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 Duke of York is a title of nobility in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. Since the 15th century, it has, when granted, usually been given to the second son of English (later British) monarchs. The equivalent title in the Scottish peerage was ...

, was crowned as James II. When the Duke became King, the theatre became the Queen's Theatre in 1685, referring to James' second wife,

Mary of Modena Mary of Modena ( it, Maria Beatrice Eleonora Anna Margherita Isabella d'Este; ) was Queen of England, Scotland and Ireland as the second wife of James II and VII. A devout Roman Catholic, Mary married the widower James, who was then the younger ...

. The name remained when William III and

Mary II Mary II (30 April 166228 December 1694) was Queen of England, Scotland, and Ireland, co-reigning with her husband, William III & II, from 1689 until her death in 1694. Mary was the eldest daughter of James, Duke of York, and his first wife A ...

came to the throne in 1689. It was the fourth home of the

Duke's Company The Duke's Company was a theatre company chartered by King Charles II at the start of the Restoration era, 1660. Sir William Davenant was manager of the company under the patronage of Prince James, Duke of York. During hats period, theatres b ...

, one of the two

patent theatre The patent theatres were the theatres that were licensed to perform "spoken drama" after the Restoration of Charles II as King of England, Scotland and Ireland in 1660. Other theatres were prohibited from performing such "serious" drama, but ...

companies in Restoration London, and after 1682 continued to be used by the company's successor, the United Company. It was demolished in 1709.

Background

After years of being banned during the

Interregnum An interregnum (plural interregna or interregnums) is a period of discontinuity or "gap" in a government, organization, or social order. Archetypally, it was the period of time between the reign of one monarch and the next (coming from Latin '' ...

, theatre performances were again permitted on the Restoration of Charles II with the grant of

Letters Patent Letters patent ( la, litterae patentes) ( always in the plural) are a type of legal instrument in the form of a published written order issued by a monarch, president or other head of state, generally granting an office, right, monopoly, tit ...

to two companies to perform "legitimate drama" in London. The Duke's Company was patronised by the Duke of York (later James II); the other patent theatre company, the

King's Company The King's Company was one of two enterprises granted the rights to mount theatrical productions in London, after the London theatre closure had been lifted at the start of the English Restoration. It existed from 1660 to 1682, when it merged wi ...

enjoyed the patronage of his brother, Charles II. Both companies were briefly based, from 1660, in an old Jacobean theatre, the

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 named The Phoenix. History The original building was an actual cockpit; that is, a st ...

(also known as the Phoenix Theatre) in

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. Notable landmarks T ...

. After a short period in the

Salisbury Court Theatre The Salisbury Court Theatre was a theatre in 17th-century London. It was in the neighbourhood of Salisbury Court, which was formerly the London residence of the Bishops of Salisbury. Salisbury Court was acquired by Richard Sackville in 1564 ...

, the Duke's Company moved in 1662 to

Lincoln's Inn Fields Lincoln's Inn Fields is the largest public square in London. 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 develo ...

, to a building on Portugal Street that was formerly

Lisle's Tennis Court Lisle's Tennis Court was a building off Portugal Street in Lincoln's Inn Fields in London. Originally built as a real tennis court, it was used as a playhouse during two periods, 1661–1674 and 1695–1705. During the early period, ...

. The company remained there until 1671. Meanwhile, the King's Company moved to the

Theatre Royal, Drury Lane The Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, commonly known as Drury Lane, is a West End theatre and Grade I listed building in Covent Garden, London, England. The building faces Catherine Street (earlier named Bridges or Brydges Street) and backs onto Dr ...

, where they stayed. The founder of the Duke's Company (and

Poet Laureate A poet laureate (plural: poets laureate) is a poet officially appointed by a government or conferring institution, typically expected to compose poems for special events and occasions. Albertino Mussato of Padua and Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch ...

)

Sir William Davenant Sir William Davenant (baptised 3 March 1606 – 7 April 1668), 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 bot ...

, was a proponent of changeable scenery and theatrical machinery, which he is credited with introducing to the English public stage. He died before ground was broken on the new theatre in 1670, and so Dorset Garden was built under the auspices of the Davenant family who was running the Duke's Company with aid of a leading actor of the company,

Thomas Betterton Thomas Patrick Betterton (August 1635 – 28 April 1710), the leading male actor and theatre manager during Restoration England, son of an under-cook to King Charles I, was born in London. Apprentice and actor Betterton was born in August 16 ...

. The shareholders agreed to raise the funds, which ultimately amounted to some £9,000. They leased a site in Dorset Garden for a period of 39 years (i.e. until 1709) at an annual rent of £130.55. Just before the opening of the Dorset Garden (probably in the summer of 1671) the leading actor of the Duke's Company, Thomas Betterton, took a trip to France. It is believed that the purpose of this trip was to see the latest in French scenic technology to import it to the English stage. This assumption is largely based on the fact that Betterton, serving as William Davenant's deputy, had gone to France for that purpose at the behest of Charles II in 1661 and would go again in 1683 on the king's behalf to bring back an opera and a troupe of dancers for the court's entertainment. After Betterton's return to England in 1671 the Dorset Garden produced a number of increasingly elaborate spectacles, including operatic adaptations of Shakespeare's ''Macbeth'' (1673) and ''The Tempest'' (1674), and Thomas Shadwell's ''Psyche'' (1675). Characterizing these

Restoration spectacular The Restoration spectacular was a type of theatre production of the late 17th-century Restoration period that is defined by the amount of money, time, sets, and performers required to produce. These productions attracted and enticed audiences wi ...

s was the use of changeable perspective scenery; theatrical machinery for moving scenery and flying actors and objects, instrumental and vocal music, dancing, and large casts.)

The building

The theatre was built in the former grounds of Dorset House, London seat of the Sackville

Earls of Dorset Earl of Dorset is a title that has been created at least four times in the Peerage of England. Some of its holders have at various times also held the rank of marquess and, from 1720, duke. A possible first creation is not well documented. About ...

, which was destroyed in the

Great Fire of London The Great Fire of London was a major conflagration that swept through central London from Sunday 2 September to Thursday 6 September 1666, gutting the medieval City of London inside the old Roman city wall, while also extending past th ...

and was soon densely built over with speculative tenements. Part of the site had been used as a theatre in the time of Charles I: in 1629 the Earl of Dorset leased the "stables and out howses towards the water side" behind Dorset House... to make a playhouse for the children of the revels." The site for the new theatre, by Dorset Stairs in Whitefriars on the

Thames The River Thames ( ), known alternatively in parts as the River Isis, is a river that flows through southern England including London. At , it is the longest river entirely in England and the second-longest in the United Kingdom, after the R ...

, was slightly upstream from the outlet of the New Canal, part of the

Fleet River The River Fleet is the largest of London's subterranean rivers, all of which today contain foul water for treatment. Its headwaters are two streams on Hampstead Heath, each of which was dammed into a series of ponds—the Hampstead Ponds an ...

. Its position on the Thames permitted the patrons to travel to the theatre by boat, avoiding the nearby crime-ridden neighbourhood of

Alsatia Whitefriars is an area in the Ward of Farringdon Without in the City of London. Until 1540, it was the site of a Carmelite monastery, from which it gets its name. History The area takes its name from the medieval Carmelite religious house, know ...

. It opened on 9 November 1671 and was almost twice the size of the Duke's Company's former theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields. It became the principal playhouse in London when the Theatre Royal burned down in January 1672, soon to be rivalled however by the new Theatre Royal, which opened in March 1674. After the Duke's Company merged with the King's Company in 1682 to form the United Company, the theatre in Dorset Garden was used mainly for opera, music, and spectaculars, and from the 1690s it was also used for other entertainments, such as weight lifting, until it was demolished in 1709. Apart from the illustrations in the libretto of ''

The Empress of Morocco ''The Empress of Morocco'' is a 1673 tragedy by the English writer Elkanah Settle. It was originally staged by the Duke's Company at the Dorset Garden Theatre in London. The cast included Henry Harris as Muly Labas, William Smith as Muly Hamet ...

'', no contemporary pictures of the interior are known. The rivalry between the two companies led to descriptions of the Dorset Garden theatre in prologues and other verse of the period, thus providing us with some evidence as to what the theatre was actually like. Thomas Betterton lived in an apartment on an upper floor on the south side. A number of eminent people lived nearby:

Aphra Behn Aphra Behn (; bapt. 14 December 1640 – 16 April 1689) was an English playwright, poet, prose writer and translator from the Restoration era. As one of the first English women to earn her living by her writing, she broke cultural barrie ...

in Dorset Street;

John Dryden '' John Dryden (; – ) was an English poet, literary critic, translator, and playwright who in 1668 was appointed England's first Poet Laureate. He is seen as dominating the literary life of Restoration England to such a point that the p ...

in Salisbury Square from 1673 to 1682;

John Locke John Locke (; 29 August 1632 – 28 October 1704) was an English philosopher and physician, widely regarded as one of the most influential of Enlightenment thinkers and commonly known as the "father of liberalism". Considered one of ...

in Dorset Court in 1690. It is not known who designed the new theatre building, though tradition ascribes it to

Sir Christopher Wren Sir Christopher Wren PRS FRS (; – ) was one of the most highly acclaimed English architects in history, as well as an anatomist, astronomer, geometer, and mathematician-physicist. He was accorded responsibility for rebuilding 52 churche ...

. This however seems unlikely on both practical and stylistic grounds. Perhaps

Robert Hooke Robert Hooke FRS (; 18 July 16353 March 1703) was an English polymath active as a scientist, natural philosopher and architect, who is credited to be one of two scientists to discover microorganisms in 1665 using a compound microscope that ...

, an associate of Wren's had something to do with the design. The outside measurements were 147–148’ by 57’, including a 10’ deep porch. A foreign visitor reported in 1676 that it contained a central "pit", in the form of an amphitheatre, two tiers of seven boxes each holding twenty people, and an upper gallery. It could accommodate approximately 850 patrons. The theatre represented a great investment to the Duke's Company. The interior was richly decorated: the

proscenium arch A proscenium ( grc-gre, προσκήνιον, ) is the metaphorical vertical plane of space in a theatre, usually surrounded on the top and sides by a physical proscenium arch (whether or not truly "arched") and on the bottom by the stage floor ...

had carvings by

Grinling Gibbons Grinling Gibbons (4 April 1648 – 3 August 1721) was an Anglo-Dutch sculptor and wood carver known for his work in England, including Windsor Castle and Hampton Court Palace, St Paul's Cathedral and other London churches, Petworth House and othe ...

The stage

The Dorset Garden theatre had a large forestage, a typically English feature. Edward Langhans in his reconstruction calculated the forestage to be 19’6" feet deep and 30’6" wide at the proscenium arch . The forestage provided actors, singers and dancers with a sizeable downstage, a well-illuminated performance space, free of grooves. When a locale was depicted by the scenery, the forestage was understood to be an extension of that place. It served as a vital link between the audience and the performers, the auditorium and the stage, the playgoers and the play. Primary access to the forestage was by permanent proscenium doors, probably two on each side of the stage. Above the doors were balconies, acting spaces that could also serve for seating. The scenic stage was probably some 50’ deep and 30’ high. The proscenium arch may have been some 30’ wide and at least 25’ high to accommodate the scenery in operas such as ''

Dioclesian ''Dioclesian'' (''The Prophetess: or, The History of Dioclesian'') is an English tragicomic semi-opera in five acts by Henry Purcell to a libretto by Thomas Betterton based on the play '' The Prophetess'', by John Fletcher and Philip Massinger, ...

'', ''

The Fairy-Queen ''The Fairy-Queen'' (1692; Purcell catalogue number Z.629) is a semi-opera by Henry Purcell; a "Restoration spectacular". The libretto is an anonymous adaptation of William Shakespeare's comedy ''A Midsummer Night's Dream''. First performed ...

'',Frans & Julie Muller, 2005, including a reconstruction of the stage and the scenery for the final masque in ''The Fairy-Queen''. or ''The World in the Moon''. Both the forestage and the scenic stage were raked. The music box above the proscenium arch could hold perhaps 8 to 10 musicians, to provide incidental music. A full orchestra would be sitting in the pit, just in front of the stage. The Duke's Company had already been using moveable

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 the item was custom-made or ...

to good effect in their previous playhouses. It was first employed by Davenant at

Rutland House Rutland House was the name of at least two London houses occupied by the Earls and Dukes of Rutland. That on Aldersgate Street was leased by playwright Sir William Davenant, who converted a room of it into a private theatre in the 1650s. That in ...

, using shutters in grooves, which could be quickly slid open or closed to reveal a new scene, but Dorset Garden was also equipped to fly at least four separate people and large objects like a cloud covering the full width of the stage and carrying a large group of musicians (''Psyche'' 1675). There were also numerous floor traps. It was designed for staging Restoration spectaculars, and was the only playhouse in London capable of all the effects these exuberant spectacles required.

Notes

References

*Hume, Robert D. "The Dorset Garden Theatre: a Review of Facts and Problems"
''Theatre Notebook'', vol. XXXIII / 2 (1979), pp.4–17
London: Society for Theatre Research. *Langhans, Edward A. "The Dorset Garden Theatre in Pictures", ''Theatre Survey'', vol VI / 2 (November 1965), pp. 134–46. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. *Langhans, Edward A. "A Conjectural Reconstruction of Dorset Garden Theatre", ''Theatre Survey'', vol XIII / 2 (1972), p. 74. *Langhans, Edward A. "The Post-1660 Theatres as Performance Spaces", ''A Companion to Restoration Drama'', Susan Owen (ed.), Oxford: Blackwell, 2001. *van Lennep et al. dsWilliam, ''The London Stage'', parts 1 (1965) and 2 (1959), Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press. *de Marly, Diana "The Architect of Dorset Garden Theatre"
''Theatre Notebook'', vol. XXIX (1975), p.119-24
London: Society for Theatre Research. *Milhous, Judith. ''Thomas Betterton and the Management of Lincoln's Inn Fields 1695–1708''. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press, 1979. *Morgan & Ogilby's ''map of London'' (1677), British Library, Maps, Crace II, 61 www.collectbritain.co.uk/collections/crace/ (available online) *Morgan & Ogilby ''map of London'' (1681/2), including a view of London by W.Hollar, British Library, Crace collection Port.II, 58 (not available online) *Muller, Frans "Flying Dragons and Dancing Chairs at Dorset Garden: Staging ''Dioclesian''"
''Theatre Notebook'', vol. XLVII / 2 (1993), pp.80–95
*Muller, Frans and Julie, "Completing the picture: the importance of reconstructing early opera". ''Early Music'', vol XXXIII / 4 (November 2005), pp. 667–681. em.oxfordjournals.com (subscription access).

External links

Extracts from ''The Cambridge History of British Theatre''The British Library, Collect Britain, Crace collection of maps of London
{{Authority control 1671 establishments in England Former theatres in London Former buildings and structures in the City of London Theatres completed in 1671