When the first fixed theatres were subsequently established in London, they were welcomed by some, but denounced by many, and even found themselves blamed for the Great Plague - after all it was commonly beleived that the cause of the Plague was sin, and what was there more sinful, according to the church, than theatre? Ironically, these early theatres may very well indeed have played a part, since by crowding people together in a confined space they would have provided an opportunity for an unknowing victim to infect others.īut if the church had long been theatre's implacable enemy, the crown had equally been its devoted friend. They were tolerated in one place only long enough to give their performance, and then they must move on. If the church could not stop these travelling troupes of players, it could at least see to it thay they were widely reviled, even by those who paid to see them perform. The bad reputation which clung to those connected with the acting profession in those days was largely the responsibility of the church. Of course plays commonly called for female roles, and so those parts had to be played by men, or, more commonly, by boys. So the idea of females taking part in an already disreputable profession was unthinkable. Even male actors were looked upon in those days with considerable suspicion and contempt, regarded as little better than thieves or vagabonds. Being itinerant, their womenfolk would perforce travel with them, but still they could not perform. So before the construction of the first fixed theatres, these troupes of male actors would roam the country performing wherever and whenever there were a few coppers to made.
Women belonged in the home, not flaunting themselves in public. Women's equality was as yet a thing of the far distant future. Some conventions take longer to overturn, and in Old England for a woman to exhibit herself in public was not only unseemly, it was immoral, indecent. These troupes inspired immediate condemnation from the church, but the church itself had created the demand for their productions - it had created the environment in which they could survive, and survive they did.Īs with the 'Miracle Plays', these early commercial plays were solely a male preserve. But the church soon found that it had opened Pandora's box - the popularity of these 'Miracle Plays' inspired the formation of troupes of non-secular players performing other types of plays purely for purposes of entertainment and profit. Thus the church introduced the 'Miracle Plays', dramatic reconstructions of bible stories performed by monks and religious brotherhoods in village squares across the country. In an age of mass illiteracy, the church needed other means than the written word to get the message of the Bible across to the general populace. All of that changed in the middle ages when the Church itself, somewhat paradoxically, resurrected theatre for its own end. In christian England, a succession of church decrees against theatre ensured that for hundreds of years it was virtually unknown in this country. Theatre, which traces its origins back to classical Greek and Roman times or even earlier, soon earned the condemnation of the early christian church - probably due to its pagan origins and the fact that in its early days it was commonly frequented by prostitutes plying their trade. This, all too briefly, is the story of how that came to be, and how it came to be overturned. Christian dogma, and in particular puritanism, had kept women from the stage throughout much of the early development of European theatre. But that had not always been the case - not in Europe generally, and especially not in conservative Old England. Actresses were celebrities, and their profession a highly respected and reputable one - even to the point of a number of actresses marrying into the nobility. Womens Ascent to the Stage Leading Ladiesīy the Edwardian era, women were a necessary and accepted part of the theatre community.
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