The Cockpit suffered a considerable setback shortly after opening. On Shrove Tuesday, 4 March 1616,We see different dates for this event in secondary sources, depending on how the source treats historical dates. MoEML retains the Julian calendar in use in early modern England, which means that we locate this event in late 1616; see our rationale for doing so in our project. Other sources will correct the date to 1617, as it would have been had the New Year begun on 1 January. apprentices rioted and did extensive damage to the theatre (Berry 628-29). The rioting is often understood to have been motivated by theatrical concerns. Beeston had taken his company, the Queen Anne’s Men, from the Red Bull Playhouse to the newly built Cockpit. It has been argued that the Red Bull patrons were angered by the company (and its repertory of plays) moving away from their neighbourhood to a more expensive and exclusive venue. Mark Bayer has suggested that the Clerkenwell community were loyal to the Red Bull and felt out of place in other social contexts (Theatre, Community 178). Furthermore, Beeston, who was suspected of unscrupulous financial and legal dealings regarding the Red Bull lease, began to fall out of favour with the local community and was even personally attacked (Theatre, Community 205). Eleanor Collins, however, has questioned the idea that the riots were related to the repertory. She observes that Shrove Tuesday was accumulating a general reputation for riots, that rioting seems unlikely to have been limited to apprentices (as theatre historians have assumed), that other buildings were also damaged, and that disturbances were not limited to Drury Lane (132-40). Whether directly related to the theatre or not, the riots did not ultimately prevent the playhouse from becoming successful. When it reopened three months later, it acquired the additional name of the Phoenix, since it had risen from the ashes of the old theatre.EMLoT lists all the primary sources documenting this event. See in particular their record of Privy Council’s letter of 5 March 1616 to Lord Mayor George Bolles.

The transfer of the Red Bull repertory to the more expensive Cockpit playhouse raises important questions about theatrical tastes. The Red Bull had a reputation for drama that attended to citizen concerns and made extensive use of elaborate special effects. Sometimes these plays and the playhouse audience were denigrated as unsophisticated. The Cockpit proprietors, by contrast, were keen to establish their playhouse as urbane and elite. Collins suggests that the transfer of bombastic plays such as Thomas Heywood’s from the Red Bull should alert us to continuities between ostensibly disparate playing spaces and audiences (143). Perhaps distinctions between indoor and outdoor playhouses were less extreme than is usually imagined. Bayer takes the argument in a different direction: he acknowledges that the same plays were performed, apparently successfully, at both venues, but suggests that they appealed to stratified audiences in different ways. For example, he argues that Thomas Dekker’s , first performed at the Red Bull, may have appeared to its original audience as an ultimately uplifting tale of working-class heroism, whereas a Cockpit audience may have been more inclined to have been amused at the sentimentality of the ending ( 67). On the other hand, Bayer claims that Philip Massinger’s was successful at both venues because it encouraged disparate audiences to unite in condemnation of the usurer Sir Giles Overreach ( 195). Some evidence does support the notions that the Cockpit audience may have mocked the Red Bull and that sharp distinctions between audience responses at the two theatres existed. John Webster’s , which was first performed at the Red Bull evidently to no great applause, was printed in 1612 with a preface that described the auditors as ignorant asses (sig. A2r). The play was later revived at the Phoenix to a seemingly more appreciative and sophisticated audience. Similarly, Francis Beaumont’s , a play that pokes fun at the citizen values of typical Red Bull fare, was a theatrical failure at the Blackfriars, where it was first performed by the Children of the Queen’s Revels. When it was printed, the audience was said to have failed to understand the play’s priuy marke of Ironie (Beaumont sig. A2r). In the 1630s, however, it was revived, apparently successfully, at the Phoenix, which is perhaps an indication of this playhouse’s attempt to configure itself as sophisticated and elite, while distancing itself from the Red Bull.

It would be a mistake, however, to push this argument too far. Although the Red Bull and the Cockpit were rival venues and did not operate in partnership like the Blackfriars and Globe playhouses after 1609 when the King’s Men occupied the former, the crossover between the two theatres is striking (Collins 144). Perhaps the Phoenix audience enjoyed Beaumont’s jokes about the Red Bull, but, unlike the Blackfriars’s regulars, they also frequently watched Red Bull staples. In addition to the plays already listed, for example, by Thomas Middleton and William Rowley was initially played at the Red Bull and revived at the Phoenix. Also, Thomas Heywood, the playwright most commonly associated with the Red Bull, had several of his plays performed at the Cockpit, including his two-part history, (Gurr, 292). Indeed, the Phoenix also housed plays generally associated with the Fortune, another outdoor theatre that, like the Red Bull, had a reputation as a plebeian playhouse. Christopher Marlowe’s Elizabethan classic, , first performed at the Rose, but also popular at the Fortune, was revived at the Cockpit in the early 1630s. Henry Chettle’s bloody revenge play , a hit in late-Elizabethan London at the Fortune, was revived in the Caroline period at the Phoenix. plays, the first written by Middleton and Dekker, and the second by Dekker alone, were initially played at the Fortune in the early Jacobean period, but later revived at the Cockpit around 1635 (Gurr, 292).

These performances were part of a wider project of Elizabethan revival. Martin Butler observes that the Phoenix kept a high proportion of old plays in its repertoire in the 1630s (183). Indeed, the drama of Caroline England was broadly nostalgic in nature, often alluding to, or drawing upon, the established classics of the earlier theatre. John Ford, one of the most successful playwrights of the period, wrote a number of plays for the Cockpit that reimagined earlier plays in exciting new ways. (1631), now firmly recognized as one of the richest jewels of Renaissance drama, reworked Shakespeare’s by placing incestuous love at its centre. (1633) gestured back towards the Elizabethan history play, but imparted its own brilliant spin on the genre. On the one hand, then, the playhouse seemed unusually prepared to revisit and celebrate older, seemingly outdated plays, including the Elizabethan Robin Hood play, . On the other, it appeared at the forefront of dramatic invention by employing bright new talent. Ultimately, the Cockpit developed a prestigious reputation and became the principal rival of the Blackfriars, the major playhouse of the time. Although nostalgic revival was part of its appeal, the Phoenix also successfully marketed itself as an exclusive, courtly, avant-garde theatre. Ford was only one of a number of highly regarded playwrights who helped forge this reputation. Middleton and Rowley’s masterpiece, (1622) premiered at the Phoenix. Massinger, who later went on to become the lead dramatist with the King’s Men, wrote several plays for the Cockpit, including (1623) and (>1623). Finally, Ben Jonson, at one time a Blackfriars regular, wrote his last fully completed play, (1633), for the Phoenix.

The Phoenix enjoyed particular success when Queen Henrietta’s Men became the resident company in the mid-1620s. Queen Henrietta Maria was an avid theatre lover and a regular performer in court masques, so it is perhaps little surprise that her company received so many court performances. As Gurr notes, by 1629 and 1630, they were playing at court almost as regularly as the King’s Men (Gurr, 418). During this time, they continued to perform Elizabethan hits, but they also produced a series of plays on courtly themes. The Queen had a strong interest in Arcadianism, as demonstrated by Walter Montague’s masque , which was performed as part of the Christmas revels at Somerset House in 1633. This led the commercial company she patronized to commission similarly themed plays for performance at the Phoenix and at court. Thomas Heywood’s (1634), which was subtitled , was performed at the Cockpit, and also three times before the King and Queen at court. Joseph Rutter’s (1633) was likewise played at Whitehall as well as at the Phoenix. In staging these plays, the Cockpit was competing with the Blackfriars, where The King’s Men revived John Fletcher’s for a Somerset House performance in 1634. Both theatres were offering their audiences a taste of a supposedly exclusive court culture. These court connections could in turn prove lucrative to a playwright wishing for social and professional advancement. Although several of Heywood’s Red Bull plays were performed at the Cockpit and he also wrote (1623), (1624), and (1633) for the playhouse, represented his attempt at a more upmarket form of drama. Heywood would not have had this opportunity had he not been working for Queen Henrietta’s Men at the Cockpit. The case of James Shirley, effectively employed as the company’s resident writer, is also illustrative of the Phoenix’s reputation. Shirley was commissioned to write , a masque that was performed at the Inns of Court before the King and Queen, and he was later admitted membership of Gray’s Inn as a Valet of the Chamber of Queen Henrietta Maria in January 1634. Ultimately, he did not go on to become poet laureate, as he had hoped, but his writing for the Cockpit unquestionably afforded him a prominent position within Caroline literary culture.

The Phoenix, then, developed a prestigious reputation and became the principal rival of the Blackfriars. Indeed, in the 1630s, the Phoenix appeared on title pages even more frequently than the Blackfriars did. The growing status of the Phoenix apparently motivated its rivals to express criticism. The fact that the playhouse shared plays, players, and playwrights with the Red Bull gave ammunition to its critics. Thus, the Cockpit was regularly denigrated as an unsophisticated theatre with a plebeian clientele. In the early 1630s, William Davenant, a frequent contributor to the Blackfriars repertory, became involved in the promulgation of anti-Cockpit sentiment. His play, , which was printed in 1630, contained a dedicatory poem written by Thomas Carew that criticised the adulterate stage (sig. A4v) of the Cockpit and the Red Bull. Davenant was responding to the fact that his own play had been poorly received at the Blackfriars, while Shirley’s was popular at the Cockpit. Similar propaganda configured the Phoenix audience as a rabble, and the Blackfriars playwrights as guardians of literary taste, wit, and judgement. Massinger, by now the principal dramatist of the King’s Men, evidently retained affection for the Cockpit (where some of his plays were still performed), and responded to the attacks by mocking the proclivities of the critics. Shirley, as the main focus of criticism, also replied aggressively. The war of words did not seem to deter theatre goers. The rivalry might even have enhanced interest in the theatre, as the 1630s were profitable years.

Queen Henrietta’s Men eventually disbanded and reformed at another rival playhouse, Salisbury Court, but Beeston quickly assembled a new company to fill their place. Beeston’s Boys, as the company became known, reprised the tradition of boy players that had emerged in Elizabethan and Jacobean London. Their repertory is unusually well documented because of an order issued by the Lord Chamberlain on 10 August 1639 that listed 45 plays in Beeston’s possession (Gurr, 424-25; see Record 1573). The edict reveals that some plays, like Beaumont and Fletcher’s and Beaumont’s , that had been written for the boy companies decades earlier, were performed by Beeston’s Boys. Cockpit classics like and also remained in the repertory, along with Shirley staples like , , and . Other established hits performed by the boys included , which had previously been performed at the Phoenix by both the Lady Elizabeth’s Men and Queen Henrietta’s Men. Plays like and , that were associated with both the Cockpit and the Red Bull, were also performed. Among the texts listed by the Lord Chamberlain, the one known only as is perhaps the most interesting. This may be a lost play (indeed, it is listed as such on the Lost Plays Database) but it could refer to , a masque, written by Middleton and Rowley and performed at an outdoor theatre, the Swan, in 1620. The masque, which alluded to contemporary political events, is highly unusual in being performed outside of a court setting. It is fascinating to think that it may have been revived, again, outside of the court, almost twenty years after it was written.

Christopher Beeston died in 1638 and, though this ended a distinguished career in the London theatre industry, his company continued to perform at the Phoenix. Initially, it was led by his son, William, who inherited the business, but he soon ran into difficulties. William was imprisoned in 1640 when Beeston’s Boys staged a Richard Brome play (perhaps , which satirized Davenant and other courtier poets) without a license from Henry Herbert, the Master of the Revels. Ironically, Davenant, once a vocal critic of the playhouse, took on the management of Beeston’s Boys once William was imprisoned. Davenant, who had been appointed poet laureate (at Shirley’s expense) was a high profile literary figure and would, in time, become a successful theatre proprietor, but his first stint as company manager did not last long. In 1641, he too was imprisoned, having become involved in the Army Plot (Gurr, 157). William Beeston, now out of Marshalsea prison, regained control of the company, and they continued to perform at the Cockpit until 1642 when all the theatres were officially closed.

Even during the years of theatre closure, the Phoenix was, illicitly, in use. Indeed, the playhouse was raided and damaged by the authorities on more than one occasion in an attempt to stop illegal performances (Gurr and Orrell 146). In a text printed in 1699, James Wright recalls how, after the Civil Wars, but before the theatres were reopened, some actors banded together surreptitiously to perform Fletcher, Massinger, and Field’s at the Cockpit (Wright sig. B4v-C1r). Operas, however, were apparently legal: in 1658 Davenant staged a revival of his (1656) at the theatre, and this was followed by (1658) and (1658-9). In 1660, the Phoenix officially reopened to stage plays. In October of that year, Samuel Pepys saw revivals of Shakespeare’s (The Moore of Venice), John Fletcher’s and (Teague 259; see 11 October 1660, 16 October 1660, and 30 October 1660). However, the Phoenix, the first theatre built in London’s West End, was ultimately unable to compete with the newer, nearby Drury Lane Theatre that opened in 1663, and it soon closed.