I confess that I, too, have been using the word “unprecedented” to describe our current condition during this COVID-19 pandemic. And in so many ways, the word seems to fit. But then I came across these lines in Bill Bryson’s book, Shakespeare: The World as Stage, “London’s theaters were officially ordered shut, and would remain so for just under two years, with only the briefest remissions.” He’s talking about the years 1592–1593, which were plague years. “For theatrical companies it meant banishment from the capital and a dispiritingly itinerant existence on tour.”
In another passage he says that during plague years, “Public performances of all types — in fact public gatherings except for churchgoing — were also banned within seven miles of London each time the death toll in the city reached forty, and that happened a great deal.”
Sounds a lot like today, doesn’t it? But this was all taking place more than 400 years ago!
Being a historian, I’ve always taken comfort in history, in the knowledge that deep within our DNA and collective memory is the ability to overcome almost any challenge. We really have been through this before.
So, what did the actors in Shakespeare’s time do? Well, it sounds like they went grudgingly on the road. And what did the playwrights like Shakespeare and Ben Jonson do? They kept…
