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. By Michael J. Cummings © 2003 . This page has been revised and moved to Description
of the Original Globe (1599)
.......Although
the second Globe had a non-flammable tile roof, it was torn down in 1644
after a fire of another sort, Puritan zeal, closed all theatres. Puritans
were strict Protestants who favored strait-laced living and opposed theatre
performances. After the Globe was razed, tenements replaced it. Between
September 2 and 5, 1666, the Great Fire of London–which destroyed more
than 13,000 dwellings and more than 80 churches–consumed the foundations
and whatever else was left of the Globe. Not a stick of wood from it was
left. Modern recreations of the first and second Globe theatres are based
on 17th Century descriptions and drawings. No one knows the exact dimensions
or appearance of the second Globe or its predecessor. Globe Theatre recreations
are based on educated guesses and on a surviving drawing of a rival theatre..
.......The Globe was built west of London Bridge on the south bank of the Thames River in an area known as Bankside. It was the seedy section of town, frequented by prostitutes, pickpockets and other unsavory people. Not far from the Globe were "bear gardens," where Londoners attended entertainments in which a bear chained by the neck or a leg was attacked by dogs, including mastiffs. The sport was known as bearbaiting. More than two decades before the first Globe Theatre was built, Queen Elizabeth herself attended an entertainment involving 13 bears. Bankside residents also enjoyed bullbaiting. In this entertainment, a bull’s nose was primed with pepper to excite it. Dogs were then loosed one at a time to bite the bull’s nose. .......Richard
Burbage and his brother, Cuthbert, inherited a playhouse called "The Theatre"
from their father, James. The Theatre, which opened in 1576, stood in the
Shoreditch section of London. It resembled a miniature U.S. baseball park
in that it had a circular seating area surrounding an open area. Unlike
a baseball park, however, the open area had a stage. In front of the stage
was a yard in which playgoers unable to afford seating could stand.
 .......The
Burbage Brothers owned a 50 percent interest in the Globe. William Shakespeare
and four other investors–John Heminges, Augustine Phillips, Thomas Pope
and Will Kempe–owned the remaining 50 percent in equal shares.
.......William Shakespeare was, of course, the main dramatist. But other authors also debuted plays there. They included Ben Jonson, Thomas Dekker and the writing team of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher. Fletcher and Shakespeare teamed up to write The Two Noble Kinsmen. .......All
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 proscription against females 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 male to pass for a
female. After 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.
..............William
Shakespeare
.......The acting company to which Shakespeare belonged established itself in 1590 as the Lord Chamberlain's Men, also called simply the Chamberlain's Men. Shakespeare joined the company about 1594. After the company's patron–Henry Carey, First Lord Hunsdon, a first cousin of Queen Elizabeth–died in 1596, Carey's son, George (Second Lord Hunsdon), assumed the patronage of the company. It then adopted a new name, Hunsdon's Men. However, the company reverted back to its old name, Lord Chamberlain's Men, in 1597. It retained that name until the death of Queen Elizabeth I in March 1603 and the accession of James I as King England. At that time, James became the company's patron, and its name changed to the King's Men. .......Shakespearean and other Elizabethan actors had to perform their own stunts, such as falling or tumbling. They also had to wield swords and daggers with convincing skill. In addition, most actors had to know how to perform popular dances of their era and earlier eras, depending on the time and place of the play. Finally, actors had to have a voice of robust timbre. After all, there were no microphones or megaphones in Shakespeare's day. Several thousand noisy people–sometimes cheering, sometimes booing–had to hear every line. Spare
Sets Equal Improved Writing
.......Before
performing a bloody play such as Titus Andronicus, 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 imagination
of the audience was called upon to provide other special effects, as the
prologue to Henry V suggests.
.......Actors at the Globe and other London theatres generally wore clothing currently in fashion. Thus, the characters in plays set centuries before the age of Shakespeare dressed in Elizabethan or Jacobean apparel. For example, the characters in King Lear and Cymbeline, both set in ancient Britain, wore clothing popular at the time of Shakespeare. Presumably, it would have been too costly and time-consuming to research and make costumes of another era. .......Sound quality in the Globe Theatre was poor, and spoken lines did not carry unless actors bellowed them viva voce. Consequently, actors had to recite their lines with boom and thunder while helping to convey their meaning with exaggerated gestures. .......Elizabethan
actors had to know all of their lines word for word. In a day when their
were no cue cards and no intermissions–and actors had to perform in many
plays each year instead of the one or two that occupy modern actors in
New York and London–such a task surely was Herculean for the major actors
playing Hamlet, King Lear, or Macbeth. However, acting companies did post
a person offstage to prompt actors who forgot their lines.
.......In an age when royals and nobles held full sway over commoners, the Globe Theatre was a democratic institution, admitting anyone–whether a baron, a beggar, a knight, a candlemaker, an earl, a shoemaker, or a strumpet–if he or she had coin of the realm to drop in a box before entering. The viewers of a play could be noisy and rowdy, and they could deliver an instant review of an acting performance in the form or a rotten tomato colliding with the forehead of an offending actor.
Motto .......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. The line can also be translated as All the world plays the actor. .......Some writers have erroneously attributed the derivation of the term box office to the use of a money box at the Globe Theatre into which theatregoers deposited coins to pay for seeing a play. In fact, the term box office did not originate until several centuries later, when it was used to refer to an office at which theatregoers could reserve an enclosed area of seating (box) for viewing stage performances. .......There was none. But 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. Playhouses in or Near London Between 1576 and 1614 The
Theatre
Why Some Londoners Opposed Theatres .......Many
Londoners opposed theatres on grounds that the crowds that they attracted
would spread plague, cause riots, and increase pickpocketing. In addition,
opponents believed theatre plays would lure young people and tradesmen
from gainful activity and tempt Sunday churchgoers to stray their paths
to the theatre door instead of the church door.
Censorship .......Before any play could be staged in Shakespeare's time, it had to be approved by the king's (or the queen's) censor, the master of revels. The censor scrutinized each play at the expense of the production company. Plays considered morally or politically offensive could be banned under pain of imprisonment. John Russell Brown, author of Shakespeare and His Theatre (New York: Lothrop, Lee and Shepard, 1982, Page 31) discusses the circumstances under which the censor forbade the staging of one of Shakespeare's plays:
.......Because 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. Performances 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. . Act: One of the main divisions of a play. Shakespeare's plays each have five acts. Each act is subdivided into scenes. An act generally focuses on one major aspect of the plot or theme. Between acts, stagehands may change scenery, and the setting may shift to another locale. Alarum: Stage direction indicating the coming of a battle; a call to arms Arras: Tapestry hung on the stage to conceal scenery until the right moment. In Hamlet, an arras played a crucial role. Polonius hid behind one to eavesdrop on a conversation between Hamlet and his mother, Queen Gertrude. When Hamlet saw the tapestry move, he stabbed at it, thinking King Claudius was behind it, and killed Polonius. Aside: Words an actor speaks to the audience which other actors on the stage cannot hear. Sometimes the actor cups his mouth toward the audience or turns away from the other actors. An aside serves to reveal a character's thoughts or concerns to the audience without revealing them to other characters in a play. Near the end of Hamlet, Queen Gertrude raises a cup of wine to her lips during the fencing match between Hamlet and Laertes. King Claudius had poisoned the wine and intended it for Hamlet. In an aside, Claudius–unwilling to warn Gertrude in an effort to preserve his innocence–says, "It is the poison'd cup: it is too late." Catchword: In published Shakespeare plays in earlier times, a single word on the bottom of the right side of every page. This word was the first word appearing on the next page. Chorus: The chorus was a single person who recited a prologue before Act I (and sometimes a passage between acts) in Henry V, Henry VIII, Troilus and Cressida, and Romeo and Juliet. Generally, the chorus informed the audience of action offstage or outside the time frame of the play. Dramatis Personae: List of the characters in a play. Such a list is found at the beginning of each Shakespeare play. Enter: Stage direction indicating the entrance onto the stage of a character or characters. Epilogue: Short address spoken by an actor at the end of a play that comments on the meaning of the events in the play or looks ahead to expected events; an afterword in any literary work.  Excursion:
Stage
direction indicating that a military attack is taking
place. The opening of Scene II in Act III of King John contains
such a stage direction. Exeunt: Stage direction indicating the departure of two or more characters from the stage. Exit: Stage direction indicating the departure of a character from the stage. Flourish: Music usually introducing the entrance or exit of a king or another important person. The music may consist of a short trumpet passage. Fair Copy: Play manuscript after it has been edited. Foul Papers: Original manuscript of a playwright which was later edited. Gallery: Roofed seating area of a theatre, such as the Globe, that resembled the grandstand of a baseball park. The Globe had three galleries that could accommodate 2,000 to 3,000 playgoers. Hautboys: Stage direction indicating that entering characters are playing hautboys (OH bwah), which are Elizabethan oboes Induction: Preface or prelude to a play. The Taming of the Shrew contains an induction that precedes the main plot. Master of Revels: Government censor who examined all plays for offensive material Prologue: Introduction of a play. In Henry V, a chorus (one person) speaks a prologue that encourages the audience members to use their imaginations to create what an Elizabethan stage cannot: battlefields, clashing swords, the might of warriors. Shakespeare writes, "Think when we talk of horses, that you see them printing their proud hoofs i' the receiving earth." Promptbook or Prompt Copy: Edited version of a play in which an acting company inserted stage directions. Re-Enter: Stage direction indicating the re-entrance onto the stage of a character or characters. Scene: (1) Time and place of the action in a play; (2) part of an act in a play that usually takes place in one location. Sennet: Trumpet flourish to introduce the entrance of a character, such as King Lear (Act 1). Soliloquy: Long passage in which a character reveals his thoughts to the audience but not to other characters. Hamlet's famous "To be or not to be" speech is an example. Solus: Stage direction indicating a character is alone on the stage. Stationers' Register: Book in which the English government required printers to register the title of a play before the play was published. The full official name of the Stationers' Register was the Hall Book of the Worshipful Company of Stationers. Tiring House: Dressing rooms of actors behind a wall at the back of the stage. To tire means to dress–that is, to attire oneself. Sometimes, the wall of the tiring house could stand as the wall of a fortress under siege. Torches: Stage direction indicating that entering characters are carrying lit torches. Within: Stage direction indicating that a person speaking or being spoken to is behind a door or inside a room. Opportunists attempting to
capitalize on the popularity of Shakespeare's plays sometimes printed "stolen"
versions of the plays. They obtained these versions by attending a play
and copying the lines.
......In
the 19th Century, Shakespeare productions had become elaborate spectacles
featuring lavish sets and costumes and bombastic recitations of dialogue.
Such productions required more time to enact than the productions of Shakespeare's
time because of the frequent scenery changes and the inflated delivery
style of the actors. Consequently, theater companies often omitted or revised
important passages to keep the plays at a tolerable length. Thus, the heart
and soul of the plays, the verbal Shakespeare, became subservient to special
effects.
..
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