WEEK 3 - Shakespeare's London and Elizabethan Audiences

QUESTION: What was London like in Elizabethan times and who were the people attending the theatre?

In Shakespeare’s time London was very small, and the world of theatre within London was even smaller, and so everyone knew everyone. The area of the city was growing. Whilst Elizabeth was ruling the population grew from around 50,000 people to approximately 200,000 people. Many people migrated to London from over seas.

The wealth of London was linked the River Thames. This is because the Thames was a good source of food and water, a route of transport for goods and a sewer. However, the Thames would flood every spring. In 1598-9 The Globe theatre was rebuilt due to the Thames flooding. The Thames would also occasionally freeze over during the wintertime. This created a skating rink, and market stalls where set up on top of the frozen river.

The city was very dangerous as there were no street lamps and no patrolling police force. Therefore even the good areas were very dangerous at night. However the worse areas, for example Shoreditch, were extremely dangerous and overcrowded with criminals, similar to the world created in ‘Henry IV Parts 1&2’. In Shoreditch, visitors would be advised to wear a sword at all times.

People from different ethnicities started to migrate to London; therefore it was becoming more ethnically diverse. The Jewish community was growing and so was the amount of black people in the city. There were several thousand black people in the city and many of them were highly skilled workers, servants, entertainers, dancers and musicians. In 1601, as the population of black people grew, so did the resentment for them, and the locals feared the unfamiliar and foreign. Therefore, there was extreme prejudice towards black people. This same year, the black population was officially seen as an irritation and there were thoughts of having all black people deported. These events and their effects on society always found their way into Shakespeare’s work. Therefore “Othello” was written in 1602.

The Russian actor and theatre practitioner Konstantin Stanislavsky as Othello in 1896.

Between 10,000 and 20,000 people a week were attending theatres in London. The Globe Theatre attracted a huge variety of audiences. It brought the young and old, the male and female and the rich and poor, which was mainly because of the variety of the plays that were performed there. In 1607, the ambassador of Venice bought the most expensive seats in the theatre for a performance of Pericles. Companies of actors were often asked to perform at the royal courts of Elizabeth I and James I. However they wouldn’t go to the live shows and some people argued that no good citizen would be seen there. This is because it was extremely dirty and smelly, and as there were no toilets one would have to go to the toilet on the floor in the theatre.

The audience would get extremely involved with the play and would often ‘boo’ the bad characters and ‘cheer’ the good ones. There were quite a few thieves in the audience and quite often fights broke out. If the audience didn’t enjoy a play then they would make their opinions known. They did this by throwing things at the actors or damaging the theatre. Therefore the audience’s opinion was vital to the success of a play.

The audience had a wide range of seating options available to them. The cheapest ticket was for the “groundlings”, who stood crowded in the ‘yard’, around the stage for the entire duration of the play. They could buy food and drink during the performance such as apples, oranges, nuts, gingerbread and ale. The second cheapest option was the sit in the galleries and for an extra penny you would get a cushion to sit on. You could also sit in the ‘Lord’s rooms’. The most expensive choice was to sit on a chair on the actual stage. Although it was the most expensive, you were right up in the action, and so it was worth the money. Generally, however, the globe was quite cheap, which was one of the reasons why it was so popular.

At the Globe, two plays were put on each day, both in the afternoon. This is because any earlier and the sun was too bright and any later and the theatre would be too dark.