Shakespeare's Globe Centre (USA) Centre for Globe Research

Rebuilding Shakespeare's Globe

Surviving Contemporary Buildings, Part 2

Columns

A model for a gallery column is also seen in the seventeenth-century Oxford Inn. Simple carved detail can be seen at the base and head. Columns forming the Globe's inner ring are also to be carved, and use will be made of mouldings and painted decoration.

Seating

Seating is believed to have been made as a series of 'degrees', or large steps. The seats therefore had no backs and the audience could be squeezed in without restriction. Audience sizes varied greatly depending on the popularity of the plays. The seat slopes were often as much as 45 degrees. Modern legislation restricts the slope to 35 degrees, which is as much as the steepest 'gods' in an opera house. The photograph is of the underside of seating at the Teatro Farnese, Parma, Italy 1618-20.

Roofs

The stage roof of the Globe had to be an engineering feat that ranked alongside some of London's major hall roofs of the period. Furthermore, the Westminster Hall roof shown here is a timber roof springing from masonry walls. The Globe's roof had to spring from just two 'Herculean' pillars on the stage.

Stages

The stage is the result of extensive consultation between scholars, actors, architects and construction historians. The most important direct evidence for its design is contained in John Norden's contemporary drawing which shows a pedimented gable covering the stage. Solar studies showed the effects of the sun on the alignment, which is toward the midsummer sunrise. The stage was always shaded during performances; the audiences sat in the sun.

Written evidence on the Red Lion playhouse built in Shoreditch in 1567 indicated a stage 40ft by 30ft. The carpenter's Fortune contract and the contract for the Hope theatre refer to cover for the stage. The Rose excavations also discovered a drip line which implied a cover. The Globe's rectangular stage is 5ft high following that of the Red Lion and projects halfway into the 'Yard', which is the standing room around the stage.

Elizabethan theatres did not have movable stage scenery or painted backdrops like a modern theatre. Instead the background to all productions was either a fixed wall, or decorated fabric hangings. Above the stage was the canopy of the 'Heavens', suitably painted, and below was 'Hell' accessed by actors through a central trap door.

The frons scenae, or stage wall, had a clearly defined form. There was always a large central door and two secondary doors either side. Above the doors was a gallery that was used either by musicians, or by actors (Juliet's balcony) or by the audience as Lord's rooms. Today we would consider seats which gave a close view of the back of actors to be poor, but to a Shakespearean audience they were considered to be the best. Being seen was more important than seeing; hearing was more important than both.

Screens such as those from Worksop Manor have influenced the design of the frons scenae.

Questions? Email the Research Archive(globe@deans.umd.edu)
Updated on: 1 March 2002