Theatre in the
Elizabethan Age
Shakespeare and the Globe
The Elizabethan Age
A brief period of largely
internal peace
During this period the
government was
centralized, wellorganized, and
effective
England was also well-off compared to the other
nations of Europe; the country began to benefit
greatly from the new era of trans-Atlantic trade
Theatre
Throughout the Middle Ages, plays were
performed on “pageant wagons” and were
religion-based, often retelling stories from the
Bible. This ended after Henry VIII’s break from
Rome and formation of the Church of England
in 1533.
Therefore, playwrights took inspiration from the
Roman theatre and writers like Seneca, who
wrote about crime, revenge, witches and ghosts.
Elizabethan writers introduced theatre
audiences to horror, the supernatural, and gore.
London Theatres
In the early days, Elizabethan theatre space was located in
courtyards and the larger homes of noble patrons.
“The Theatre,” the first permanent theatre space in
England, was built by James Burbage in 1576, but when
the lease on the land expired, the landlord claimed he
owned the building.
On 28 December 1598, while the landlord was celebrating
Christmas at his country home, a carpenter and the players
dismantled The Theatre beam by beam and transported it
to a waterfront warehouse.
The following spring, the lumber was ferried over the
Thames and reconstructed as The Globe in Southwark.
William Shakespeare owned 12.5% of the theatre.
The Globe
Theatre
At The Globe
Shakespeare wrote for and performed with
the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, which
became the King’s Men when James I
became king in 1603.
The Globe could accommodate up to 3000
people per performance.
There were no restroom facilities, and plays
were performed without intermissions.
The Audience
The public who came to the theatres paid
accordingly for where they were during
the play. In the yard or pit, “groundlings”
paid a penny.
Seats in the gallery were higher priced,
perhaps two pennies for the first level,
three pennies for the second and so on.
It was customary to charge an extra penny
when a new play was being presented.
The Groundlings
The groundlings were very vocal and
demonstrative during the plays, hissing
and booing the villains and cheering for
the hero. If they thought the play was bad,
they would let their feelings known by
throwing garbage at the stage and the
actors; if they thought it was good, they
would cheer loudly.
The Galleries
To in the gallery was more expensive than in the
pit, so the audience who chose to watch from
here was more wealthy, consisting of shopkeepers or merchants.
They would often rent straw pillows to use on
the rough wooden benches used for seating in
these areas.
There were middle and upper galleries, and the
higher in these you sat, the larger the fee to sit
there.
The Lords Room
The most expensive seats were situated
above the stage and the balcony. This area
was used by the very wealthy to watch the
plays from above.
The seats had an added benefit of allowing
the rich to be seen by everyone else.
The Stage
Theatres of this
era had what is
known as a
thrust stage,
described this
way because it
projected into
the yard, and
the audience
was able to
surround it on
three sides.
Heaven and Hell
On the stage, there
was a trap door for
performers to enter
from the "cellarage"
beneath the stage.
Large columns on either side of the stage
supported a roof over the rear portion of the stage.
The ceiling under this roof was called the
"heavens," and was painted with clouds and the
sky. A trap door in the heavens enabled
performers to descend using some form of rope
and harness.
The Performances
There was very little scenery available, so dialogue was
used to explain where the scene was taking place.
Costume was very important in Elizabethan theatre;
costumes would tell the audience the character’s status,
family ties or profession.
The Elizabethan theatre used a variety of sound effects,
such as thunder, running horses, falling rain, and cannon
blasts.
Music played an important role in the setting the mood of
the plays. Musicians performed from one of the balconies
above the stage.
Plays were performed in the afternoons, lit only by
daylight.
Flying the Flag
The flag of the Globe
pictured Atlas with the world
on his shoulders.
Performances were announced by hoisting a flag
above the theatre—white for comedy, black for
tragedy, and red for history. Since so many
people could not read, a simple system to
advertise performances was necessary, especially
since the plays were different almost every day.
Shakespeare Today
Elizabethan theatre still plays a part in our day to day lives,
mostly through the influence of Shakespeare. You can find
references to his work in films, novels, plays, musicals,
songs, poetry, artwork, satire…even today his characters
and storylines continue to inspire.
Shakespeare in Language
Shakespeare coined over 1600 words still used today,
including: accommodation, aerial, amazement,
apostrophe, assassination, auspicious, baseless, bloody,
bump, castigate, changeful, clangor, control (noun),
countless, courtship, critic, critical, dexterously,
dishearten, dislocate, dwindle, eventful, exposure, fitful,
frugal, generous, gloomy, gnarled, hurry, impartial,
inauspicious, indistinguishable, invulnerable, lapse,
laughable, lonely, majestic, misplaced, monumental,
multitudinous, obscene, perusal, pious, premeditated,
radiance, reliance, road, sanctimonious, seamy, sportive,
submerge, and suspicious
And lastly…
“If you cannot understand my argument, and declare "It's Greek
to me", if your lost property has vanished into thin air, if you
have ever refused to budge an inch or suffered from green-eyed
jealousy, if you have played fast and loose, if you have been
tongue-tied, hoodwinked or in a pickle, if you have knitted your
brows, insisted on fair play, slept not one wink, laughed
yourself into stitches, if you have too much of a good thing, if
you have seen better days or if you think it is high time and that
that is the long and short of it, if you believe that the game is up
and that truth will out even if it involves your own flesh and
blood, if you lie low till the crack of doom because you suspect
foul play, if you have your teeth set on edge (at one fell swoop)
without rhyme or reason - it is all one to me, for you are quoting
Shakespeare!”
The End