How A Gallant Should Behave Himself In A Play-House

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Title:     How A Gallant Should Behave Himself In A Play-House
Author: Thomas Dekker [More Titles by Dekker]

The theater is your Poets Royal Exchange, upon which their Muses, (yt are now turnd to Merchants,) meeting, barter away that light commodity of words for a lighter ware then words, Plaudites, and the breath of the great Beast; which (like the threatnings of two Cowards) vanish all into air. Plaiers and their Factors, who put away the stuffe, and make the best of it they possibly can (as indeed tis their parts so to doe) your Gallant, your Courtier, and your Capten had wont to be the soundest paymaisters; and I thinke are still the surest chapmen: and these, by meanes that their heades are well stockt, deale upon this comical freight by the grosse: when your Groundling, and gallery-Commoner buyes his sport by the penny, and, like a Hagler, is glad to utter it againe by retailing.

Sithence then the place is so free in entertainment, allowing a stoole as well to the Farmers sonne as to your Templer: that your Stinkard has the selfe-same libertie to be there in his Tobacco-Fumes, which your sweet Courtier hath: and that your Car-man and Tinker claime as strong a voice in their suffrage, and sit to give judgment on the plaies life and death, as well as the prowdest Momus among the tribe[s] of Critick: It is fit that hee, whom the most tailors bils do make roome for, when he comes, should not be basely (like a vyoll) casd up in a corner.

Whether therefore the gatherers of the publique or private Play-house stand to receive the afternoones rent, let our Gallant (having paid it) presently advance himselfe up to the Throne of the Stage. I meane not into the Lords roome (which is now but the Stages Suburbs): No, those boxes, by the iniquity of custome, conspiracy of waiting-women and Gentlemen-Ushers, that there sweat together, and the covetousnes of Sharers, are contemptibly thrust into the reare, and much new Satten is there dambd, by being smothred to death in darknesse. But on the very Rushes where the Comedy is to daunce, yea, and under the state of Cambises himselfe must our fethered Estridge, like a piece of Ordnance, be planted valiantly (because impudently) beating downe the mewes and hisses of the opposed rascality.

For do but cast up a reckoning, what large cummings-in are pursd up by sitting on the Stage. First a conspicuous Eminence is gotten; by which meanes, the best and most essenciall parts of a Gallant (good cloathes, a proportionable legge, white hand, the Persian lock, and a tollerable beard) are perfectly revealed.

By sitting on the stage, you have a signd patent to engrosse the whole commodity of Censure; may lawfully presume to be a Girder; and stand at the helme to steere the passage of scaenes; yet / no man shall once offer to hinder you from obtaining the title of an insolent, overweening Coxcombe.

By sitting on the stage, you may (without travelling for it) at the very next doore aske whose play it is: and, by that Quest of Inquiry, the law warrants you to avoid much mistaking: if you know not ye author, you may raile against him: and peradventure so behave your selfe, that you may enforce the Author to know you.

By sitting on the stage, if you be a Knight, you may happily get you a Mistress: if a mere Fleet-street Gentleman, a wife: but assure yourselfe, by continuall residence, you are the first and principall man in election to begin the number of We three.

By spreading your body on the stage, and by being a Justice in examining of plaies, you shall put your selfe into such true scaenical authority, that some Poet shall not dare to present his Muse rudely upon your eyes, without having first unmaskt her at a taverne, when you most knightly shal, for his paines, pay for both their suppers.

By sitting on the stage, you may (with small cost) purchase the deere acquaintance of the boys: have a good stoole for sixpence: at any time know what particular part any of the infants present: get your match lighted, examine the play-suits lace, and perhaps win wagers upon laying 'tis copper, &c. And to conclude, whether you be a foole or a Justice of peace, or a Capten, a Lord-Mayors sonne, or a dawcocke, a knave, or an under-Sherife; of what stamp soever you be, currant, or counterfet, the Stage, like time, will bring you to most perfect light and lay you open: neither are you to be hunted from thence, though the Scarecrows in the yard hoot at you, hisse at you, spit at you, yea, throw durt even in your teeth: 'tis most Gentlemanlike patience to endure all this, and to laugh at the silly Animals: but if the Rabble, with a full throat, crie, away with the foole, you were worse then a madman to tarry by it: for the Gentleman, and the foole should never sit on the Stage together.

Mary, let this observation go hand in hand with the rest: or rather, like a country-serving-man, some five yards before them. Present / not your selfe on the Stage (especially at a new play) untill the quaking prologue hath (by rubbing) got culor into his cheekes, and is ready to give the trumpets their Cue, that hees upon point to enter: for then it is time, as though you were one of the properties, or that you dropt out of ye Hangings, to creepe from behind the Arras, with your Tripos or three-footed stoole in one hand, and a teston mounted betweene a forefinger and a thumbe in the other: for if you should bestow your person upon the vulgar, when the belly of the house is but halfe full, your apparell is quite eaten up, the fashion lost, and the proportion of your body in more danger to be devoured then if it were served up in the Counter amongst the Powltry: avoid that as you would the Bastome. It shall crowne you with rich commendation, to laugh alowd in the middest of the most serious and saddest scene of the terriblest Tragedy: and to let that clapper (your tongue) be tost so high, that all the house may ring of it: your Lords use it; your Knights are Apes to the Lords, and do so too: your Inne-a-court-man is Zany to the Knights, and (mary very scurvily) comes likewise limping after it: bee thou a beagle to them all, and never lin snuffing, till you have scented them: for by talking and laughing (like a Plough-man in a Morris) you heap Pelion upon Ossa, glory upon glory: As first, all the eyes in the galleries will leave walking after the Players, and onely follow you: the simplest dolt in the house snatches up your name, and when he meetes you in the streetes, or that you fall into his hands in the middle of a Watch, his word shall be taken for you: heele cry Hees such a gallant, and you passe. Secondly, you publish your temperance to the world, in that you seeme not to resort thither to taste vaine pleasures with a hungrie appetite: but onely as a Gentleman to spend a foolish houre or two, because you can doe nothing else: Thirdly, you mightily disrelish the Audience, and disgrace the Author: marry, you take up (though it be at the worst hand) a strong opinion of your owne judgement, and inforce the Poet to take pity of your weakenesse, and, by some dedicated sonnet, to bring you into a better paradice, onely to stop your mouth.

If you can (either for love or money) provide your selfe a lodging by the water-side: for, above the convenience it brings to / shun Shoulder-clapping, and to ship away your Cockatrice betimes in the morning, it addes a kind of-state unto you, to be carried from thence to the staires of your Play-house: hate a Sculler (remember that) worse then to be acquainted with one o' th' Scullery. No, your Oares are your onely Sea-crabs, boord them, and take heed you never go twice together with one paire: often shifting is a great credit to Gentlemen; and that dividing of your fare wil make the poore watersnaks be ready to pul you in peeces to enjoy your custome: No matter whether upon landing, you have money or no: you may swim in twentie of their boates over the river upon Ticket: marry, when silver comes in, remember to pay treble their fare, and it will make your Flounder-catchers to send more thankes after you, when you doe not draw, then when you doe; for they know, It will be their owne another daie.

Before the Play begins, fall to cardes: you may win or loose (as Fencers doe in a prize) and beate one another by confederacie, yet share the money when you meete at supper: notwithstanding, to gul the Raggamuffins that stand aloofe gaping at you, throw the cards (having first torne foure or five of them) round about the Stage, just upon the third sound, as though you had lost: it skils not if the foure knaves ly on their backs, and outface the Audience; theres none such fooles as dare take exceptions at them, because, ere the play go off, better knaves than they will fall into the company.

Now sir, if the writer be a fellow that hath either epigrammed you, or hath had a flirt at your mistris, or hath brought either your feather, or your red beard, or your little legs &c. on the stage, you shall disgrace him worse then by tossing him in a blancket, or giving him the bastinado in a Taverne, if, in the middle of his play, (bee it Pastoral or Comedy, Morall or Tragedic) you rise with a screwd and discontented face from your stoole to be gone: no matter whether the Scenes be good or no; the better they are the worse do you distast them: and, beeing on your feet, sneake not away like a coward, but salute all your gentle acquaintance, that are spred either on the rushes, or on stooles about you, and draw what troope you can from the stage after you: the Mimicks are beholden to you, for allowing them elbow roome: their Poet cries, perhaps, a pox go with you, but care not for that, theres no musick without frets.

Mary, if either the company, or indisposition of the weather binde you to sit it out, my counsell is then that you turne plain Ape, take up a rush, and tickle the earnest eares of your fellow gallants, to make other fooles fall a laughing: mewe at passionate speeches, blare at merrie, finde fault with the musicke, whew at the childrens Action, whistle at the songs: and above all, curse the sharers, that whereas the same day you had bestowed forty shillings on an embrodered Felt and Feather, (Scotch-fashion) for your mistres in the Court, within two houres after, you encounter with the very same block on the stage, when the haberdasher swore to you the impression was extant but that morning.

To conclude, hoard up the finest play-scraps you can get, upon which your leane wit may most favourly feede, for want of other stuffe, when the Arcadian and Euphuized gentlewomen have their tongues sharpened to set upon you: that qualitie (next to your shuttlecocke) is the onely furniture to a Courtier thats but a new beginner, and is but in his A B C of complement. The next places that are filled, after the Play-houses bee emptied, are (or ought to be) Tavernes: into a Taverne then let us next march, where the braines of one Hogshead must be beaten out to make up another.

[The end]
Thomas Dekker's essay: How A Gallant Should Behave Himself In A Play-House

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