SHAKESPEARE: A DAY AT THE GLOBE

Objectives of the Program

Shakespeare: A Day at the Globe is designed to help students become familiar with

• the rise of Elizabethan theater from its origins in early inn yard performances to the building of the Globe Theatre in 1599;

• the forces that supported Elizabethan theater as well as the forces that opposed it;

• the probable structure of Shakespeare’s acting company, its theater, and the makeup of its audience;

• the stage conditions in a 1599 performance at the Globe and the possible reaction of an audience to a performance of Julius Caesar;

• the workings of Shakespeare’s company and his role in it;

• the relationship between Shakespeare’s plays, his times, and the stage for which his plays were written.

• Introduction and Summary

Few events in English literature can compare in importance with the opening of the Globe Theatre in 1599. Ushering in Shakespeare’s ten years at the “wooden O,” the event symbolizes a period that, though short lived, saw the flowering of Elizabethan drama and the creation of works of dramatic literature that are still considered among the greatest of any age.

The two-part video, Shakespeare: A Day at the Globe, is designed to help students become aware of the significance of this period. The program can lead students to understand the stage conditions for which Shakespeare’s plays were written; it can demonstrated to students the place of Shakespeare and his theater in the context of all Elizabethan drama; and it can shed light on the social, political, and cultural events that made Shakespeare’s accomplishments possible.

In Part 1 of the program, the development of public theater is traced from the inn yard performances by traveling players to the first public playhouses, to the building of the Globe Theatre itself. In Part 2, a performance at the Globe is recreated, providing students with the sights, sounds and feelings that they might have experienced if they had actually been present. Taken together, the two parts of Shakespeare: A Day at the Globe help to shade in the rough outlines of Elizabethan theater and to give students the feeling of a performance at the Globe.

Drawings from the period, live photography, and original artwork carefully developed from historical details are used to accomplish the goals of the program. Where details are missing, the prevailing theories of scholars have been used to fill in the broad strokes. The result is an exciting look into the past—into the theater of a playwright whom Ben Jonson called without exaggeration, “Soule of the Age! The applause! Delight! The wonder of our Stage!”

•Historical Background

Native English drama probably developed from the passion plays performed in churches during the Middle Ages. Religious pageants may also have played a part in the development of English drama. The earliest accounts of secular performances tell of traveling players touring the English provinces, giving plays wherever they could, and collecting a small admission. The players themselves were thought of as little better than beggars—and one can only guess at the quality of the plays they performed. Even in Queen Elizabeth’s day, performances were crude, often taking place on hastily drawn up stages in the courtyards of inns. Critics attacked the plays for failing to meet the standards of the Ancients.

All of this was to change rather suddenly in the sixteenth century. England was ready for a rebirth in the arts. The defeat of the Spanish Armada by the English fleet in 1588 made England one of the most powerful nations. Trade brought prosperity and the long reign of Queen Elizabeth provided a stable political atmosphere in which the arts could flourish. Secular plays became popular, and the nobility—including Queen Elizabeth herself—patronized the finer companies of players. In return, the companies performed in England’s great houses and at court. Patronage gave players some defense against vagrancy laws and the objections of the church. In 1573, Elizabeth gave her protection to a company of actors which included James Burbage, a carpenter turned actor, who was to found public theater in England. William Shakespeare was to become the company’s resident playwright.

Burbage could see that there might be huge profit in public theater if actors could perform in their own playhouses, so, in 1577, he built his own playhouse, called simply, The Theatre. The Theatre became an immediate success despite attacks from the City Council and the Church. Within a year, the Curtain theater was competing with if for playgoers, and soon afterward, so were the Swan and the Rose. Each could hold more than a thousand spectators, and all but the poorest could afford the one penny admission to the yard.

In spite of the popularity of public theater, James Burbage had problems. A dispute with his landlord led to the hasty dismantling of The Theatre, but his sons Richard and Cuthbert, using the same lumber, quickly constructed the Globe across Thames outside the city walls of London.

During the brief period between the building of The Theatre and the construction of the Globe, English drama had come of age. By 1599 when the Globe was erected on the Bankside, Southwark, public theater had become popular and profitable. It had drawn into its ranks some of England’s most talented writers, and it was already producing plays that are still among the world’s greatest.

The Globe theater stood as a symbol—both in its own time and at present—of the highest in Elizabethan dramatic art. It was an architectural wonder; it was the home of a resident company of actors soon to come under the patronage of King James; and, most remarkable, it produced in only ten years fifteen of Shakespeare’s greatest plays.

It would seem that such an important period in English literature would be thoroughly documented, that careful records would have been kept. Unfortunately, this is not the case. Information about the life of Shakespeare and the Elizabethan theater is meagre and general, and what is known about the Globe is largely theoretical. Nevertheless, volumes have been written about Shakespeare’s life and the Elizabethan theater, and models and sketches of the Globe are easily available. In this light, it might be a good idea to examine some of the data that do exist.

• Shakespeare and Julius Caesar

William Shakespeare was born in Stratford in 1564 and died there in 1616. His membership in the company of players known as the Lord Chamberlain’s Men and later as the King’s Men dates from 1594 when the company was formed. We can assume that he came to London to begin his career in the early 1590s. Probably starting as an actor, Shakespeare was soon writing plays for the London stage. His success was apparently financial as well as literary, for by the time he retired to Stratford, in 1610 or 1611, Shakespeare had considerable investments in his home town.

Julius Caesar, was one of the first plays that Shakespeare wrote for the Globe after the company’s move to Southwark. Turning to Roman material for the first time, Shakespeare was faithful to the translation of Plutarch’s Lives written in 1595 by Sir Thomas North, but, as always, organized and added to the material to give it dramatic force, originality, and life.

Unlike Ben Jonson, they left behind biographical information or pursued more respectable careers in poetry or prose, very little is known about the lives of any of the men of the Elizabethan stage. Unfortunately, Shakespeare is no exception.

• The Globe and Public Theater

Popular as it was in the sixteenth century, English drama still suffered the prejudices of bygone ages—prejudices given support by government, church, and the prevailing attitude of the time.

The London Council was afraid of public theater. By some estimates three thousand people including all elements of society may have crowded together to see a play. English drama often drew on political and social controversy for its subject matter—and, in the eyes of the law, this could lead to a dangerous situation. London audiences rioted at plays. Crime would breed in a crowded theater, and so could disease. The plague was often to close the theaters during this time.

The church, moving inexorably toward the Puritan revolution, which would close the playhouses completely in the 1640s, was involved in criticism of the theater as well. Sinful things went on at plays; plays were often performed on Sunday, when churchmen might look out at half-empty pews. Had it not been for the Queen’s interest in drama and the patronage of the nobility, the forces of church and local government might have closed the public playhouses much earlier.

But perhaps what accounts most for the lack of details about Elizabethan theater is the attitude of writers themselves. The sixteenth century was the beginning of the English renaissance, when literature rediscovered ancient Greeks and Romans. English drama did not fit the ancient scheme of drama—to the critics of the time, it simply didn’t measure up to the works of Sophocles or Seneca. Engllish plays were looked on with scorn—or simply ignored.

As witness to the low esteem the theater held in the world of letters, William Shakespeare found it necessary to make his name as a writer with the long and florid Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece rather than through plays like Hamlet and King Lear. It seems clear that the main reason there are so few facts to document the rise of English theater is that those in the best position to chart its rise often looked upon it as something common, base, and beneath their dignity.

• The Theater

There are a few drawings from the period that show the exteriors of Elizabethan theaters (see Part 1 of the program). There are a few drawings of interiors, most notably the interior of the Swan Theatre. Philip Henslowe kept detailed accounts for theaters, from which we can determine how money was spent, schedules of performances, and the like. And we have some writings of the times that give us a clue as to acting, staging, and the nature of Elizabethan audience.

What do we know about the Globe Theatre itself? Construction of the Globe must be deduced from construction plans of the Fortune, a theater that was modeled on the Globe. Fortunately, it was an Elizabethan pastime to write contracts and sue in the courts, so we have many details recorded in legal papers. There is only one clear record of what actually wen on at a performance at the Globe: the diary entry of Thomas Platter which opens the second part of the program. Platter’s entry is translated from the German; and although he saw Julius Caesar at the Globe on September 21, 1599, there is no evidence that he understood a word of it.

In the absence of facts about the Globe, theories and controversies abound. One of the most basic of these is the argument among scholars over whether the globe was Tudor or Renaissance in design. C. Walter Hodges has drawn it as a kind of Renaissance carnival; Adams constructed his famous model of the Globe in the style of a Tudor mansion. We have chosen to follow the Adams view, with notable modifications: the Lord’s Room has been positioned directly above the stage as in the Swan drawing, and the exterior detail of the Adams model has been eliminated because it does not appear in other drawings of the time.

Controversy surrounds the stage itself. Was it square or rectangular? Did it taper toward the front (as in the Adams model)? Do the entrance doors face the audience, or are they oblique—facing each other? Were there entrance doors at all, or did the actors enter from behind some kind of hanging or through trapdoors in the stage? The program generally follows the Adams model, showing two entrance doors facing the front of the stage, because it agrees with the Swan interior. The curtained-off enclosure between the doors, although not in the Swan drawing, is fairly well established from other sources.

There is much more that is subject to argument. But, interestingly enough, most scholars agree in broad areas. Let us look next at some of the things we can say about what went on at the globe without stirring up too much argument.

• The Stage

By most accounts, the Elizabethan stage was a rectangular platform. It was, in this respect, a descendant of the platform stages on which traveling companies would perfom in the courtyards of inns. The Globe stage was about 1100 square feet, and it jutted out into the yard where the audience would stand around it to see and hear the play. At the rear of the stage were two doors for entrances and exits. Between the doors was a curtained-off enclosure (also called the “inner stage” or “study”) that could be used for discovery scenes or the thrusting out of large props. There were probably trap doors in the stage for the entrances of ghosts.

The stage was not, as in our time, meant to represent a specific place. It was a platform from which to tell a story. Sir Philip Sydney’s complaint that the audience had to imagine Africa on one side of the stage and Asia on the other was perhaps one of the best aspects of the Elizabethan stage. The Globe stage, like other Elizabethan stages, demanded a playwright’s fertile imagination to accomplish what a modern play accomplishes with sets and elaborate props. In the mind of the Elizabethan audience, there was apparently no need for trees and shrubs to transform a bare stage into a forest. Shakespeare, in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, simply has one of the characters say: “This is the forest of Arden.”

Above the stage was an acting area, or balcony. Here actors could enter “from above,” as indicated in the few stage directions preserved from the period. Also above the stage was the Lords’ Room, with the most expensive seats in the house. It seems from the position of the Lords’ Room—as well as from other physical evidence—that the audience was not as concerned with seeing the play as with hearing it. The lords probably saw only the backs of the actors as they performed.

Above the Lords’ Room was a canopy that protected much of the open-air stage from the weather. Above the canopy were the huts, where most authorities place the machinery—used to lower and raise gods and goddesses from the “heavens.” Such devices, however, seem to be absent from Shakespeare’s work at the Globe.

• The Production

Many modern texts persist in dividing Elizabethan plays into acts and scenes, but, this is not the way they were written or performed. A change of scene was not a break in the action, as modern editors have indicated, but merely a change of place or time that would not have seemed as abrupt as scene changes on the modern stage. One gets the overall impression of a constant flow across the platform. The beginnings and endings of scenes weave a complicated tapestry that is of one piece.

Little is known about where the actors stood as they worked. Will Kemp suggests this when he criticizes less professional actors for delivering all their lines from the edge of the stage (see Part I of the program). Generally, actors worked in twos, with the main action taking place between just two speakers—regardless of the number of actors on stage at the time.

What little we know about costuming suggests that, while money was spent, there was little attention to authenticity. Actors seem to have worn whatever they thought appropriate—not necessarily what was historically correct. The result was an eccentric mixture of Elizabethan dress and what the Elizabethan would have perceived as appropriate to the play.

• The Acting

It has been argued recently that Elizabethan acting was realistic rather than formalized. Much has been made of sixteenth century praise of actors who “hold the mirror up to nature,” but it is important to note that realistic acting meant something quite different to the Elizabethan from what it does to us today. To understand this difference, we must explore two main concepts in Elizabethan psychology.

To the Elizabethan, the outer person and the inner personality were one and the same. Our modern psychology tells us that we do not always know our inner selves, but that idea would have seemed rather strange in the sixteenth century. Shakespeare’s Richard III is a hunchback, and we are not supposed to feel sorry for him. His deformity is a reflection of the deformity of his soul. The evil man looks evil and acts in evil ways—his outward appearance and actions reflect the inner man.

Elizabethans were more interested in the qualities that people shard than in those that made them individuals. The audience would be searching for those qualities which, taken together, made up a certain kind of character: the qualities of virtue, for example, that make up a hero. It follows that the actors in an Elizabethan performance would try to show the audience similarities within types: to delineate the shared virtues of heroes, the shared evils of villains.

Taking these two concepts into account, Elizabethan acting—if it was to be realistic in an Elizabethan sense—had to accurately reflect the inner man in outward gestures, poses, and appearance. Heroes would act like heroes, with every move they made; and villains would act like villain, right down to the way they stood, walked, or grimaced. Likewise, the characterization of an individual would have to reflect the qualities of his type—if he were a clown, he would have to do the things that clowns do. If he were a malcontent, he would do the things other malcontents do.

Realism at the Globe, then, was a far cry from the kind of realism we expect in modern plays. It is a testament to the genius of Shakespeare that his plays can be performed in almost any acting style and still have something to say to an audience.

• The Season

The Globe Theatre, like other theaters of its time, produced a different play every day. This constant changing of plays means that actors in the company had to master and retain a large number and variety of roles. The work must have been much like that of opera singers today.

Except for interruptions due to outbreaks of the plague, the Globe was in action just about all the time. That meant that performances were given in the open air, during good weather and bad. Performances began at two and lasted into the early evening. The playing flag was raised and handbills were circulated in London to announce the afternoon’s performance.

Shakespeare’s company toured the provinces during the worst of winter weather and when the plague closed the theaters. But these tours became shorter and shorter as public theater in London became more and more popular.

• The Audience

The Elizabethan theater audience resembled, in some ways, the spectators at a sports event. It was composed of all ranks of society; it was capable of strong emotions; and it sometimes made those emotions felt in action.

Playwrights like Ben Jonson were constantly at war with the groundlings who paid just a penny to stand in the yard. The groundlings were criticized for failing to see the finer points, for failing to recognize genius. Many playwrights retreated to the private theaters where a more affluent audience could be found. In fact, Shakespeare’s company gave up performing at the Globe in 1609 to perform at Blackfriar’s, an indoor theater that could draw a more refined audience.

We owe the shape of Shakespeare’s plays to the diversity of his audience. His work had to entertain a wide spectrum of society, not just the literate elite. The fact that he could reach both the Lords’ Room and the yard in his work testifies to the universality of his appeal.

• Discussion Questions

Part 1

1. What were three factors that contributed to the sense of well-being in sixteenth-century England? Why do you think prosperity, political stability, and military power made possible a rebirth in the arts at this time?

2. What was the influence of Queen Elizabeth I on the arts? How did her reign help the arts indirectly? Directly?

3. At the time of Queen Elizabeth’s license to Burbage and his company, why were actors looked upon as little better than beggars? How do you think the “legalization” of theater was received by the London Council? The church? Why do you think the city government of London disagreed with the Queen?

4. What were some of the problems acting companies had at inn yard performances? What advantages did Burbage’s Theatre offer the acting companies?

5. Why did Burbage choose a location for his theater outside the city walls of London? What were some of the objections of the London Council to public theater? What was the main reason that the church objected?

6. What part did the rich and powerful play in helping improve Elizabethan theater? Is there a form of “patronage” in public theater today? Explain.

7. The Globe Theatre was the first “actor-owned” theater. How was this good for Shakespeare? How would his work for the Globe compare with that of a writer working for a repertory company today? What were some of the advantages and disadvantages of Shakespeare’s position as a part owner of the Globe?

8. What do we know about Shakespeare, the actor? On the basis of the quotes from Kemp and about Richard Burbage, how do you think the Elizabethan audience would have rated Elizabethan actors? Would they have wanted their performances to be “realistic”?

9. There were no women acting in the Elizabethan theater. Discuss the pros and cons of this situation. Do you think the advent of women in the theater made plays more “realistic”? What advantages did the apprentice system for boy actors have?

10. What did Ben Jonson mean when he called Shakespeare “Soule of the Age”? Why was the Globe Theatre so important in the history of dramatic literature? In what ways was it, too, the “Soule of the Age”?

• Part 2

1. Define the following terms, using information given in the program: enclosure, balcony, canopy, galleries, yard, or pit, groundlings, playing flag, Lord’s Room.

2. Why is the Globe Theatre described as a “wooden O”? Why was it open to the outside instead of roofed completely over?

3. Where were the most expensive seats in the theater? Where were the cheapest places? Which afforded the playgoer the best view of the stage, the cheaper spots in the yard or the seats in the Lord’s Room?

4. What was Shakespeare’s audience like? Was it an exclusive group or a mixed one? Were there women in the audience? How was the audience likely to react to the play? Can you think of a modern analogy to the audience reaction at a Shakespeare play?

5. How did the audience arrive at the Globe? How much did they pay to enter? Does the seating and standing arrangement sound comfortable? What effect do you think this might have had on the reaction of the audience to the plays?

6. Describe the yard as seen from the Lord’s Room. If the lords had a bad view of the stage, what advantage did they have by being so far away from the groundlings?

7. Elizabethan theater used few props and no scenery to speak of. What demands did this place on the playwright? On the audience? On the actors?

8. The actors in Shakespeare’s company many never have actually rehearsed Julius Caesar before its first performance. What made it possible for them to give a good performance anyway? How was the acting on the Globe stage likely to differ from what we see in movies or on the stage today? How might Elizabethan acting have affected Shakespeare’s writing?

9. In the play Julius Caesar, why is there a conspiracy against Caesar? Why is it important to the conspirators to have Brutus with them? How does Caesar contribute to his own fate?

10. How does Mark Anthony turn the crowd away from Brutus and the others? What is unusual about the way he uses the word “honorable” in his speech to the Roman citizens?

11. Mark Antony and Brutus are enemies. Why is it that Mark Antony praises Brutus at the end of the play? What effect would this have on the audience at the time? Why was it politically important in England to show order restored at the end of a play?

12. How did Shakespeare measure his success with his audience? How did the company decide whether or not to perform Julius Caesar again?

13. It was traditional for the actors to dance at the end of a performance. How might this affect the audience? Does it seem appropriate to end a tragedy with dancing? Is it, too, a kind of resolution? Explain.

• Activities

1. Although modern theaters are very different from those of Shakespeare’s time, many parts of the Globe correspond to parts of modern playhouses. Ask students to match a list of parts of the Globe with their modern counterparts.

At the Globe it was called— In a modern theater it’s called—

The yard The orchestra Upper galleries Balconies The Lord’s Room Boxes Groundlings People in orchestra seats Boy actors Actresses Patronage Public financing

Now ask students to write a brief description of the ways in which the modern counterpart differs from the part of the Globe to which it corresponds (for example: the student should match up “the yard” and “the orchestra,” But he should be aware that the yard was the cheapest spot in the Globe while the orchestra is the most expensive in modern theater).

2. Elizabethan theater has been described as a listener’s theater. Have students write a short paper giving details from the layout of the Globe that would support this description. Ask them to consider the question: What demands would a listener’s theater put on the playwright?

3. Shakespeare’s stage jutted out into the yard, in contrast to the “picture stages” to which we are accustomed. Ask students to write a short paper discussing the advantages and disadvantages of the two types of stages.

4. Have students list some of the ways in which the Globe Theatre was like present-day television. Ask them to consider the makeup of the audience, the kinds of plays they were likely to see, the cost, and the acting.

5. There were a lot of hack writers working on the Elizabethan stage. Still, we have a Shakespeare. To emphasize this point, ask students to think up as many statements like this one as they can: “As Shakespeare was to Elizabethan theater, so Truman Capote is to television, Muhammad Ali is to boxing,” and so on.

6. The soundtrack of Shakespeare: A Day at the Globe simulates audience reaction. Ask students to take a scene from a Shakespeare play (other than Julius Caesar) and indicate possible Elizabethan audience reaction to each of the speeches in the scene. Then ask them to write a short paper explaining their conclusions and discussing the differences between the way a modern audience and an Elizabethan audience would in all probability react to this same scene.