6d. each, while boxes lined the
sides. The highest tier was the 1s. gallery, where footmen soon held
sway. As Pepys's fortune improved, he spent more on his place in the
theatre. From the 1s. gallery he descended to the 1s. 6d., and thence
came down to the pit, occasionally ascending to the boxes on the first
tier.
In the methods of representation, Pepys's period of playgoing was
coeval with many most important innovations, which seriously affected
the presentation of Shakespeare on the stage. The chief was the
desirable substitution of women for boys in the female roles. During
the first few months of Pepys's theatrical experience, boys were still
taking the women's parts. That the practice survived in the first days
of Charles II.'s reign we know from the well-worn anecdote that when
the King sent behind the scenes to inquire why the play of _Hamlet_,
which he had come to see, was so late in commencing, he was answered
that the Queen was not yet shaved. But in the opening month of 1661,
within five months of Pepys's first visit to a theatre, the reign of
the boys ended. On January 3rd of that year, Pepys writes that he
"first saw women come upon the stage.
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