~ Handbook: Theater ~

In 1599 Shakespeare's acting company, The Lord Chamberlain's Men, built a splendid new theatre and called it The Globe. It was on the south bank of the Thames, beyond the jurisdiction of the city of London's municipal authorities. (An earlier theatre, called simply The Theatre, had been located in the northern suburbs.) Nearby were several other theatres, used by other acting companies, as well as an arena for the lovely Elizabethan sport of bear-baiting. Most of Shakespeare's plays were written with the special opportunities and limitations of The Globe in mind.

The Globe was a polygonal wooden frame building (in Henry V the Chorus calls it a "wooden O") three stories high, surrounding an open courtyard, or pit. Into the pit, extending from one wall of the frame, was an open stage 43 feet wide by 27 feet deep. (The McCarter Theater stage in Princeton is approximately the same width.) Over the stage was a canopy supported at its front by two pillars. The area behind the stage, where actors made their entrances and exits, was the so-called tiring house, that is, the dressing room and backstage areas. (Entrances and exits could also be made through a trap door in the stage floor and from the canopy above: these spaces were especially useful for ghosts and gods.) The gallery space at the rear of the stage could be used as an upper playing area; for instance, the mayor of Harfleur might have stood there, on what the audience would understand was the city wall, while Harry stood on the stage below telling him to surrender. Most action happened on that large stage, with entrances and exits quickly succeeding one another.

The Globe could hold as many as 3000 spectators. (McCarter Theatre holds about 1100.) Some of these, paying extra for the privilege, sat in the galleries of the building's frame. The majority stood in the pit. Because the audience virtually surrounded the stage, and because the Elizabethans had considerable tolerance for being packed closely together, the most distant member of the audience would be little more than 70 feet from the stage. So The Globe combined a large capacity with great intimacy between audience and actors. There was no curtain. No lighting. No scenery. Nothing, that is, to distract from the actors' spoken language.

After 1608, the King's Men also acted in a second theater, the Blackfriars, which had once been the hall, or large dining room, of a Dominican friary. Unlike The Globe, it was indoors, had artificial lighting, was expensive, and held a much smaller audience. It is possible that in his last plays, like The Winter's Tale and The Tempest, Shakespeare was writing with the architectural and social requirements of the relatively exclusive Blackfriar's in mind, as he had earlier written with The Globe in mind.

The King's Men also occasionally played at colleges, aristocratic houses, and before King James at one or another royal venue.