HEYWOOD’S PLAYS were frequently acted on the stage of the Red Bull Theatre, of which Kirkman supplied an illustration in his collection of Drolls and Farces. This illustration has been reproduced as a frontispiece to the present volume. The theatre was one of the oldest in London; originally it was, as the name indicates, an inn yard, converted into a regular theatre during Elizabeth’s reign, and, like several contemporary playhouses, often used for other amusements; it was never considered a high-class theatre, but it was very popular. Its site was on a plot of ground, between the upper end of St. John Street and Clerkenwell Green, during the eighteenth century still called Red Bull Yard, and named Woodbridge Street at the beginning of the present century. In 1819 a writer who carefully investigated the matter could find no trace of the theatre; though he indicated a field of search by suggesting that its exact position might perhaps be set forth in existing leases.
Various companies played at the Red Bull at different times. In 1623 the Queen’s company (under the jurisdiction of the “now Earl of Leicester, then Lord Chamberlain of the Household of the said late Queen Anne of Denmark”) gave place to the Prince’s, so called after Prince Charles. In 1629, women actors (who also appeared at other theatres) played at the Red Bull. In 1639 the Red Bull Company got into trouble. A complaint was made to the king “that the stage-players of the Red Bull have lately, for many days together, acted a scandalous and libellous play, wherein they have audaciously reproached, and in a libellous manner traduced and personated, not only some of the Aldermen of the City of London and other persons of quality, but also scandalised and defamed the whole profession of Proctors belonging to the Court of Civil Law, and reflected upon the Government.” For this they received “exemplary punishment.” In the following year the company which had been playing at the Fortune Theatre changed to the Red Bull.
This was the only theatre that lived on until Restoration times, though not without many difficulties. Such items of information as the following (1655) are not uncommon:—“At the playhouse this week many were put to the rout by the soldiers.” “The actors, too,” Kirkman writes, “were commonly not only stripped, but many times imprisoned, till they paid such ransom as the soldiers should impose upon them.” Although the Red Bull survived the Commonwealth it succumbed soon after the Restoration. In 1660 Charles II. issued an order (not very rigorously carried out) for their suppression, as a concession to civic authorities. In 1661 Pepys wrote that “the clothes are very poor, and the actors but common fellows.” Better and more modern theatres arose, and in 1663 Davenant declared that “the Red Bull stands empty for fencers: there are no tenants in it but spiders.”