There have been Macbeths who have
declined to expire upon the stage after the silent fashion prescribed
by Shakespeare, and have insisted upon declaiming the last dying
speech with which Garrick first enriched the character. But these are
actors of the past. If Shakespeare does not often appear upon the
modern stage, at any rate he is not presented in the disguised and
mutilated form which won applause in what are now viewed as the "palmy
days" of the drama. And the prepared speeches introduced by the
tragedians, however alien they may be to the dramatist's intentions,
and independent of his creations, are not properly to be considered as
gag.
It was in 1583, according to Howes' additions to Stow's "Chronicle,"
that Queen Elizabeth, at the request of Sir Francis Walsingham, and
with the advice of Mr. Edmond Tyllney, her Master of the Revels,
selected twelve performers out of some of the companies of her
nobility, to be her own dramatic servants, with the special title of
the Queen's Players. They duly took the oaths of office, and were
allowed wages and liveries as Grooms of the Chambers.
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