An Excellent Performance, by Thomas Platter

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For whoever cares to stand below only pays one English penny, but if he wishes to sit he enters by another door, and pays another penny, while if he desires to sit in the most comfortable seats which are cushioned, where he not only sees everything well, but can also be seen, then he pays yet another English penny at another door. And during the performance food and drink are carried round the audience, so that for what one cares to pay one may also have refreshment.

The actors are most expensively and elaborately costumed; for it is the English usage for eminent lords or Knights at their decease to bequeath and leave almost the best of their clothes to their serving men, which it is unseemly for the latter to wear, so that they offer them then for sale for a small sum to the actors.

by Thomas Platter 1574-1628

From ‘Thomas Platter’s Travels in England’ (1599) translated (1937) by Clare Williams.

Précis

Platter went on to explain that theatre tickets were priced at a penny, rising to thruppence for the most confortable and fashionable seats. Refreshments were also on sale for all. The actors’ impressive costumes, he discovered, had been left to servants by their late masters. The servants could scarcely wear gentlemen’s clothes, so they sold them to the theatres.

Questions for Critics

1. What is the author aiming to achieve in writing this?

2. Note any words, devices or turns of phrase that strike you. How do they help the author communicate his ideas more effectively?

3. What impression does this passage make on you? How might you put that impression into words?

Based on The English Critic (1939) by NL Clay, drawing on The New Criticism: A Lecture Delivered at Columbia University, March 9, 1910, by J. E. Spingarn, Professor of Comparative Literature in Columbia University, USA.

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