Red Bull Theatre - Definition

The Red Bull was a playhouse in London during the seventeenth century. It was constructed in 1604 on St. John's Street in Clerkenwell. Like the Globe Theatre, it was partly open to the elements, but it was unusual among theatres of the era in that it was square, rather than round. Its name came from cattle that were driven down St. John’s Street toward the markets in Smithfield.

The Red Bull developed a reputation for noisy, vulgar drama and was frequented primarily by the lower classes. Among the many plays performed there was John Webster's The White Devil (1611), which the audience booed from the stage for being too intellectual and unusual.

Along with all the other theatres in London, the Red Bull was closed in 1642 by the Puritans, but the building was not destroyed, and it was re-opened in 1660 upon the Restoration of the monarchy. Its new management returned to the business of staging crowd-pleasing drama; Samuel Pepys recorded seeing a revival of William Rowley's All's Lost by Lust there. The Red Bull was eventually destroyed in 1666 in the Great Fire of London. After the fire, buildings were constructed on its foundations, and the outline of its structure, including the passageway from the auditorium to the street, can still be found in the street now known as Hayward's Passage, off St. John's Street.