Globe Theatre Ppt PDF (1)

The Globe Theatre
A Virtual Trip to London

The Lure of London
London’s large population, and its enthusiasm for plays, meant that thousands of
people visited the new theatres every day. New plays were needed to satisfy
audiences, and young writers like Christopher Marlowe, Thomas Kyd, and William
Shakespeare were attracted to try their skills there.
Many of Shakespeare’s contemporaries went to university, which only took single

men. Shakespeare, who had married at eighteen, was barred. For him, London was the
place to be as it was the most profitable place for travelling companies. It was also the
most troublesome; the City opposed the theatres because they drew apprentices
away from work.
Shakespeare’s first ten years of work helped to establish new fashions in plays and to
secure professional play-acting and play-writing as sound sources of income.
The Globe, the Glory of the Bank
James Burbage made plans to replace the Theatre and to build a new indoor theatre in Blackfriars,
between the river and St. Paul’s Cathedral. However, the local residents blocked it in late 1596, so the
Burbages lost their new playhouse and all the money they had invested. It took another thirteen years for
the company to repossess the theatre and start using it for winter performances.
Burbage died in February 1597 and two months later the lease of the Theatre expired. For the next two
years, his sons Cuthbert and Richard struggled to renew the lease while the company performed in a
rented playhouse, the Curtain. At Christmas 1598, they gave up. They leased a plot of land across the river
in Southwark, barely fifty metres from the Rose, their rival playhouse. The Theatre was dismantled and its
timbers transported across the Thames to Bankside. There in early 1599, the first Globe was built.
After the Blackfriars’ fiasco, the Burbages did not have sufficient cash to pay for the new structure so they
asked four of the players, including Shakespeare, to help finance the Globe. Now the leading “sharers” in
the acting company were their own landlords – sharing the playhouse as well as their acting profits.
For fourteen years, the company prospered in their “house with the thatched roof.” Disaster struck in
1613. During a performance of Henry VIII a piece of wadding fired from a stage cannon lodged in the
roof, burst into flames and burned the Globe to the ground.
The whole audience left safely by two exit doors, apart from one unfortunate man who, according to Sir
Henry Wotton, “had his breeches set on fire, that would perhaps have broiled him if he had not, by the
benefit of a provident wit, put it out with bottle ale.” (Side note: the beer they had was WAY weaker that
it is today. There was no drinking age, so often time kids were drunk.)
All the company’s costumes and props were rescued together with the manuscripts of the plays. In
1613, half of Shakespeare’s plays were not in print, including Macbeth, Othello, As You Like It, and
Twelfth Night. Had the Globe burned at night, these plays might have been lost forever. The theatre was
then rebuilt; this time with a tiled roof.
In 1642, all London’s theatres were closed under the City’s Puritan administration. No longer usable,
the Globe was demolished in 1644.
We’ll Hear a Play
Londoners from all walks of life, including rogues, pickpockets, prostitutes, and
elegant visitors, formed the sometimes rowdy audience. Food and drink were sold
during performances and people were able to walk about and meet their friends.
Entrance to the yard – the standing room around the stage – cost one penny. This
represented about one-twelfth of a worker’s salary. Seated places in the covered
galleries rose to sixpence and could only be afforded by the rich merchants and the
nobility. Seats in the galleries behind the stage, and on the stage itself, were
considered the best. Being seen was more important than seeing.
Even more important was hearing. There were few props and no stage scenery or
lighting. It was the language delivered by the actors that captured the audience’s
imagination.
Shakespeare invented the word “groundlings” for the people who
stood around the stage in the Globe’s yard. Hamlet instruct the
players:
O, it offends me to the soul to hear a robustious, periwig-pated
fellow tear a passion to tatters, to very rags, to split the ears of
the groundlings, who for the most part are capable of nothing
but inexplicable dumb shows and noise.
Philemon Holland gave the name “groundling” in his translation of
Pliny to a small ground-feeding fish, a ling, or loach. Loaches have
large gaping mouths for sucking algae off the stones of the river
bottom. Hamlet’s use of the term perhaps described the look of
the people who stood gaping up at the actors from the yard.
Fun Groundling Facts
• They had to stand the entire time

• There were no bathrooms. Gotta go? No worries. Just
Let It Go! (Seriously, they went “Number One” and
“Number Two” right where they were standing.)
• The floor was nasty. Besides the aforementioned
nasties, there was spilled beer, wood chips, gravel,
vomit, and whatever else could be spewed, including
fake blood from the stage. And it was never cleaned.
Some of the Typical (Actual) Costumes
The Art and Science of Defence
The gentlemanly art of fencing and the mechanics of fighting and
weapons were reflected in Elizabethan and Jacobean stagecraft.
On stage, duels and combats, like those between Mercutio and Tybalt
in Romeo and Juliet or Edgar and his half-brother Edmund in King
Lear, were carefully arranged and hugely popular with the
audiences.
A wealth of contemporary images and written instructions allows

today’s Globe to recreate authentic arms as well as convincing
choreography for combat.
Music at the Globe
Many of Shakespeare’s plays, especially the romantic

comedies, are rich with references to music. Twelfth
Night begins with a group of musicians playing to Duke
Orsino on stage and ends with Feste singing a song to
his own accompaniment.
Slightly less
Rich and
Famous
people
Rich and
famous
seating
Entrance/
Exit for
Actors on My tour
Stage guide
Groundlings
Area
Stage
Roof
Covered
Seating
Area
(People
were
really
packed
in there)
Randoms
from my
Tour
Group
Musicians
Beautifully
hand
painted
roof (“The
Heavens”)
Trap Door
(“Underworld”)
Bell
Tapestries
See! The
Roof is
super
pretty.
The stage was made of wood.
The “marble” pillars were
Wood is cracking. also actually made of
wood. They were carefully
painted to look like
marble. The “gold”? Yep.
Wood too.
Panorama Shot of the entire Globe.
There weren’t originally lights in the Globe;
however, for modern-day plays, they installed a
few stage lights. This is so they can perform into
the evening, unlike the 16th Century renditions.
Camera captures the plays for records.

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The Globe Theatre

A Virtual Trip to London

Many of Shakespeare’s contemporaries went to university, which only took single

• They had to stand the entire time

A wealth of contemporary images and written instructions allows

Many of Shakespeare’s plays, especially the romantic

Camera captures the plays for records.

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