Beeston's Boys

Beeston's Boys was the popular and colloquial name of The King and Queen's Young Company, a troupe of boy actors of the Caroline period, active mainly in the years 1637–1642.

Origin

The troupe was formed in early 1637, under a royal warrant, by the theatre manager and impressario Christopher Beeston, during a time of disorder and reorganization in the theatre profession; the London playhouses had been closed since the summer of 1636 because of bubonic plague. The creation of a company of boy actors was a return to a practice of the early 17th century, the era of companies like the Children of Paul's and the Children of the Chapel. Those companies, while controversial in their time, had been effective at developing and educating young talent, to the eventual benefit of the adult companies and the theatrical profession as a whole. Beeston's formation of the Young Company was an attempt to recover that training function — as well as to provide effective drama while paying relatively less in actors' salaries.

(A similar attempt to form a boy's company had been made eight years previously, in 1629, by Richard Gunnell, who built the Salisbury Court Theatre. But it was not a success, because of a long theatre closure due to plague.) [Gurr, "Shakespearean Stage", pp. 63-4.]

The King and Queen's Young Company was onstage in early 1637, and was a hit; they and their reputation quickly entered public consciousness under their popular nickname. Yet the theatrical profession, in a time of plague and looming revolution, remained challenging; when Christopher Beeston died in 1638, his control of acting troupes and theatres (the Cockpit and the Red Bull) passed to his son and successor William Beeston, who was notably less successful than his father. (This period of crisis would likely have been difficult to navigate, even for a very resourceful individual.)

Personnel

It should be noted, though, that Beeston's boys were older than the pre-pubescent actors of the previous generation; they tended to be adolescents and young men in their 20s. Some veterans from Queen Henrietta's Men, the previous occupants of Beeston's Cockpit Theatre, joined the new group: Ezekiel Fenn, a boy player experienced in female roles; Theophilus Bird; Robert Axell; John Page; and George Stutfield, who apparently moved from performance to management. [Stevenson, p. 150.] In 1638, Nicholas Burt came from the King's Men, and stayed with Beeston's Boys until the theatres closed in 1642.

A roster of the troupe from 1639 also lists Robert Cox, Edward Davenport, Edward Gibbes, John Lacy, Samuel Mannery, Michael Mohun, Robert Shatterell, William Trigg, and John Wright. [Gurr, "Shakespearian Playing Companies", p. 434.] Both Mannery and Wright had played female roles in "Holland's Leaguer" in 1631, with Prince Charles's Men. Edward Gibbes had been with the King's Revels Men, and was an accomplished fencer.

Controversy

In 1640 Beeston's Boys acted a play that offended King Charles I personally, by referring to his failure to suppress the Scottish Presbyterians during his recent expedition to the north. (Though the identity of the play it not known with certainty, Richard Brome's "The Court Beggar" is perhaps the best candidate. The offending passages did not survive into the printed text.)

William Beeston was sent to the Marshalsea prison on May 4, 1640; Sir Henry Herbert, the Master of the Revels, gave control of the theatres and their associated actors' companies to Sir William Davenant, playwright, manager, and reputed bastard son of Shakespeare. Davenant, however, was largely occupied by the year's pressing political concerns, and gave little attention to the theatre; Beeston was able to regain control of the family enterprise in the latter part of 1641.

Also in 1640, Beeston's Boys were combined with adult actors to form the King and Queen's Company.

Repertory

Thanks to the decades-long career of their founder, the Beeston's Boys had a rich repertory of stage plays to draw upon, including works by the best playwrights of the Caroline age. In their short heyday, the boys acted:
*"All's Lost by Lust" (William Rowley)
*"Argalus and Parthenia" (Henry Glapthorne)
*"The Bloody Banquet" ("T. D.")
*"The Bondman" (Philip Massinger)
*"The Bride" (Thomas Nabbes)
*"The Changeling" (Middleton/Rowley)
*"The Cid Part 1" (Joseph Rutter)
*"The City Nightcap" (Robert Davenport)
*"The Coronation" (James Shirley)
*"The Court Beggar" (Richard Brome)
*"The Cunning Lovers" (Alexander Brome?)
*"The Example" (Shirley)
*"A Fair Quarrel" (Middleton/Rowley)
*"The Grateful Servant" (Shirley)
*"The Great Duke of Florence" (Massinger)
*"A Jovial Crew" (Brome)
*"King John and Matilda" (Davenport)
*"The Maid of Honour" (Massinger)
*"The Maid's Revenge" (Shirley)
*"A New Way to Pay Old Debts" (Massinger)
*"The Rape of Lucrece" (Thomas Heywood)
*"The Renegado" (Massinger)
*"'Tis Pity She's a Whore" (John Ford)
*"The Wedding" (Shirley)
*"Wit in a Constable" (Glapthorne)
*"The Young Admiral" (Shirley)

Aftermath

Even after the London theatres were closed in 1642, William Beeston maintained a long-term commitment to re-establishing the Beeston's Boys company. He made a significant effort in 1650, during the Interregnum. Contrary to popular opinion, all dramatic activity in London did not cease with the 1642 closing of the theatres; there was a notable burst of activity in the late 1640s — players would perform plays for audiences, the London authorities would suppress them, and players would try again, whenever they thought they could get away with it. In the midst of this activity, William Beeston paid for repairs to the Cockpit Theatre and attempted to gather together a group of "apprentices and covenant servants" to train them for the stage. [Michael Shapiro, "The Introduction of Actresses in England: Delay or Defensiveness?," in Comensoli and Russell, p. 184.] The effort, unfortunately, came to nothing in a new and harsher round of suppression by local authorities.

Beeston had better luck at the start of the Restoration, when he was able to recruit a new troupe of Beeston's Boys for a time. They played at the Cockpit and the Salisbury Court Theatre in the first few years of the Restoration era.

Notes

References

* Bentley, G. E. "The Jacobean and Caroline Stage." 7 Volumes, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1941-68.
* Comensoli, Viviana, and Anne Russell, eds. "Enacting Gender on the English Renaissance Stage." Champaigne, IL, University of Illinois Press, 1998
* Gurr, Andrew. "The Shakespearian Plaging Companies", Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1996.
* Gurr, Andrew. "The Shakespearean Stage, 1574–1642." Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1992.
* Stevenson, Allan H. "James Shirley and the Actors of the First Irish Theatre," "Modern Philology", Vol. 40 No. 2 (November 1942), pp. 147-60.