F. Brinley Bruton / msnbc.com
The Horse and Groom pub is on the same site as the Curtain, a recently discovered Shakespearean playhouse in London's trendy neighborhood of Shoreditch.
By F. Brinley Bruton, msnbc.com
LONDON - The Horse and Groom pub is known as a drinking hole and dancing venue in the heart of London?s edgy Shoreditch.
It is not known as the place where Shakespeare?s ?Romeo and Juliet? was first performed more than 400 years ago -- that is, until archeologists discovered the remains of the Curtain theater, an early Elizabethan playhouse.
?It is cool,? said 26-year-old Sophie McKay,?a writer and part-time bartender at the pub as she gazed at the patch of pebbled courtyard under which archeologists recently found remnants of the Curtain, built in 1577. ?A friend sent me the link and asked, ?Isn?t this where you work?? And I said, ?Yes it is!??
The Shakespeare fan -- her favorite character is Lady Macbeth -- heard that the entrance to the theater once stood near the Horse and Groom?s own front door. Pre-dating the more famous Globe, on the south bank of the river Thames, the Curtain first performed ?Henry V? and housed William Shakespeare?s company -- the Lord Chamberlain?s Men.
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The remains of the open-air playhouse -- which was covered up again after its discovery?-- lies in what was once?the home of tanneries, factories, slaughter houses and bombed-out buildings.
F. Brinley Bruton / msnbc.com
Graffiti art decorates a wall on Hewitt Street outside the courtyard where archaeologists uncovered the Curtain, the playhouse where Shakespeare's 'Romeo and Juliet' was first performed.
But today it is arguably London?s trendiest?district, known for crowded bars, dance clubs, boutiques and experimental restaurants. It's an amalgam of graffiti-covered 1960s buildings, glass-fronted offices and converted Victorian factories, giving it a shabby-chic vibe.
That Shakespeare performed his tales of love, lust, ambition, betrayal and war in a place now inhabited by hipster creative-types makes sense to East London resident Trevor Howe, who was having a drink with photographer Amrita Chandradas, 24, at the Horse and Groom.
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?It?s vibrant, alive, exciting,? said the 41-year-old artist and photographer. ?It?s always changing, it never stops, there is always something new.?
Howe and Chandradas agreed it was exciting?that ?Romeo and Juliet??was first performed where they stood -- and upon realizing the tragedy about young love was a favorite of both, they embraced giddily.
Best-preserved Elizabethan theater?
The discovery of the Curtain?s walls and a yard, which came during work on a major regeneration project, is equally exciting for the experts involved in the excavation.
Over six weeks, the World Shakespeare Festival will show all of the Bard's 37 plays, each in a different language, and each by a different international company. Renowned artists and new young companies will celebrate performing Shakespeare in their own language within the architecture he wrote for -- the Globe Theatre in London. NBC News' Peter Jeary reports.
In addition to being one of only a dozen such playhouses believed to have ever been built, the site may well be the best-preserved Elizabethan playhouse, said Heather Knight, a senior archeologist from the Museum of London Archeology who helped uncover the Curtain.
?They are very rare buildings so to find anything of one of these buildings is exciting, but to find a wall that stands to its complete height is unique,? she said.
The reason the Curtain, built in 1577, and other Elizabethan playhouses are so rare is that they were razed by the Puritans after the English civil war.?
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?The most bitter and most effective attacks on Shakespeare?s and the other playwrights? productions came from English Puritans,? leading Shakespearean scholar Hildegard Hammerschmidt-Hummel said. ?They thought the theater to be the root of evil.?
F. Brinley Bruton / msnbc.com
Graffiti art covers a building on London's Great Eastern Street close to where archeologists uncovered the Curtain, an ancient Elizabethan playhouse.
No sign of rampaging Puritans in Shoreditch these days, however.
If anything, the current rough-and-tumble creative life in Shoreditch may owe something Shakespeare, said Tom Monaghan, manager of The Queen of Hoxton, a self-described bar, club and art collective near the site where the Curtain was found.
?To think I work right opposite from were Shakespeare used to try out his material,? the 30-year-old said. ?Shakespeare could have put Macbeth through his paces over there.?
Monaghan, who interspersed the conversation with barked commands into a mic pinned to his t-shirt, stood amid people sipping European beer and wearing skinny jeans and lank hairstyles.
Then he asked:??Is it a coincidence that the area has become creative again??
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