The Great Events by Famous Historians [Volumes 1-14]

KARL MANTZIUS

A History of the Theatre, the scholarly work of Mantzius, has had no time to become a classic—published 1904—but certainly the author has delved into his subject with a minuteness and presented it with a lively interest which fully justify the selection of his work for presentation here.

The theatre has become so prominent an institution among us that its origin must be of interest to all; and the building of the first theatre is inextricably interwoven with the larger and vaguer story of the rise of the modern drama itself. The dramatic arts of Greece and Rome had never been wholly forgotten. Their traditions survived in Italy in the crude pantomime performances of the common people. Practically, however, the Middle Ages invented a new dramatic art of their own, developed from the gorgeous religious pantomime of the church services. The theatre was born of the cathedral; the stage, of the altar.

The plays, at first purely religious, rapidly developed a comic side, which by degrees became their central theme. The moral purpose of the performance was forgotten; and the Church disowned its evil changeling. To none of these early plays can the term "drama" be accurately applied; for each and all of them lack plot. They are merely a series of disconnected scenes, pictures having small connection and less development. The idea of pursuing a single, slowly developing story to its climax and conclusion dawns upon the modern stage only with the English Elizabethan drama.

Despite our imperfect knowledge of the plays and players of that time, one feels almost justified in saying that the modern drama was created about 1580 by Christopher Marlowe and was raised to the highest point of its development about 1600 by William Shakespeare.

At the date of Shakespeare's birth, 1564, no permanent theatre as yet existed in England. But there had long existed a class of professional actors, descended partly from the mystery and the miracle-playing artisans of the Middle Ages, partly from the strolling players, equilibrists, jugglers, and jesters. Professional Italian actors, players of the commedia dell' arte, who in the sixteenth century spread their gay and varied art all over Europe, also supplied English players with that touch of professional technique in which their somewhat vacillating and half-amateurish arts were still wanting.

While, however, as far as France is concerned, the Italian influence must strike everybody who studies the stage history of the country, the evidence of a fertilization of English scenic art by the commedia dell' arte is scanty. Yet I think it is sufficient to deserve more attention than has hitherto been bestowed upon it.

In any case there is sufficient evidence to prove that Italian professional actors penetrated into England and exercised their art there.

In January, 1577, an Italian comedian came to London with his company. The English called him Drousiano, but his real name was Drousiano Martinelli, the same who, with his brother Tristano, visited the court of Philip II, and there is no reason to suppose that he was either the first or the last of his countrymen who tried to carry off English gold from merry London. The typical Italian masks are quite well known to the authors of that period. Thus Thomas Heywood mentions all these doctors, zanies, pantaloons, and harlequins, in which the French, and still more the Italians, distinguished themselves. In Kyd's Spanish Tragedy, and in Ben Jonson's The Case is Altered, mention is made of the Italian improvised comedy, and a few of the well-known types of character in the dramatic literature of the time bear distinct traces of having been influenced by Italian masks, e.g., Ralph Roister Doister in Udall's comedy of that name; as well as the splendid Captain Bobadill and his no less amusing companion, Captain Tucca, in Ben Jonson's Every Man in his Humour and The Poetaster, all of which are reproductions of the typical capitano.