The Elizabethan Theatre

What exactly do we mean by the Elizebethan Theatre? Apparently the theatre that was in vogue during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, who was admittedly the most famous monarch of England, who reigned before Queen Victoria (of the 19th century). For the present, let us leave Elizabeth II, the queen regnant, out of this discussion.

Elizabeth I, born in 1533, succeeded to the throne of England in 1558 and reigned her kingdom (or queensdom, if you like) till her death in 1603. But we know that she was the author, neither of the theatre (and the stage) nor of the plays produced during her time. William Shakespeare was not only the greatest but the best-known playwright of her time. Not that there were not many other gifted playwrights during this period. There were quite a few, like Beaumont and Fletcher, Thomas Kyd, Webster, Ben Jonson and Christopher Marlowe, Dekker, Massingar and many others. Most of them were more, learned than he. But to us, at this distance of time and place, they are known only as the contemporaries of Shakespeare.

William Shakespeare was born in 1564 and died in 1616. The latter part of his life was spent during the reign of King James I, who succeeded Queen Elizabeth in 1603 and was on the throne till 1625, when he died. The stage of this time, especially during the latter part, was called the “Jacobean stage” by literary historians. The older Elizabethan and Jacobean stage traditions were weakened by the closing of the theatres in 1642, under the Puritan Revolution, when Oliver Cromwell and his men came to power. The Elizabethan Theatre can, therefore, be roughly described, for the sake of convenience, as the kind of theatre functioning in the last couple of decades of the 16th century and the first decade or two of the 17th century. This broadly corresponds more to the lifetime of Shakespeare than that of Queen Elizabeth.

Let us also remember, in this connection, that Shakespeare was essentially a theatre man, a player rather than a scholar (which in those days meant learned in the classics, i. e., Latin and Greek). Not surprising, therefore, that his learned contem­porary, Ben Jonson, spoke of him derisively as one knowing “small Latin and less Greek”. The English universities of those days, Oxford and Cambridge, were virtually schools of divinity, with intensive courses in the classical languages. Shakespeare, who thrived on his wits and knowledge of the world more than other things, amply demonstrated by his own example that neither elaborate training in divinity nor a deep knowledge of the classics was indispensable for a successful playwright.

In the text of his plays, Shakespeare makes frequent references to the stage and the globe. In As you like it, for instance, he says, through one of his characters, the philosophic Jacques:

“All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players: They have their exits and their entrances; and one man in his time plays many parts.”

Here the philosopher in him might be thinking of the world at large and the stage as its symbol in a capsule. But the play­wright in him might be having before his mind’s eye one of the Elizabethan Theatres, in which there were doors for exits and entrances; and for want of an adequate number of hands, one actor had to take several roles. We also learn from stage history that a number of new theatres were built in the last quarter of the 16th century and the early years of the 17th century. They include the Theatre and the Curtain in 1576, the Rose in 1587, the Swan in 1595, the Globe in 1598, the Fortune in 1599, the Red Bull about 1605 and the Hope in 1613.

Shakespeare, it may be safely presumed, was quite familiar with the construction of some, if not all, of them. We may find clear signs of his knowledge of this activity in Henry IV Part I (Act I, Scene 2). We find Lord Randolf saying in a lengthy passage (in blank verse):

“...When we mean to build, we first survey the plot, then draw the model, and when we see the figure of the house (playhouse, let us imagine) then must we rate the cost of the erection....

The plot of situation and the model, consent upon a sure foundation, etc., etc.”

As an actor himself (taking the role of the ghost in Hamlet), Shakespeare, and the company of which he was a member, shared the evolving traditions and accumulated experience of about three centuries of continuous acting. But the permanent structure for a theatre came a little later, after the growth of London and the court under the tudors and groups of actors, like strolling players (Cardinal Wolsey’s Men and the like) performed in different places. When we first hear of theatres in London we find them in the form of inn-yards, adapted with a stage, located in the outskirts, upon the main roads leading to the city. That was the position of actors’ troupes before the days of Shakespeare, during the first two decades of the reign of Elizabeth. It suited both the sides: for the plays brought custom to the inn, adding to its attractions, while the inn was a convenient home for the players, with a ready-made audience and a ready-made playhouse.

This gradually led to the occupation of the entire inn for the role use of the actors, with permanent stages and “scaffolds” or stands for the spectators. The next logical step was the erection of the new building, specially meant for and exclusively used by, a theatre. Small financiers like John Brayne, in co-operation with actors like his brother-in-law James Burbage (also manager of a troupe) started the business in right earnest. Basically, the new theatres followed the traditional pattern in their structure. The inn-yard, surrounded by a gallery leading to guest chambers, was the foundation of its plan. The circular shape of the Globe (in Southwark) was a distinct improvement, suggested by the bull-baiting ring, with its greater convenience for seating and viewing.

Members of Shakespeare company, patronised successively by Lord Hudson (then Lord Chamberlain) and his son, later by King James himself, were relatively prosperous. They included Richard Burbage, leading tragic actor; William Kempe, the comedy actor; and John Heminge and Henry Candell, the editors-­to-be of the first folio edition of Shakespeare’s plays. The Globe Theatre was built (in 1598) on the Bankside at the joint expense of the chief members of the company, including Shakespeare. After ten years, the company had two theatres – ­the Black Froars, an indoor theatre, better adopted for winter performances, as well as the Globe, unroofed and open to the sky, more suitable for summer use.

A more picturesque textual reference, oblique though, to the shape and structure of the Globe Theatre could be found in the prologue to The Life of King Henry V, in which the Chorus says, addressing the spectators as a whole:

“But pardon, gentles all;
The flat unraised spirits, that hath dar’d, on this unworthy scaffold, to bring forth so great an object. Can this cockpit hold the vastly fields of France? Or may we consume within this wooden O the very casques that did affright the air at Agincourt)?”

Apart from such oblique reference by way of internal evidence, we have to depend on some contemporary drawings for our knowledge of the Elizabethan stage. The drawing by Johannes de witt (or a copy thereof) of the Swan Theatre shows a building containing three covered galleries, around an open yard, each gallery having three rows of seats. A stage is built out into the yard, partly covered at the rear, the covering being supported by two pillars; there are two doors at the rear of the stage, and a balcony over them, accommodating spectators or musicians. At the top there is a small covered building, from which flies a flag bearing the device of a swan.

From contemporary references, we come to know that the Globe was built of timber on brick foundation and was thatched. After the fire in 1613, the new building was tiled, but the structure was still of timber.

In general structure, the Globe appears to have been much like the Swan. Its height was 34 feet to the caves; it was 84 feet between the walls and the width of the yard was 58 feet. The yard was lower than the street level and must have sloped towards the stage, which projected into it for 29 feet and was about four feet high. The shape of the building, according to an American research scholar, John Crawford Adams, was probably octagonal, because that was the more economical method of building. There were roofed galleries around the yard, with three rows of seats in each; the windows in the exterior were at three levels.

There were two entrances only to the building – one for the spectators, which admitted into the yard, and another for the actors, which admitted to the tiring-house and the stage. The price of admission was a penny, paid by everyone on entry, entailing the spectator to stand in the pit. If he wanted to sit in the gallery, he had to pay another penny as he entered the gallery staircase, which entitled him a seat in the third gallery. He could, if he or she so chose, sit in the first of second gallery, with its covered seats for a third penny.

On each side of the stage, there were “gentlemen’s room” (may be corresponding to the latter day boxes) in the first and second galleries, the admission to which was twelve pence. People could enter by the tiring-house door for a place on the stage, or for a seat in the gentlemen’s rooms, or in the balconies over the stage, if not required for the action of the play. Spectators occupying part of the stage was not a convenient practice. The total number of spectators, when the house was full, was probably over 2,000, or a little more, according to liberal estimates.

The Stage: The term “proscenium” was the Greek name for the space in which the actors played. It is the proper name for what we call the stage, which is strictly the space where the scene is set.

The pennies taken by the door-keeper were for the actors, while the money taken by the “gatherers” was for the house­keepers as rent for the theatre. At a later date the actors shared in the gallery takings. There were no tickets for admission and no reserved places. The pennies were dropped into a box: hence the “Box-office”.

There were no programmes (i.e., papers or booklets giving information about the story, the cast and other details). Written or printed play-bills were put up outside the theatre, on posts throughout the city, and in the taverns and inns (as is the practice in our hotels today). Usually a different play was performed every day. Performances started at 2-00 p. m. and lasted for about two hours A flag was flown from the turret, when a play was to be performed, and a trumpeter stood on the turret or hut at the top of the building and announced the performance, the play starting after the third sounding (like our third bell) now-a-days.

The building of the Globe Theatre had obviously a great impact on Shakespeare’s life as a dramatist and on his mode of writing. For he wrote plays only for production on the stage (not for reading, as some of the later writers did – like Oscar Wilde, Pirandello, Eugene O’neill and others). He had settled conditions, knew the players and most probably rehearsed his plays with them.

The stage hangings, if black, would be premonitory of a tragedy, if gay, with mythological tapestry of a comedy. Behind the curtain of the inner stage stood some actor peeping out to estimate the audience as it gathered. There might be the poet too in the tiring-room, awaitng the fate of his play. “Stage Keepers” were there to give mechanical help and the “book-holder” or prompter sat there with his prompt-copy, close to the inner stage. The play was introduced by a “Prologue,” dressed in a black cloak, to pray for a favourable reception “to piece out on imperfections with youth thoughts” (as in Henry V).

The practice of having intervals grew up with the develop­ment of music given by the boys of the “private” theatres, an overture and between the acts, and spread to the “public” theatres in later years.

The Epilogue followed, generally some character in the play, to seek applauses. The audience was apt to give clear indications of its views during the play.

It was a famous playwright of a later period, the 19th century, Oscar Wilde, who said, when asked about the audience response to the first night of his play, Lady Windermere’s Fan, replied: “The play was a thundering success: but the audience was a total failure.”

A good response to the Epilogue would, understandably, reassure the actors. It was followed in the “Public” theatres by an after-piece, called a jig – comical opera, slapstick variety, to amuse the audience and send them home in a merry mood.

As for the actors, there are one or two features peculiar to the Elizabethan stage, and worth remembering in reading the plays of Shakespeare.

One is the playing of the female roles by the boys or the younger members of troupe. With the Restoration, however, women became, as in France, members of the companies. The young spectator, as Macaulay put it, could now see “with emotions unknown to the contemporaries of Shakespeare and Jonson tender and sprightly heroines presented by lovely women”. Maybe to that extent, the process of willing suspension of disbelief spoken of by Coleridge would have become easier, even superfluous, for that matter.

Closely connected with this is the device of the play within the play, e. g., Hocuba in Hamlet, Pyramus and Thesbe in A Midsummer Night’s Dream – and that of women being disguised as men as in Twelfth Night which made matters easy for the boys playing the roles of women.

A word about the place of music in Elizabethan plays in general and Shakespeare’s plays in particular. Whenever it is used, the music is an integral part of the play, as when the musicians attend upon Duke Orsino in Twelfth Night or when Hermion awakens at the sound of Paulina’s music in The Winter’s Tale.

Looking on the Elizabethan Theatre from a distance of over three centuries in time and of about 10,000 kms, in space, one feels a sense of wonder that it was quite well-developed in many respects. One gets an impression that there was a close rapport between the actors and the spectators. In fact, there was no glaring separation between the two. Another is – much is left to the imagination of the spectator, because the scenic effect and stage properties were not so elaborate and obtrusive as they came to be later. Whether it is an advantage or dis­advantage, the issue may the left to individual spectators, scholars and students and their responses.