Globe Theatre Yard
Interesting information about
the Globe Theatre Yard during the life and times of William Shakespeare and the Globe
Theatre of Elizabethan London, England
Globe Theatre Yard
The Globe Theatre Yard, or
pit, was the area designed for people to stand to watch the
plays being performed. This was the cheapest part of the
theatre, there were no seats and the entrance price was 1d
which was equivalent to about 10% of a days wages. The
design of the theatre was similar to the amphitheatres which
showed animal sports such as bear baiting. In fact the Bear
Garden was right next door to the Globe. The yard in the
bear garden consisted of earth which was suitable for
animals. The floor of the yard was made of cobble stones -
like the floors of the inn-yards. The members of the
audience who stood in the pit were often referred to as
'Groundlings'. However, due to the hot summer days they were
also referred to as 'Stinkards' - for obvious reasons.
Activities in the
Globe Theatre Yard
The Globe Theatre Yard housed the
lower classes. The yard was filled with noisy, boisterous people. The
activities in the Globe Theatre Yard would have included:
Henry Crosse in his Vertues
Commonwealth; or Highway to honour (1603) stated:
"...the commonest haunters are for the most part, the leaudest persons
in the land, apt for pilferie, periurie, forgerie, or any regories, the
very scum, rascallitie, and baggage of the people, thieves cutpurses,
shifters, cousoners; briefly an uncleane generation, and spaune of
vipers...for a play is like a sinke in town; whereunto all the filth
doth runne: or a byle in the body, that draweth all the humours into
it."
Another description is as
follows:
"You will see such heaving and shoving, such itching and shouldering to
sit by the women, such care for their garments that they be not trod on
. . . such toying, such smiling, such winking, such manning them home
... that it is a right comedy to mark their behaviour"
In 1599, Thomas Platter
noted the cost of admission in his diary:
"There are separate galleries and there one stands more comfortably and
moreover can sit, but one pays more for it. Thus anyone who remains on
the level standing pays only one English penny: but if he wants to sit,
he is let in at a farther door, and there he gives another penny. If he
desires to sit on a cushion in the most comfortable place of all, where
he not only sees everything well, but can also be seen then he gives yet
another English penny at another door. And in the pauses of the comedy
food and drink are carried round amongst the people and one can thus
refresh himself at his own cost"
The Audience in the
Globe Theatre Yard
Many of the yard audiences were
apprentices who worked in London. The Globe would have particularly
attracted these young people and the were many complaints of apprentices
avoiding work in order to go to the theatre. Before the Globe Theatre
was opened in December 1574 the Common Council of London, under the
influences of puritanical factions, issued a statement describing:
" great disorder rampant in the city by the inordinate haunting of great
multitudes of people, especially youth, to plays, interludes, namely
occasion of frays and quarrels, evil practices of incontinency in great
inns having chambers and secret places adjoning to their open stages and
galleries, inveigling and alluring of maids, especially of orphans and
good citizens' children under age, to privy and unmeet contracts, the
publishing of unchaste, uncomely, and unshamefast speeches and doings .
. . uttering of popular, busy, and seditious matters, and many other
corruptions of youth and other enormities . . . [Thus] from henceforth
no play, comedy, tragedy, interlude, not public show shall be openly
played or showed within the liberties of the City . . . and that no
innkeeper, tavernkeeper, nor other person whatsoever within the
liberties of this City shall openly show or play . . . any interlude,
comedy, tragedy, matter, or show which shall not be first perused and
allowed . . . "
The outcry continued and grew so much that in 1596 London's authorities
banned the public presentation of plays and all theatres within the city
limits of London and all theatres located in the City were forced to
move to the South side of the River Thames - which explains why the
Globe was built on the South side of London. The above description
provides an idea of the people and some of the activities which occurred
in the yard.
Globe Theatre Yard
Interesting Facts and information
about the Globe Theatre Yard.
Additional details, facts and information about the
Globe Theatre can be accessed via the Globe Theatre Sitemap.
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