LOGIN | NEU REGISTRIEREN

Schule > Englisch > Landeskunde > GB - England - Art and Artists > The Globe Theatre

Between 1550 and 1642, there were four theatres on Bankside - the Globe, the Rose, the Hope, the Swan, and also several bear-baiting and bull-baiting amphitheatres. Over 15 venues were available in London to hear a play.  The most famous theatre of the Elizabethan stage was the Globe Theatre, which was placed in central London on the South Bank of the Thames.
The Globe Theatre – also called the Globe Playhouse - was an open-air theatre that seated up to 3,000 spectators. This is just an estimate because there were different audience capacities in the Elizabethan Theatres differing from 2,344 up to 3,000 – and the Globe was the largest theatre at that time. Private theatres only had a capacity of 1,000 people each. It had about twenty sides, which made it appear round. It was three stories high and had a diameter of about 100 feet.
The rectangular stage at the front of the theatre was about 43 feet wide and 28 feet deep, and it was raised a few feet off the ground so there was a crawl space underneath. There were trap doors in the floor of the stage and in the Heavens in the roof above the stage for entrances, exits, or special effects.
Around the yard and stage were three tiers of galleries. Wealthier patrons could sit in these seats, while the "groundlings" stood in the yard for a penny each which was about 1/12th of the money earned by a usual worker per week. To get to the galleries, another penny was charged when passing the entrances. People who had enough money to pay a third penny could sit in the “Lord’s Rooms” where they had a comfortable seat and a fantastic view.
A special tiring room behind the stage provided a place for storage or costume changes. A balcony above the tiring room, behind the stage, provided an acting space, a place for the orchestra, or for more seating.
There were two doors on the left and right of the tiring area. In the middle there was a large opening with a curtain, which could be drawn or opened when needed. There was no curtain hiding the entire stage though. The plays – many of them by Shakespeare - were written so that the players could enter and exit the stage being seen by the audience.
The octagonally shaped outer wall of the theater enclosed a roofless inner pit into which the stage projected; around the pit were three galleries one above the other, the topmost of which was roofed with thatch, commonly called "The Heavens." The stage was a large platform. At the back, on each side of the platform, were two large doors. In the center of the platform was a recess or inner stage, which was usually concealed by a curtain. When desired, this curtain could be drawn aside allowing the recess to serve (in Romeo and Juliet, for example) as Friar Laurence's cell or Juliet's tomb. Above the recess was a balcony flanked by windows. From the balcony Juliet spoke to Romeo, and Romeo descended after their wedding night. There was no front curtain to hide the stage completely and separate the actors from their audience. All the characters appearing in a scene had to make their entrances and exits in full view of the audience.
Performances were given every day but Sunday, and plays ran from two to five in the afternoon, so that sunlight wouldn't bother the audience and the players. The Globe used simple stage props - chairs or tables were brought on the raised platform as needed. Actual scenery may have been suggested through dialogue or may have included minimal set pieces such as a few trees to suggest a forest, or a rock to suggest a river bank.
There were no producer or director; the actors were in complete control of the production.
Costumes were extravagant, spangled affairs of gold, lace, silk and velvet, often the castoffs of the aristocratic patron. Actors also wore make-up, an abomination to the Puritans. The costumes were based on the  contemporary clothing styles of the time. Instead of attempting any sort of accurate historical costuming, the actors wore clothes much like those of a character's rank. During the time that Shakespeare wrote and acted, the professional companies only employed male actors. Although most of the roles in the plays are male, the few parts of younger female characters - like Ophelia or Juliet, for instance - were played by young boys, aged fourteen or so and apprenticed to actors. Usually there were about fifteen full members in each company, a few stagehands, and two or three boy apprentices.
Rehearsal time was minimal. Actors learned their parts in about a week; a leading man might have to memorize eight hundred lines a day. According to one theatre historian, a leading man would learn and retain over seventy different roles in three years.
A flag at the top of the theatre announced plays every day since the Puritans did not allow publicity. A black flag meant that a tragedy was being performed, white was a comedy, and red was history.
Patrons of the globe were transported by ferry from across the Thames. Shrewd wherrymen ("Elizabethan taxi drivers") would withhold the price of transport until halfway across, so the passenger had to pay whatever the wherryman asked for. When theatre-goers entered the theatre, they dropped their admission into a box (therefore we have box offices).
The actors and the audience always interacted. There was no way to avoid the interactivity, because of the audience's rowdy behavior particularly in the groundling areas. For instance, some people would join mock fights. The noise was terrible. People could drink or eat without paying any attention to what happened on stage. Common refreshments and snacks were hazelnuts, beer, water, gingerbread, apples, and oranges. All of these were occasionally thrown at the actors onstage.
There was not one restroom for all three thousand spectators. Nor were there any intermissions. The playhouses thus smelled of urine as well as ginger, garlic, beer, tobacco, and sweat (few Elizabethans bathed).
There are a few theories about the creation of the Globe Theatre. In 1598, James Burbage's theatre, the Theatre, was in danger. This was because the piece of land the theatre was situated on was at the end of its lease. The landlord threatened to tear the theatre down. To avoid paying a high price to keep the theatre, he had his two sons, Richard and Cuthbert Burbage, dismantle the Theatre piece by piece. They then had to transport it across the Thames to a small lot on the south bank in Southwark. In partnership with Shakespeare and others, they built a new theatre, which they called the Globe.
The Globe began its first season in 1599 with a production of As You Like It written by William Shakespeare, and continued with works by Shakespeare, Jonson, Beaumont, Fletcher, and others. By the sharing system usually used during the 17th century, the Burbage family got half of the interest, and the other half was split between five actor-shareholders: Shakespeare, Will Kempe, Thomas Pope, Augustine Phillips, and John Hemmings. These men were players of the Lord Chamberlain's Men, a popular group of the time whose home theatre was the Globe Playhouse.
Plays belonged to the acting company and not to the playwright. Shakespeare did not own or have any right to publish his own plays.
In 1613, during a performance of Henry VIII, another play by Shakespeare, a canon went off to mark the entrance of the king, and a stray spark set the thatch roof aflame. In one hour, the theatre was destroyed. The reconstruction of the Globe began quickly, and it was finished by June 1614. Performances continued until 1642, when the Puritans, who found theatre vulgar and intolerable, shut all theatres down in and around London. Two years later, the Globe was leveled to make way for tenement dwellings.

Download: PDF, DOC