{"id":664,"date":"2020-03-05T17:26:39","date_gmt":"2020-03-05T17:26:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/archiveblog.westminster.org.uk\/?p=664"},"modified":"2021-01-21T15:30:20","modified_gmt":"2021-01-21T15:30:20","slug":"the-latin-play-1560-2010","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/archiveblog.westminster.org.uk\/?p=664","title":{"rendered":"The Latin Play, 1560-2010"},"content":{"rendered":"

Origins of the Latin Play<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Two beliefs produced and sustained the early tradition of Latin Plays at Westminster in the sixteenth century.\u00a0 First was a faith in the training such performances would offer in deportment and elocution for young gentlemen needing the tools for public life.\u00a0 Second \u2013 and it generally came second \u2013 was the conviction that such an activity was a necessary part of a classical education.\u00a0 As Latin was the universal language of knowledge, it was deemed essential for it to be mastered colloquially, making drama a tool for instilling the spoken (and living) language.\u00a0 These beliefs were by no means confined to Westminster; the tradition of a pre-Christmas play was a familiar one at many Tudor schools and at the universities, and at Trinity College, Cambridge \u2013 our sister foundation \u2013 the statutes actually stipulate that the lecturers should act comedies and tragedies each Christmas.\u00a0 Yet it was at Westminster that the tradition stuck, for Westminster that the Latin Play became a defining tradition of the institution \u2013 and the history of the Play thus merits rather more attention than it has sometimes received, just as Latin plays as a genre probably deserve a revival, after an era in which the general trend of scholarly fashion has been to focus on the Greek.<\/p>\n

As Head Master, Alexander Nowell had introduced the works of Terence into the Westminster curriculum in the 1540s, due to his belief in the merits of learning the \u2018pure Roman style\u2019, and his notebooks contain draft prefaces for the Adelphi<\/em>, the Eunuchus <\/em>and Seneca\u2019s Hippolytus<\/em>, which are likely to date from his pupils\u2019 performances.\u00a0 It was therefore as a confirmation of existing practice, rather than an innovation, that the Elizabethan statutes made explicit provision, de comoediis et ludis in natali Domini exhibendis<\/em>, for an annual play, to be performed by the Queen\u2019s Scholars in Latin.\u00a0 Nonetheless, this statute was <\/em>hugely significant \u2013 establishing the Play as a regular event, and as the preserve of the members of College.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Eighteenth century composite cast lists for the Adelphi<\/em>, Phormio<\/em>, Andria<\/em> and Eunuchus<\/em>, the core Latin Play repertoire<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Elizabeth\u2019s own interest in the Latin Play is attested by her regular attendance.\u00a0 In 1563, she gave 25 marks to the performers, and the following year, having been presented with a copy of Plautus herself, rewarded the scholars with a \u2018box of comfetts\u2019 and \u2018buttered beer for ye children, being horse\u2019 \u2013 the latter a regular provision for the time, suggestive of the early emphasis on declamation, rather than \u2018acting\u2019 as such.\u00a0 In January 1566, the Privy Council and Princess Cecilia of Sweden joined the Queen in the audience for a performance of Sapientia Salomonis<\/em>, which was clearly something of an undertaking for the boys.\u00a0 A professional painter was employed to produce the set (the city and temple of Jerusalem), costumes were hired from the office of revels, and a tailor brought in to fit them.\u00a0 One prop was beyond the school\u2019s ready acquisition, so a local woman was paid to bring \u2018her childe to the stadge and there attended vppon itt.\u2019\u00a0 This attention to detail was a regular feature \u2013 the following year, for a scene with fishermen in the Rudens<\/em>, 4d. was spent on a \u2018hadocke occupied in the plaie.\u2019<\/p>\n

These Elizabethan plays were performed in College Hall \u2013 or, when the school left London in times of plague, at Putney or Chiswick.\u00a0 It was, of course, a golden age of English drama, and Westminster boys seem to have been involved in numerous other productions both within and beyond the school.\u00a0 The Town Boys regularly performed plays in English, though these were generally produced out of term time.\u00a0 The Latin Play, however, remained the <\/em>Play at Westminster, and Treasurers\u2019 Accounts in the Abbey muniments run through to 1632 with annual mentions of the event, confirming that the statutes were obeyed.\u00a0 At that point there is a break in the record, though, and when the accounts resume the Play is missing, suggesting that the Civil War and Commonwealth, not surprisingly, put an end to the tradition for a time.<\/p>\n

Presumably Dr Busby was then responsible for reviving it after the Restoration in 1660; certainly he was a keen supporter, having been (despite his somewhat austere reputation) a keen actor in his youth who even considered the stage as a career \u2013 in fact, he appeared before Charles I himself in the Royal Slave <\/em>at Oxford.\u00a0 It is probable, though, that the revived Play was not an annual event, as records are sparse \u2013 although we are told that Barton Booth, who later did make a name for himself as a professional actor (and gave his name to Barton Street), appeared in the Andria <\/em>\u2018to great applause\u2019 in 1695.\u00a0 If so, his debut broke the rules, as he was a Town Boy throughout his time in the school, but perhaps his talent justified an exception being made.\u00a0 It is possible, in fact, that a similar exception may have been made for Ben Jonson too.\u00a0 In later generations, cast lists would include the names of Scholars who went on to achieve fame in a wide range of fields, from A.A. Milne to Kim Philby.<\/p>\n

Complete records in the Abbey muniments only date from 1704, and traditionally that has been seen as something of a second \u2018revival\u2019 for the custom \u2013 but nothing in the accounts for 1704 itself suggests anything unusual or innovative, so it seems unlikely that this was a genuine point of departure.\u00a0 Nonetheless, we can use these records to identify several key trends and traditions, running from 1704 in an almost unbroken line through to the suspension of the Play in 1939.<\/p>\n

Repertoire and Content<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

First there is the repertoire.\u00a0 In the early eighteenth century more variety was included in the cycle, but by 1750 a loose four-play rotation had been established, with the Adelphi<\/em>, Andria <\/em>and Phormio <\/em>generally joined by the Eunuchus <\/em>until 1860, when its sensitive name brought about its exclusion in favour of the Trinummus <\/em>of Plautus.\u00a0 In 1907 the Eunuchus <\/em>was finally revived under the title the Famulus<\/em>, though in 1926 it was again replaced, this time by the Rudens<\/em>, performed at Westminster for the first time in 128 years.\u00a0 It was, in other words, a limited repertoire, which would quickly have become familiar to Westminsters and guests.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>The 1935 Epilogue mocks the Nazis and offers a commentary on wider European politics<\/p>\n

But there was one evolving tradition which made every year\u2019s Play unique; there had long been a specially composed Prologue, but to this in the years after 1704 was added an Epilogue, commenting on the year\u2019s events, initially in monologue, later in dialogue involving the \u2018characters\u2019 of the Play transposed into a contemporary setting and into modern dress \u2013 a topical skit typical of later revues<\/em>.<\/p>\n

This tradition of a witty and scholarly contemporary satire in Latin at the end of the performance owed much to Robert Freind as Head Master, and allowed the Prologue to become a more serious review of the school year, and of the achievements of Old Westminsters in The World.\u00a0 As such, the collected Prologues and Epilogues of the Westminster Play offer a remarkable insight into the concerns and news stories of two centuries of school and national life, seen through contemporary eyes, and with the topics helpfully outlined for non-Classicists in the programme notes \u2013 but they were (and to the discerning reader still are) also hugely witty and entertaining.\u00a0 There were times, of course, when a more serious note intervened \u2013 in the first winter of the Crimean War, the tone became suddenly sombre at the thought of the many (ill starred) Old Westminsters, under Lord Raglan, in command at the front; and in the late 1930s the Epilogues offer a fascinating glimpse of European politics, and Westminster\u2019s attempt at a humorous take on Nazism, Fascism and Communism.\u00a0 After the Epilogue, the essential loyalties of the school would then be reiterated with the National Anthem<\/p>\n

Location of the Play<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

The setting for the Play also moved with the times.\u00a0 Early Latin Plays had been in College Hall, but by 1704 the event had moved to the (old) Scholars\u2019 Dormitory, the former monastic granary in Dean\u2019s Yard.\u00a0 There is a plan of the building, featuring stage and auditorium, in the library of All Souls\u2019 at Oxford.\u00a0 Clearly this location was accepted and beloved, for in the discussions and plans for the new Dormitory facing College Garden there was, from the start, a conviction that the new building would serve annually as a theatre too.\u00a0 The dormitory project was thus intimately linked with the Play \u2013 and in 1718, when Samuel Wesley wrote the Epilogue for the Adelphi<\/em>, he explicitly encouraged contributions for the new building.\u00a0 High wooden beams half-way along the dormitory itself were incorporated in the design, explicitly to support the seating for the auditorium.\u00a0 After a temporary theatre had been put up in 1728, as neither dormitory was in a fit state, in 1730 the new building was used for the Play for the first time.\u00a0 From that point until 1939 the layout for the Play each year changed little, and hence became increasingly old-fashioned, with separate \u2018pits\u2019 for seniors, masters and the Head Master\u2019s guests, and the Town Boys up in the Gods, with \u2018Gods Monitors\u2019 directing the applause by waving tanning poles.\u00a0 Ladies were first admitted, with their own pit, in 1793, as a compliment to Lady Mansfield, who had two sons performing that year.\u00a0 We are told, though, that Lady Strange beat her to it twenty years earlier, attending disguised as a man.<\/p>\n

The construction of the \u2018theatre\u2019 within the dormitory each year was a major undertaking, despite the structural help the building provided.\u00a0 By the late nineteenth century, when the vast space of the dormitory had been broken up with wooden partitions into cubicles or \u2018boxes\u2019 for the scholars, the process would start some six weeks before Christmas, with the removal of about half of these cubicles to allow the stage and auditorium to be built.\u00a0 The displaced scholars would be forced to sleep in the sanitorium for the duration \u2013 a clear disruption to a major part of their school year.\u00a0 Photographs of the construction process from the early twentieth century show the scale of the operation \u2013 and in its essentials this had not changed from 1730 onwards.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
A drawing of the \u2018Greek drapes\u2019 introduced by Williamson in 1839, and a cast photograph from the Phormio<\/em>, 1887, showing the costumes in use<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Scenery and Costume<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

The scenery, clearly, was less flamboyant than under Elizabeth.\u00a0 Two backdrops seem to have sufficed after 1704 \u2013 one of Covent Garden, belonging to the Abbey, and a \u2018street in Westminster\u2019 used until 1758.\u00a0 At that point a more suitable Athenian backdrop, paid for by Head Master William Markham, was painted by James Stuart.\u00a0 This survived until 1809 when a new copy was made, again funded by the then Head Master, William Carey; this version was apparently stored in the triforium of the Abbey\u2019s north transept until a fire in 1829 provoked a rethink.\u00a0 Although praised at first for its authenticity, and beloved of generations of boys, the \u2018impossible mountain with a temple perched on top of it\u2019 was scarcely believable, and in 1858 Charles Robert Cockerell, professor of architecture at the Royal Academy, designed two new backdrops, executed by Fenton \u2013 one of the bay at Salamis, the other of Athens and the Acropolis.\u00a0 One or other of these was used every year\u00a0subsequently until 1939 (except in 1926, when the Rudens <\/em>required a special set representing a temple by a sea shore) \u2013 and after the war, they were put away and forgotten.<\/p>\n

The move towards more authentic scenery was matched in costumes.\u00a0 In 1829 the Prologue had condemned \u2018sham antiquarianism\u2019, but ten years later the Head Master, Richard Williamson, introduced classical costumes (or \u2018Greek drapes\u2019 in the words of the College ledger) for the first time.\u00a0 Previously, the actors had worn a peculiar mixture of outdated but \u2018modern\u2019 dress, rather as the daily wear of one century becomes the fancy dress of the next.\u00a0 So, the plays of the 1830s saw the \u2018old\u2019 men dressed in the manner of George II\u2019s reign, the young gentlemen in court dress or frock coats, and the slaves as Georgian footmen.\u00a0 The change to authentic costumes\u00a0had another effect, of course \u2013 it threw into sharp relief the contemporary dress worn by the Captain of the Queen\u2019s Scholars in reciting the prologue, and by the actors themselves in the Epilogue.<\/p>\n

Audience<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong>Rather more constant was the audience \u2013 or its composition, at least.\u00a0 Traditionally, the Dean would attend and preside on the second night, while on the third the senior Old Westminster present would take the chair and call for the \u2018cap\u2019 which allowed old boys to contribute to the costs of the production.\u00a0 Many of them seem to have been regular (and deeply nostalgic) in their attendance.\u00a0 An 1857 note tells us that the auditorium would accommodate 340 each night, but 400 or 450 tickets were being issued each year, and Old Westminsters themselves (as well as masters and pupils) did not require one; it was thought impolitic to require them to apply, but they were increasingly encouraged to \u2018express their wish to attend\u2019 simply to help clarify the seating required and \u2018not to stop <\/em>any attending\u2026\u2019 \u2013 or so it was claimed.\u00a0 A complex system of colour coding developed by the twentieth century, with white tickets for the Gods, mauve for seniors, pink for ladies and white with a red seal for masters.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
The Times\u2019 coverage of the Rudens<\/em> (complete with new backdrop) in 1926 was typical of the press attention the event received on an annual basis<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The pressure on space was only increased by the status the Play achieved; regularly covered in the national press, it was part of the social calendar, and as Lawrence Tanner put it in the 1930s, \u2018there are few who have held high office in\u00a0<\/strong>Church and State during the last 200 years who have not at some time formed part of the audience.\u2019\u00a0 In 1927, for example, a single performance was watched by the Prime Minister, the Speaker, two former Lord Chancellors, and four high court judges.<\/p>\n

Sometimes, as when Warren Hastings attended the Play in 1796, in a rare public appearance in London after his acquittal, the audience could become a news story in its own right.\u00a0 In 1932, less sensationally, but perhaps worryingly for the cast, the audience included 30 members of the Head Masters\u2019 Conference, meeting at Westminster and attending as the Head Master\u2019s guests.<\/p>\n

Most notable were the royal visitors, following in Elizabeth I\u2019s footsteps.\u00a0 The young William, Duke of Cumberland \u2013 later the infamous Butcher of Culloden \u2013 was something of a regular visitor to the school, and treated as a mascot by the boys; he attended the Play in 1727 and 1730, when a Prologue in English was composed in his honour.\u00a0 Frederick, the \u2018grand old\u2019 Duke of York, was a regular visitor in the early years of the nineteenth century.\u00a0 William IV in 1834, though expected to fall asleep through boredom and snore throughout, professed himself delighted with the\u00a0<\/strong>performance, gave \u00a3100, and asked not<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
William IV\u2019s visit to the Play in 1834 \u2013 the King was escorted by scholars holding flaming torches, along a covered walkway through Yard to College<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

simply for the customary \u2018Play\u2019 half-holiday, but for a whole week, which must have delighted the boys.\u00a0 Other royal visitors included Ernest, Duke of Cumberland (King of Hanover) in 1838, Prince Albert in 1847 (at an extra command performance), 1851 and 1858 \u2013 on the latter occasion accompanied by the Prince of Wales \u2013 and Prince Arthur, the future Duke of Connaught, in 1867.\u00a0 This was a long awaited visit, as Arthur had intended to come in 1865 but was prevented by the death of Leopold I of the Belgians, and again had to cancel in 1866 as he was revising for an exam (which, the College ledger records, he passed\u2026)\u00a0 Particularly memorable, though, was the visit of George VI and Queen Elizabeth in 1937 \u2013 the only visit by a reigning sovereign and consort together \u2013 for which the old custom from 1834 was revived, of the Scholars lighting the way to the dormitory with flaming torches, which were later extinguished using the snuffers outside 17, Dean\u2019s Yard.<\/p>\n

Cancellations and other threats to the Play<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong>By custom, the Play was cancelled in the year of a death within the Royal family.\u00a0 This happened, for example, after the deaths of George IV in 1830, Queen Adelaide in 1849, Princess Alice in 1878, and the Duke of Albany in 1884 \u2013 though the latter was widely felt to be an \u2018exaggeration of loyalty\u2019 as the Duke had died in March, and the boys had expected the period of mourning to be over.\u00a0 The same gripes appear when the Play was cancelled for December after the death of the Duke of Clarence in February 1892.\u00a0 Cancellation was, in fact, largely a matter of discretion \u2013 in 1884 Dean Bradley had, perhaps precipitately, assured Queen Victoria the play would be cancelled without communicating the fact to the school.\u00a0 Perhaps he hoped that she would assure him such a mark of respect was excessive; after all, William IV\u2019s attendance in 1834 was largely occasioned by such a sentiment as, made aware of the boys\u2019 disappointment when the death of the Duke of Gloucester made last-minute cancellation apparently inevitable, the King declared that the Play should go ahead, and he would attend himself.\u00a0 Nonetheless, the possibility of last minute cancellation clearly kept all concerned on their toes; in 1928, the death of George V was widely, but inaccurately, expected with some alarm.\u00a0 Of course, tragedies within the school could also lead to cancellation \u2013 such as the death of the Under Master in 1841; that of little Arthur Liddell, son of the Head Master, in 1853; or that of the Captain of the Queen\u2019s Scholars in Oxford in 1876.<\/p>\n

These cancellations were at times worryingly frequent, and suspicious Old Westminsters (and some alert pupils) were only too ready by the mid nineteenth century to believe in plots afoot among the \u2018powers that be\u2019 to abolish their beloved tradition.\u00a0 They had a point.\u00a0 When Dean Buckland made such a suggestion after the cancellation of 1846, a massive delegation of old boys, led by the Marquess of Lansdowne, forced him to reconsider.\u00a0 Their names alone take up 15 pages of the College ledger, which records the fear that the 1846 Play had been cancelled \u2018in consequence of there being a new Head Master [Liddell] and two new Ushers, none of whom were Old Westminsters\u2019 and that outsiders might destroy what Westminsters held most dear.\u00a0 After the Public Schools Act of 1868 gave the school its independence, matters did not improve.\u00a0 In 1870 we read that there was \u2018no Play this year in consequence of the ever-to-be-lamented coming into power of the new Governors; an event which has already effected great and deplorable changes in College\u2026 perhaps the Head Master is anxious to prevent thus anything taking place that may resemble what he so feelingly calls an orgie\u2026\u2019<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Two pages of a draft letter from Old Westminsters to the Governing Body of the school in 1887, protesting at Rutherford\u2019s perceived intention to \u2018reform\u2019 the play out of existence<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Official concerns did not restrict themselves to the morality of the event.\u00a0 In 1887 a delegation of Old Westminsters protested at the Head Master\u2019s (perceived)attack on the Play as an interference with\u2018regular school work\u2019 \u2013 resorting to phrases such as \u2018the sanction of long usage\u2019 and \u2018continuance expressly ordered by the regulations\u2019 for good measure.\u00a0 By 1895 the Head Master was so concerned about the manner in which the Play dominated the Scholars\u2019 lives and ate into the curriculum that he cut the rehearsal schedule to after Exeat only, as \u2018the Play occupied our minds too much.\u2019\u00a0 The new plan didn\u2019t last, and soon tradition was restored, with half the Play being rehearsed in each half of term, Head Master\u2019s rehearsals before Exeat and once the stage was set, a semi-dress rehearsal (without make-up) a fortnight before the real thing, and a full dress rehearsal ten days in advance, during prep, with the masters and all Scholars in attendance.\u00a0 Clearly, the concerns about the Play taking over were justified \u2013 but for those involved, it was the highlight of their school careers.<\/p>\n

The Play in the Twentieth Century<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Gentleman\u2019s Ticket to the Westminster Play, displaying the old school motto (now Dat Deus Incrementum<\/em>) and the College seal of authenticity<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Having weathered these storms of fashion, the Play would finally be brought down by the Second World War.\u00a0 As during the First, the custom was suspended for the duration of hostilities, but after the school returned from evacuation in 1946, fresh problems arose.\u00a0 College dormitory, totally gutted in May 1941, was unusable; and when it was reconstructed, the old space was subdivided, leaving no room for a \u2018theatre\u2019.\u00a0 Proposals for a \u2018Play Chamber\u2019 as part of the general reconstruction of war-ravaged Westminster foundered on the grounds of space, cost and priority, and it appeared that one of the school\u2019s most distinctive traditions would die.\u00a0 Suggestions for a Latin Play up School, first mentioned in a Prologue by Head Master Rutherford in 1885, when thankfully the obscurity of his Latin meant few picked up the idea, and now revived by John Carleton, once more came to nothing.\u00a0 The revival, when it came, in 1954, was in the open air, in summer, in Little Dean\u2019s Yard \u2013 with modern dress, classical pronunciation (not Westminster Latin) and Town Boys in the cast as well as Scholars \u2013 but still with Prologues, Epilogues and plays from the familiar repertoire.\u00a0 Most memorably, in 1968, a mini-van \u2018apud Fortnum et Masonem\u2019 was winched over the wall from Great College Street into College Garden, and then brought into Yard, to play its part in an innovative Theo Zinn production.<\/p>\n

Until the early 1980s, this new tradition continued, in alternate years \u2013 but even this then lapsed.\u00a0 But under Jonathan Katz in the 1990s, College started to fill the classical gap, with a series of Greek comedies in English translation, produced as house plays up School \u2013 and then in 1999 Latin was back, going against the grain of fashion, with a production of the Adelphi<\/em>.\u00a0 Nonetheless, 2010\u2019s Latin Play revival sees a welcome return to one older tradition, alongside the new location in the Millicent Fawcett Hall, a Prologue referring to the visits Elizabeth I made to the early Plays, and Dale Inglis\u2019s freshly painted canvases for the backdrop, in the proud tradition of Cockerell.\u00a0 For this year, as we celebrate 450 years of the Elizabethan foundation, the Latin Play returns to its pre-Christmas position in the school calendar, as the right and fitting conclusion of the school\u2019s Play Term.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

A scene from the Andria<\/em>, 1927<\/p>\n

This text was written by Tom Edlin to mark the 450th anniversary of the\u00a0Elizabethan foundation of Westminster School, with acknowledgements to Eddie Smith, John Arthur, Chris Clarke & Giles Brown.<\/em><\/p>\n

Particular thanks to Rita Boswell and David Clifford for their invaluable assistance.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Origins of the Latin Play Two beliefs produced and sustained the early tradition of Latin Plays at Westminster in the sixteenth century.\u00a0 First was a faith in the training such performances would offer in deportment and elocution for young gentlemen needing the tools for public life.\u00a0 Second \u2013 and it generally came second \u2013 was the conviction that such an activity was a necessary part of a classical education.\u00a0 As Latin was the universal language of knowledge, it was deemed essential for it to be mastered colloquially, making drama a tool for instilling the spoken (and living) language.\u00a0 These beliefs were by no means confined to Westminster; the tradition of a pre-Christmas play was a familiar one at many Tudor schools and at the universities, and at Trinity College, Cambridge \u2013 our sister foundation \u2013 the statutes actually stipulate that the lecturers should act comedies and tragedies each Christmas.\u00a0 Yet it was at Westminster that the tradition stuck, for Westminster that the Latin Play became a defining tradition of the institution \u2013 and the history of the Play thus merits rather more attention than it has sometimes received, just as Latin plays as a genre probably deserve a revival, after an era in which the general trend of scholarly fashion has been to focus on the Greek. As Head Master, Alexander Nowell had introduced the works of Terence into the Westminster curriculum in the 1540s, due to his belief in the merits of learning the \u2018pure Roman style\u2019, and his notebooks contain draft prefaces for the Adelphi, the Eunuchus and Seneca\u2019s Hippolytus, which are likely to date from his pupils\u2019 performances.\u00a0 It was therefore as a confirmation of existing practice, rather than an innovation, that the Elizabethan statutes made explicit provision, de comoediis et ludis in natali Domini exhibendis, for an annual play, to be performed by the Queen\u2019s Scholars in Latin.\u00a0 Nonetheless, this statute was hugely significant \u2013 establishing the Play as a regular event, and as the preserve of the members of College. Elizabeth\u2019s own interest in the Latin Play is attested by her regular attendance.\u00a0 In 1563, she gave 25 marks to the performers, and the following year, having been presented with a copy of Plautus herself, rewarded the scholars with a \u2018box of comfetts\u2019 and \u2018buttered beer for ye children, being horse\u2019 \u2013 the latter a regular provision for the time, suggestive of the early emphasis on declamation, rather than \u2018acting\u2019 as such.\u00a0 In January 1566, the Privy Council and Princess Cecilia of Sweden joined the Queen in the audience for a performance of Sapientia Salomonis, which was clearly something of an undertaking for the boys.\u00a0 A professional painter was employed to produce the set (the city and temple of Jerusalem), costumes were hired from the office of revels, and a tailor brought in to fit them.\u00a0 One prop was beyond the school\u2019s ready acquisition, so a local woman was paid to bring \u2018her childe to the stadge and there attended vppon itt.\u2019\u00a0 This attention to detail was a regular feature \u2013 the following year, for a scene with fishermen in the Rudens, 4d. was spent on a \u2018hadocke occupied in the plaie.\u2019 These Elizabethan plays were performed in College Hall \u2013 or, when the school left London in times of plague, at Putney or Chiswick.\u00a0 It was, of course, a golden age of English drama, and Westminster boys seem to have been involved in numerous other productions both within and beyond the school.\u00a0 The Town Boys regularly performed plays in English, though these were generally produced out of term time.\u00a0 The Latin Play, however, remained the Play at Westminster, and Treasurers\u2019 Accounts in the Abbey muniments run through to 1632 with annual mentions of the event, confirming that the statutes were obeyed.\u00a0 At that point there is a break in the record, though, and when the accounts resume the Play is missing, suggesting that the Civil War and Commonwealth, not surprisingly, put an end to the tradition for a time. Presumably Dr Busby was then responsible for reviving it after the Restoration in 1660; certainly he was a keen supporter, having been (despite his somewhat austere reputation) a keen actor in his youth who even considered the stage as a career \u2013 in fact, he appeared before Charles I himself in the Royal Slave at Oxford.\u00a0 It is probable, though, that the revived Play was not an annual event, as records are sparse \u2013 although we are told that Barton Booth, who later did make a name for himself as a professional actor (and gave his name to Barton Street), appeared in the Andria \u2018to great applause\u2019 in 1695.\u00a0 If so, his debut broke the rules, as he was a Town Boy throughout his time in the school, but perhaps his talent justified an exception being made.\u00a0 It is possible, in fact, that a similar exception may have been made for Ben Jonson too.\u00a0 In later generations, cast lists would include the names of Scholars who went on to achieve fame in a wide range of fields, from A.A. Milne to Kim Philby. Complete records in the Abbey muniments only date from 1704, and traditionally that has been seen as something of a second \u2018revival\u2019 for the custom \u2013 but nothing in the accounts for 1704 itself suggests anything unusual or innovative, so it seems unlikely that this was a genuine point of departure.\u00a0 Nonetheless, we can use these records to identify several key trends and traditions, running from 1704 in an almost unbroken line through to the suspension of the Play in 1939. Repertoire and Content First there is the repertoire.\u00a0 In the early eighteenth century more variety was included in the cycle, but by 1750 a loose four-play rotation had been established, with the Adelphi, Andria and Phormio generally joined by the Eunuchus until 1860, when its sensitive name brought about its exclusion in favour of the Trinummus of Plautus.\u00a0 In 1907 the Eunuchus was finally revived under the title the Famulus, though in 1926 it was again replaced, this time by the Rudens, performed at Westminster for the first time in 128 years.\u00a0 It was, in other words, a limited repertoire, which would quickly have become familiar to Westminsters and guests. The 1935 Epilogue mocks the Nazis and offers a commentary on wider European politics But there was one evolving tradition which made every year\u2019s Play unique; there had long been a specially composed Prologue, but to this in the years after 1704 was added an Epilogue, commenting on the year\u2019s events, initially in monologue, later in dialogue involving the \u2018characters\u2019 of the Play transposed into a contemporary setting and into modern dress \u2013 a topical skit typical of later revues. This tradition of a witty and scholarly contemporary satire in Latin at the end of the performance owed much to Robert Freind as Head Master, and allowed the Prologue to become a more serious review of the school year, and of the achievements of Old Westminsters in The World.\u00a0 As such, the collected Prologues and Epilogues of the Westminster Play offer a remarkable insight into the concerns and news stories of two centuries of school and national life, seen through contemporary eyes, and with the topics helpfully outlined for non-Classicists in the programme notes \u2013 but they were (and to the discerning reader still are) also hugely witty and entertaining.\u00a0 There were times, of course, when a more serious note intervened \u2013 in the first winter of the Crimean War, the tone became suddenly sombre at the thought of the many (ill starred) Old Westminsters, under Lord Raglan, in command at the front; and in the late 1930s the Epilogues offer a fascinating glimpse of European politics, and Westminster\u2019s attempt at a humorous take on Nazism, Fascism and Communism.\u00a0 After the Epilogue, the essential loyalties of the school would then be reiterated with the National Anthem Location of the Play The setting for the Play also moved with the times.\u00a0 Early Latin Plays had been in College Hall, but by 1704 the event had moved to the (old) Scholars\u2019 Dormitory, the former monastic granary in Dean\u2019s Yard.\u00a0 There is a plan of the building, featuring stage and auditorium, in the library of All Souls\u2019 at Oxford.\u00a0 Clearly this location was accepted and beloved, for in the discussions and plans for the new Dormitory facing College Garden there was, from the start, a conviction that the new building would serve annually as a theatre too.\u00a0 The dormitory project was thus intimately linked with the Play \u2013 and in 1718, when Samuel Wesley wrote the Epilogue for the Adelphi, he explicitly encouraged contributions for the new building.\u00a0 High wooden beams half-way along the dormitory itself were incorporated in the design, explicitly to support the seating for the auditorium.\u00a0 After a temporary theatre had been put up in 1728, as neither dormitory was in a fit state, in 1730 the new building was used for the Play for the first time.\u00a0 From that point until 1939 the layout for the Play each year changed little, and hence became increasingly old-fashioned, with separate \u2018pits\u2019 for seniors, masters and the Head Master\u2019s guests, and the Town Boys up in the Gods, with \u2018Gods Monitors\u2019 directing the applause by waving tanning poles.\u00a0 Ladies were first admitted, with their own pit, in 1793, as a compliment to Lady Mansfield, who had two sons performing that year.\u00a0 We are told, though, that Lady Strange beat her to it twenty years earlier, attending disguised as a man. The construction of the \u2018theatre\u2019 within the dormitory each year was a major undertaking, despite the structural help the building provided.\u00a0 By the late nineteenth century, when the vast space of the dormitory had been broken up with wooden partitions into cubicles or \u2018boxes\u2019 for the scholars, the process would start some six weeks before Christmas, with the removal of about half of these cubicles to allow the stage and auditorium to be built.\u00a0 The displaced scholars would be forced to sleep in the sanitorium for the duration \u2013 a clear disruption to a major part of their school year.\u00a0 Photographs of the construction process from the early twentieth century show the scale of the operation \u2013 and in its essentials this had not changed from 1730 onwards. Scenery and Costume The scenery, clearly, was less flamboyant than under Elizabeth.\u00a0 Two backdrops seem to have sufficed after 1704 \u2013 one of Covent Garden, belonging to the Abbey, and a \u2018street in Westminster\u2019 used until 1758.\u00a0 At that point a more suitable Athenian backdrop, paid for by Head Master William Markham, was painted by James Stuart.\u00a0 This survived until 1809 when a new copy was made, again funded by the then Head Master, William Carey; this version was apparently stored in the triforium of the Abbey\u2019s north transept until a fire in 1829 provoked a rethink.\u00a0 Although praised at first for its authenticity, and beloved of generations of boys, the \u2018impossible mountain with a temple perched on top of it\u2019 was scarcely believable, and in 1858 Charles Robert Cockerell, professor of architecture at the Royal Academy, designed two new backdrops, executed by Fenton \u2013 one of the bay at Salamis, the other of Athens and the Acropolis.\u00a0 One or other of these was used every year\u00a0subsequently until 1939 (except in 1926, when the Rudens required a special set representing a temple by a sea shore) \u2013 and after the war, they were put away and forgotten. The move towards more authentic scenery was matched in costumes.\u00a0 In 1829 the Prologue had condemned \u2018sham antiquarianism\u2019, but ten years later the Head Master, Richard Williamson, introduced classical costumes (or \u2018Greek drapes\u2019 in the words of the College ledger) for the first time.\u00a0 Previously, the actors had worn a peculiar mixture of outdated but \u2018modern\u2019 dress, rather as the daily wear of one century becomes the fancy dress of the next.\u00a0 So, the plays of the 1830s saw the \u2018old\u2019 men dressed in the manner of George…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":696,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[92,150],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/archiveblog.westminster.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/664"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/archiveblog.westminster.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/archiveblog.westminster.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/archiveblog.westminster.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/archiveblog.westminster.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=664"}],"version-history":[{"count":36,"href":"http:\/\/archiveblog.westminster.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/664\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":920,"href":"http:\/\/archiveblog.westminster.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/664\/revisions\/920"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/archiveblog.westminster.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/696"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/archiveblog.westminster.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=664"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/archiveblog.westminster.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=664"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/archiveblog.westminster.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=664"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}