Photo courtesyimages.mpg.org
John Shakespeare enrolled his seven-year
old son William in The King’s New School of Stratford-upon-Avon in 1571.Latin
was the most important subject taught and many children later became scholars
at Oxford University but Will wanted to grow up to be just like the traveling
players who performed medieval, religious and new pastymes (plays) in Stratford’s Gild Hall and the Bridge Street
innyards. Stratford had amateur mummers (actors and mimes) and two
touring companies, The Queen’s Men
and the Earl of Worcester’s Men who
played Gild Hall. Artificial light did not exist and spectacles and dramas took
place during daylight hours. Limelight, gaslight, electricity, incandescent
lamps and computer light boards, had not been invented in the 16th
century.
Portrayals of Will’s life between school
and the time he arrived in London differ
Some accounts state he was apprenticed to a butcher, others think he was
a schoolmaster or believe he left Stratford because he was caught poaching in
the deer park of Sir Thomas Lucy, a local justice of the peace. Many are convinced a theatre company passed
through Stratford and invited Will
to join their troupe as a minor actor and scrivener
(dramatist).
When William Shakespeare arrived in London
in the late 1580s, he explored a vibrant and dramatic city of contrasts that
stimulated his imagination. Shakespeare’s London
had tall buildings and the majestic St. James
Palace, the residence of kings and queens of England
for over 300 years. Londoners shopped at Cheapside, a large market where
country people displayed their goods, a butcher’s market in Eastcheap and a
fish market on Fish Street Hill People
had to watch where they stepped in London; beggars and artful dodgers roamed;
garbage, body wastes and dead animals were thrown into streets and alleyways
and epidemics of plague often raged.
The
English navy scored a great victory over the Spanish Armada (an invasion fleet
of about 130 ships) in the 1580s.
Francis Drake, the explorer and naval hero and Walter Raleigh, a
navigator, writer and colonizer, had returned after their voyages of discovery
which led to the expansion of trade in the Americas. When Will crossed London
Bridge on foot, the only crossing
over the River Thames, he joined crowds of people—London
had two hundred thousand inhabitants. On the bridge were houses—some over four
stories high plus shops, a chapel and gatehouses on both ends. The bridge had
been rebuilt many times and a nursery rhyme told its story.
London Bridge
is falling down, falling down, falling down
London Bridge
is falling down, my fair lady
Shakespeare lived in a section of London
called Bishopsgate in the gloom cast by the Tower
of London. When he crossed the Thames,
he could see coal barges moored in front of the Tower and wherries carrying
passengers. The Tower was a prison for high ranking citizens. Mary, Queen of
Scots, was imprisoned in the Tower, suspected of participating in an assassination
plot against the Queen, Elizabeth I. Elizabeth signed her death warrant and Mary
was put to death on Feb. 8, 1587.
Shakespeare mentioned the Tower in many of his plays such as Richard III, Henry
VIII and Henry VI Part III. There were 18 prisons around London;
each held a special class of criminal. Newgate held felons, debtors and those
awaiting execution. Ludgate held bankrupts and the Fleet held offenders waiting
for their day in the Courts of Chancery.
Shakespeare worked with many theatre companies
before joining James Burbage and his sons as an actor and dramatist. He soon
became a charter member of a new company known as The Lord Chamberlain’s Men that
appeared by royal command. Shakespeare became one of the most popular
playwrights of the day.
London’s
Lord Mayors disapproved of plays believing they encouraged irreverence, and
idleness; when trumpets blasted the air and flags were raised announcing a
performance, workers were lured away from jobs. To avoid restrictions imposed
by the authorities, theatres were built outside the walls of the city; across
the Thames in Southwark, easily reached by boat or
bridge and close to bear-baiting rings, prisons and cockpits.
The Queen’s Privy Council protected the
actor/managers because the Queen enjoyed being entertained. Elizabeth
I wrote poetry and music and took pleasure in drama, plays at Christmas and masques—a dramatic entertainment based
on mythological or allegorical themes. She appointed a Master of the Revels,
who acted as a producer/director and guardian of morals, in addition to providing
costumes and a hall to be used for performances. Composers worked at the Chapel
Royal in St. James
Palace.
Beginning in 1598, the first Globe Theatre
was raised in Southwark and the plays Henry
the Fifth, and As You Like It
were written for the theatre in 1599. Considered the glory of the Banke, the Globe had a central “discovery place.” Double
doors, covered with finely embroidered hangings, a curtain or both allowed the
actor to reach the upper level for balcony scenes. Above that was a room with
machinery for special effects – cannon were fired, angels or ghosts descended
and a trap door in the floor led to hell.
Wooden stage posts, painted to look like marble, supported a canopy
representing heaven filled with clouds, stars, moon and the sun; the canopy
also protected the actors and their costumes from the sun.
Groundlings
(commoners) paid one English penny to stand in the open yard of the Globe, two
pennies would purchase a seat on a bench in the gallery, protected from sun and
rain by a thatched roof made of water reed. A cushioned seat close to the stage
cost three pennies and six pennies bought the most prestigious seats of all –
the Lord’s rooms – behind and above the stage. Music underscored Shakespeare’s
plays – the audience entered the theatre to the faint throb of a drum then the
musicians of the Globe would begin
playing trumpet, cornet, sackbut and percussion. The players filled the stage and
a stave pounded the floor. The music gradually increased in volume and
intensity, adding to the excitement until every onlooker felt a part of the
drama as it developed.
Commoners, known as stinkards because they rarely washed themselves or their clothes,
stood in a yard covered with a mixture of hazelnut shells, cinders, ash and
silt. They fought amongst themselves and critiqued the actors with rousing
cheers, hisses or a missile of fruit, often an orange. A useful piece of fruit,
the orange could be used protect the nose from the stench of the unwashed or
eaten to stave off pangs of hunger.
Shakespeare describes the Globe in his
prologue to Henry the Fifth when the chorus asks the audience to use their
imagination, Can this cockpit hold the
vasty fields of France? Or may we cram Within this wooden O the very casques That did
affright the air at Agincourt?
When Elizabeth
I died in 1603, she was succeeded by James VI of Scotland
who became James I of England.
James valued the arts, particularly theatre and the Chamberlain’s Men. He
demanded they come under his patronage and granted a royal patent. Their name
changed to the King’s Men.
Shakespeare’s company played the Globe in
winter and summer. When epidemics of the plague caused the Privy Council to
close the theatre, they became traveling players. Fire destroyed the first Globe theatre in
1612. During a performance of Henry VIII, a piece of wadding fired from one of
the stage cannons, landed on the thatched roof, smoldered, smoked – the
audience was too engrossed in the play to notice – and burst into flame. In less
than an hour, the fire consumed the Globe but the three thousand spectators
managed to escape through the two exits. One patron’s pants began to burn but
his companion, used his wits, and doused the flames with a bottle of ale.
Quickly rebuilt, the second Globe, was built on the foundations of the first,
and protected by a tiled roof. It was
said to be the fairest that ever was seen
in England.
In 1949, the Shakespeare Globe Trust was
founded and the new Globe, modeled after the first, was inaugurated in 1997
with Henry the fifth. It stands
today, as a living memorial to the greatest playwright of all time.
Bests,
Elise
