Starling had been rightabout that. Perhaps she was right about other things as well.
What I needed was a place in London where I might be free from detection and still earn a living.
A place where I could fit immediately into a set or trade and go about in company—unnoticed, perhaps even disguised.
A place where no one watching for me would ever think to look.
T HE C OMPANY
o, lad,” were Master Condell's first words to me. “You've had second thoughts about acting, have you?”
“In a way, sir. If you still want me, I am willing to bind to you.”
“You are willing.” His tone was dry. “That's all well, but I don't comprise the Lord Chamberlain's Men by myself. The rest of the Company must approve.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then take a place at the board, and we'll hear you anon.”
So I seated myself at one end of the table with six other boys, most younger than I, and all more presentable. My afternoon had been spent in outfitting myself by any means at hand to one who had nochange of clothes, nor tiring place to change them, and scarcely two coins to rub together. I did manage to wash my shirt in a rain barrel behind the cathedral, and scrubbed most of the blood from it. With my next-to-last farthing I bought a strip of linen and tied it to cover the cut on my neck, hoping to create an impression of uprightness. In truth, I probably resembled an undersized street brawler, but no one at the table paid me much heed. The men at one end were deep in discussion about a trial, trade, and the city of Venice, carried on a tide of names all ending in “o.” The boys were engrossed in study—each held a piece of paper and scanned the words on it intently, with a fluttering of lips that told me they were memorizing the words thereon. No sooner had I understood this than Master Condell passed a scrap of paper down to me: “Con these words as best you can. You'll soon be asked to speak them without reference to the paper.”
This was all the instruction I received. I looked down at twenty-odd lines of verse, and panic struck, hard as a blow to the side. I had not seen an entire play in my life, and my only notion of acting was pieced together from my memories of inn-yard performers and our village rector's dramatic reading from Scripture. The scheme I had determined in the clear, pearly light of St. Paul's appeared as insubstantial as a dream in the smoke and noise of the Mermaid Tavern. The speech began thus:
The quality of mercy is not strained;
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath. It is twice blest;
It blesseth him that gives, and him that takes.
'Tis mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes
The thron'd monarch better than his crown …
And so on for another sixteen lines in praise of mercy, the glory of kings and gift of God. I reckoned that these were the words of a play; the speech appeared to take place in a court of law and was addressed in part to a nameless Jew. But who was speaking, and to what end, and upon what occasion, I knew not. To make matters worse, scarcely five minutes after I had begun my study, one of the boys at the table was called upon to recite for the Company. My turn could not be far away.
For the first two soundings my mind was cruelly divided between the hopeful young actors and these words I must somehow drive into memory like a peg. But by the third I had gathered from their example some notion how to stand and hold my head, along with a conviction that there would be no harm in seeing this thing through. My memory, when not distracted, soaks up words as the plowed fields take rain. Therefore I shut myself in by a huge effort of will and made a clean, straight furrow in my mind: “The attribute to awe and majesty, wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings …”
Then I was called, and the next moment stood before the Lord Chamberlain's Men. Their stares were neither soft nor hard, only the intent study of workmen who wish to see their work
What I needed was a place in London where I might be free from detection and still earn a living.
A place where I could fit immediately into a set or trade and go about in company—unnoticed, perhaps even disguised.
A place where no one watching for me would ever think to look.
T HE C OMPANY
o, lad,” were Master Condell's first words to me. “You've had second thoughts about acting, have you?”
“In a way, sir. If you still want me, I am willing to bind to you.”
“You are willing.” His tone was dry. “That's all well, but I don't comprise the Lord Chamberlain's Men by myself. The rest of the Company must approve.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then take a place at the board, and we'll hear you anon.”
So I seated myself at one end of the table with six other boys, most younger than I, and all more presentable. My afternoon had been spent in outfitting myself by any means at hand to one who had nochange of clothes, nor tiring place to change them, and scarcely two coins to rub together. I did manage to wash my shirt in a rain barrel behind the cathedral, and scrubbed most of the blood from it. With my next-to-last farthing I bought a strip of linen and tied it to cover the cut on my neck, hoping to create an impression of uprightness. In truth, I probably resembled an undersized street brawler, but no one at the table paid me much heed. The men at one end were deep in discussion about a trial, trade, and the city of Venice, carried on a tide of names all ending in “o.” The boys were engrossed in study—each held a piece of paper and scanned the words on it intently, with a fluttering of lips that told me they were memorizing the words thereon. No sooner had I understood this than Master Condell passed a scrap of paper down to me: “Con these words as best you can. You'll soon be asked to speak them without reference to the paper.”
This was all the instruction I received. I looked down at twenty-odd lines of verse, and panic struck, hard as a blow to the side. I had not seen an entire play in my life, and my only notion of acting was pieced together from my memories of inn-yard performers and our village rector's dramatic reading from Scripture. The scheme I had determined in the clear, pearly light of St. Paul's appeared as insubstantial as a dream in the smoke and noise of the Mermaid Tavern. The speech began thus:
The quality of mercy is not strained;
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath. It is twice blest;
It blesseth him that gives, and him that takes.
'Tis mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes
The thron'd monarch better than his crown …
And so on for another sixteen lines in praise of mercy, the glory of kings and gift of God. I reckoned that these were the words of a play; the speech appeared to take place in a court of law and was addressed in part to a nameless Jew. But who was speaking, and to what end, and upon what occasion, I knew not. To make matters worse, scarcely five minutes after I had begun my study, one of the boys at the table was called upon to recite for the Company. My turn could not be far away.
For the first two soundings my mind was cruelly divided between the hopeful young actors and these words I must somehow drive into memory like a peg. But by the third I had gathered from their example some notion how to stand and hold my head, along with a conviction that there would be no harm in seeing this thing through. My memory, when not distracted, soaks up words as the plowed fields take rain. Therefore I shut myself in by a huge effort of will and made a clean, straight furrow in my mind: “The attribute to awe and majesty, wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings …”
Then I was called, and the next moment stood before the Lord Chamberlain's Men. Their stares were neither soft nor hard, only the intent study of workmen who wish to see their work
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