The Globe Theatre

Charles II encouraged women to perform. Before he became king the roles were played solely by men. Teenage boys would play the female characters, as they’re voices were higher and they sleeker in figure.

There would be many plays happening in a short space of time, constantly changing, meaning very little rehearsal time. But that wasn’t a problem, as they would probably only rehearse the day of the show to establish basic things such as entrances and exits. Back in those days, plays were more about the words and were supposed to be seen not heard. There are very few stage directions in Shakespeare’s Thplays and all movement is very minimal, for that very reason.

The stage in The Globe theatre is a thrust stage: a rectangular stage thrusting out into the audience, with the audience covering three sides. There would be little to no set or props and no lighting, in lieu of these, Shakespeare used lots of description in his plays, to inform then audience where it was set, what time of day it was, “But soft, what light through yonder window breaks?” (Romeo and Juliet, Act 2 Scene 2), and what the weather was like, “Blow till thou burst thy wind, if room enough!” (The Tempest, Act 1 Scene 1).

The stage contains two pillars, most likely a whole tree trunk, planted to secure the roof above the stage, that were painted to look like marble, much like the Roman and Greek amphitheatres. The stage had two levels, the main stage and an upper, balcony like landing for the musicians, playing the lute, the viola etc. And the main stage itself was separated into the outer and inner stages. The outer stage was the part that thrust into the audience, and the inner stage was further back, used if two scenes were to happen at the same time. There was one central, cur
tained, door, and a door either side of that, leading to the tiring house, where the actors would be when not on stage or preparing to go on stage. Above the stage there were the lord’s rooms, where actors, musicians and rich patrons would rest themselves. The stage was most likely 5 feet tall, 45 feet wide and 30 foot long.

The stage was painted to look like the world, with the above area supposed to look like heaven and the below area to look like hell. This would help inform the audience as to whether a character was good or bad on their arrival. There was a trapped door above in the ‘heavens’ and another below in ‘hell’, to indicate, if a character entered through one of them, what their alignment was.

The costume would be minimal, nothing more than the usual Tudor attire, with simple hints to tell the audience more about the characters, e.g. the villain wearing red. Make-up was also minimal, being no different than the general make-up of the time: White paint, made from lead, to make them look paler, and beetroot juice used as blush or on the lips.

The audience was broken into different levels. The yard, where the groundlings would stand, was for the poorest and then there were three levels of seating for the richer. The price would depend on who you were. How rich you were, if you were male or female, how much power you had etc. There was room for 600 to stand in the yard, and there was seating for around 900.

The thrust stage encouraged more audience-actor interaction, which would be happily accepted as the audience tended to be very responsive, often drunk and not very well controlled. Shakespeare took advantage of this audience interaction, by having many soliloquies, monologues or speeches spoken directly to, and including, the audience, and many asides, lines spoken to make the audience understand a character’s true intentions and thoughts with the illusion that the other characters couldn’t hear them, throughout his plays.