Queen Anne's Men

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Queen Anne's Men, or the Queen's Men, was a Jacobean theatrical company.

The troupe was formed on the accession of James I in 1603, and named after its patron, James's wife Anne of Denmark. It was a combination of two previously-existing companies, Oxford's Men and Worcester's Men. Among the company's most important members were Christopher Beeston, its manager, and Thomas Heywood, the actor-dramatist who wrote many of its plays, including The Rape of Lucrece (printed 1608) and The Golden Age (printed 1611). William Kempe finished his career with this company, though he died ca. 1607–8.

In 1604, ten members of the new-formed company were granted the sum of four and a half pounds each, to buy red cloth for their livery for the March 15 coronation procession. The ten were Beeston, Heywood, Richard Perkins, Thomas Greene, John Duke, James Holt, Robert Beeston, Robert Lee, Robert Pallant, and Thomas Swinerton. The same ten men are listed in a license granted to the company in 1609 (though Pallant is misnamed "Richard").

Richard Perkins would develop into the company's leading actor, and acquire a reputation as a major tragedian. John Duke had come to Worcester's from the Lord Chamberlain's Men, along with Christopher Beeston, in 1602. Little is known of Robert Beeston, though the common name suggests he was a relative of Christopher. (Pairs of relatives were not uncommon in acting troupes in this era: the brothers John and Laurence Dutton in Oxford's Men and Queen Elizabeth's Men in the 1580s; Anthony and Humphrey Jeffes in the Admiral's/Prince Henry's Men in the early 17th century. A Robert Pallant, perhaps the son of the man in Queen Anne's, would play female roles for the King's Men ca. 1620.)

Thomas Greene was the company's major comedian; he was reputed to have once portrayed a baboon onstage. Greene was so closely identified with his role as Bubble in a 1611 play that the play became indelibly renamed Greene's Tu Quoque.

Queen Anne's Men originally performed at the Curtain playhouse—they acted The Travels of the Three English Brothers, by William Rowley, John Day, and George Wilkins, there in 1607; but they also acted the same play at the Red Bull Theatre in Clerkenwell that same year, becoming the first company to play there. For modern readers, the company's best-known play is John Webster's tragedy The White Devil, which received a disastrous premiere in 1612.

Despite their royal patronage, Queen Anne's Men seemed to have performed only sporadically at Court in their first decade—something less than once a year on average. On January 12 and 13, 1612, the company joined with the King's Men for Court performances of two Queen's company's plays, The Silver Age and The Rape of Lucrece. Queen Anne's Men played twice more at Court in the winter of 1613–14, three times in the following winter, and four times in 1615–16. They toured widely every summer throughout this period.

In 1617 they moved to the Cockpit Theatre, in the increasingly fashionable Drury Lane. The final move apparently engendered some criticism and indignation among their Clerkenwell followers, as the Cockpit was set on fire during a Shrove Tuesday riot in 1617 and had to be rebuilt.

The company disbanded after the death of Queen Anne in 1619.

[edit] References

• Chambers, E. K. The Elizabethn Stage. 4 Volumes, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1923.
• Halliday, F. E. A Shakespeare Companion 1564–1964. Baltimore, Penguin, 1964.