Midsummer Nights Dream - The Globe

The globe theatre was originally built in 1599 and again in 1613 in London. The site of the theatre is not dated in any scripture however they presume that it was located on the west side of southwark bridge road. The modern globe was in 1997 but in a different location about 750 feet away from the original site.

The Theatre Design:

The theatre has a very iconic circular shape. it means that where ever the actors are placed in the theatre the will be able to be seen by the audience. The theatre has 3 tiers of of bench seating that are under a sheltered thatched roof. In the Elizabethan era those seats would have been used by the nobles or people with high statues in society.

For the commoners they would have paid 1 penny to stand in the pit. Now-a-days they have converted the original 1 penny to modern currency which is £5 so every groundings has to pay the same but it is considered to be a lot cheaper now-a-days. The pit does not have a roof and therefore the commoners (also known as groundings) would have been at the mercy of the weather. The pit was considered to be an unhygienic place as there was no toilets so many groundings would have gone to the toilet in the places that they were standing in. Also the Shakespearean plays that were performed at the Globe lasted for about 3 hours so the groundings would have been crammed together in the pit for long periods of time with disease all around them. The audience in the Elizabethan era would have been incredible rowdy and rude towards the performances and were even known to have thrown things onto the stage whilst the actors were acting if they were not amused by the acting.

The Theatre also has many trap doors hidden in the stage. There is one the is in the centre of the stage and in the Elizabethan era this door would have been considered as the door to hell as it lead down and it also sometime could have been used as an entrance for a ghost or spirit character. There is also a trap door in the roof of the stage that would have been used to show the door to heaven. around the trap door there is also paintings of angels and clouds to signify heaven above. In a modern production of A Midsummer Nights Dream that we watched, they had the queen of the fairies fly down in a harness from the heaven trap door. I think that this was a good use of the trap door as it emphasised the high magical essence of Queen Titania.

It was also believed that the entrances of the actors could determine the personality of their character. for instance if a character had bad morels or was going to do a bad deed and could all together be seen as a baddie, they would enter from stage left where as it they were a goodies they were more likely to enter on the right side of the stage. this derives from the medieval theatre were pageant wagons had a bad side (left) and a good side (right).

Compared to the original theatre, the globe has kept most of these original design features. However for safety reasons, the globe today does have more fire exits as the first one was burnt down. Also the Theatre does have toilets which can be used by the audience and nowadays the plays have intervals that break up the long duration of the Shakespeare plays. It is clear that today that our audiences have more respect for the actors and performances that they are watching as audiences don't talk through the performances and they don't trow things onto the stage. Overall the theatre experience is a lot more civilised compared to the Elizabethan theatre.

Actors:
Originally actors were mainly frowned upon by most people due to the fact that the theatre was considered a common and dirty place to go. all of the actors were male so they had some young feminine looking actors go to special schools to learn how to act like women before they were able to perform in Shakespeare's plays. when the actors were given a part in a play, they were handed a role of paper with only their characters line on it. it meant that it would have been quite hard to know when their cues were in the play but it was done so that nobody could steal the play as there was only one full copy of the script. Most of the actor's costumes were shared costumes for other productions due to the fact the theatre didn't have the offer of vast costumes and many of the costumes were mended from very fine fabrics. Also in the Elizabethan era the were some very controlling laws over people wearing clothes that reflected their statues. The actors had to leave their higher statues clothes in the theatre as if they were found wear clothes above their statues, they could be arrested for fraud.


Compared to the actors in the Elizabethan era, today they are considered as celebrities and are held in very high esteem. Both women and men can now act on the stage and there are no rules around gender swapping in plays. As technology has progressed as well it is now easier and quicker for actors to have copies of their own full script which means that actors can easily learn their lines and understand the plays they are performing. As for costumes, people are now able to hire and obtain them by either buying them off the internet or by going to professional seamstresses. Also the costumes used in today's modern Shakespeare performances can be very traditional but can also be from different eras such as 1950's America to 21st century India. I personally find it is really interesting when Shakespeare is played in the style of a completely different era as it completely changes the view of the plays culture, society and atmosphere just by changing the costumes and music.