by Judith Cook
As for the language of Shakespeare or the King James Bible, considered far too difficult for most of today’s students, it was not even then normal everyday speech, as we know from exchanges between the women in the Merry Wives of Windsor or the mechanicals in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. But the rich verse and heightened prose of Marlowe and Shakespeare and the convoluted texts of Ben Jonson were accepted and understood, along with the wordplay and punning so beloved of the Elizabethans. Most of all, people loved a good story at a time when the oral tradition remained strong and folk still told each other tales on a winter’s night. As a consequence, when spectacle was added to narrative, along with fighting, tearing passions, great deeds, and strong, declamatory acting, then an audience would give a play their best attention.
A typical visit to the theatre at the end of the sixteenth century might go something like this. A single would-be playgoer, most likely a man since it was rare for women to go unaccompanied, having seen the latest bill posted for a performance at the Rose, will start making his way to the Bankside towards the end of the morning. By the time the first trumpet has sounded to advertise that the show will commence in an hour’s time, a substantial number of people are purposefully making their way towards the playhouse, many having crossed over from the north side of the Thames either by ferry or walking across London Bridge. Some might have arranged to go as a party, others recognise friends among the crowd and link up with them. Carriages too are pushing their way through the crowds, a danger to life and limb, to deposit members of the nobility or wealthy merchants at the door.
Those with little money to spare will stand to see the show, but unless they are important or wealthy enough to have commandeered a box in advance, for those who want to sit down it is first come, first served; there are no reserved seats. As our man finally arrives outside the playhouse he is at once beset by sellers of pies, bread and cheese and fruit, although oranges, along with bottle ale will also be on sale inside. Finally he buys himself a pie to stop being pestered any further and, no, he tells a persistent whore, he does not intend to lose any chance he might have of a good seat by going behind the theatre with her for fourpence.
Time passes and still the crowd moves only slowly. The trumpet sounds again to mark the half hour. The delay is largely because everyone has to pay the entrance money for himself or his party to the gatherer on the door, who might sometimes have an assistant, but even if that is the case there will always be those without the right money or who will query their change. Then, of course, there are further delays as important parties are ushered through in front of him. Finally, with fifteen minutes to spare, our playgoer reaches the door. It costs a penny to stand, tuppence or thruppence for a seat in one of the galleries (with an additional penny or tuppence to hire a cushion), sixpence to sit on the stage and considerably more for a box. He has no wish to stand and pays his thruppence, rents himself a cushion from the cushion-hirer, and looks around the rapidly filling galleries to decide where he should sit.
He decides to make for the second gallery directly in front of the stage. To get to where he wants to go, he will have to fight his way through the milling crowds in the pit, possibly buying a couple of bottles of ale en route. Also, unless he is very green, he will be keeping a careful grasp of his purse as mingling with the throng are, of course, the denizens of the Elizabethan underworld, ‘the common haunters . . . apt for pilfery, perjury, forgery, or any roguery, the very scum of rascality and baggage of the people, thieves, cutpurses, shifters, cozeners; briefly an unclean generation and spawn of vipers’, as Robert Greene put it. Their easiest prey is the groundlings who can have their purses cut or pockets picked while standing absorbed in what is happening on stage. Actors dread it when a victim realises what has happened and tries to pursue a robber through the crowd yelling ‘stop thief!’
Finally our man reaches the foot of the steps and looks up at the second gallery. Most of the front rows of benches are already full which is not good news. Given that a considerable amount of body heat is lost through the head, almost without exception, everyone will be wearing a hat. And what hats! Stubbes describes the hats of those attending a play in graphic detail. ‘Sometimes they use them sharp on the crown, perking up like the sphere or shaft of a steeple, standing a quarter of a yard about the crown of their heads. Othersome be flat, and broad in the crown like the battlements of a house . . . and another sort are content with no kind of Hat without great bunches of feathers of diverse and sundry colours.’1 Politely requesting the person in front of you to remove their headgear was at best likely to be met either with a straight ‘no’ or a blunt response to the effect that if he dislikes his seat then he knows what he can do about it. As Andrew Gurr points out in Playgoing in Shakespeare’s London it would be an unusually modest, considerate – or warm-blooded – playgoer in any of the playhouses, indoors or out, who would remove his or her headgear during a performance.
Our man finally finds himself a space on the bench behind the front row after persuading those already occupying it to move up a bit. There was little more than eighteen inches allowed for each person on the gallery seats and a playgoer was likely to be uncomfortably squashed, not least because the average woman’s dress of the day was exceedingly bulky. It is unlikely that even the wealthiest lady would attend a theatrical performance in the huge farthingales which were the height of fashion at Court, but most women would be wearing a substantial number of petticoats, have their hips padded out with buckram and, since they were eager both to see and be seen, be wearing one of their best gowns overall with a wide ruff or high collar which would add to their bulk and further impede the view of those behind; not to mention having also draped their cloaks around them; the playhouse is, after all, open to the elements even though they are under cover. As Samuel Rowlands put it in l600:
A Buske, a Mask, a Fanne, a monstrous Ruffe,
A Boulster for their Buttockes and such stuffe.
Finally, our man settles uncomfortably on the end of a bench where he will just about be able to see what is going on. He will have to make the best of it and hopes it will not be as bad as all that for he is likely to be in the theatre for anything up to three hours or more. From the information available in the new Globe Theatre, it is suggested that there was no interval, the play being played through straight which led to a certain amount of coming and going during a performance. One reason was that public toilets in any way we might understand them did not exist, yet many of those attending the show will have drunk several pints of ale or cups of wine beforehand and so might well need to relieve themselves. Buckets were provided for this, reasonably easy for gentlemen to urinate in but how women managed is anybody’s guess.
As he waits, he looks around. Some repainting has been done since his last visit, the ‘heavens’, the canopy over the stage, is a brilliant blue on which are painted a glittering golden sun and silver moon and stars, and the pillars holding it up boast new gilt paint. It is all very grand. Finally, the last trumpet sounds and the play begins with a spoken prologue. Audiences rather liked an actor welcoming them into the playhouse and thanking them for coming to see the play. It made them realise that his words were addressed to all those present, rich and poor alike, that each was an individual spectator of equal importance to the actors. For the same reason they also enjoyed an epilogue, especially when it was given by a player in the role of a king or duke pleading with them to show by their applause how the play had been received. It was also what turned this particular kind of entertainment into something more than an alternative to an afternoon at the bear-baiting or cockfight. It was what made it a performance.
So, for now, we will leave our man sitting on his cushion cheek-by-jowl with his neighbour, clutching his pie and his bottle ale and hoping he will not have to make use of the buckets until the end of the show.
We know that as well as being enthralled by the story and the acting, audiences expected the productions to look good, as is evident from th
e inventories of costumes listed in Henslowe’s Diaries, and that many were extremely fine, made from quality materials, not cheap imitations, and that they cost a good deal. There are accounts for the buying of fine cambric for smocks and shirts, velvet and lace for caps and hats and dozens of pairs of silk long hose and silk stockings. Scores of costumes are inventoried. Among the outerwear are cloaks of ‘fine green velvet’, ‘turquoise taffeta’, ‘black silk’ and ‘a fine . . . velvet cape bound with bugle lace and tufted lace’, ‘a white short cloak of satin laid with lace and lined with velvet’. There are lists of fine gowns for the women characters: ‘a purple gown of silk laid with lace’; ‘a yellow branched-damask petticoat with an overgown of golden taffeta with rich lace’; a ‘fine morning gown for a woman and round kirtle of “buffen”, pinked with “gardes” of satin’; ‘a gown of silk and branched velvet embroidered in gold thread’ are but a few examples.
But it was the men who were truly magnificent. Productions were, of course, played in what was then ‘modern dress’, although Caesar might well have worn a toga over his doublet and breeches to suggest ancient Rome or Macbeth a plaid, but the lovers who are lost in a wood near Athens in A Midsummer Night’s Dream would be dressed in the fashion of well-off young people of the time. As for actors playing kings or nobility, they were fully expected to look the part and certainly did. Among the many male costumes listed are ‘an orange tawny doublet, laid thick with gold lace’, ‘one blue taffeta suit’, ‘a pair of silver hose with satin panels’, ‘Tamburlaine’s coat with copper lace’, ‘a peach satin doublet’, ‘a black satin doublet layered thick with black and gold lace’, ‘a carnation satin doublet layered with gold lace’ and ‘a flame-coloured doublet, pinked’. An inventory for l598 lists a ‘black velvet jerkin laid thick with black silk lace and “caneyanes” of cloth of silver’ and ‘a pair of hose of cloth of gold layered thick with black silk lace’.
Sometimes it is possible to follow the progress of a production through Diary entries. Sometime in November l598 Henslowe notes that he bought the ‘book’ of a play called The Two Angry Women of Abingdon, presumably a potboiler, written by someone called Harry Porter. Here we run into the problems caused by those still using the old dating system when the New Year began in March, for following this we learn in ‘January l598’, which in modern dating would be January l599, that Henslowe paid out money for costumes for the piece including a sum ‘to buy taffeta for women’s gowns for the Two Angry Women of Abingdon’. In February, Henslowe paid Porter the rest of the money for the ‘book’ of the play and on the twelfth of the month provided more cash for various props ‘and things needed’ for the production. We must assume that the show was finally put on since there is nothing to suggest it was not and it must have been well received for a little while later ‘the company’ persuaded Henslowe to part with money for what presumably was a sequel entitled The Merry Women of Abingdon.
As already noted, basic stage scenery and props also played a major part in the productions. It has been suggested that there might well have been some crude method of ‘flying in’ scenery using the tower, but there do not seem to be any accounts of it. Some of the bigger pieces needed would, no doubt, have been set up in advance, while stage furniture would be brought in and taken off as needed. Again we have some idea of what was in regular use from the Diary inventories. It includes, as well as the Hell Mouth and the cauldron for the Jew, ‘Old Mahommet’s Head, one rock, one cave, one tomb of Guido, one tomb of Dido, one bedstead, eight lances and one pair of stairs for Phaeton, a chime of bells and a beacon, one globe, a sceptre, a golden fleece, a bay tree, a tree of golden apples, a head of Cerberus and eight other heads, Mercury’s wings and dragons’ and ‘one chain of dragons’, green hats for Robin Hood, green coats for Robin Hood and a hobby horse, imperial crowns and ghost crowns, and something simply described as ‘the City of Rome’. Some of the jewellery seems to have been real for there are several items listed as ‘gold rings’. There was also expenditure on rapiers, daggers and the ‘hangars’ on which swords were suspended. There are also payments for musical instruments; whether for the use of company members or by musicians hired in for the occasion is not stated, but we know that music often played a part in the productions of the day. The audience, in fact, had good value for its money.
So who, as well as our man, is in the audience? For women who can persuade their husbands to let them go to the theatre it is a splendid day out, ‘persuade’ being the operative word since playhouses are notorious as places of assignation and very often a husband or father will prefer to accompany his wife or daughter to make sure she behaves herself. But it is very unlikely that a woman of any substance will even have thought of going to a playhouse unaccompanied; at best she would be easy game for pickpockets, at worst taken for a whore. At the very least therefore she will be accompanied by her maid, unless she is one of a party of friends who have arranged to meet up and go together. If she does have an ulterior motive for visiting the playhouse then no doubt she has made it worth her maid’s while beforehand to hold her tongue. But even then she is taking a considerable risk as she can never be sure whether there is someone who knows her and her father or husband among the crowds in the theatre who will be only too eager to tell tales.
There are also other hazards. A widely circulated story is a case in point.2 As Henry Peacham tells it:
A tradesman’s wife of the Exchange, one day when her husband was following some business in the City desired him he would give her leave to go and see a play, which she had not done for seven years. He bade her take his apprentice along with her, and go; but especially to have a care of her purse which she warranted she would.
Sitting in a box, among some gallants and gallants’ wenches, and returning when the play was done, she went home to her husband and told him that she had lost her purse. ‘Wife,’ quoth he, ‘did I not give you warning of it? How much money was there in it?’ Quoth she, ‘Truly, four pieces, six shillings and a silver tooth-picker.’ Quoth her husband, ‘Where did you put it?’ ‘Under my petticoats, between them and my smock.’ ‘What!’, quoth he, ‘did you feel nobody’s hand there?’ ‘Yes’, quoth she, ‘I felt one’s hand there but did not think he had come for that. . .’
Gosson describes a scene where just such an incident could take place and be misunderstood:
You shall see such heaving and shoving, such itching and shouldering, to sit by women; such care for their garments that they be not trod on; such eyes to their laps, that no chips light in them; such pillows to their backs, that they take no hurt; such masking in their ears, I know not what; such giving them pippins to pass the time; such playing at the foot saunt without cards; such tickling, such toying, such smiling, such winking, such manning them home when the sports are ended, that it is a right comedy.3
As to the reaction of the audience to what they saw, there is no doubt that patriotic wars went down well, not just the obvious Henry V and other ‘King Harry’ plays, but also Henry VI when it dealt with the wars in France (in particular the role played by the heroic Talbot), and the anonymous play of Edward III that appears in collections of Shakespeare apocrypha, that is, plays which might be attributed to Shakespeare but in this instance is more likely to have been a collaborative effort. As Heywood put it: ‘What English blood seeing the person of any bold English presented and doth not hug his fame and honour his valour, pursuing him in his enterprise with his best wishes and as being wrapt in contemplation, offers to him in his heart all prosperous performance, as if the performer were himself the man personated? So bewitching a thing is lively and well spirited action, that it hath power to new mould the heart of the spectator.’
Gosson, reporting the reaction of the audience to a play in which Bacchus wooed Ariadne, describes the audience as being in a transport of delight by the end of the performance. ‘The beholders rose up, every man stood on tiptoe and seemed to hover over the prey, when they swore, the company swore, when they departed to bed, th
e company presently were set on fire, they that were married posted home to their wives; they that were single vowed, very solemnly, to be wedded.’
Glimpses of productions appear in the Simon Forman papers. He loved the theatre and, on occasion, would rush home and write an account of what he had just seen. There is an interesting insight into a performance of Macbeth at the Globe in which he describes the first appearance of the three witches, all too often played today as ugly women about ninety years old. In this production Macbeth and Banquo are riding through Scotland when, he reports, ‘there stood before them three women fairies or nymphs. And saluted Macbeth saying three times unto him “Hail, Macbeth, king of Cawdor; for thou shalt be a king but shal beget no kings, etc.” Sometimes he adds a little homily to what he had learned that afternoon. Following a play on the subject of Richard II (not Shakespeare’s), he notes: ‘I say it was a villain’s part and a Judas kiss to hang a man for telling the truth. Beware this example of noblemen and of their fair words, and say little to them, lest they do the like by thee for thy goodwill.’ He enjoyed The Winter’s Tale (also at the Globe) and was highly amused by the rogue, Autolycus, and his trickery and how easily he cozened people into believing him. Therefore, he tells himself, one should ‘beware of trusting feigned beggars or fawning fellows’. Presumably some of the performances he saw had the same effect on him as that described by Gosson, as afterwards he would race out of the playhouse either to hurl himself into the arms of ‘Julia in Seething Lane’, into bed with his wife, or possibly both.4
There was far more reaction from an Elizabethan audience than we would expect today. As with Victorian melodramas, villains were hissed and booed, heroes cheered. The groundlings in particular might well chime in with words of their own. For example when Henry V announced he was going to fight in France he was quite likely to have been greeted with the Elizabethan equivalent of ‘go for it, Hal!’ Even much later, Dickens wrote of a performance of Hamlet in which the audience took sides during the great soliloquy ‘to be or not to be’, some suggesting Hamlet should go ahead, kill himself and get it over with, the rest telling him to pull himself together and sort out the situation. Since the plot lines of many of the plays, most particularly those of Shakespeare, are widely known today even by those who are not regular theatregoers, we need to remember that most of the people attending an Elizabethan or early seventeenth-century production would have no idea how the story would resolve itself. Possibly Romeo and Juliet would marry and live happily ever after, Hamlet kill his stepfather and become King of Denmark. With regard to Hamlet possibly the nearest we could come to this nowadays was described by the actor Derek Jacobi who, some years ago, took part in a tour of China organised by the British Council and found it an extraordinary experience to play to audiences who did not know how it ended.