Richard Burbage

Portrait of Richard Burbage, Dulwich Picture Gallery, London

Richard Burbage (6 January 1567 – 12 March 1619) is considered the first great actor of English theatre. He is one of the most famous actors of the Globe Theatre of his time. In addition to being a stage actor he was also a theatre owner, entrepreneur and painter. He was the younger brother of Cuthbert Burbage. They were both actors in drama. Burbage was a business associate and friend to William Shakespeare.

The son of James Burbage, a joiner who became a theatrical impresario, and also founded the first theatre and was a famous theatrical entrepreneur. Burbage was a popular actor by his early 20s. He excelled in plays with the theme of tragedies. His early acting career is poorly documented. As many young actors of his time, he may have played the part of women in productions before taking any of the roles he is known for. It has been suggested that he spent time working with the Earl of Leicester's company, but there is no good evidence for this. He was probably acting with the Admiral's Men in 1590, with Lord Strange's Men in 1592, and with the Earl of Pembroke's Men in 1593; but most famously he was the star of William Shakespeare's theatre company, the Lord Chamberlain's Men which became the King's Men on the ascension of James I in 1603. He played the title role in the first performances of many of Shakespeare's plays, including Hamlet, Othello, Richard III, and King Lear. But he was in great demand and also appeared in the plays of many of the great contemporary writers, such as Ben Jonson (the title role in Volpone, and Subtle in The Alchemist), John Marston (The Malcontent), John Webster (The Duchess of Malfi) and Beaumont and Fletcher (The Maid's Tragedy).

Burbage's power and scope as an actor is revealed in the sheer size of the roles he played. He was a great box office draw. Of the hundreds of plays and thousands of roles for actors that date from the 1580–1610 era, there are only twenty or so roles that are longer than 800 lines. Edward Alleyn was the first English actor to manage such roles, in Marlowe's Tamburlaine and The Jew of Malta; but the majority of these star roles, thirteen of the twenty, were acted by Burbage.He was said to be quite rich because he was earning income from being the primary housekeeping of two playhouses, a sharer in the King's Men, a lead actor and occasionally a few paintings.

His acting style is closely compared with the method that actors use today called method acting; it would be another four centuries before this came into popularity. He was described as being short and stout, but said to be an impressive figure, with numerous praises written of him in contemporary accounts.

Life

Burbage was baptised at St Stephen in London on 7 July 1568. He was the second son to his parents, followed by three younger sisters; Alice, Joane, and Ellen. His father brought Burbage to the theatre and became the greatest influence for his career. It gave him a great starting advantage in the theatre world by being the son of a builder and owner of the first successful permanent playhouse. It is said because he worked in the theatre with his father at such a young age, he learned the basics of working with colors and the techniques of painting, which would go on to help him later in life.

After the death of their father in February 1597, Richard and his brother Cuthbert stepped in to rescue the family's interests in two London theatres, and ended up tied up in lawsuits. The Blackfriars Theatre they kept but leased to lawyer and impresario Henry Evans, who used it for a troupe of child actors. The other, called simply The Theatre, was dismantled when they could not resolve terms for a new lease with Giles Allen, the landowner. The beams, posts, and other remnants of The Theatre were moved to a new location on the south side of the Thames River and reassembled into a new playhouse called the Globe in 1599. The Burbage brothers kept half the share in the new theatre and the remainder of them was given to Shakespeare and some other members of the Chamberlain's Men. Income from the Blackfriars lease helped fund the move to the Globe. In 1608 the brothers ended the Blackfriars lease and moved the company's performances to the theatre. Burbage was performing at the Globe Theatre on 29 June 1613, when it caught fire and burned down. During the winter months, when the open-air Globe theatre was not practical to use, the Blackfriars was used. It was much smaller and seated about 700 people.

The brothers maintained a close working and personal relationship throughout their lives; they were neighbours on Halliwell Street in Shoreditch, near the Theatre. Burbage fathered at least eight children; after his death his widow Winifred married another of the King's Men, Richard Robinson. [See also: Nicholas Tooley.]

It has sometimes been argued that the famous Chandos portrait of Shakespeare was painted by Burbage. His skills were in demand. Some believe that the anonymous oil painting used so often nowadays to show what Burbage looked like was a self-portrait. Dulwich College holds a painting of a female head in a roughly similar style that was generally regarded as his work until it was found out in 1987 that it was probably misattributed to him and that it is a work by a North Italian painter. The Felton portrait of Shakespeare is also attributed to Burbage, and also a portrait of a woman which is currently preserved at Dulwich College, in Southeast London.

Unlike Alleyn or his fellow King's Man Shakespeare, Burbage never retired from the stage; he continued acting until his death, aged 52, in 1619. He was not as astute a businessman as either Alleyn or Shakespeare; at his death he was said to have left his widow "better than £300" in land—a respectable estate but far less than Alleyn's substantial wealth, and less than the net worth of Shakespeare at his death in 1616.

He remained a crowd favorite, even when younger actors came about, for thirty-five years, and was an idol of his age. His last recorded performance was in 1610, but he acted with the King's Men until his death in 1619. His death had so much outpour of grief that it threatened to overshadow the official mourning for the death of Queen Anne ten days prior.

Burbage was buried in St Leonard's, Shoreditch, a church close to two theatres; "The Theatre and "The Curtain Theatre." His gravestone was said to read "Exit Burbage." Although his gravestone is now lost, a memorial to him and his brothers was erected in a later century. An anonymous poet composed for him A Funerall Elegye on the Death of the famous Actor Richard Burbage who died on Saturday in Lent the 13 of March 1619, an excerpt of which reads:

He's gone and with him what a world are dead.

Which he review'd, to be revived so,

No more young Hamlet, old Hieronimo

Kind Lear, the Grieved Moor, and more beside,

That lived in him have now for ever died.

Of the many elegies that followed his passing, perhaps the most poignant is the brief epitaph:

Exit Burbage.

Portrayals

Burbage was played by Martin Clunes in the film Shakespeare in Love (1998), and by Steve Speirs in the BBC sitcom Upstart Crow (2016).

Notes and references

Sources

• Wells, Stanley (26 May 2011). "The First Great Shakespearian Actor". Retrieved 30 August 2015. {{cite web}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Gurr, Andrew (1992). The Shakespearan Stage 1574–1642 (3rd ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521410052. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Halliday, F. E. (1964). A Shakespeare Companion 1564–1964. Penguin Reference Books. Vol. 27 (Revised ed.). Baltimore: Penguin. OCLC 222822680. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• McMillin, Scott (1987). The Elizabethan Theatre and The Book of Sir Thomas More. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press. ISBN 9780801420085. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)