London: A Theatrical City伦敦：戏剧之城

【导读】彼得·阿克罗伊德1949年出生于伦敦，毕业于剑桥大学克莱尔学院，是英国著名小说家、评论家、传记作家和学者。阿克罗伊德出版的著作包括：《伦敦大火》（The Great Fire of London，1982）、《奥斯卡·王尔德的最后遗嘱》（The Last Testament of Oscar Wilde，1984）等虚构作品，《T. S.艾略特》（T. S. Eliot，1984）、《狄更斯》（Dickens，1990）、《托马斯·莫尔的一生》（The Life of Thomas More，1998）等传记，以及《伦敦传》（London： The Biography，2000）、《泰晤士：圣河》（Thames： Sacred River，2007）、《地下伦敦：街道下的秘史》（London Under： The Secret History Beneath the Streets，2011）等非虚构作品。本文节选自《伦敦传》中介绍伦敦剧院历史的内容，通过史实的呈现与生动的刻画，阿克罗伊德再现了伦敦剧院的兴衰及伦敦人的生活图景，凸显了剧院这一重要的伦敦文化地标。

Evidence for a Roman theatre， south-west of St. Paul’s， is now very clear; it was located little more than 150 feet east of the Mermaid Theatre， which is situated by Puddle Dock1. Further evidence can be found for a theatre at Whitechapel2 in 1567; it was just beyond Aldgate， with a stage some five feet high and a series of galleries.

This was in turn followed by the erection of the Theatre in the fields of Shoreditch. It was constructed of wood and thatch， well enough designed to merit the description of this “gorgeous playing-place erected in the Fields.” Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus and Shakespeare’s Hamlet were performed here. Certainly it must have proved popular because， a year later， another theatre was built two hundred yards away; it was known as “The Curtain” or， latterly， “The Green Curtain” in deference to the colourful sign painted on its exterior. Theatres， like taverns and shops， were well illustrated to catch the attention of the citizens.

These two early theatres set the standard for those more famous playhouses which play so large a part in Elizabethan cultural history. These playhouses were always outside the walls of the city （unlike the “private” theatre of Blackfriars3）， and the two theatres in the northern fields were constructed upon land once belonging to Holywell Priory; as the name suggests， there was a “holy well” in the immediate vicinity. It may be that they were deliberately sited close to the location where sacred plays had once been staged. This might also account for the presence of a theatre in the old priory of the Blackfriars. Londoners have always been aware of the topography of their city and its environs， so that on many occasions and in many contexts the same activity can be observed taking place in the same location. The situation of the twelfth-century “theatrum” is not known， but it is at least reasonable to suggest that it lay where the Rose， the Swan and the Globe eventually emerged in the 1580s and 1590s.

The popularity of Elizabethan drama characterises Londoners who attended it， both in their affection for colourful ritual and in their admiration of magniloquence4. The taste of the crowd for intermittent5 violence was amply satisfied by the plays themselves， while the Londoners’ natural pride in the history of their city was recognised in those dramatic historical pageants which were part of the diet of the playhouses. When Shakespeare places Falstaff6 and his company in East Cheap7， he is invoking the life of the city which existed two centuries before. Spectacle and violence， civic pride and national honour， all found their natural home in the theatres of London.

And yet the more “Cockney8” Londoners did also manage to attend the new plays; they were not necessarily welcomed in the boxes or the pit with the more prosperous citizens， but they took over the gallery from where they could shout insults or pelt fruit upon both stage and respectable audience. Cockney theatre-goers were only one aspect， however， of the generally partisan and inflammatory aspect of the urban audience. “Claques” would attend in order to cry up， or drown out， the latest production; fights would break out among the gentlemen “of quality，” while there were often riots which effectively concluded all theatrical proceedings. Indeed the riots themselves were somewhat theatrical in appearance.

When in the mid-eighteenth century David Garrick proposed to abolish “half-price” seats， for those who entered after the third of five acts （the whole performance beginning at six o’clock in the evening）， the day appointed for that innovation found the Drury Lane Playhouse filled with a silent crowd. P.J. Grosley composed A Tour of London in 1772， and set the scene. As soon as the play commenced there was a “general outcry” with “fisty-cuffs and cudgels，” which led to further violence when the audience “tore up the benches of the pit and galleries” and “demolished the boxes.” The lion， which had decorated the king’s box， was thrown upon the stage among the actors， and the unicorn fell into the orchestra “where it broke the great harpsichord to pieces.” In his London Journal of 19 January 1763， Boswell remarks that “we sallied into the house， planted ourselves in the middle of the pit， and with oaken cudgels in our hands and shrill-sounding cat calls in our pockets， sat ready prepared.”

Such behaviour in the capital’s theatres continued well into the nineteenth century. A German traveller of 1827， Prince Pückler-Muskau， later caricatured by Charles Dickens as Count Smorltork in The Pickwick Papers， reported that “The most striking thing to a foreigner in English theatres is the unheard-of coarseness and brutality of the audiences.” The “Old Price” riots of 18079 lasted for seventy nights， and the private life of Edmund Kean—accused of being both a drunk and an adulterer—led to four nights of violent rioting in the playhouse of Drury Lane.