When the curtain comes down

IT might seem gratuitous to write a column about theatre when the buildings are closed and coronavirus is forcing us all into a state of hibernation, but, without minimising the gravity of the situation, I thought it might be worth examining how theatre has coped with crisis in the past and how it can justify its existence in the future.

Theatre has, of course, shut down before now. In January 1593, plague struck London and the Privy Council decreed that ‘we think it fit that all manner of concourse and public meetings of the people at plays, bearbaitings, bowlings and other like assemblies for sports be forbidden’. Theand under the patronage of the Earl of Southampton. However, as Jonathan Bate brilliantly argues in , after his enforced sabbatical: ‘Shakespeare returned to the stage with a new-minted art.’