Red Lion (theatre)

Infobox Theatre
name = The Red Lion Theatre


caption =
address = Whitechapel High Street
city = London Borough of Tower Hamlets
country =
designation =
latitude = 51.519444
longitude = -0.061111
architect = William Sylvester and John Reynolds (carpenters)
owner = John Brayne
capacity = standing yard with galleries
type = Elizabethan playhouse
opened =
yearsactive = 1567 - 1568
rebuilt =
closed =
othernames =
production =
currentuse =
website =

The Red Lion was an Elizabethan playhouse located in Mile End (part of the modern Borough of Tower Hamlets), just outside the City of London. Built in 1567, by John Brayne, formerly a grocer, this theatre was a short lived attempt to provide a purpose built playhouse for the many Tudor touring theatrical companies.

The Red Lion had been a farm, but a single gallery multi-sided theatre (constructed by John Williams), with a fixed stage convert|40|ft|m|1 by convert|30|ft|m|1, standing convert|5|ft|m|1 above the audience, was built by John Reynolds, in the garden of the farmhouse. The stage was equipped with trapdoors, and an attached convert|30|ft|m|1 turret, or fly tower - for aerial stunts and to advertise its presence [ [https://dspace.lboro.ac.uk:8443/dspace/bitstream/2134/1295/1/Egan2005e.pdf Egan, Gabriel. 2005e. "Platonism and Bathos in Shakespeare and Other Early Modern Drama." Refiguring Mimesis: Representation in Early Modern Literature. Edited by Jonathan Holmes and Adrian Streete. Hatfield. University of Hertfordshire Press. pp. 59-78] ] [http://billdocuments.crossrail.co.uk/files/Home/Home3/04.STRs/STR02_Archaeology/Part%202%20Central%20Route%20Section/03_Appendix%203%20Red%20Lion%20Theatre,%20Whitechapel,%20Documentary%20Researc/0004_R_%20RedLionTheatre.pdf "Red Lion Theatre, Whitechapel" Christopher Phillpotts (CrossRail Documentary Report, prepare by MoLAS] accessed 17 Nov 2007] . The construction cost £20, and while it appears to have been a commercial success, the Red Lion offered little that the prior tradition of playing in inns had not offered, and it was too far from its audiences to be attractive (at the time, the area was open farmland) for visiting in the winter.

The only play known to have been presented here was "The Story of Sampson", after some corrections had been made to the structure and there is little documentary evidence that the theatre survived beyond the summer season of 1567.

The exact location of the theatre remains unknown, with commentators identifying the eastern edge of Whitechapel, where it meets the western edge of Stepney as the most likely location [Chambers, E K,, "The Elizabethan Stage" (1923)] . This is the junction of Whitchapel High Street with Cambridge Heath Road, where there are proposed works for London's Crossrail project. A survey has been prepared that argues for a position on the southern side of Whitechapel High Street, closer to the site of the 18th Century London Hospital and opposite the contemporary Boar's Head Inn. With The George, a further playhouse convert|300|m|yd|0 to the east.

Little is known of the Red Lion, principally, from lawsuits between Brayne and his carpenters, and another with Edward Stowers, a blacksmith of Averstone, Essex (the modern Alphamstone). Brayne was married to Stowers sister Margaret. The suit concerned six acres of land straddling the Essex-Suffolk border, and alleged that Brayne raised a mortgage on the land, by trickery, in order to build the Red Lion. Separate actions were brought against the carpenters. In July 1567, William Sylvester, the constructor of the galleries for the spectators, was brought before the Court of the Carpenters' Company and resulted in arbitration [GL MS 4329/1, printed at Marsh (1915), pp95-6, and Chambers (1923), ii 379-80] . The second was against John Reynolds in the Court of King's Bench in January 1569, and the outcome is not known [KB27/1229 m30, printed and translated at Loengard 1983,306-310] .

The venture was soon replaced by a more successful collaboration between Brayne and another brother-in-law, the actor-manager James Burbage at Shoreditch, known as The Theatre. The Red Lion was a "receiving house" for touring companies, whereas "The Theatre" accepted long term engagements, essentially in "repertory", with companies being based there. The former was a continuation of the tradition of touring groups, performing at inns and grand houses, the later a radically new form of theatrical engagement.

References & Reading

*Chambers, E K,, "The Elizabethan Stage" (1923)
*Janet S. Loengard "An Elizabethan Lawsuit: John Brayne, his Carpenter, and the Building of the Red Lion Theatre" in "Shakespeare Quarterly, Vol. 34, No. 3" (Autumn, 1983), pp. 298-310
*William Ingram, "The Business of Playing: The Beginnings of the Adult Professional Theatre in Elizabethan London", Cornell, 1992. pp. 92-113
*E.A.J. Honigmann and Susan Brock, eds., "Playhouse Wills 1558-1642", Manchester, 1993. pp. 45
*Mary Edmond, "Yeomen, Citizens, Gentlemen, and Players: The Burbages and Their Connections', in Elizabethan Theater: Essays in Honour of S. Schoenbaum", Delaware, 1996, pp. 30-49.
* [http://www.fathom.com/course/28701903/sessions.html An Introduction to Shakespeare's Life and Times]