The initial presentation
The following is the initial presentation I gave on "London Street Theatre" by Anne Lancashire in the Spring of 2012. It outlines the three different types of public displays that will be discussed in more detail in this section.
London Street Theatre by Anne Lancashire
In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, street theatre in London revolved around what Lancashire calls the “major thoroughfares and including among those the river Thames”. Not only was this theatre entertainment to be watched, but was also “participatory ritual of civic affirmation, and/or of national politics intertwined with civic participation in international trade and diplomacy”. (Lancashire Street 323)
There were three main types of street theatre in London:
1. Midsummer Watch
2. Lord Mayor’s Show
3. Royal entry
All three were city-sponsored events, took place on special occasions and were INCLUSIVE, in that their entertainment value and politics were aimed at the widest possible audience.
There were also several minor types of street theatre, including “Maying” entertainment, special performances for civic occasions and openings and royal entertainments. These continue to be very popular forms of street entertainment. “Maying” entertainment is what we now know as busking, and busker’s festivals take place in late spring to early fall each year. Although civic occasions and openings do not have the same type of theatre, performance still occurs at these events. Generally now they are in the form of musical acts and speeches by officials. These are, however, still forms of performance. We do still see royal entertainments, however, they now serve a different audience and a different purpose. They are largely re-enactments of battles past rather than being tributes to existing royal families.
As Lancashire alludes to, these minor forms of theatre are in fact, not theatre at all. They are forms of performance. The difference between the two, as defined in performance theory, is that the main goal of “theatre” is to entertain. For example, a public display of punishment (which is an example Lancashire uses on page 324) is a form of performance. But the goal is to punish and incite fear, not to entertain. “Theatre” also involves the creation of a representational illusion, or self-contained drama. There is a separation between the actor and the character; they are not one and the same. As performance studies theorist Richard Schechner explains in his book Performance Studies: An Introduction,
“To perform can… be understood in relation to:
Being
Doing
Showing Doing
Explaining 'showing doing'
‘Being’ is existence itself. ‘Doing’ is the activity of all that exists, from quarks to sentient beings to supergalactic strings. ‘Showing doing’ is performing: point to, underlining, and displaying doing.” (Schechner 28)
Lancashire uses the term “theatre” loosely, as many theatre practitioners would consider the following to be performance, or performance art, rather than strictly theatre. They do, however, contain theatrical elements. That being said, we will get back to Lancashire. She goes on to discuss only the three main types of street theatre, which, she explains, were “associated with the professional theatrical writers, performers, and designers and craftsmen of the times”. (Lancashire Street 324)
Midsummer Watch
The Midsummer Watch was essential a parade that took place in the evenings of festival days. These processions, as John Stow describes, had garlands of flowers and ornate glass oil lamps. The marching watch accompanying the procession was made up of “about 2000. Men, parte of them being olde Souldiers, of skill to be Captains, Lieutenants, Sergeants, Corporals, &c. Wiflers, Drommers, and Fifes, Standard and Ensigne bearers, Sword players, Trumpeters on horsebacke, Demi-launces on great horses, Gunners with hand Guns, or halfe hakes, Archers in coates of white fustian signed on the breast and backe with the armes of the Cittie, their bowes bend in their hands, with sheafes of arrowes by their sides…”. (Lancashire Street 325) Stow continues to detail the rest of the military presence in the parade.
The Watch began as a colourful and grand display of military might and history. This is similar to the Remembrance Day parades that are held every year across Canada. Both active duty soldiers and veterans assemble, dressed in full colours, to march through the streets. These parades, however, are held during the day.
The Watch parades took place on “the eves to early mornings of the feasts of St. John Baptist and of Sts Peter and Paul”. Towards the end of the 14th century the Midsummer Watch took on a more spectacular element, incorporating other decorative and performative elements. There began to be pageants as part of the festivities as well as child actors. Lancashire states that “London’s Midsummer Watch in 1477 was clearly in part theatrical, and an event not only of local importance but also with national and international political effect”. (Lancashire Street 326)
There began to be financial connections between the mayor and sheriffs and the companies from which they came from and the Watch parades. The companies were required to fund the festivities and construct and produce the pageants as well. The mayor and sheriffs were usually elected from one of the twelve Great Companies, so it was usually these companies as well that were producing the events. Lancashire explains that “These companies were expected to provide portable constructed pageants, on biblical, historical, mythological, and/or allegorical subjects: usually up to four for the mayor and up to three for each sheriff (though the numbers varied somewhat over the years of the Watch), along with armed men and, with variations, features such as a giant, swordplayers, morris dancers, and musicians”. (Lancashire Street 326)
These now seem more similar to modern day Independence Day or Canada Day parades. Not only were these important to the city, but also as mentioned earlier, Lancashire emphasises their importance on a national and international level. They demonstrated political strength and economic wealth. The Watch was extremely popular until the 1540s, when it had to be cancelled due to the cost of the wars in France under Henry VIII. Although there was an attempt to revive the Watch after the wars had ended, it was essentially over.
The Lord Mayor’s Show
By the 1550s, the Lord Mayor’s Show – although it had been happening for years already – had become the new annual street theatre festival, in essence replacing the Midsummer Watch. It began as a land only procession and then in 1453 a river procession was added as well. According to Lancashire, “In the 1550s, when accounts and other records begin of constructed portable pageants for the mayor’s annual oath-taking, the mayor’s inauguration procession finally became continuously ‘street theatre’, though its pageantry was seemingly, until the seventeenth century, less extensive than that of the Watch at its height”. (Lancashire Street 328)
Lancashire believes that “Just as… the Midsummer Watch may have been stimulated into becoming a major street pageantry event by the 1501 royal entry of Catherine of Aragon, so the Lord Mayor’s Show may similarly have begun to incorporate more extensive street pageantry because of the lavish March 1604 royal entry into London of James I”. (Street 329) Even though these events were city-sponsored, there is an unbreakable bond between the Watch and the Show and the royals. Lancashire explains that “By the early seventeenth century a typical Lord Mayor’s Show would involve a morning procession by the mayor and his entourage from his residence to the Guildhall, then a full civic procession to the Thames, where a fleet of barges, with livery company members in their gowns, escorted the mayor to Westminster, accompanied by vessels firing salutes and by water pageants: displays at the waterside and/or mounted on barges, with costumed actors and sometimes speeches.” (Lancashire Street 329)
She goes on to say that “The Lord Mayor’s Show was an episodic theatrical form, structured not as a linear narrative, but as a progressive series of moral, historical, and political displays and lessons set within the context of the overall mayoral procession. The displays involved emblematic constructions such as castes, arbours, and mounts, allegorical figures such as Fame, Error, and Time, historical personages such as early London mayors and English kings, classical mythological figures such as Jason and Hercules, and religious figures such as livery company patron saints.” (Lancashire Street 329) To a performance theorist, this seems much more like a variety show, rather than episodic theatre. Even episodic theatre usually has a through line and a narrative, which is contrary to what Lancashire believes.
Until the 17th century, it is unclear who “authored” the speeches and pageants for the Show. After the turn of the century, the records indicate that three major London-born dramatists (who were all members of livery companies) were working on the scripts: Anthony Munday, Thomas Dekker and Thomas Middleton. In the 1630s, there was a shift and Thomas Heywood wrote seven of the scripts, even though he was not London born and was not a member of a livery company. As Lancashire explains, “Regardless of company membership or otherwise, the dramatists to whom the Show commissions were regularly awarded all wrote for a variety of companies. The companies (at least by the seventeenth century) entertained bids for Show production from interested parties; and Munday, a Draper, wrote Shows for all of the Drapers, Fishmongers, Goldsmiths, Ironmongers, Mercers, and Merchant Taylors.” (Lancashire Street 331) Dekker and Heywood also wrote for various different companies. The writer would develop a theme for the Show and then would write the various parts, including the speeches and pageants, and would then work with a designer to have the necessary sets and props built. Lancashire explains that “Each Show simultaneously honoured the incoming mayor and his company, entertained the London public which lined the processional route (including on the banks of the Thames and in boats), demonstrated the wealth and importance of the company concerned, and demonstrated as well the financial, cultural, and social strength of the city as a whole.” (Lancashire Street 331) Lancashire goes on to give detailed examples of various Show themes and the elements that make them up, including Munday’s Show for the inauguration of Goldsmith mayor James Pemberton in 1611. She believes that the 1611 Show is significant “not only for what it tells us about the ways in which an episodic, thematically ordered processional theatrical display may be coherently structured, but also for what it tells us about links, both physical and creative, between the professional theatre and the Shows”. (Lancashire Street 334) I maintain that although there are links between the pageants and the speeches and other elements, that this is not episodic theatre, but rather a festival of performance arts that are all centred around a singular theme. The author of the script acted more as a curator than a dramatist.
Royal Entry
Royal entries began in the 13th century to mark the first entrance of a new monarch into the city of London. Occasionally they were also performed for important figures that were not ruling monarchs of England. By the 14th century these processions included static, or stationary, pageants as well that took place along the traditional route. Royal Entry processions had very similar elements to both the Midsummer Watch and the Shows, in that they involved themes and symbolism. Lancashire explains that “The pageantic royal entry was as much a self-defined genre as was the Lord Mayor’s Show, with particular kinds of pageants recurring, sometimes in relation to particular locations, but varied to suit the specific entrant and occasion. Bridge pageantry, for example, habitually involved one or more giants as city gatekeepers, along with a choir of singing, costumed children”. (Lancashire Street 336)
Both in the Show and the Royal Entry, the special guest of the festivities took part in the procession, “elaborately robed… accompanied by a long train of dignitaries dressed with similar richness”. (Lancashire Street 337) Lancashire goes on to explain the main difference between the two, saying that “Unlike the mayoral show, however, the royal entry did not processionally accumulate its pageants, which remained fixed in their locations and therefore arguably allowed the royal entrant more contextual freedom than the Show pageants allowed to the processing mayor”. (Lancashire Street 337) This is something that I think could be argued.
The Royal Entry also took place only on land, although it seems that there may have been some water elements added in the late 15th century.
Conclusion
These three types of London street performance, as I am going to call it now, were all designed with the same intent: to demonstrate the wealth and prosperity of London and of England. To do so, they used theatrical elements, including pageants and speeches, but they were not in essence what we term today as theatre. They did, however, entertain!
WORKS CITED
Lancashire, Anne. "London Street Theater" in The Oxford Handbook of Early Modern Theatre. ed. Richard Dutton. New York: Oxford University Press, 2009.
Schechner, Richard. Performance Studies: An Introduction. New York: Routledge, 2002.
In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, street theatre in London revolved around what Lancashire calls the “major thoroughfares and including among those the river Thames”. Not only was this theatre entertainment to be watched, but was also “participatory ritual of civic affirmation, and/or of national politics intertwined with civic participation in international trade and diplomacy”. (Lancashire Street 323)
There were three main types of street theatre in London:
1. Midsummer Watch
2. Lord Mayor’s Show
3. Royal entry
All three were city-sponsored events, took place on special occasions and were INCLUSIVE, in that their entertainment value and politics were aimed at the widest possible audience.
There were also several minor types of street theatre, including “Maying” entertainment, special performances for civic occasions and openings and royal entertainments. These continue to be very popular forms of street entertainment. “Maying” entertainment is what we now know as busking, and busker’s festivals take place in late spring to early fall each year. Although civic occasions and openings do not have the same type of theatre, performance still occurs at these events. Generally now they are in the form of musical acts and speeches by officials. These are, however, still forms of performance. We do still see royal entertainments, however, they now serve a different audience and a different purpose. They are largely re-enactments of battles past rather than being tributes to existing royal families.
As Lancashire alludes to, these minor forms of theatre are in fact, not theatre at all. They are forms of performance. The difference between the two, as defined in performance theory, is that the main goal of “theatre” is to entertain. For example, a public display of punishment (which is an example Lancashire uses on page 324) is a form of performance. But the goal is to punish and incite fear, not to entertain. “Theatre” also involves the creation of a representational illusion, or self-contained drama. There is a separation between the actor and the character; they are not one and the same. As performance studies theorist Richard Schechner explains in his book Performance Studies: An Introduction,
“To perform can… be understood in relation to:
Being
Doing
Showing Doing
Explaining 'showing doing'
‘Being’ is existence itself. ‘Doing’ is the activity of all that exists, from quarks to sentient beings to supergalactic strings. ‘Showing doing’ is performing: point to, underlining, and displaying doing.” (Schechner 28)
Lancashire uses the term “theatre” loosely, as many theatre practitioners would consider the following to be performance, or performance art, rather than strictly theatre. They do, however, contain theatrical elements. That being said, we will get back to Lancashire. She goes on to discuss only the three main types of street theatre, which, she explains, were “associated with the professional theatrical writers, performers, and designers and craftsmen of the times”. (Lancashire Street 324)
Midsummer Watch
The Midsummer Watch was essential a parade that took place in the evenings of festival days. These processions, as John Stow describes, had garlands of flowers and ornate glass oil lamps. The marching watch accompanying the procession was made up of “about 2000. Men, parte of them being olde Souldiers, of skill to be Captains, Lieutenants, Sergeants, Corporals, &c. Wiflers, Drommers, and Fifes, Standard and Ensigne bearers, Sword players, Trumpeters on horsebacke, Demi-launces on great horses, Gunners with hand Guns, or halfe hakes, Archers in coates of white fustian signed on the breast and backe with the armes of the Cittie, their bowes bend in their hands, with sheafes of arrowes by their sides…”. (Lancashire Street 325) Stow continues to detail the rest of the military presence in the parade.
The Watch began as a colourful and grand display of military might and history. This is similar to the Remembrance Day parades that are held every year across Canada. Both active duty soldiers and veterans assemble, dressed in full colours, to march through the streets. These parades, however, are held during the day.
The Watch parades took place on “the eves to early mornings of the feasts of St. John Baptist and of Sts Peter and Paul”. Towards the end of the 14th century the Midsummer Watch took on a more spectacular element, incorporating other decorative and performative elements. There began to be pageants as part of the festivities as well as child actors. Lancashire states that “London’s Midsummer Watch in 1477 was clearly in part theatrical, and an event not only of local importance but also with national and international political effect”. (Lancashire Street 326)
There began to be financial connections between the mayor and sheriffs and the companies from which they came from and the Watch parades. The companies were required to fund the festivities and construct and produce the pageants as well. The mayor and sheriffs were usually elected from one of the twelve Great Companies, so it was usually these companies as well that were producing the events. Lancashire explains that “These companies were expected to provide portable constructed pageants, on biblical, historical, mythological, and/or allegorical subjects: usually up to four for the mayor and up to three for each sheriff (though the numbers varied somewhat over the years of the Watch), along with armed men and, with variations, features such as a giant, swordplayers, morris dancers, and musicians”. (Lancashire Street 326)
These now seem more similar to modern day Independence Day or Canada Day parades. Not only were these important to the city, but also as mentioned earlier, Lancashire emphasises their importance on a national and international level. They demonstrated political strength and economic wealth. The Watch was extremely popular until the 1540s, when it had to be cancelled due to the cost of the wars in France under Henry VIII. Although there was an attempt to revive the Watch after the wars had ended, it was essentially over.
The Lord Mayor’s Show
By the 1550s, the Lord Mayor’s Show – although it had been happening for years already – had become the new annual street theatre festival, in essence replacing the Midsummer Watch. It began as a land only procession and then in 1453 a river procession was added as well. According to Lancashire, “In the 1550s, when accounts and other records begin of constructed portable pageants for the mayor’s annual oath-taking, the mayor’s inauguration procession finally became continuously ‘street theatre’, though its pageantry was seemingly, until the seventeenth century, less extensive than that of the Watch at its height”. (Lancashire Street 328)
Lancashire believes that “Just as… the Midsummer Watch may have been stimulated into becoming a major street pageantry event by the 1501 royal entry of Catherine of Aragon, so the Lord Mayor’s Show may similarly have begun to incorporate more extensive street pageantry because of the lavish March 1604 royal entry into London of James I”. (Street 329) Even though these events were city-sponsored, there is an unbreakable bond between the Watch and the Show and the royals. Lancashire explains that “By the early seventeenth century a typical Lord Mayor’s Show would involve a morning procession by the mayor and his entourage from his residence to the Guildhall, then a full civic procession to the Thames, where a fleet of barges, with livery company members in their gowns, escorted the mayor to Westminster, accompanied by vessels firing salutes and by water pageants: displays at the waterside and/or mounted on barges, with costumed actors and sometimes speeches.” (Lancashire Street 329)
She goes on to say that “The Lord Mayor’s Show was an episodic theatrical form, structured not as a linear narrative, but as a progressive series of moral, historical, and political displays and lessons set within the context of the overall mayoral procession. The displays involved emblematic constructions such as castes, arbours, and mounts, allegorical figures such as Fame, Error, and Time, historical personages such as early London mayors and English kings, classical mythological figures such as Jason and Hercules, and religious figures such as livery company patron saints.” (Lancashire Street 329) To a performance theorist, this seems much more like a variety show, rather than episodic theatre. Even episodic theatre usually has a through line and a narrative, which is contrary to what Lancashire believes.
Until the 17th century, it is unclear who “authored” the speeches and pageants for the Show. After the turn of the century, the records indicate that three major London-born dramatists (who were all members of livery companies) were working on the scripts: Anthony Munday, Thomas Dekker and Thomas Middleton. In the 1630s, there was a shift and Thomas Heywood wrote seven of the scripts, even though he was not London born and was not a member of a livery company. As Lancashire explains, “Regardless of company membership or otherwise, the dramatists to whom the Show commissions were regularly awarded all wrote for a variety of companies. The companies (at least by the seventeenth century) entertained bids for Show production from interested parties; and Munday, a Draper, wrote Shows for all of the Drapers, Fishmongers, Goldsmiths, Ironmongers, Mercers, and Merchant Taylors.” (Lancashire Street 331) Dekker and Heywood also wrote for various different companies. The writer would develop a theme for the Show and then would write the various parts, including the speeches and pageants, and would then work with a designer to have the necessary sets and props built. Lancashire explains that “Each Show simultaneously honoured the incoming mayor and his company, entertained the London public which lined the processional route (including on the banks of the Thames and in boats), demonstrated the wealth and importance of the company concerned, and demonstrated as well the financial, cultural, and social strength of the city as a whole.” (Lancashire Street 331) Lancashire goes on to give detailed examples of various Show themes and the elements that make them up, including Munday’s Show for the inauguration of Goldsmith mayor James Pemberton in 1611. She believes that the 1611 Show is significant “not only for what it tells us about the ways in which an episodic, thematically ordered processional theatrical display may be coherently structured, but also for what it tells us about links, both physical and creative, between the professional theatre and the Shows”. (Lancashire Street 334) I maintain that although there are links between the pageants and the speeches and other elements, that this is not episodic theatre, but rather a festival of performance arts that are all centred around a singular theme. The author of the script acted more as a curator than a dramatist.
Royal Entry
Royal entries began in the 13th century to mark the first entrance of a new monarch into the city of London. Occasionally they were also performed for important figures that were not ruling monarchs of England. By the 14th century these processions included static, or stationary, pageants as well that took place along the traditional route. Royal Entry processions had very similar elements to both the Midsummer Watch and the Shows, in that they involved themes and symbolism. Lancashire explains that “The pageantic royal entry was as much a self-defined genre as was the Lord Mayor’s Show, with particular kinds of pageants recurring, sometimes in relation to particular locations, but varied to suit the specific entrant and occasion. Bridge pageantry, for example, habitually involved one or more giants as city gatekeepers, along with a choir of singing, costumed children”. (Lancashire Street 336)
Both in the Show and the Royal Entry, the special guest of the festivities took part in the procession, “elaborately robed… accompanied by a long train of dignitaries dressed with similar richness”. (Lancashire Street 337) Lancashire goes on to explain the main difference between the two, saying that “Unlike the mayoral show, however, the royal entry did not processionally accumulate its pageants, which remained fixed in their locations and therefore arguably allowed the royal entrant more contextual freedom than the Show pageants allowed to the processing mayor”. (Lancashire Street 337) This is something that I think could be argued.
The Royal Entry also took place only on land, although it seems that there may have been some water elements added in the late 15th century.
Conclusion
These three types of London street performance, as I am going to call it now, were all designed with the same intent: to demonstrate the wealth and prosperity of London and of England. To do so, they used theatrical elements, including pageants and speeches, but they were not in essence what we term today as theatre. They did, however, entertain!
WORKS CITED
Lancashire, Anne. "London Street Theater" in The Oxford Handbook of Early Modern Theatre. ed. Richard Dutton. New York: Oxford University Press, 2009.
Schechner, Richard. Performance Studies: An Introduction. New York: Routledge, 2002.