To all these theatres Pepys paid early visits. But the
Cockpit in Drury Lane, was the scene of some of his most stirring
experiences. There he saw his first play, Beaumont and Fletcher's
_Loyal Subject_; and there, too, he saw his first play by Shakespeare,
_Othello_.
But these three theatres were in decay, and new and sumptuous
buildings soon took their places. One of the new playhouses was in
Portugal Row, Lincoln's Inn Fields; the other, on the site of the
present Drury Lane Theatre, was the first of the many playhouses that
sprang up there. It is to these two theatres--Lincoln's Inn Fields and
Drury Lane--that Pepys in his diary most often refers. He calls each
of them by many different names, and the unwary reader might infer
that London was very richly supplied with playhouses in Pepys's day.
But public theatres in active work at this period of our history were
not permitted by the authorities to exceed two. "The Opera" and "the
Duke's House" are merely Pepys's alternative designations of the
Lincoln's Inn Field's Theatre; while "the Theatre," "Theatre Royal,"
and "the King's House," are the varying titles which he bestows on the
Drury Lane Theatre.
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