The Swan (theatre)

thumb|alt=Swan Exterior.|The exterior of the Swan Theatre: a redrawing of a detail from a [[panorama of London by Claes Van Visscher]]

thumb|A 1595 sketch of a performance in progress on the [[thrust stage of the Swan]]

thumb|The Swan is labelled in the bottom centre of this London street map

thumb|The Manor of Paris Gardens, Bankside, showing the location of The Swan. [[:File:The Manor of Paris Gardens and The Swan.png|Enlarge]]

The Swan was a theatre in Southwark, London, England, built in 1595 on top of a previously standing structure, It was the fifth in the series of large public playhouses of London, after James Burbage's The Theatre (1576) and Curtain (1577), the Newington Butts Theatre (between 1575 and 1577) and Philip Henslowe's Rose (1587–88).

The Swan Theatre was located in the manor of Paris Gardens, on the west end of the Bankside district of Southwark, across the Thames River from the City of London. It was at the northeast corner of the Paris Garden estate nearest to London Bridge that Francis Langley had purchased in May 1589 at a distance of four hundred and twenty-six feet from the river's edge. Playgoers could arrive also by water landing at the Paris Garden Stairs or the Falcon Stairs, both short walking distances from the theatre.

Architecture

It was built of flint concrete, and its wooden supporting columns were so cleverly painted that "they would deceive the most acute observer into thinking that they were marble", giving the Swan a "Roman" appearance. When Henslowe built the new Hope Theatre in 1613, he had his carpenter copy the Swan, rather than his own original theatre, the Rose, which must have appeared dated and out of style in comparison.

History

Construction

The structure originally belonged to the Monastery of Bermondsey. After the Dissolution of the Monasteries, it became royal property and passed through several hands before being sold to Francis Langley for £850. The Mayor of London opposed Langley's permit to open a theatre, but his protests held no ground as the property had formerly belonged to the crown and the Mayor had no jurisdiction.

Langley had the theatre built almost certainly in 1595–96. Johannes De Witt, a Dutchman who visited London around 1596, left a description of the Swan in a manuscript titled Observationes Londiniensis, now lost. Translated from the Latin, his description identifies the Swan as the "finest and biggest of the London amphitheatres", with a capacity for 3000 spectators. This conflicts with a reconstruction done in the 1990s, based on a copy of de Witt's sketches, which only accounted for 1000 spectators and additional space for 500 groundlings in the pit. The copies of his sketches, created by Aernout van Buchel, are the only sketches of an Elizabethan playhouse known to exist.

Pembroke's Men

In 1597, the Swan housed the acting company Pembroke's Men, with actors Richard Jones, Thomas Downtown, and William Bird. They joined the Pembroke troupe after leaving their positions in Lord Admiral's Men at the rival playhouse The Rose. In the same year, Pembroke's Men staged the infamous play The Isle of Dogs, by Thomas Nashe and Ben Jonson, the content of which gave offence, most likely for its "satirical" Historical sources do not mention the Swan after that date.

References

External links

Shakespearean Playhouses, by Joseph Quincy Adams, Jr. from Project Gutenberg