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Learn about what it was like to put on a performance in Shakespeare’s day without the use of fancy props, staging or even being able to use women on stage.

Acting companies

The origins of Elizabethan theatre are in the medieval mystery plays – versions of Bible stories. Troupes of players travelled on carts from town to town. When they arrived they would turn the carts into a stage and perform, or take over a local inn. Actors would buy into a company and invest in it (costumes, for example, were expensive), and they would share the decisions and the profits. In the mid-1500s though, the laws against travelling, and the suspicion of strangers who might be carrying plague, made this a difficult way to run an acting company.

In 1576 the first theatre was built. Between four and six troupes of actors made their permanent home in London and competed for audiences. Actors would be signed up to a company, and would always perform with that company, unlike today. A company consisted of about 12 people – actors, workers and apprentices. The actors played the major roles, invested in the theatre and clothes and split the profits. Workers were paid to do odd jobs, and apprentices trained as actors, while playing the children’s and female roles.

We actually see a travelling acting troupe in one of Shakespeare’s plays – Hamlet. A group of ‘players’ appear at court and put on a play. Hamlet gets them to insert a new scene into it – one that mimics the way his uncle killed Hamlet’s father, so that the murder is revealed.

Did you know?

• Because acting companies were used to performing in local inns on their travels, the first theatres were made from converted inns.
• The original acting companies travelled around performing theatre versions of Bible stories. These gradually transformed into stories which instructed the audience with a moral, which eventually turned into the idea of a play which simply tells a story as we know today.
• Acting companies had to do everything themselves – from making the costumes to setting the stage. Today theatres have stage managers and a whole host of other people working hard back stage.

Acting companies who were based in London needed a noble patron – an aristocrat who would be granted a licence to allow the company to perform. The company would be named after the noble who was their patron. Shakespeare’s company were the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, and the actors all had shares in the company. Their main rivals were the Admiral’s Men, whose patrons owned the company, and merely employed the actors.

The king or queen might occasionally commission a play or pay especially for a performance but would not be the full patron of the company. The exception to this was the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, who became the King’s Men when James I came to the throne and took over as patron of their company. James loved the theatre and the company performed at court twice as often as they had under Elizabeth.

Did you know?

• Shakespeare tried to flatter the Earl of Southampton into being his patron by dedicating his first long poem, Venus and Adonis, to the Earl. It seems to have worked – he published a second long poem also dedicated to the Earl.
• The word ‘patron’ comes from Latin, and is related to the word ‘pater’ meaning father – your patron provided for you and looked after you, like a father. We still use the phrase ‘patron of the arts’ to describe someone who funds art projects.

Because the actors owned the company, new plays written for the company had to include parts for all the main actors to let them show their strengths. This is one of the reasons why you get funny bits even in the most serious tragedies. So in Macbeth we have the role of the Porter, whose drunken antics amuse the crowds, designed for the comic in the company.

It was quite usual for some parts to be ‘doubled up’ where one person would play two or more characters because they were not on stage at the same time. The plays would be structured to allow for this. Later in Shakespeare’s life he was able to afford more people on stage at once because his company was so successful. In Twelfth Night, for example, nearly every single character is on stage in the final scene, meaning that no doubling up was possible.

To be an actor in the Elizabethan age was to have the possibility of becoming rich and famous – actors frequently mixed with nobility and appeared at court. However, it was not unusual for actors and the theatre to be associated with scandal and the underworld. The Globe Theatre, for example, was built on the south bank of the Thames, just outside the city limits of the day because it was illegal to put on a play inside London.

Did you know?

• Shakespeare was an actor as well as a playwright. We think that he played quite minor roles in his own plays – like the ghost in Hamlet.
• When the plays were first published in 1623, the book included a list of the ‘principal actors’ in all the plays. Two of the most famous Shakespearean actors were William Kempe and Richard Burbage. Burbage ran the Lord Chamberlain’s Men.

Shakespeare’s company built the Globe in 1599 in Southwark on the south bank of the Thames. It replaced an earlier theatre, the Rose. In 1613 the Globe burned down and the company rebuilt it on the same spot.

The Globe was an open-air theatre shaped like a doughnut. There were shelters over the seats and the stage, but the middle section was open to the sky. The sun was the only source of light – performances took place during the day, not at night like they do now. The building was made of wood and plaster, like most Tudor buildings, which meant it was vulnerable to fire. No candles!

The Globe’s name was symbolic – it meant that the theatre represented the whole world. Shakespeare himself wrote: 'All the world’s a stage/ And all the men and women merely players'. Although the theatre always looked the same, and did not have the same elaborate sets that we have today, it could represent any place and any time.

The stage only had one backdrop, richly painted. There was no set and only a few pieces of furniture that might be brought on stage. Props which could be carried would be used. Instead of objects and setting, the words would tell you where the play was set and what you should be imagining. There was often an acknowledgement that it was a play and not real life. For example in Henry V the chorus asks the audience to accept the limitations of acting out a massive battle with a small number of people on the stage, referring to the shape of the theatre as 'this wooden O'.

Did you know?

There is a reconstruction of the Globe built not far from its original location in Southwark, London.

• The project took 27 years to complete and it was opened to the public in 1997.
• It was built using Elizabethan techniques – it’s made of wood and plaster.
• In Shakespeare’s time the River Thames was much wider, so the original Globe was right on the riverside – just like the reconstruction.
• The modern building has sprinklers to protect against fire.
• The seating arrangements are the same. Groundlings can buy a ticket to stand in the pit, and if you are sitting on a bench you have to hire a cushion separately!

The acoustics of the Globe and other theatres were poor, so sound did not carry well. In addition the audience would be talking, moving around and may even be having fights. Actors had to boom their lines in a loud and carrying voice. They would accompany their lines with exaggerated gestures so people could understand what they were saying.

Music was used to complement the plays – a number of them include songs. There are famous songs in Much Ado About Nothing – 'Sigh no more, ladies' – and Twelfth Night has a song in every act performed by Feste, the fool. Musicians could sit on the balconies behind the stage to perform, or under the stage to create an eerie effect.

Elizabethan audiences loved special effects – especially gory, bloody ones! Packets of fake blood could be concealed on the actor and split at the appropriate moment. Shakespeare took advantage of such effects in many plays, including the particularly gory Titus Andronicus and King Lear which involves eyes being gouged out. Ropes were also used to allow actors to enter as if they were flying – and a trapdoor went through beneath the stage.

Did you know?

• To make the bags of blood, the actors would fill animal bladders with animal blood. If the scene was particularly gory they might also use pigs’ intestines to throw across the stage.
• At the end of the play in Shakespeare’s time, the company would put on a second shorter piece – a farce or a dance. This stopped the audience going home sad if it was a tragedy!
• The actors would wear make-up, particularly to portray a woman. Elizabethan foundation was based on lead – a metal which ate away the skin. Make-up was not good for your health!

We are used to seeing clothing from a variety of historical periods on stage, particularly in Shakespeare’s plays. But in Elizabethan times, costumes would have been more elaborate or exaggerated versions of everyday Elizabethan dress. This meant that they could be used for more than one production.

The exception would have been the Roman plays, including Julius Caesar. Togas were easy to construct, and it is likely that the Roman plays had a mixture of togas and Elizabethan dress. Actors were exempt – while on stage – from the laws about what clothes each class could and should wear. This meant that their costumes could tell the audience a lot about the character instantly, including their age, social class, what they did for a living and where they were from.

Elizabethan clothes were very heavy and came in many layers, for warmth. They were complicated to put on – so there would be no quick costume changes for Elizabethan actors. This is why, for example, Viola in Twelfth Night doesn’t change back into women’s clothes at the end of the play – there wouldn’t have been enough time. Although Orsino wants to see her in her 'woman’s weeds' (clothes), we assume this will happen after the end of the play. In the same play a cruel trick is played on Malvolio to get him to appear in public in very ridiculous clothes – yellow stockings 'cross-gartered' – showing that costumes could be used for effect to get a laugh too.

Did you know?

• Fashion was just as important in Elizabethan times as it is now. Ruffs, which were elaborate collars of folded linen sticking out like a fan all the way round the neck, were very popular. Men wore a combination of tights and shorts, called ‘doublet and hose’ – the shorts would often be enormously padded for the sake of fashion!
• Lots of actors wore wigs – but so did lots of normal people in Elizabethan times.
• Productions of Shakespeare’s plays today often choose to use costumes from a specific era or place. They do not often use Elizabethan styles. Many productions are in modern clothes – which is what most of the costumes would have been for the Elizabethans back in 1600.