In a playhouse there were three tiers of galleries which looked down to the yard where most of the audience stood. For it was only a penny to stand in the yard whereas in the gallery benches it was two pence. To sit on cushions in the gentlemen’s rooms it was three pence and for six pence the well-off would sit in the Lords room. The stage came out into the yard and was open to the sky. Over the back of the stage ran an upper stage and beneath the upper stage was what was known as the tiring house. The tiring house was concealed from the audience by a curtain which would be drawn back to reveal an inner stage. There weren’t any large curtains to conceal the whole stage so all scenes on the main stage began with an entrance and ended with an exit so in tragedies the dead must be carried away. The fact that there was no scenery meant that there were no limits to the number of scenes as when a scene came to an end then the characters would just simply leave the scene.
The audiences loved Shakespeare’s plays. Hundreds of people would squeeze into the theatre with their food and drink to watch. Sadly a deadly plague interrupted the theatres success and meant that for two years all playhouses were closed. During this time Shakespeare wrote several plays and two long poems.
In 1597 the theatre was forced to close after twenty one years for it was on rented land and the agreement with the landowner had ended. The landowner wanted to keep the playhouse to himself and to reuse its valuable oak timber but that wasn’t the plan of the two brothers who owned it. During the Christmas holidays of 1598 the two brothers hired workmen to pull the theatre down and to take the oak across the river to the bank side where they’d use it to build a new playhouse. They named it “The Globe” because all the world’s a stage. In mid-1599 the globe opened and it was an instant success. Within the next twelve years after that Shakespeare wrote his greatest plays. Sadly in this time Shakespeare’s only son died at the age of eleven. This event was reflected in Shakespeares work.
Disaster struck during a performance of Henry VIII. A spark from a stage cannon accidently set fire to the thatched roof. Within an hour the globe had burnt down, miraculously everybody managed to escape unharmed but it was a dark time for all.One year later a second Globe was built on top of the original foundations and this time it was even more glorious. With roof tiling instead of thatch, they weren’t taking any chances this time.
The queen has enjoyed Shakespeare work and the new king even more. But it was time for Shakespeare to rest in Stratford. Shakespeare wrote his last plays and a few years later he sadly passed away on his fifty second birthday. At his funeral one of his friends said “he was not of an age, but for all time”. This quote is so true for Shakespeare still lives on as people study his work everyday for he is the greatest ever play writer.
Sam Wanamaker an American who longed to visit the globe from a young age and eventually did in 1949 but was disappointed to find nothing but a forgotten plaque on a wall. Sam was shocked that there was no greater tribute to Shakespeare and his famous playhouse. Sam worked, talked, hoped and pleaded so that he could get others to help him rebuild the globe to as close as the original as possible. Finally after nearly thirty years of dedication, disappointments, high hopes Sam’s globe was opened. The opening was a joyful event but there was sadness to for Sam sadly never lived to see it.
Jennifer Low
