Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre
From 1599 onwards, Shakespeare’s plays were usually performed at the Globe, a huge, open-air circular theatre in Southwark, London. The theatre could hold 3000 people, and there were two performances a day. Along with other members of his theatre company, Shakespeare owned a share in the Globe and made a lot of money.
The Globe was a wooden circle with no roof over the middle. Performances were usually in the afternoon. It was built of oak beams and a flag was flown during a performance. The stage was known as an apron stage, which stuck out into the middle of the yard. It was covered by a roof, which helped to keep the players dry. The ceiling over the stage was called the “shadow” or “heavens”. It was painted with sun, moon and stars. The stage was positioned so the sun didn’t shine in the actors’ eyes. Behind the stage there was a backstage area where the actors got changed.
As the Globe had a roofless yard, it was a warm-weather theatre. In cold weather, performances were held at the Blackfriars, a monastery converted to a theatre, or at another location. Plays at the Globe began in mid-afternoon after a trumpet sounded. Sunlight provided the lighting, although torches were sometimes lit to suggest night scenes. There were no intermissions. All performances had to end before nightfall so that playgoers could return safely home. There were no performances during lent or during outbreaks of plague.
The Globe had a Latin motto: Totus mundus agit histrionem. It was a translation of one of Shakespeare's most famous lines: All the World's a Stage. A flag flew over the theatre on play days to advertise performances. If a tragedy was scheduled, the flag was black; if a comedy was scheduled, the flag was white; if a history play was scheduled, the flag was red.
Theatres often had thatched roofs making them fire hazards. “Gatherers” stood at the door with boxes to collect admission money, this is why a ticket office is called a “box office” The stage was five feet high so people couldn’t jump on it. As there was not much scenery on stage, props and elaborate costumes were used instead.
In London, plays were often put on by theatre companies, which were groups of professional actors. By law, a company had to have a patron, a rich friend who would support it financially. Theatre companies were named after their patrons. Shakespeare spent much of his career with a company called the Chamberlain’s Men. Its patron was the Lord Chamberlain.
All the actors at the Globe and other theatres were males, even those who played Juliet and Cleopatra. It was forbidden for a woman to set foot on an Elizabethan stage. This meant that Romeo probably recited his lines to a fuzzy-faced boy and that Antony may have whispered sweet nothings to a gawky adolescent male. However, because of wigs, neck-to-toe dresses and makeup artistry, it was easy for a young man to pass as a girl. When an actor reached early adulthood, he could begin playing male parts. Shakespeare himself sometimes performed in his plays. It is said that he enjoyed playing the Ghost in Hamlet.
All actors had to memorize their lines exactly; if they forgot their lines, they had to improvise cleverly or watch or listen for cues from an offstage prompter. Highly skilled actors, such as Richard Burbage, earned more money, and received more praise, than Shakespeare and other playwrights. Actors who played clowns and jesters were celebrities, much as today's television and movie comedians.
Shakespearean and other Elizabethan actors had to perform their own stunts, such as falling or tumbling and had to wield swords and daggers with convincing skill. Most actors had to know how to perform popular dances depending on the time and place of the play. Actors had to have loud voices, as there were no microphones.
Before performing a bloody play, actors in Shakespeare's day filled vessels such as pigs' bladders with blood or a liquid resembling blood and concealed them beneath their costumes. Onstage, they had only to pound a fist against a bladder to release the blood and die a gruesome death. Stagehands in the wings simulated thunder by striking a sheet of metal or pounding a drum. They also sometimes set off fireworks during battle scenes and lit torches during night scenes. The audiences’ imagination was needed to help provide other special effects. Actors wore clothing that was currently in fashion. They had to memorise all their lines as there were no cue cards or intermissions.
Shakespeare wrote plays that appealed to people of different backgrounds and tastes. Going to the theatre was a bit like going to the cinema today. Cheapest tickets cost one penny, which most people could afford (wages were about 12 pence a week.) The most expensive tickets were 6 pence and were bought by rich merchants and nobles. Foreign traders and tourists often made a trip to the theatre when visiting London. With so many people crowded together, the theatres were also popular with thieves and pickpockets.
The Globe Theatre was a democratic institution, admitting anyone, whether a baron, a beggar, a knight, a candle maker, an earl, a shoemaker, or a strumpet, if he or she had coin of the realm to drop in a box before entering. Audiences were not as well behaved as they are today. People jeered at the actors and shouted out rude remarks. Some even climbed onto the stage and joined in with swordfights. People also brought food with them to eat during the performance, or to throw at bad actors.
James Burbage, owner of The Globe Theatre, moved the theatre to avoid paying a higher rent. He found a new site across the Thames River, near two other famous London theatres, the Rose and the Swan. Burbage arranged for a local carpenter, Peter Street, to go into the darkened theatre at night and loosen the building joints. On the night of January 20, 1599, actors and friends of Burbage gathered outside the theatre. Then in a "most forcible and riotous manner," they took and carried away all the wood and timbers. Crossing the frozen Thames, the group carried the pieces of the dismantled theatre to its new home where it was rebuilt.
There was no shortage of entertainment in London at this time. Cock fighting and bear-baiting were popular sports and many people enjoyed watching public beatings and executions.
Many Londoners opposed theatres because they thought that the crowds they attracted would spread plague, cause riots, and increase pick pocketing. Some opponents believed theatre plays would lead young people and tradesmen astray and tempt Sunday churchgoers to the theatre door instead of the church door.
Plays in Shakespeare's time had to be approved by the king's (or the queen's) censor, the master of revels. The authorities took the theatre very seriously and plays considered morally or politically offensive could be banned under threat of imprisonment.
Tragically in 1613, during the premier of Shakespeare’s Henry VIII, the Globe burnt to the ground, the cannon fired during a scene had set fire to the roof. Luckily most of the props, costumes and Shakespeare’s plays were saved. The theatre was rebuilt with a fireproof tiled roof. However, the Puritans, who were strict Protestants and disapproved of entertainment of any kind, came to power in 1642 and set about closing all England’s theatres. The Globe was pulled down and replaced by tenements in 1644.
Modern attempts to rebuild the Globe theatres are based on 17th Century descriptions and drawings. Recreations are based on educated guesses and a surviving drawing of a rival theatre. In 1970, the American actor Sam Wanamaker started a project to rebuild Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre near to its original site. It is an accurate replica of the original and built of the same materials – brick, oak wood, thatch, animal hair and putty. It is used for performances of Shakespeare’s plays but because of safety regulations can only hold half as many people as the original Globe.
History of Shakespeare in performance
Theatres were reopened with the Restoration of the Monarchy in 1660 when Charles II returned from exile in France. New theatres were built, actresses appeared on stage for the first time and hundreds of new plays were written. When Shakespeare’s plays were performed they were heavily adapted by playwrights such as William Davenant (1606 to1668) and Nahum Tate (1652 to 1715). In Tate’s version of King Lear, Cordelia has an affair with Edgar, and Lear and Cordelia are saved in a happy ending. This play was very popular and performed for over 150 years. Shakespeare’s plays in the 17th Century were adapted to suit the sophisticated, fashionable tastes that developed during the restoration.
In the 18th Century Shakespeare performances were dominated by David Garrick (1717 to 1779). He was an ‘actor-manager’ who ran theatres and produced and starred in performances. As Shakespeare was his hero he produced as many of his plays as possible bringing them to a wider audience. He developed a new, more relaxed, realistic way of speaking his lines that replaced the formal acting style that had gone before. Garrick also rewrote and adapted the plays. Few performances used Shakespeare’s original text. In 1769 Garrick organised a “Shakespeare Jubilee” to celebrate Shakespeare at his birthplace in Stratford upon Avon. This was the beginning of the Shakespeare industry that thrives in Stratford today.
Shakespeare became very popular in the 19th Century. The plays were restored to their original text with an obsession for historical accuracy and period detail. Producers attempted to recreate realistic scenes such as ancient Egypt for Antony and Cleopatra or a medieval Scotland for Macbeth. Performances were elaborate with hundreds of extras for the crowd and battle scenes.
Edmund Kean was the most famous actor of the early 19th Century. After his performance as Othello the poet, Coleridge wrote that seeing Kean act was so exciting it was like “reading Shakespeare by flashes of lightning”. Henry Irvine staged and starred in many of Shakespeare’s plays in London from 1878 to 1902. His productions were often spectacular. He was even known to build real streams and use real animals such as rabbits on stage. He had flying, singing witches in his version of Macbeth. Ellen Terry was the greatest actress of the late 19th Century and often played lead female roles opposite Henry Irvine.
The 20th Century saw a return to the Elizabethan style with very little scenery and as much of the original text as possible. This style was popular throughout this century but there were also many experimental or ‘avant-garde’ interpretations, including modern dress productions, all female casts, and modern props such as bicycles, cars, skateboards and telephones.
The 20th Century has also been characterised by many new ways of presenting and understanding Shakespeare. His works have been translated into dozens of languages and his plays performed all over the world. Shakespeare has inspired many plays, films, books and other works of art and his works are studied by millions of students and experts in schools and universities. Actors famous for playing Shakespearian characters include John Gielgud, Laurence Olivier, Peggy Ashcroft and Judy Dench.
Shakespeare’s works have been made into some of the earliest silent films, soon after the invention of cinema. Since then plays have often been adapted for the big screen. Laurence Olivier directed a very patriotic film of Henry V in 1944, during World War 2, cutting out many of the Shakespeare’s lines about the horror of war.
In the 1960’s the Italian director Franco Zeffirelli filmed some of the plays in the Italian cities where Shakespeare set them. In his Romeo and Juliet the lovers are seen on a real balcony in Verona, and The Taming of the Shrew was filmed around Padua. Kenneth Branagh has made popular Shakespeare films including Henry V (1990) and Much Ado About Nothing (1993), and has played Iago in Othello (1996).
Ballets, operas and musicals have been based on Shakespeare’s works such as Verdi’s operas Macbeth and Othello. Leonard Bernstein’s West Side Story (1957) is a musical based on Romeo and Juliet, set in New York among two rival teenage gangs, the Jets and the Sharks. Return to The Forbidden Planet (1990) is a science fiction musical based on Shakespeare’s The Tempest.
Click on the pictures to enlarge them.
Patrick Johnson 10S1
20th January 2010
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