A few days ago Museum of London Archaeology confirmed that they have uncovered the remains of London’s first purpose built theatre under an unprepossessing warehouse in Shoreditch.
Constructed by James Burbage in 1576 and from 1594 to 1597 it was the home of The Chamberlain’s Men. That means that Shakespeare acted there and it almost certainly saw the premiere of Romeo and Juliet.
It is extraordinarily moving to stand on the lip of a 1.3 metre hole looking down and imagining the 16th century audience jostling through an entrance in that very wall in front of you to stand on the gravel you can see to hear “Romeo, Romeo! Wherefore art thou Romeo?” for the very first time.
I chair the trustees of The Tower Theatre Company, a not for profit organisation which, over the past 77 years, has given thousands of people the chance to be involved in every aspect of putting on a show. We have the unique opportunity to build a playhouse on the site of “The Theatre”.
It is both an unbelievable privilege and a frightening responsibility. We do not aim to recreate the original, but we must be true to its spirit.
I am sure that James Burbage was a practical, get-it-done sort of man. His surviving wall uses earlier bricks as well as contemporary ones. You can almost hear him saying “I’m not paying for new bricks when I can pillage some perfectly serviceable ones from the old priory next door.”
What little we know about the actors and writers of the day suggests that they had a down to earth attitude to entertaining the public.
So we are going for a modern, imaginative but no-frills playhouse that will present the widest possible range of drama. It will be a new home for our company; a showcase for the other professional and non-professional groups in the area who have no performance space of their own; a base for schools projects and youth theatre and probably a lot else besides.
On current plans “The Theatre” remains will lie just under the side of our stage. We want to preserve them in situ and make them available for viewing.
It is romantic to think of twenty first century actors making their entrance literally on the foundations of London’s first theatre, but it is a technical challenge, which we must discuss with English Heritage.
We are confident that it can be achieved. We are over half way to raising the necessary funds and we shall shortly be launching an appeal to raise the remaining £3.3 million needed to bring London theatre back to its roots.
