Hugh Clark (died 1653) was a prominent English actor of the Caroline era. He worked in both of the main theatre companies of his time, Queen Henrietta's Men and the King's Men. [1]
The Caroline or Carolean era refers to the era in English and Scottish history during the Stuart period (1603–1714) that coincided with the reign of Charles I (1625–1642), Carolus being Latin for Charles. The Caroline era followed the Jacobean era, the reign of Charles's father James I & VI (1603–1625); it was followed by the Wars of the three Kingdoms (1642–1651) and the English Interregnum (1651–1660).
In Renaissance London, playing company was the usual term for a company of actors. These companies were organized around a group of ten or so shareholders, who performed in the plays but were also responsible for management. The sharers employed "hired men" – that is, the minor actors and the workers behind the scenes. The major companies were based at specific theatres in London; the most successful of them, William Shakespeare's company the King's Men, had the open-air Globe Theatre for summer seasons and the enclosed Blackfriars Theatre in the winters. The Admiral's Men occupied the Rose Theatre in the 1590s, and the Fortune Theatre in the early 17th century.
Queen Henrietta's Men was an important playing company or troupe of actors in Caroline era in London. At their peak of popularity, Queen Henrietta's Men were the second leading troupe of the day, after only the King's Men.
Clark was with Queen Henrietta's Men during the first and most significant phase of their existence, from 1625 to 1636. Like some other actors of English Renaissance theatre, Clark began as a boy player filling female roles. He played Gratiana in Shirley's The Wedding in 1626, and Bess Bridges in both parts of Heywood's The Fair Maid of the West in 1630–31. Not long after that time, though, Clark switched to adult male roles. He played Syphax and Nuntius in Nabbes's Hannibal and Scipio (1635), and Hubert in Davenport's King John and Matilda .
English Renaissance theatre—also known as Renaissance English theatre and Elizabethan theatre—refers to the theatre of England between 1562 and 1642.
Boy player refers to children who performed in Medieval and English Renaissance playing companies. Some boy players worked for the adult companies and performed the female roles as women did not perform on the English stage in this period. Others worked for children's companies in which all roles, not just the female ones, were played by boys.
James Shirley was an English dramatist.
The Queen Henrietta's company was disrupted and fractured by the bubonic plague epidemic of 1636–37. Clark, like some other members of the troupe, disappears from the available records in 1637 and 1638; he may have been one of several actors from the company who travelled with James Shirley to Dublin to work at the Werburgh Street Theatre. [2]
Bubonic plague is one of three types of plague caused by bacterium Yersinia pestis. One to seven days after exposure to the bacteria, flu-like symptoms develop. These symptoms include fever, headaches, and vomiting. Swollen and painful lymph nodes occur in the area closest to where the bacteria entered the skin. Occasionally, the swollen lymph nodes may break open.
Dublin is the capital and largest city of Ireland. It is on the east coast of Ireland, in the province of Leinster, at the mouth of the River Liffey, and is bordered on the south by the Wicklow Mountains. It has an urban area population of 1,173,179, while the population of the Dublin Region, as of 2016, was 1,347,359, and the population of the Greater Dublin area was 1,904,806.
The Werburgh Street Theatre, also the Saint Werbrugh Street Theatre or the New Theatre, was a seventeenth-century theatre in Dublin, Ireland. Scholars and historians of the subject generally identify it as the "first custom-built theatre in the city," "the only pre-Restoration playhouse outside London," and the first Dublin theatre.
By 1639, however, Clark was back in London and a member of the King's Men; he appeared in their revival of The Custom of the Country in that year. He was a sharer in the company by January 1641, when he was one of the six sharers who were named Grooms of the Chamber. [3] As a member of the company, he was one of the ten actors who signed the dedication of the first Beaumont and Fletcher folio in 1647. He was also involved in the January 1648 attempt to revive the company (which failed by the summer of that year, when the actors missed a payment due), despite the fact that the theatres had been closed by the Puritan regime of the English Commonwealth.
The Custom of the Country is a 1913 novel by American novelist Edith Wharton. It tells the story of Undine Spragg, a Midwestern girl who attempts to ascend in New York City society.
Groom of the Chamber and Groom of the Privy Chamber were positions in the Royal Household of the English monarchy, the latter considerably more elevated. Other Ancien Régime royal establishments in Europe had comparable officers, often with similar titles. In France, the Duchy of Burgundy, and in England while French was still the language of the court, the title was varlet or valet de chambre. In German, Danish and Russian the term was "Kammerjunker" and in Swedish the similar "Kammarjunkare".
The Beaumont and Fletcher folios were two large folio collections of the stage plays of John Fletcher and his collaborators. The first was issued in 1647, and the second in 1679. The two collections were important in preserving many works of English Renaissance drama.
