Talk:Curtain Theatre

"wooden O"
The Wikipedia entry on the Globe Theatre identifies it, not the Curtain, as the "wooden O" of the Prologue to Henry V. It would be good to make the two entries consistent.Ugajin 21:46, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

Then please change it - ...Romeo and Juliet 'won Curtain plaudities (sic)', and when the Prologue in Henry V refers to ''this wooden O' he is alluding to the Curtain. However, the Globe website, claims the distinction for itself - which is probably the source of the confusion.Kbthompson 00:29, 12 November 2006 (UTC) Colin might want to take a look at Shakespeare came to Shoreditch by W. H. C. Moreton, A.L.A. LBH Library Services (1964, repub 1976). Kbthompson 11:37, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Pge 128 Peter Ackroyd "Shakespeare the Biography" and also
 * Pge 106 Schoenbaum (OUP) "Shakespeare: a documentary life"


 * Yes, that's an interesting pamphlet, Kb, especially the plan of the Theatre precincts. However, the building in the view which is labelled as 'The Curtain' in the pamphlet, which you have added to the article, is possibly more likely to be 'the Theatre'. Wood reproduces the whole panorama of the 'View of the City of London from the North' in his book 'In Search of Shakespeare' (pages 112-115), in which you can distinctly see a flag to the right of the theatre - peeping up above the roofs of the intervening houses. Considering the location from which the Panorama was drawn, this flag is probably the one on top of the Curtain, which means that the visible theatre is probably the Theatre. Well that certainly makes more sense to me...Might be worth searching for this Panorama on the internet...Colin4C 12:35, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

Silly me, believing captions ... I know what you mean, but an elderly (CRF) print claiming to be of the Curtain was too good to miss. For obvious reasons, these articles are very low on images, otherwise, we're stuck with pix of Elizabethan dramatists ... Note the hills in the background - from the city to the north, surely? I enjoyed the Wood TV show, but felt the book a little too, prissy - the Ackroyd's had generally bad reviews, but in contrast to the London book is actually very well referenced. I put my name down for the 'Elizabethan theatre' project, an interesting topic, but likely to have more schisms than Jack the Ripper! I would like to know more about the Red Lion at Mile End, but in addition to the world being deficient on the topic, I'm deficient on Tudor maps of Stepney. (It's likely to have been at Mile End Gate, rather than near the modern station - which was Mile End New Town - with Old Town beyond it). I didn't want to nick the plaques and stuff from the article (≠CRF), I'll try to get down there and retake the pix. Kbthompson 13:29, 12 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Those hills are somewhat bizarre but the View (which I'm looking at right now) is most definately from the north and is inscribed: 'The View of the City of London from the North Towards the South'. The Shoreditch theatre is on the extreme left (east) of the panorama, which seems to be taken from a field north of Clerkenwell which features immediately to the south, with Westminster to the right (west). In the left foreground is a Windmill (in Finsbury fields?). As for the Red Lion, though this is sometimes claimed by modern scholars to predate the Theatre there is no evidence, as far as I can see, of any plays ever being performed there and we have Cuthbert Burbage's own statement that his father, James Burbage, was the first to build a theatre in London....Colin4C 14:04, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

Red Lion - built by john Brayne (Burbage's partner) in 1567 ... It wasn't successful, and I'd suggest that's why they wanted Shoreditch. The design of The Theatre comes into being as rather complete as a first try for the perfect theatre design (doncha think?)! Bizarre hills, most things of that date were flights of fantasy ... I'd keep it for the caption (plausible deniability), until something better comes along ... I think all that detail about the lease should go into The Theatre article, as it explains the midnight flit, complete with theatre. Kbthompson 14:39, 12 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Seems that there were no legal problems with using The Curtain: just that it was a crummy dump (I guess...). The Red Lion is a bit of a mystery...for instance it is not mentioned by the contemporary moralists and preachers who let out salvo after salvo of moral indignation immediately after the Theatre and Curtain were built (1576-77). These theatres were even credited with evoking God's wrath as manifested by the great earthquake of 1580...(maybe we should mention that in the article as well...). Yes, there is something iconic and even mysterious about 'The Theatre', I even read somewhere that the magus John Dee was involved in its conception...Colin4C 18:34, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

A few dodgy performance references have come in overnight. John Dee was used as an 'architectural consultant' - possibly for obtaining best light (but that's conjecture). The Curtain was used for some time after the Theatre upped sticks and went for tea, in Southwark. Known then as Green Curtain - because of its gaudy paintjob - but we went there before. As you said, most of the performance stuff is surmised from the thinnest data. Kbthompson 09:42, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Misidentified image removed
Leslie Hotson confidently identified this image, taken from Abram Booth's Description of England (c1600) as The Curtain, basing his discovery on the depiction of the loft, flagpole and access stairs. However, The Oxford Companion to Shakespeare "firmly reidentified" the building as The Theatre, so I'm taking it out as misleading. --217.155.32.221 (talk) 21:53, 20 December 2019 (UTC)
 * I've belatedly noticed an observation from User:Colin4C (above) drawing attention to a second flagpole in the image, which he says shows the position of The Curtain. I've scoured the reproduction in Woods's book but I can't see this at all, so I'm still happy to leave the image out.--217.155.32.221 (talk) 22:18, 20 December 2019 (UTC)