The Elizabethan playhouse

To understand Shakespeare's plays, we need to appreciate the context in which they were first written and performed. The Elizabethan theatre was a thriving popular source of entertainment, with buildings, stagecraft and conventions (there were no actresses, for example, and female roles were taken by boys) which were all major influences on the texts created for them.

The playhouses
A copy of a drawing of a performance at the Swan Theatre, probably in 1596, by the visiting Dutchman Johannes de Witt is one of the very few contemporary documents which can help us visualise an Elizabethan playhouse.
As the scholar John Astington observes, this is "the only 'eye-witness' view of the interior of a large Elizabethan playhouse we know of today. It shows a large platform stage with doors and balcony at the rear, a stage roof carried on elaborate pillars rising from the stage, a playhouse flag and a trumpeter announcing a performance, and a yard and three-storey ring of gallery seating surrounding the performing area." ("Playhouses, players, and playgoers in Shakespeare's time", in The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare, Margreta de Grazia and Stanley Wells, eds., Cambridge, 2001, p. 101.) The foundations of the Rose Theatre in London, which were uncovered during building work in 1989 and subsequent archaeological work on the site, have been especially significant in supplementing what is known about Elizabethan theatres. It can be calculated that a full house here would have held about 2,000 people, whereas the nearby Globe is believed to have held up to 3,000. Many would have stood in the open central court, while others sat, for a higher cost of admission, in three tiers of galleries. The raised stage was narrower at the front than at the rear, with a maximum depth of about five metres. Whilst this is the standard picture of the late sixteenth-century theatre, not every playhouse of the time conformed to this model. In 1608 Shakespeare's company began to use the Blackfriars playhouse as well as the Globe. This was located in a large medieval hall with a roof and windows. An audience of perhaps 600 would have enjoyed a more intimate experience here, watching a drama gloomily lit by candles and torches. Performances, however, were staged in the afternoons, just as they were in the outdoor theatres where performances seem to have begun at two o'clock. Other spaces in London, such as the hall of the lawyers' Middle Temple, were also used as venues for performances, and it is recorded that Twelfth Night was staged here in February 1602. Any such venue had to provide only a stage and a backstage 'tiring house' (for actors to [at]tire themselves), separated by a wall or curtain. Almost all of the action could then be accomplished by moving the actors around, on and off a platform stage.

The players
Actors in the Elizabethan theatre worked together in groups which often enjoyed the patronage of a nobleman. These groups shared investments (in plays, costumes and the like) and such profits as were achieved, and they also trained new members. part of the recently-formed Lord Chamberlain's Men, which had an association with Lord Hunsdon, the Lord Chamberlain at Queen Elizabeth's court. The company quickly established themselves as one of the leading groups in London, and were rivalled only by the Admiral's Men, led by the actor Edward Alleyn. Much of what is known about the operation of such companies is thanks to the survival of the papers known as the Diary of Philip Henslowe, an entrepreneur associated with the Admiral's Men. Membership of the Lord Chamberlain's company, for whom Shakespeare acted and wrote an average of two plays a year, brought the playwright profits both from the commercial activities of the company and from a share in the ownership of their playhouses. By 1597 it appears that Shakespeare was one of six shareholders, along with Richard Burbage. Not only was Burbage acknowledged as the leading tragedian of his time, but he was also the son of the builder of the first purpose-built playhouse in England, the Theatre, where the company performed until December 1598. Companies had an extensive active repertory, and would frequently play five different dramas on consecutive days. "At any given time during a season", Astington observes with admiration, "a player would have to have been prepared to perform in nine or ten plays, knowing the lines for perhaps two or three roles in each play. Shakespeare wrote many of his plays while maintaining such a schedule". ("Playhouses, players, and playgoers in Shakespeare's time", in The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare, Margreta de Grazia and Stanley Wells, eds., Camrbidge, 2001, p. 107.)
Plague outbreaks often forced the authorities to close the playhouses, especially during the summer months. This was the time when companies took to the road, travelling to Norwich, Coventry, Gloucester and many other towns throughout England. The first printed edition of Hamlet in 1603, for example, notes that it had been given in Oxford, Cambridge "and elsewhere". A new season would begin in September, and in the following months the monarch's Office of the Revels would select performances to be given at the court over Christmas. Few if any clues exist about the acting style of the Elizabethan theatre. While this lack may have been beneficial to subsequent generations of players, who have felt no need to respond to an "authentic" presentation, it is particularly frustrating to students of the age. What is known is that costumes were an essential component of the Elizabethan theatre, and were probably more significant than props, although key scenes would have demanded the use of a bed or a table. Boy actors were dressed in lavish women's gowns to take the female roles, but all of the actors were colourfully and richly dressed. A 1598 inventory of costumes notes the use of velvet, damask, silk, and cloth of gold, with fur and metallic lace trimmings. Leading actors, however, would have been expected to provide their own costumes; Richard Jones of the Admiral's Men is recorded as having paid £3 for "a men's gown of Peach colour in grain" when his annual income would most likely have been no more than £30.

The playgoers
Until the turn of the seventeenth century, the London audience for plays was concentrated at the Rose and the Theatre, with perhaps 2,000-3,000 people attending on an average day. Working people would have attended only on holidays so, according to Thomas Nashe in Pierce Penniless in 1592, the audience for the afternoon performances was composed of courtiers, legal students and soldiers. Women from the middle-classes and the gentry were also prominent playgoers. Basic admission cost one penny at the Curtain in 1590, with the best seats available for three pence. Admission to the indoor playhouses was more expensive, and cost at least sixpence, thus restricting the numbers who could afford entry. The audience at the Globe and elsewhere, however, was socially mixed, although the gentry would have expected the players to come to them and the very poor would not have been able to spare even a penny. Satirical depictions of rowdy audiences are comparatively common, but these are likely to have exaggerated the distractions provided by the crowd. The audience would almost certainly have been more integrated throughout the performance in the stage action; they were after all not seated in the dark as today, and some of their more favoured or richer members would have been given places on the edge of the stage itself. But it is not to be doubted that playgoers took pleasure from listening carefully, as is evidenced by words given to the character "An Excellent Actor" by an anonymous writer in 1615: "you will think you see so many lines drawn from the circumference of so many ears, while the actor is in the centre.

You can also visit the following sites:

http://www.luminarium.org/renlit/dramavenues.htm
http://www.william-shakespeare.info/elizabethan-theaters.htm
http://www.shakespeare-online.com/theatre/theglobe.html