:53.920,0:21:01.120
I think that's important that this stuff is that without which if
0:21:01.120,0:21:06.000
Shakespeare had not that these people hadn't built these theaters, it's something that happened, and
0:21:06.000,0:21:13.920
I do kind of I'll peck away at and get pretentious about the idea of renaissance because
0:21:13.920,0:21:20.400
yes, I understand the re-awakening, re-bringing the classics back in and so forth. But this theater
0:21:20.400,0:21:27.680
is really nascent, it's the first of its kind. And that I can see I mean we can relate it to old
0:21:27.680,0:21:33.120
roman theater we can, but these big commercial playhouses, and I just don't see anything
0:21:33.120,0:21:40.000
in England before that, before the roughly the Elizabeth. Oh, we have. Yeah, I mean I think it's more
0:21:41.520,0:21:48.320
it's more a gradual progression. I mean we have rastal stage, whatever rastal stage
0:21:48.320,0:21:56.160
looked like. In Shoreditch, in Finsbury field in the 1520s, we have the Red Lion in 1560s.
0:21:57.040,0:22:07.280
We have The Curtain probably mid-1570s, maybe 1575, 1576.
0:22:07.280,0:22:14.320
Maybe predates The Theater but only by a little bit. We've got Newington Butts in the 1970s
0:22:14.320,0:22:21.760
as well. So it's not a sort of, I think this is more of a gradual progression of development
0:22:21.760,0:22:26.320
rather than, hey, we're going to build this thing from nowhere built on,
0:22:26.320,0:22:32.320
a fresh idea. Heather my right in saying I think that you mentioned to me that they're the kind of
0:22:32.320,0:22:40.800
now famous playhouse in Spain, not now famous, it's been famous, but Jesus Tranche has recently
0:22:42.480,0:22:50.880
over the past years and his team they put together a digital recreation. And I guess it's the Oliveira,
0:22:50.880,0:22:59.840
Oliveira Playhouse in between Barcelona and Granada. And is that right? Is it you use,
0:22:59.840,0:23:06.720
am I right in saying that you said that theater is similar to The Curtain Theatre?
Well, yeah, I've
0:23:06.720,0:23:13.840
been looking at the playhouse in Almagro, which is halfway between Madrid and Granada. And
0:23:14.800,0:23:23.600
they seem very similar. So, if you have wall-to-wall standing at ground level, you have this kind of
0:23:23.600,0:23:29.920
wide stage with side stage rooms either side, and then you get this sort of passage under the stage.
0:23:29.920,0:23:37.280
So a couple of steps down you can then pass under the stage. The more, the more
0:23:37.280,0:23:42.560
I look at these kind of these buildings, the more I think that's how The
0:23:42.560,0:23:50.000
Curtain works. And it's lovely to have a whole building to look at as we do in Spain.
0:23:50.000,0:23:57.520
Yeah, have you managed to see the reconstruction that is this playhouse is 17th century, but
0:23:57.520,0:24:08.960
I'm not quite sure exactly 1658 and 1750. I think I'm right in saying that it might be
0:24:08.960,0:24:16.800
that the playhouses on the continent may have been a little bit more foo-foo, poshy, I'm not
0:24:16.800,0:24:23.520
sure, whereas we think of the English playhouses is much more... I'm not sure, I'm actually
0:24:23.520,0:24:31.280
thinking about the fencing school
or the playhouse in Gdańsk, which was
0:24:31.280,0:24:38.080
but that there's that sort of later
engraving but it looks kind of fairly... Public?
0:24:40.720,0:24:43.280
I'm wondering, you don't want to say that.
0:24:44.000,0:24:48.880
They look so yeah it looks fairly
it's a non-foo-foo.
0:24:54.040,0:24:56.640
Yeah, it's very functional space.
0:24:56.640,0:25:01.760
They are functional places. And that one lasted a long time as well, so you've got say Gdańsk
0:25:01.760,0:25:08.880
being built sort of 1600 or so. And there's a description of it
0:25:08.880,0:25:16.240
still in use from the 18th century. So,
and again, that's another thing
0:25:16.240,0:25:19.280
I'm kind of interested in is
there any link between The Curtain.
0:25:20.320,0:25:25.680
And the playhouse in Gdańsk, it's
always said the Gdańsk Playhouse was based
0:25:25.680,0:25:31.280
on The Fortune. But that's when we only thought Fortune was the only square building.
0:25:32.800,0:25:36.320
There was any communication between the peoples, the builders?
0:25:38.240,0:25:51.200
Well, we know we've got that kind of
actors are moving between London and Gdańsk
0:25:51.200,0:25:56.560
at that point. We've got John Green's
performing there, Thomas Green's brother,
0:25:56.560,0:26:01.920
and he's involved in both The Curtain and The Boar's Head.
0:26:01.920,0:26:07.680
So again, it's almost like there's a
sort of smoking gun,
0:26:07.680,0:26:13.520
the connection that we're just not...
So we have London, we have Gdańsk,
0:26:13.520,0:26:20.560
and we have Spain, they're probably other places, and we have a digital reconstruction
0:26:21.280,0:26:32.240
17th century Oliveira Playhouse in Valencia for the virtual reality, VR experience. And that was a
0:26:33.440,0:26:40.160
paper that was given by Jesus Tronch and Gemma Burgos Segarra. And I think that
0:26:40.800,0:26:47.520
Joan Oleza, the University of Valencia, directed the digital project directed by
0:26:48.240,0:26:54.720
Oleza. So, I wanted to do a kind of shout out to those people who are doing that fine work because
0:26:54.720,0:27:03.440
they're doing digitally kind of what
you're doing very physically. And also,
0:27:03.440,0:27:12.080
these places were venues that they
were not built necessary, they weren't palaces,
0:27:12.080,0:27:17.680
they're not built to last for centuries. Some of these playhouses were fairly
0:27:18.400,0:27:24.400
what makeshift and some of the
ends and that sort of thing.
0:27:25.200,0:27:30.640
And there were fires, and there's
financial trouble all the way through
0:27:30.640,0:27:34.720
of course, they're just they're theater
people. I think, well actually I mean
0:27:34.720,0:27:40.880
The Curtain could be the odd one out here really, because it doesn't burn down. It doesn't have,
0:27:40.880,0:27:45.840
it doesn't really have financial or
there's no legal disputes,
0:27:45.840,0:27:49.360
no legal wrangling over it, so it doesn't appear in the court records.
0:27:50.000,0:27:55.600
It just carries on doing its thing and it probably carries on doing its thing for about 50 years,
0:27:57.440,0:28:04.320
all the way through from the mid
1570s through to 1627 or so.
0:28:04.320,0:28:08.800
And I think it's successful and it just carries on and it does its thing.
0:28:10.400,0:28:13.920
And it's quite interesting because it's kind of going back to what David
0:28:13.920,0:28:18.400
McInnis was saying, because you don't hear about something, he's like
0:28:18.400,0:28:21.600
oh, well, we only know about the plays that we have because they're the good ones.
0:28:23.680,0:28:28.400
And it's like, this has just quietly got on and did its thing, and I've read
0:28:28.400,0:28:32.480
people said, oh, well, it obviously wasn't a proper playhouse because we don't know about it.
0:28:34.480,0:28:39.520
Actually quite the reverse.
It doesn't work that way, yes. And then it's the
0:28:39.520,0:28:45.760
same, with the same, sort of reading David McInnis's book about loss and why
0:28:45.760,0:28:54.160
things get lost, why plays disappear. It doesn't mean that they were rubbish at all. Oh,
0:28:54.960,0:29:03.200
no. Either of those. I think of, I'm going to kind of show my age here, when I was a boy,
0:29:03.200,0:29:09.280
I remember the album by the Rolling Stones that had the actual zipper on the outside vinyl album.
0:29:09.280,0:29:13.760
And it was kind of obscene that way in a sort of joke, and that I could have purchased
0:29:14.320,0:29:18.640
ten I'd had enough money I could have maybe purchased more than ten and just put them
0:29:18.640,0:29:24.000
up somewhere and preserve them. And if I had those now unopened. It'd be quite valuable.
0:29:25.600,0:29:31.360
But at the time that album came out, we didn't see, we saw it as rock and roll, it's sort of throw
0:29:31.360,0:29:36.880
away stuff after a while if the
the vinyl era at the one point it starts skipping
0:29:36.880,0:29:44.240
and that sort of thing. So we didn't know that we were dealing with things that would
0:29:44.240,0:29:50.400
become famous. So I don't think they did either in some cases.
0:29:50.400,0:29:57.120
The Curtain does seem to like you say be standing out there somebody was able to keep it going.
0:29:57.120,0:30:03.760
And it was a bigger venue than people expected. And the types of plays there
0:30:03.760,0:30:09.760
would, well, the way you staged the play would change from the other types of theaters. And
0:30:10.400,0:30:17.520
it's a bigger deal than once thought,
is that right? I think so, yeah.
0:30:18.080,0:30:25.040
It's got that kind of the stage is
sort of 14 meters wide, when you're looking at
0:30:26.400,0:30:32.720
the stage at The Rose or The Theatre, where it's kind of that sort of those
0:30:32.720,0:30:38.240
buildings, it's sort of like a squash, sort of octagon, isn't it you've got to do five possible
0:30:38.240,0:30:43.360
sort of bays or discovery spaces at the back and sort of three fairly flatterish sides of the front.
0:30:44.560,0:30:52.160
The maximum width on that stage at, say, The Rose or The Theatre if it does mirror The Rose
0:30:52.160,0:30:58.320
as we think it does is 12 meters. And you've got those kind of tapering edges so the actual
0:30:58.320,0:31:05.120
usable space is much less, whereas at The Curtain you've got sort of 14 meters
0:31:06.240,0:31:12.400
by five meters back to front, you can
get a whole load more people on that stage.
0:31:13.440,0:31:21.600
You can do more with that space. So was their move was the Chamberlain's Men moved
0:31:21.600,0:31:29.680
to The Curtain in the sort of late 1590s, not one out of necessity that
0:31:29.680,0:31:35.520
the Lucy's up at The Theater, we've got to find somewhere else, or was it more of a positive
0:31:36.240,0:31:41.680
move, was it a choice. We're actually moving to The Curtain because we want to stage
0:31:42.560,0:31:50.240
Henry V. We want that can't you just I mean it's like this play would work better on this, and is it
0:31:50.240,0:31:58.800
actually that there's a shift in the type of things that they're performing, the amount of
0:31:58.800,0:32:05.440
people in the company. This is why Holgar
0:32:05.440,0:32:09.920
was excited. It's like you can get so many more people on this stage, this is amazing.
0:32:09.920,0:32:16.640
That's right, and so you can
cross-reference these things and you know from
0:32:16.640,0:32:23.200
the evidence of there being more players and Henry V and how perhaps they tried to do
0:32:23.200,0:32:28.160
that, and of course I would probably get nerdy and say just the beginning where they come out when
0:32:28.160,0:32:33.200
with the prologue that the chorus that apologizes for not being able to bring in the
0:32:33.200,0:32:39.360
real war and so forth, kind of sort of hints that they felt like they had something
0:32:39.360,0:32:46.560
pretty good to show that they were going to put out a put on a pretty powerful performance
0:32:46.560,0:32:55.120
about a great battle. Now, The Curtain and The Theatre, who was it? I think it was David again
0:32:55.120,0:32:59.520
who was talking about there's this kind of hint that there may have been a kind of...
0:32:59.520,0:33:03.280
what would you call it a sort
of hub there, a sort of complex,
0:33:03.840,0:33:09.840
where there's the idea that maybe
this is going to be the theater district
0:33:10.640,0:33:16.480
with those theaters, but is that something that your research is?
Well, there's
0:33:16.480,0:33:21.680
a joint venture, if you look at it that way sort of from the 1580s, they're kind of
0:33:21.680,0:33:26.160
run as a sort of joint venture but nobody's kind of really understood that the actual
0:33:26.160,0:33:32.560
financial structure, nobody's quite understood quite how that the business of that works. But
0:33:33.600,0:33:36.160
I mean there's nothing to say
they weren't playing at The Curtain
0:33:37.520,0:33:45.760
before the late 1590s. Were they using these venues differently? I don't know and
0:33:45.760,0:33:50.320
I don't think we're going to find that through archaeology.
Yeah, it's not going to
0:33:50.320,0:33:58.000
be proven through archaeology but you can be if people keep putting things out there, like we don't
0:33:58.000,0:34:05.040
get to, we're not in London like you are, many of us, and we're not able to walk on site
0:34:05.040,0:34:13.520
one point I would love to visit London and and get out to these places, and yet there's some
0:34:13.520,0:34:20.880
of us who are into other archives, other records in other places and run across things
0:34:20.880,0:34:25.360
you remember and see things and bring something out. There's a lot of scholarship out there,
0:34:26.080,0:34:29.680
where scholars were very thorough I'm thinking immediately of E. K. Chambers or
0:34:30.560,0:34:35.840
I could name a number of them who really were diligent in putting everything they could came
0:34:35.840,0:34:42.640
across in their notes. But at one point you begin not to see what is important from what
0:34:42.640,0:34:47.520
is not important and sometimes something that doesn't seem to be important becomes important.
0:34:47.520,0:34:51.040
And I'm sure that happens in archaeology too where you're looking for this.
0:34:51.040,0:34:55.360
I mean I want to know what and my wife asked me this question. She said at what point does
0:34:55.360,0:34:59.760
somebody know they have something like an old theater, like at what point do you go there?
0:35:00.640,0:35:04.160
And there's that someone says,
listen, this looks like it's going to be
0:35:05.600,0:35:12.560
16th century and that is a wall and
there's not supposed to and this is where we
0:35:12.560,0:35:17.360
think this theater, is that what happens?
Yeah, there's not one point you go
0:35:17.360,0:35:22.000
that's definitely it, that's definitely The Curtain, and it certainly happened with The Curtain.
0:35:22.000,0:35:28.080
We were looking constantly looking at the evidence we had. We had brick walls. They were the right date,
0:35:28.080,0:35:32.640
they were in the right place, they were not quite the right shape initially did that mean we were
0:35:32.640,0:35:35.920
thinking we're looking for something round and these aren't quite right but okay we go with it.
0:35:36.720,0:35:40.320
But we're also looking at the other
things kind of depositional signature
0:35:40.320,0:35:46.960
of a playhouse for instance. So things you'd expect to find in a place of commercial entertainment. And
0:35:46.960,0:35:52.400
now, I mean the Boar's Head had the
benefit of being the seventh playhouse to be dug.
0:35:53.760,0:36:00.160
So, there's obviously The Rose, The Globe, and The Hope on Bankside. We dug a tiny part of
0:36:00.160,0:36:08.880
The Globe back in 1989 when The Rose was dug. We've also obviously dug The Theatre.
0:36:09.520,0:36:16.560
UCL's archaeology southeast of dug the site of The Red Lion. And then obviously he had
0:36:16.560,0:36:24.160
The Curtain and then The Boar's Head. So we're thinking, oh, we are finding things together, we are finding
0:36:24.160,0:36:31.680
these assemblages that are common to all these all these spaces but uncommon to say a domestic
0:36:31.680,0:36:37.360
dwelling. So you can start refining
it's like sort of depositional signature if you
0:36:37.360,0:36:44.160
like. So okay, I'm finding things that I'd expect to find in a place of commercial entertainment.
0:36:44.800,0:36:50.480
I've got this building that I mean
we went through okay if it's not The Curtain,
0:36:50.480,0:36:55.520
what could it be? And we went through everything we were every single permutation of okay what could
0:36:55.520,0:37:02.160
it be if it's not not The Theatre. And we came back to, well, there isn't anything left. So you
0:37:02.160,0:37:07.840
kind of add all of this together. And it's a sort of it becomes sort of balance of probabilities
0:37:08.400,0:37:12.880
that become stronger and stronger and stronger until you can say, well yeah, we're now left with
0:37:13.680,0:37:21.680
it is The Curtain. It's easier I think to do with a building such as The Rose,
0:37:21.680,0:37:25.920
because there was much more of it, and it's got 14 sides, it's got
0:37:25.920,0:37:32.640
an obvious stage, it's like yes and it
kind of fits those images that we have of
0:37:34.000,0:37:37.520
playhouses on Bankside as well, it's like look, yes it looks like one of these drawings.
0:37:39.520,0:37:46.320
But with The Curtain, it was much more a careful kind of, you know, we really have
0:37:46.320,0:37:50.560
to be certain. We really have to
be certain and it was that balance of
0:37:51.360,0:37:56.640
the physical building itself and the assemblage of fines that company
0:37:57.680,0:38:04.240
together said yes I think we have a building from the 1570s, 1580s.
0:38:05.280,0:38:14.720
It goes out of use in the 1620s, it's repurposed, it's like yeah I think. So it's
0:38:14.720,0:38:20.240
not an immediate yes that's definitely The Curtain. That's okay. And I think a lot of
0:38:20.240,0:38:23.920
people, I think a lot of people thought that's what I'd done, which was kind of like, but they
0:38:23.920,0:38:34.000
didn't talk to me.
Well, it's what it is out there. I mean you can't
0:38:34.000,0:38:40.000
change the shape of it, and it makes a huge huge difference in terms of...
0:38:40.000,0:38:46.240
It makes things much more interesting, much much more interesting, because we had up to that point
0:38:46.240,0:38:54.000
I guess a very linear idea of playhouse development. They started off as small round things,
0:38:54.000,0:38:58.640
and then they got to be bigger round
things, with The Globe being the pinnacle of
0:38:59.280,0:39:06.480
big roundness if you like, which didn't take into account things like Fortune.
0:39:07.520,0:39:12.800
Right, right. We have Fortune built same slightly after The Globe, but it was just
0:39:12.800,0:39:17.200
kind of it didn't really fit that pattern so it
was just not really i don't know it just sort of
0:39:18.000,0:39:24.240
was on its own being weird and strange and now
we've got this much more i guess tangential
0:39:24.240,0:39:31.920
development where you you have you know both
shapes both forms are equally valid you know they
0:39:31.920,0:39:37.040
don't start off rectangular or square and then
become round if you look at them chronologically
0:39:37.040,0:39:44.400
both shapes are equally valid all the way through
that period yeah so yeah and why not i mean it
0:39:44.400,0:39:52.000
makes sense you you can do both uh you have
companies and plays that are designed to to
0:39:52.000,0:39:57.760
go into a lots of well if you if you play it any
number of the court venues that you would have to
0:39:58.720,0:40:06.480
adjust to space on the moment i might i might the
queen might decide she wants to be at greenwich
0:40:06.480,0:40:10.800
rather than the other place wherever it's planned
and so you have to think of well that's going to
0:40:10.800,0:40:14.960
be a different space and these these people
a lot of these companies played at court
0:40:16.080,0:40:24.000
and so they were very accustomed to adapting
to new space and yeah in some ways it just
0:40:24.000,0:40:29.440
doesn't make sense that they would all all of
the public ones would be round you know and i
0:40:29.440,0:40:33.040
think what you're left with actually if you
look at it spatially what you're left with
0:40:33.040,0:40:40.960
is quite interesting once the theater has been
demolished what's in 1598 what you're left with
0:40:40.960,0:40:48.480
or who you're left with you have the red bull
you have the fortune you have the curtain and um
0:40:48.480,0:40:55.360
if initial my initial understandings of what um
ucl have been doing at the red line possibly the
0:40:55.360,0:41:02.720
red lion as well still carrying on at this point
a square rectangular venues north of the city
0:41:03.600,0:41:12.480
where as the round venues the globe the swan the
hope uh the rose they were all on bank's side
0:41:13.200,0:41:17.200
so there's this weird geographical
split which i think is equally
0:41:17.200,0:41:22.480
that is that's exciting i think it's absolutely
fascinating and i i think it'd probably be
0:41:22.480,0:41:28.960
fascinating and i don't know i don't really know
what the answer or uh answer is to why or how or
0:41:28.960,0:41:33.600
but i think that that's quite an interesting
thing well i mean you have to have it outside the
0:41:33.600,0:41:39.280
city because there are problems with black fri
black friars famously the problems with having
0:41:39.280,0:41:43.520
theaters in the city but they're not that
far outside the city i mean literally
0:41:44.160,0:41:52.240
the ball's head is literally the other side of the
road to the city the curtain is probably about 200
0:41:52.240,0:42:01.680
meters outside the city authorities jurisdiction
yeah yeah the fortune is just on the edge just on
0:42:01.680,0:42:09.440
the edge the red yeah they are all just on the
edge they are lit just stepping over well um
0:42:10.560,0:42:16.240
and and there is uh people think of well shore
dish now as part of metropolitan london it's you
0:42:16.240,0:42:23.200
know but in uh the 16th century it was you're
getting into the fields there you're you're at
0:42:23.200,0:42:28.160
uh finsbury fields and you know in that area and
you see the maps and there's there's not much out
0:42:28.160,0:42:32.960
there which is another reason i guess you can
determine that the theater was the i mean the
0:42:32.960,0:42:39.280
curtain was the curtain but yeah that that makes
sense but north that way you know why would you
0:42:39.920,0:42:48.400
then start shifting over south across the river
both of those areas were working were places
0:42:48.400,0:42:53.520
that thrived for a long time if you
keep the curtain in play there yeah
0:42:54.720,0:43:02.720
it's also interesting if you put if you put
the curtain slightly before the theater yeah
0:43:03.360,0:43:11.040
in terms of chronology say only by a year yeah
or in six months archaeology supports that but
0:43:11.040,0:43:19.120
that's fine it can sit it can sit there it's sort
of 15 75 15 76 so you've then got newington butts
0:43:21.360,0:43:29.760
okay south south of the river quite a way south
you then have the curtain north you then have
0:43:30.960,0:43:38.000
the next one obviously the red lion's doing its
own thing as well it's carrying on out in milan
0:43:39.360,0:43:45.680
is it then what's the driver for burbage
to build the theater where he does
0:43:47.680,0:43:52.880
okay now that that's not an interesting one
because the curtains built essentially off the
0:43:52.880,0:43:59.040
back of a structure possibly curtain house so it's
in a field it's quite an easy thing to do because
0:43:59.040,0:44:03.920
you've got nice open space to use you build
this rectangular structure in a nice open space
0:44:05.040,0:44:10.160
the theater not so much he's taken on his lease
he's got to demolish things he's got to prop up
0:44:10.160,0:44:17.920
a barn he's got to squeeze this building in
it's a really difficult space actually to use
0:44:18.880,0:44:27.120
you know he's he's literally fitting this weird
polygonal thing in is it the same kind of driver
0:44:27.120,0:44:34.320
that he does when he builds the glue on bank
side he said you've got the rose let's put the
0:44:34.320,0:44:40.560
globe right next to it yeah is that that you do i
mean it's like this sort of kind of arms race is
0:44:40.560,0:44:46.640
that his mo is he kind of you know moving into
we've already got this established thing yeah
0:44:47.200,0:44:54.800
let's move in next door uh i don't know that's i
i i see something that's kind of sitting around
0:44:54.800,0:45:00.160
the back of my head at the moment you know what
what was his what was his um what why did he take
0:45:00.720,0:45:07.040
on the lease yeah within the holy world priory
yeah it's not it's it's not it's not an easy
0:45:07.040,0:45:11.120
it's not an easy space to to develop he's
he's got to do a lot he's got demolished
0:45:11.120,0:45:14.960
things and he's i say he's got proper barn
up he's there's lots of things he's got to do
0:45:17.040,0:45:24.320
yeah it's not an easy space it's not easy space uh
i'm taking your word for it but i'm i'm thinking
0:45:25.760,0:45:32.320
that there's some i'm getting way away there's
some sort of there's away from my specialty i'm
0:45:32.320,0:45:38.240
about to talk about retail i think there's some
rule of retail that uh maybe two stores isn't
0:45:38.240,0:45:44.240
better than one but three or four in a similar
location is better than one because then you
0:45:44.240,0:45:49.280
become a magnet for more people there may have
been some kind of thinking like that or maybe even
0:45:49.280,0:45:55.360
two is better than one in in terms of theaters
it becomes oh we're going to go to the theater
0:45:55.360,0:46:01.360
and let's go now we know we're predisposed to walk
a little bit north of town and go out there and
0:46:02.000,0:46:06.800
uh and maybe participate in more po you
know go to buy tickets for more plays
0:46:08.800,0:46:16.800
you know fully commercial enterprise uh i
wonder about that too and then i i wonder
0:46:16.800,0:46:20.400
we we're still it's still kind of
a mystery about how the theater
0:46:21.920,0:46:28.320
was you know finished and then became the
globe uh you know that story of the how
0:46:28.320,0:46:33.600
how the timber may have gone across the thames or
whatever i'm sure they did i'm sure they did reuse
0:46:33.600,0:46:38.320
the material i mean archaeologically i can see
that they did a very good job of demolishing it
0:46:38.320,0:46:41.840
you know they've taken it down to ground
level yeah they've taken the superstructure
0:46:42.480,0:46:48.960
away yeah um from the very small um part of the
globe that we've dug and from what we've done at
0:46:48.960,0:46:54.800
the theater we know those those are not carbon
copies of each other the globe is bigger so yes
0:46:54.800,0:47:00.800
they have probably incorporated the materials from
the theater into the new into their new building
0:47:00.800,0:47:05.440
in some way but it's certainly not sort of like
you know flat pack furniture yeah they haven't
0:47:05.440,0:47:08.720
taken one you know haven't taken this one down
and then moved it over there and then we built it
0:47:09.520,0:47:14.960
yeah but they have probably yes yeah materials are
expensive they're saving money you know they're
0:47:14.960,0:47:21.920
reusing things they're reusing materials where
they can i'm sure yeah oh no i doubt that at all
0:47:21.920,0:47:28.960
um but i'm just quite interested well the
other thing is then okay we're going to build
0:47:28.960,0:47:32.160
we're going to build this new thing we're going
to build the globe we're going to build it bigger
0:47:34.480,0:47:40.480
is that a response to the fact the curtain is
big are we building the globe figure yeah yeah
0:47:41.360,0:47:46.320
i think it's very good argument that yeah why
not we're going to do a new theater let's get
0:47:46.320,0:47:50.560
more people in here yeah we're not going to do
yeah the last one was we we couldn't really use
0:47:50.560,0:47:56.000
it was a bit small so we're going to make this
one bigger yeah is it i mean you know the other
0:47:56.000,0:47:59.920
question that's been you know kind of
floating around the back of my mind is
0:47:59.920,0:48:07.600
why do they remodel the rows when they do you know
that rose goes to that remodeling in the 1590s
0:48:07.600,0:48:12.000
yeah yeah you know the audience side
of stays round but it's the stage
0:48:12.000,0:48:16.160
end that kind of widens out and becomes
more rectangular is it that actually
0:48:16.160,0:48:23.440
affording them more more space is it becoming
more like these you know more curtain-like maybe
0:48:25.600,0:48:31.920
well you know easy actually i think it's actually
time to revisit the driver behind why do they
0:48:31.920,0:48:39.040
remodel the race if it's a perfectly functioning
building yeah more people why do it yes yeah can
0:48:39.040,0:48:45.120
we get more people more yeah yeah it makes perfect
sense and there may be other evidence and i'm not
0:48:45.120,0:48:52.320
again an expert in it but some evidence in the
um chronicle somewhere that shows public interest
0:48:52.320,0:48:58.480
it makes sense that public interest increased uh
that your audience you have a city that's growing
0:48:59.760,0:49:05.280
that just that they could accommodate more people
they could sell more tickets well now is there
0:49:05.280,0:49:10.640
some type of uh next project is there anything
that's on the horizon that you can talk about or
0:49:12.160,0:49:19.280
uh well well for for me i've got three
lovely sites but i really do need to do some
0:49:19.280,0:49:24.160
some work there's plenty there there's plenty
there's gonna be plenty of that to keep me busy
0:49:25.280,0:49:30.800
a long long time yeah i'm really looking forward
to doing that and actually getting some you know
0:49:30.800,0:49:34.640
results out there so people don't have to
keep sending me an email saying you know
0:49:34.640,0:49:41.120
can you tell me a bit about this it's like you
know it's there so ideally um the kind of the
0:49:41.120,0:49:47.200
raw data will actually be online so people can see
that kind of raw data you know yeah and and that
0:49:47.200,0:49:53.120
will that will live there you know forever and
then hopefully i can publish something that's um
0:49:54.400,0:50:00.960
more accessible to a wider audience yeah than just
talking to archaeologists that that's my ideal you
0:50:00.960,0:50:06.080
know that we can actually get results out there
that you know other disciplines can find useful
0:50:06.640,0:50:13.520
oh yeah and i i love the i wish somebody would
come in and work with you guys or something to to
0:50:13.520,0:50:19.120
maybe make a digital reproduction uh like they've
done with uh like john wall and his team have done
0:50:19.120,0:50:26.400
at nc state university with the uh book book shops
of saint paul's uh cross paul's cross church yard
0:50:27.120,0:50:33.360
well the good thing about the curtain actually is
i don't think i'm ever going to have one this is
0:50:33.360,0:50:37.920
you know one conjecture this is what i think it
looked like at the moment i've got probably five
0:50:37.920,0:50:42.560
models floating around in my head oh really you
know with different front doors with different
0:50:42.560,0:50:47.360
arrangements how does the outside space work so
i don't think i'm ever going to come up with this
0:50:47.360,0:50:53.440
is the curtain it's like okay is is the front door
on this side do you come in via the open space to
0:50:53.440,0:51:00.160
the north do you actually come in via curtin house
um how does those you know how does this internal
0:51:00.160,0:51:08.160
arrangements work yeah which i think would really
does lend itself to kind of a digital um modeling
0:51:08.160,0:51:13.200
yes we can actually look at them and and kind
of you know which one which one works best how
0:51:13.200,0:51:18.480
yes how can you actually use those spaces
yes you could get into 3d i'm thinking about
0:51:19.600,0:51:28.960
slona and gordon malcolm uh on the uh that this is
what you're talking about at mola right this yeah
0:51:28.960,0:51:33.360
okay that's traditionally that's traditionally
how archaeologists have published things
0:51:33.360,0:51:41.440
yes which is completely understandable if you're
an archaeologist yes uh it's not very helpful
0:51:41.440,0:51:46.720
i don't think if you are trying to access
that information if you're coming from another
0:51:46.720,0:51:53.040
discipline it is difficult i'm showing tables here
i think that we'll probably uh put something yeah
0:51:53.040,0:51:57.280
just to show how difficult it is and you
you could look at a picture like this and
0:51:57.280,0:52:05.200
you would probably see something significant and
i go well that's uh some stone and a wall but i
0:52:05.200,0:52:10.960
there is in this book the uh diagrams of
the uh now this is the excavations of the
0:52:11.520,0:52:16.320
priory of the order of the hospital of saint john
in jerusalem clerk and well london and this is
0:52:16.320,0:52:22.560
where the office of the rebels was during the
elizabethan period i re i realized why you had
0:52:22.560,0:52:28.960
that yes yeah so and i've been writing i've been
writing on the office of uh rebels and the rebels
0:52:28.960,0:52:36.320
office and studying that but it does give us these
diagrams now this came out in 2002 i think uh some
0:52:36.880,0:52:44.560
time ago but one problem i i have a paper coming
out right now where i would love to include this
0:52:44.560,0:52:51.920
but it's safe uh it's an opening i can't get a
good impression and so if you're out of field if
0:52:51.920,0:52:57.440
you don't really know what you're talking about it
wouldn't it wouldn't make sense being reproduced
0:52:57.440,0:53:04.720
uh as an image and it's really kind of important
to the uh to the notion in this case of work i'm
0:53:05.280,0:53:11.680
talking about workmen and midsummer night's dream
but uh how close they were working with actors
0:53:12.400,0:53:17.680
you know that you would have carpenters and all
these laborers who were making things and items
0:53:17.680,0:53:26.160
uh at this office and several of us out there are
interested in and why there hasn't been more work
0:53:26.720,0:53:33.760
uh done since this you know magnificent piece
here um but it's sort of like done and that's
0:53:35.040,0:53:41.680
it but there's more there i think and uh and i
think it's part of the engine that's driving this
0:53:41.680,0:53:46.080
that you're talking about uh that's that's why i'm
kind of spending some time on this i didn't have
0:53:46.080,0:53:52.640
it on our original agenda i don't like to talk
too much about my stuff uh because no no no no
0:53:52.640,0:53:57.760
this is the thing is it's our stuff yeah and this
is this is kind of you know you were talking about
0:53:57.760,0:54:03.440
before shakespeare earlier i i kind of made the
analogy that it's almost like theater historians
0:54:03.440,0:54:08.160
and archaeologists we've been living next door to
each other for years yeah we live in our houses
0:54:08.160,0:54:12.640
we go out into the back garden and we look over
the fence and go oh that's interesting yeah you
0:54:12.640,0:54:16.000
know archaeologists look at what the historians
are doing and go well that's interesting and
0:54:16.000,0:54:20.400
historians come out and go oh that's interesting
yeah andy actually came around knocked on the door
0:54:20.400,0:54:23.920
and says jonah come round so we came around he
went do you know this fence let's get rid of it
0:54:24.480,0:54:28.480
and we've managed to get rid of that
fence and now we've got a shared space
0:54:28.480,0:54:34.720
yeah that we can do things in and it's that
interdisciplinary shared space which for me
0:54:36.400,0:54:42.720
has just been such a bonus yeah you know i've
got so much from this uh in understanding the
0:54:42.720,0:54:47.600
buildings that i find and so yeah so it's
our thing is how i like to look at it you
0:54:47.600,0:54:53.280
know it's not not one you know one disciplines
or another it has to be that shared space that
0:54:53.280,0:54:59.120
we occupy now and that's why i want something
that's accessible in the publications yeah
0:55:00.000,0:55:06.400
uh and there are other uh outside of you know
they're people who do uh print largely the
0:55:06.400,0:55:12.560
history of the book and other things that are
maybe not is performance oriented and so forth
0:55:12.560,0:55:19.520
but it all does work together to uh when you're
trying to build the the we have more we have
0:55:19.520,0:55:25.440
more people joining in that garden you know
garden party and it's i felt that spirit at
0:55:25.440,0:55:31.760
the conference uh the andy's conference and
uh it was uh i wish we would have another one
0:55:31.760,0:55:37.280
i hope we can do that again i hope post covered
it would be fantastic to have an in-person
0:55:38.400,0:55:43.200
you know in person get together because i'm
sure you know we've all done so much since then
0:55:43.200,0:55:50.960
you know that's you know what four years ago have
uh plague is an important in theater to talk about
0:55:50.960,0:55:56.080
the theaters because of the plague affected you
know we're talking about the expansion but they
0:55:56.080,0:56:04.720
they were hit in the 90s i think 92 to 94 1590s uh
with a horrible plague and theaters were closed so
0:56:05.360,0:56:13.040
uh the that probably would work against any
attempts at that point to expand but i think
0:56:13.040,0:56:17.680
you're talking about attempts more in the
later 90s right after the after the plague
0:56:17.680,0:56:26.560
yeah um but during the covet crisis is that uh did
that slow up your work significantly in uh on site
0:56:26.560,0:56:33.680
or in what you were doing or were you pretty much
able to continue um well personally i was actually
0:56:33.680,0:56:39.920
um say doing that kind of those post x assessments
yes i wasn't actually out on site so you know
0:56:41.440,0:56:48.080
that kind of i kind of work round that but um
yeah it's been difficult for everybody hasn't it
0:56:48.080,0:56:53.440
it's like you know just just trying to get on with
normal life has been has been put on hold rather
0:56:53.440,0:56:58.160
so yeah yeah well i don't know if we're going
to get back i don't know i think it's going to
0:56:58.160,0:57:03.200
be kind of like 9 11 was you know there was sort
of the world before 9 11 in the world after for
0:57:03.200,0:57:09.120
those of us who travel a lot uh in particular and
uh i think that it's just going to be a different
0:57:09.120,0:57:13.760
kind of world but it certainly looks like it's
going to get better and that's that's good
0:57:14.400,0:57:21.200
so basically the future of your work is
the continued documentation and development
0:57:21.200,0:57:27.040
is kind of the future of history that you're
going to develop these sites in ways and
0:57:27.840,0:57:33.920
maybe they haven't been decided yet right you
might try to make the theater into a venue
0:57:33.920,0:57:41.360
where people could actually go and experience the
space is that the goal okay well the the the cool
0:57:41.360,0:57:47.680
thing i think there's a really cool thing about
the theater the the curtain and the boar's head
0:57:47.680,0:57:53.840
is they kind of created this cultural
landscape in in london you know in east london
0:57:55.200,0:58:01.040
in in the 16th century and the new developments
that taking place on that site incorporate the
0:58:01.040,0:58:07.360
archaeology so you know we've had um clients that
have been enthusiastic about having archaeology on
0:58:07.360,0:58:16.640
their sites and the theatre um is now the theater
courtyard gallery uh that would have been open
0:58:16.640,0:58:22.320
last year but obviously uh due to covid that that
hasn't happened so i'm to try and find out when
0:58:22.320,0:58:29.200
that actually will open that is a museum space
built around and incorporating the the archaeology
0:58:30.400,0:58:36.080
the boar's heads although no arc you know the
buildings over the archaeology the archaeology
0:58:36.080,0:58:40.240
is being referenced within the building and
that will be an exhibition and performance space
0:58:40.880,0:58:47.840
and the same at the curtain so they'll be working
together again to create a new cultural landscape
0:58:47.840,0:58:52.160
in the 21st just they did in in in the
16th i think that's actually quite cool
0:58:52.960,0:58:59.920
well i was in barcelona recently and they have
a roman town they're sort of under underground
0:58:59.920,0:59:05.760
that they've excavated and they allowed you to
they built structures where you can walk through
0:59:05.760,0:59:11.600
and see a little town a roman village with the
explanations in various languages and so forth
0:59:11.600,0:59:16.880
but it's a wonderful way to interact and they've
tried to recreate it as much preserve it but
0:59:16.880,0:59:23.920
then allow uh the public in a way that won't
damage the site and to see things which is uh
0:59:25.360,0:59:32.000
a nice a nice sort of thing and when it when
it happens when it's done well um so the um
0:59:33.120,0:59:37.840
there was a pub in the curtain i wanted
to talk just a little bit about there's
0:59:37.840,0:59:43.200
a pub story in there that i think it's the
basement of the pub butts or is part of the
0:59:44.000,0:59:52.240
is that yeah if you if you look at uh the plan of
the curtain about a quarter of it sits under the
0:59:52.240,1:00:02.320
adjacent property which is the horse and green pub
on curtin raid so there is a chance that some um
1:00:03.200,1:00:08.000
possibly the yard possibly some you know as
yeah it would be the yard at that point and
1:00:08.000,1:00:14.160
possibly part of curtin house actually survives
under the pub oh there may be more under the pub
1:00:14.880,1:00:19.840
but the pubs listed so the pub's not going
anywhere no you can't you have to wait till the
1:00:20.800,1:00:28.080
of course the pub probably uh enjoys the some
extra custom from it it may well do yeah yeah
1:00:29.360,1:00:34.560
yeah um because when the theater is doing
well so do other things you're talking about
1:00:34.560,1:00:39.280
growth in the theater and so forth it also
has a growth in the economy i think south
1:00:40.480,1:00:46.800
south south of the thames it might have been
kind of a um what uh in a red light district in
1:00:46.800,1:00:53.040
certain before there were red lights uh but
uh um i don't think it was just confined to
1:00:53.040,1:01:00.320
south of the thames there were various types
of various sites about entertainment um well
1:01:00.320,1:01:06.880
that's uh that's just wonderful uh so uh i'm gonna
i'm looking here at my notes and seeing if we've
1:01:06.880,1:01:14.160
uh covered some i think that we've gotten through
uh what i wanted to get through i wanted to make
1:01:14.160,1:01:18.960
sure that you were introduced to our audience
and particularly my japanese colleagues and
1:01:18.960,1:01:24.400
you don't have to worry about they they're
very polite about sending emails but they uh
1:01:24.960,1:01:33.280
i i do want to make sure that your work and
to work at mola is uh widely recognized and
1:01:33.280,1:01:40.640
in japan you know when you see these places on
the website or whatnot you think of these people
1:01:40.640,1:01:45.280
you know senior archaeologists you know i'm
thinking i don't know some guy with an ascot and
1:01:45.280,1:01:51.200
a pipe you know who goes out you know whoever you
know going out to discover the nile the source of
1:01:51.200,1:01:55.760
the nile or you know that kind of thing and it's
a 19th century view of what archaeologists did
1:01:56.320,1:02:02.800
yeah basically that some kind of or some kind of
harrison ford thing but the uh uh but the thing
1:02:02.800,1:02:09.280
is when you meet people you're oh these are just
people these are just like people people and uh
1:02:10.160,1:02:16.880
and i can talk to them like you can contact them
and you can uh find out stuff from them and you
1:02:16.880,1:02:21.520
don't have to ask permission to you know get i
don't know some sort of recommendation from the
1:02:21.520,1:02:27.120
queen or something to enter the building you have
you you it's a it's a place that you can go into
1:02:27.120,1:02:34.080
now where is mola located do you have anything
on site there that is uh that people visit
1:02:34.080,1:02:40.880
or is it i've noticed you've done something not
not not current not currently on the uh site of
1:02:40.880,1:02:46.560
the curtin because that's obviously as i say it's
a live construction site at the moment so uh not
1:02:46.560,1:02:53.040
at the moment but um do check out our website yeah
our website's really good we've got you know we do
1:02:53.040,1:02:59.840
have uh various events and things um that's yeah i
saw that you were doing a ambulatory thing a walk
1:03:00.800,1:03:06.240
um having trouble there was we did we did we did
it for the fourth head yeah it's when we were
1:03:06.240,1:03:11.920
digging the ball's head we had sort of um sort of
lectures and walking tours and things like that
1:03:11.920,1:03:18.720
um while we were on site but obviously we're
not on site anymore so and that's fun that's fun
1:03:18.720,1:03:25.360
and that's a lot of people that isn't just uh
nerds like me that's just people you know a
1:03:25.360,1:03:30.000
lot of people love theater and a lot of people
love walking around and looking at old things
1:03:30.000,1:03:38.320
uh never never tire of it and i think
i'm one of those people um well okay well
1:03:38.880,1:03:46.880
i uh at some point if you don't mind i might have
another question for you about uh saint john's
1:03:47.440,1:03:52.320
clerk and well although i think i'm i've finished
that paper and i think i got through it without uh
1:03:53.680,1:03:58.960
without any of you folks finding something
and proving the whole thesis to be wrong
1:04:01.360,1:04:06.480
but i'm kind of on the heather side of the
thesis i'm thinking that the you're you're
1:04:06.480,1:04:13.760
talking about how the inner the interactivity
of scholars now right in archaeology whatever
1:04:13.760,1:04:20.000
uh interdisciplinary cooperation the great
importance of that but there seemed to be
1:04:20.000,1:04:25.920
a lot of that going on in the theater scene in
the 16th century where you would have you would
1:04:25.920,1:04:31.200
have to collaborate you know the carpenters would
have to collaborate with uh wire drawer i don't
1:04:31.200,1:04:40.000
know with other people uh to to make properties
for stage plays you'd have to deal with space
1:04:40.000,1:04:44.800
you'd have to deal with actors you'd probably
had plenty of uh personalities uh that were
1:04:45.920,1:04:51.440
you know theater types as we would you know
actors and so forth but yeah you you've also
1:04:51.440,1:04:57.200
got people you know you've got all this kind of um
add-ons where you know people are selling you know
1:04:57.200,1:05:01.920
fruit and beer and things like that you've
got that happening you know you you've gotten
1:05:01.920,1:05:08.560
to employ somebody to collect money or having to
yeah yeah and you found some stuff there uh in the
1:05:08.560,1:05:12.480
curtain that was interesting to me because
of this is sort of marginal to what we think
1:05:12.480,1:05:17.040
about the playhouse there were some items there
were some little items that had to do with the
1:05:18.160,1:05:24.560
the tops from money pots the money pots yeah the
money pound does again again it's one of those
1:05:24.560,1:05:30.400
things they're the kind of thing you'd expect to
find um in a place of commercial entertainment
1:05:30.400,1:05:37.120
so i think we've got about a dozen or so from
the boar's head um a couple of dozen from the
1:05:37.120,1:05:42.320
theater 80 or so i think from the curtain
they're the little kind of distinct finials
1:05:43.120,1:05:48.480
for better word that sit on top of these
little pots they're like little um ceramic
1:05:48.480,1:05:52.480
round little vessels about size of a grapefruit
the slot in the side that you put your money in
1:05:52.480,1:05:57.120
and again actually it's a really good example of
receive narrative actually because for years and
1:05:57.120,1:06:02.240
years and years i've been guilty of it i've
said it yes these were used at the door to
1:06:02.240,1:06:07.680
collect money in and it was actually it's actually
bill ingram he actually said to me are you sure
1:06:08.320,1:06:11.600
you know surely you know if you think about
how many people are coming through the door
1:06:11.600,1:06:14.320
how many you know how many coins can
you fit in one of these pots you know
1:06:15.520,1:06:20.240
are you yeah that's kind of like well actually
yeah bill you might yeah is it just something
1:06:20.240,1:06:27.200
that i've read and i've repeated because we're
all guilty of doing it and i'm actually thinking
1:06:27.200,1:06:32.560
yeah that doesn't actually make any sense are
they actually being used differently are they
1:06:32.560,1:06:38.400
actually being used by say people selling
things during performance you know i mean
1:06:39.920,1:06:44.640
in the old days when used to have an usheret in
the cinema coming around with a tray of things
1:06:44.640,1:06:49.360
at the interval you know they've got the
hands you know the hands are busy you know
1:06:49.920,1:06:54.480
where do you put the coins you put them
in the pot the spot tied your belt maybe
1:06:54.480,1:07:00.640
are they being used in that way do they have
a different function so yeah so i i think i
1:07:00.640,1:07:05.040
think i thank bill for that one gang really
are you sure yeah okay yeah yeah about that
1:07:05.920,1:07:10.560
that's the reason for intermissions and uh
plays that don't need to have intermissions
1:07:10.560,1:07:16.240
uh thank you you know we've yeah you've got people
we you know contemporary accounts that people are
1:07:16.240,1:07:21.600
selling things during performance so yeah what
are they doing with money is that what they're
1:07:21.600,1:07:27.120
used for yeah yeah that's another whole you know
that that yeah they use their use for something
1:07:27.120,1:07:33.360
because we find they say we find lots of them
yeah uh well wherever you have people gathered
1:07:33.360,1:07:39.440
you're going to have uh uh solicitors financial
there's financial transactions of you know small
1:07:39.440,1:07:46.240
small change financial transactions going on so
yeah yeah that's so interesting it really is it
1:07:46.240,1:07:53.600
uh fills in the picture uh so much uh well i
wanted to thank you again and again and again
1:07:54.240,1:08:00.480
this is your sunday morning and i i wanted to
catch you at a time because you you are a busy
1:08:00.480,1:08:07.680
the people i in uh i'm talking to in this series
are busy people and i really really appreciate uh
1:08:07.680,1:08:14.400
your your time and if something comes up and
then you're now a uh you're now i've got my
1:08:14.400,1:08:20.720
coffee i'm good you got your coffee i've got my
coffee i'm good you got your coffee uh you are
1:08:20.720,1:08:29.040
a friend of the program now and so you uh if you
want to come on if i ever develop any kind of uh
1:08:29.040,1:08:36.480
audience i'm really focused on japan and right now
but uh and we have a small but very very engaged
1:08:36.480,1:08:43.200
audience of uh very of people who are very
interested in this uh work that you're doing and
1:08:44.720,1:08:52.320
uh so if you if i continue on with this
type of thing and you want me to help uh
1:08:52.320,1:08:56.000
i don't even if i'm doing this or
just on an email list or something
1:08:56.000,1:09:04.800
uh i will uh help in any way i can and uh and
thank you so very much for joining us thank you
1:09:04.800,1:09:09.360
thank you for inviting me it's it's a really
splendid way to spend a sunday morning it's
1:09:09.360,1:09:19.840
yeah what's not what's not to love about
playhouse yeah okay well bye bye bye tom
1:09:27.360,1:09:27.860
you