James Ingram and Frank Quilter, the two youngest and most handsome sharers, had the grace to look shamefaced. In listening to Gill, they had allowed themselves to be drawn into a bleak pessimism. Elias had tried to lift them out of it and, though they still had lingering anxieties, they were grateful to him. The Welshman was not merely a fine actor, he had a spirit and determination that burnt inside him like a flame. Ingram and Quilter were reassured by his confidence. Gill remained dejected.
‘Caesar’s Fall has already caused Edmund’s fall. We are next to drop.’
Elias was defiant. ‘Not while I have breath in my body.’
‘Nor me,’ said Lawrence Firethorn, coming to stand beside him, ‘My back is broad. If I have to, I’ll carry this entire play on my own. Listen to me,’ he went on, raising his voice so that it reached everyone in the room. ‘This is no time for doubt and hesitation. Forget this talk of ill omens. We owe it to our playwright to breathe life into his work so that it bewitches all who see it. Yes,’ he conceded, ‘we have lost dear Edmund but what would he think of us if we let a fellow author down? He sends love and best wishes to us in this venture. He looks to receive glad tidings from us.’
‘Then he looks in vain,’ said Gill. ‘This play is tarnished with bad luck.’
‘That can be ascribed to your presence,’ said Firethorn, sharply. ‘Bad luck, thy name is Barnaby Gill. You’d poison any enterprise, were it not for the fact that we have acted with you so often that we know how to subdue your malign influence. Let’s have no more carping from you, Barnaby. We go forth to certain triumph.’ He indicated the book holder. ‘Nick craves a word with you.’
‘Yes,’ said Nicholas, stepping into the middle of the room. ‘Two things will give you heart. As you know, I was a sailor for three long years and learnt to read the skies like a book. The day is cloudy, I grant you, and rain looks certain but I give you my word that it will not fall during the play. Shake that fear from your mind.’
There was a collective sigh of relief. Nicholas’s ability to forecast the weather was almost uncanny. It came from having sailed with Drake on the circumnavigation of the earth, an experience that left its scars on Nicholas but which also taught him so much about the vagaries of wind and rain. The second piece of information he was about to impart had already been confided to Firethorn, who had agreed with the book holder that it should be deliberately kept from the others until just before the performance. Aware that their fellows would be shackled by superstition, Nicholas hoped to liberate them with his announcement.
‘Our choleric landlord has departed,’ he said, drawing a ragged cheer from the actors, ‘and a more worthy host has taken his place. I can now tell you that Adam Crowmere has promised to honour us with a feast as a gesture of good will.’ There was general jubilation. ‘One condition only is attached to the invitation,’ Nicholas continued, looking round the smiling faces. ‘Our new and hospitable landlord insists that Caesar’s Fall — the very first play to be staged here under his aegis — be yet another success for Westfield’s Men so that we have something to celebrate.’
With Firethorn’s connivance, Nicholas had invented the condition in order to spur the actors on and the device had worked. Instead of the pervading gloom, a buoyant optimism now filled the tiring house. Firethorn traded a knowing glance with his book holder. Nicholas had made the actors forget all about their trepidation. They were now positively straining on the leash to get out on stage.
They did not have long to wait. At a signal from Nicholas, the musicians began to play and Owen Elias stepped out in a black cloak to deliver the Prologue. Though his voice was appropriately firm, his mind was on the promised feast and he could almost smell the roast pig upon the spit. He raised a hand to silence the murmurs in the crowd.
‘Good friends, all you that now are gathered here,
Behold a tale of villainy and fear
In which a mighty conqueror is killed
By those with spite and naked envy filled
Until it drives them on to heinous crime
And offers us a lesson for all time.
For, mark this well, all subtle minds that can,
This Caesar’s Fall is like the Fall of Man.’
And on he went. The rhyming couplets were deceptively simple at first but they had grown more intricate by the time the Prologue ended. Acknowledging a round of applause with a bow, Elias withdrew from the stage until it was time for him to re-enter in the guise of Brutus. The play, meanwhile, opened with a lively scene between a group of gullible citizens and a comical soothsayer. No sooner did Barnaby Gill skip on to the boards in the latter roll than the laughter started. The recognised clown was there to make sure that tragedy was shot through with a dark and ironic humour and, whatever his earlier reservations about the performance, Gill acted as if his life depended on it. His energy and commitment set the tone for the rest of the play.
The story of Julius Caesar was a familiar one and other dramatists had explored it in various ways. What set this new version apart from other plays on the same subject was the emphasis placed on Caesar’s earlier career, showing him as a fearless soldier and a brilliant administrator. It was only later that the martial hero was corrupted by over-ambition. To maintain sympathy for a man with such a glaring flaw in his character, the play offered insights into Caesar’s domestic life and — in one of the most vivid scenes in the play — it anticipated the assassination with a fall of another kind.
Until that point, Firethorn had given a stirring account of Caesar, brave, proud, intelligent, adventurous and endlessly resourceful. By the sheer force of his acting, he had transformed Julius Caesar into a demi-god. Then, at the height of his power, when the audience believed they were looking at an indestructible human being, Firethorn suffered from an attack of falling sickness, dropping to the ground without warning and having such a frenzied epileptic fit that everyone in the yard thought that it was real. It was Brutus, later to conspire against Caesar, who came to his friend’s aid by inserting the handle of a dagger into his mouth to keep his teeth apart in order to prevent him from biting off his tongue. The same dagger would later help to bring about his ultimate fall.
Seated in the lower gallery, Michael Grammaticus watched with teeth clenched and hands clasped tightly together. Though the spectators were engaged from the start, he could not relax, fearing that the piece would lose its grip on the audience or that rain would come to dampen their ardour. His admiration for Westfield’s Men increased with every scene. The problems that had dogged them during rehearsals had miraculously disappeared. Led by Firethorn, the whole company was in tremendous form. Grammaticus was also impressed by the way that the loss of Edmund Hoode was covered. At the suggestion of Nicholas Bracewell, the part of Trebonius was cut out altogether and James Ingram, who had taken the role, instead became Casca. Nobody missed a lesser conspirator.
Enlivened by the antics of Barnaby Gill throughout, the play mixed tragedy and comedy in judicious proportions, moving towards its climax with gathering speed. When the assassination came, it was so vicious and dramatic that there were cries of horror from all corners of the yard. Julius Caesar then gave them all a death scene to remember, staggering around the stage with bloodied hands trying to stem the flow from his various wounds and reviling his enemies in a speech of defiance that showed his true nobility. While his corpse was finally borne away to solemn music, the audience was in a state of profound shock. They had witnessed a sublime tragedy.