Globe Theatre

“ The first play which we can definitely locate there is Every Man Out of his Humour; but I have decided with some hesitation to treat Henry V and Much Ado about Nothing, for the purposes of these chapters, as Globe plays. [325] So far as we know, the Globe was the only theatre used by the company up to the winter of 1609, when they also came into possession of the Blackfriars. From 1609 to 1613 they used both houses, but probably the Globe was still the more important of the two, for when it was burnt in 1613 they found it worth while to rebuild it fairer than before. ”

“ Even if enough of the play were left in order to render the story coherent, the performance would still last several hours and be likely to try the patience of any but a special audience. Such a play would doubtless appeal to a limited and cultivated public, but as your lordship is aware, the public which frequents the Globe Theatre is neither chosen nor cultivated, and it is doubtful whether a public of this kind would sit through a play many of the speeches in which are over a hundred lines long. ”

“ Being a public theatre, The Globe was likewise distinguished by a pole erected on its roof, to which, during the hours of exhibition, a flag was attached; for, by reason of its central exposure, it necessarily became a summer theatre, its performers, the King's company, usually commencing their season here during the month of May. The exhibitions at the Globe were frequent, and it is said, chiefly calculated for the lower class of people, the upper ranks, and the critics, generally preferring the private theatres, which were smaller, and more conveniently fitted up. ”

“ In 1601, the Globe Theatre was used as a place of meeting by the conspirators engaged in Essex's rebellion, and next year Shakespeare's Hamlet, following upon other of his plays, was here produced for the first time. In subsequent years plays by Shakespeare, Webster, Ford, and contemporary dramatists were performed at the Globe, until in 1613 the theatre was burnt to the ground owing to some lighted paper, thrown from a piece of ordnance used in the performance, igniting the thatch. ”

“ In December, 1593, Richard Burbadge, who, his father having died or retired, was then the leader of the Blackfriars company, signed a contract for the building of the Globe theatre, in which Shakespeare is known to have been a large owner. The Blackfriars was not accommodation enough for the company's uses, but was entirely covered-in, and furnished suitably for the Winter. The Globe, made larger, and designed for Summer use, was a round wooden building, open to the sky, with the stage protected by an overhanging roof. ”

“ Truthfully speaking, not one Englishman in a thousand could indicate in what part of the Metropolis the Globe Theatre stood, and many could be found totally ignorant of the existence in early days of that theatre. Strange to relate, the fascinating study of old London does not appeal to modern Englishmen. ”

“ You found favour the last time with the American public with your Italian company, when not a word that was said was understood, and the proprietor of the Globe Theatre of Boston thinks that if he puts with you English-speaking actors, you will yourself be better understood, since all the dialogues of your supporters will be plain. The audience will concern itself only with following you with the aid of the play-books in both languages, and will not have to pay attention to the others, whose words it will understand. ”

“ As this one actor impersonated all the characters in the play, it can easily be imagined how necessary the tiring room became. In later years, when the dramas of Æschylus, Sophocles and Euripides were produced, regular stage buildings, with ample accommodation for the actors, were then in vogue. The tiring house of the Globe Theatre was in all probability constructed at the back or on the side of [Pg 367] the lower stage. Some critics would also allot a space on the first floor for a second tiring room, adjoining the music room, which was known to be situated in that part of the building. ”

“ Also be it remembered that the Swan playhouse was not typically a playgoers’ theatre, being devoted chiefly to feats of activity and other pastimes.
THE GLOBE THEATRE
The last theatre built on the Bankside was the most famous of all, namely, the Globe. On the stage of this theatre the greatest of the Shakesperean plays were first acted; here Shakespeare followed the actor’s calling, covering a period of ten years.
The site of such a famous spot might well kindle [Pg 88] the imagination of every Englishman who takes a pride in the welfare of his country. Instead of which, what do we find? ”

“ All the world knows that the said new playhouse was the famous Globe Theatre, the glory of the Bankside and the scene of Shakespeare’s everlasting creations. Stow, the historian of London, in the first edition of the Survey of the City of London, mentions The Theatre by name in the following paragraph: “The church thereof being pulled downe, many houses have been builded for the lodging of noblemen of strangers borne and other. And neare thereunto are builded two publique houses for the acting and shewe of Comedies, Tragedies and Histories for recreation. ”

“ At one end of Bank Side stood the Clink Prison, Winchester House, and St. Mary Overies Church. At the other end was the Falcon Tavern, with its stairs, and behind it was the Paris Gardens.
The fields were planted with many noble trees, and in every one there was a pond or stagnant ditch which showed the nature of the ground. A little to the west of the Clink and behind the houses stood the Globe Theatre, and close beside it the "Bull-baiting." The theatre, erected in the year 1593, was hexagonal externally. ”

“ The Globe was at once rebuilt. It was open again by 30 June 1614, when John Chamberlain wrote to Alice Carleton that he had called upon her sister Williams, and found her ‘gone to the new Globe, to a play. Indeed’, he says, ‘I hear much speech of this new play-house, which is said to be the fairest that ever was in England, so that if I live but seven years longer, I may chance to take a journey to see it’. [1255] The manuscript continuator of Stowe, describing the end of the theatre, says that the rebuilding was ‘at the great charge of King Iames, and many Noble men and others’. ”

“ Into the construction of the new playhouse went the timber and other materials secured from the old Theatre; but much new material, of course, had to be added. It is a mistake to believe that the Globe was merely the old "Theatre" newly set up on the Bankside, and perhaps strengthened here and there. When it was completed, it was regarded as the last word in theatrical architecture. Dekker seems to have had the Globe in mind in the following passage: "How wonderfully is the world altered! ”

“ The Chamberlain's Men, who in 1594 had been forced to surrender the Rose to the Admiral's Men and move to the Theatre, and who in 1597 had been driven from the Theatre to the Curtain, at last, in 1599, built for themselves a permanent home, the Globe, situated on the Bankside and close to the Rose. ”

“ Those who participated in this enterprise became "sharers," or partners, in the new playhouse. Shakespeare was one of these, and the name by which it was called—the Globe—was{46} symbolical of the genius which reached its maturity in plays presented in this theatre during the closing years of the reign of Elizabeth and the first decade of the reign of her successor. "Totus mundus agit histrionem" was the inscription over the portal of the Globe. "All the world's a stage," said Shakespeare's Jaques in As You Like It. ”

“ Not that it is to be inferred that no pauses were made during the representation of the play, especially at the cheaper and more popular houses, where jigs and musical interludes were among the staple attractions. But judging from the following words put into Burbage’s mouth by Webster in his induction to “The Malcontent” (a play that originally had been written for the Fortune theatre) , we may gather that at the Globe it was not usual to have musical intervals. ”

“ The brevity of the speeches where the omissions occur indicates that they are not cuts in the script. Perhaps these lines were picked up by the actors in rehearsal.
The uncertainty governing the relationship of part to play makes it difficult to depend too much upon the evidence of the comparison. But a few tentative deductions can be made. We must remember the little time available for rehearsal. Nowadays when extensive rehearsals in the Moscow Art Theatre manner are the ideal, the few hours that were available to the Globe actors appear to be an insurmountable obstacle to dramatic art. ”

“ The price of admission to this part of a public theatre, such as the Globe, was one penny. At the Blackfriars, a private theatre, there was no open yard. In Jonson’s play of “The Case is Altered” one of the characters explains: “Tut, give me the penny, give me the penny. I care not for the gentleman, I, let me have good ground.” The same dramatist, in another play, designates these spectators as the understanding gentlemen of the ground. ”

“ The expression is not to be taken literally, but merely as part of Shakespeare's disparagement of his inadequate representation of the great events of King Henry's reign. The 'wooden O' of line 13 presumably refers to the Globe theatre, built in 1599. The Globe is thought to have been octagonal on the exterior, but the interior was probably circular.
Prol. 16. Attest. The 'crooked figure' that may stand for a million is probably the figure '1,' which was a very crooked figure as the Elizabethans wrote it.
Prol. 29. jumping o'er times. ”

“ Four of them were considered as public theatres, namely, The Globe on the Bankside, The Curtain in Shoreditch, The Red Bull in St. John's Street, and The Fortune in Whitecross Street; and three were termed private houses, one, for instance, in Blackfriars, another in Whitefriars, and The Cockpit or Phœnix, in Drury-Lane. As The Globe, however, and the theatre in Blackfriars were the property of the same set of players, only six companies of comedians were formed, or wanted, for the purposes of representation. ”

“ Faithorne and Newcourt, in 1658, give no theatres proper, but only a ring marked ‘Beare garden’. Finally, Leeke and Hollar about 1666 give a single unnamed roundish theatre, south of Maid Lane. Presumably it is the Globe, but copied from a survey of earlier date, as the Globe had been pulled down for tenements in 1644.
On the whole, the maps are disappointing guides. It seems [379] more probable than has quite been recognized, that the singular two-storied structure shown by Hondius and Delaram really represents the earlier, the Shakespearian, Globe. ”

“ Upon St. Peter's Day last, the playhouse or theatre called the Globe, upon the Bankside, near London, by negligent discharge of a peal of ordnance, close to the south side thereof, the thatch took fire, and the wind suddenly dispersed the flames round about, and in a very short space the whole building was quite consumed; and no man hurt: the house being filled with people to behold the play, viz. of Henry the Eight. [404]
Sir Henry Wotton, in a letter to a friend, gives the following gossipy account:252
Now to let matters of state sleep. ”

“ At this theater, the most fashionable occupied seats on the stage, where they were at once extremely conspicuous and in the way of the actors; but this custom probably did not spread to the Globe before 1603. At the Blackfriars, too, one could have a seat in the pit, while at the Globe the pit was filled with a standing, jostling crowd of apprentices and riffraff. In the theater every one was talking, laughing, smoking, buying oranges, nuts, wine, or cheap books from shouting venders, just as is done in some music halls to-day. ”

“ If we look with interest at a mere wall which screens from sight the stage of some glorious or some terrible act, it is not for the sake of the wall or its builders: our interest is in the drama and its actors. Who cares, in speaking of Shakespeare and Hamlet, to know the name of the stage carpenter at the Globe or the Blackfriars? ”

“ With such an arrangement of the stage, the piece itself, the actors' mode of playing, in a word, everything was to coincide; and thus an entirely new theatre was to arise.
The French actors had, in comedy, attained the summit of the true in art. Their residence at Paris, their observations of the externals of the court, the connexion of the actors and actresses with the highest classes, by means of love affairs—all contributed to transplant to the stage the greatest realness and seemliness of social life; and on this point the friends of nature found but little to blame. ”

“ I see myself in proper relation to you and to the public. I see now that with the large theatre, with the long 'run' ideals, a play must be very general in its appeal, and with such conditions it is folly for us to quarrel. We must have our own little theatre wherein we can play the subtler phases of American life—the phases we both rejoice in. If Alessandra should pay my debt to you—- you see how my mind comes back to that thought—we will use it to build our own temple of art. ”

“ Alleyn and Henslowe modeled the Fortune upon it. Dekker, in a widely known paragraph from The Gull’s Hornbook, praised the wonder of it. In the design of the Globe there were significant changes from former playhouses. It was a theater built by actors for actors. To subsidize it a new financial system was instituted which more fully than heretofore interrelated theater and actors.
Furthermore, young men had recently taken over the entire enterprise, playhouse and company. Until 1597 James Burbage had maintained some connection with the Lord Chamberlain’s men. ”