Open Rehearsal: The Court Theatre Blog
July 7, 2010
Playgoing in Shakespeare’s London
Going to a play in Elizabethan England was an entirely different experience as it is today. At the time, playgoing was considered a crude, almost sinful entertainment, often likened to going to a whorehouse. Playhouses in London were completely shut down in 1642 for breeding frivolity in a harsh political climate. Whores and cutpurses were far more common to find at the theater than they are today. Unaccompanied women would often get sexually assaulted, and full-fledged brawls, either between audience members or the audience and the actors, shut down a number of performances.
Even when playgoing was not violent or criminal, it was an entirely different experience from today. Firstly, most of Shakespeare’s plays ran at under two hours. Today, the same plays usually come in at at least three hours. This means the action of the play, as well as the dialogue, was extremely fast-paced, to the point where audiences would completely ignore large sections of the play. They would eat, smoke, talk, laugh, yell, throw things at the stage, try to converse with actors, and generally ignore every rule of theater decorum we’ve currently established. Going to a play was thus much less about seeing a work of art, and much more about having a great time. If the play itself wasn’t amusing, you were free to amuse yourself as you saw fit. Playgoing four hundred years ago was in many ways similar to going to a bar with live music today. If you enjoy the band, you can watch them play. If not, there is nothing wrong with socializing as well.
The playgoing experience was also completely conditioned by social class. The more you paid for tickets, the “better” seats you got. This created a highly stratified physical structure for the audience. The “best” seats depended on the theater. In some, like the Globe, where Shakespeare’s company worked, the best seats were boxes behind the stage or special chairs onstage. The poorest stood on the ground in front of the stage. In this system, the best seats did not have the best view, but they allowed the whole audience to look at you – again revealing that going to a play often had very little to do with watching plays. In other playhouses, the reverse was true – the better the view, the more the tickets, establishing the system of tiered ticketing we use in theaters today. Whether rich or poor though, the level of carousing was the same. The rich would flaunt their position, wearing massive hats and smoking expensive tobacco during the shows, while the poor would chew on apples, tossing the cores onstage during scenes they didn’t like.
Those interested in learning more about Elizabethan theater should read Playgoing in Shakespeare’s London, by Andrew Gurr, who revolutionized the subject by exploring the conditions of both rich and poor at the theaters, as well as tracking the changing role of theater throughout the Elizabethan period.
—Will Bishop, Production Dramaturgy Intern
The Comedy of Errors by William Shakespeare opens September 16, 2010. It is adapted and directed by Sean Graney, the founder of the Hypocrites.
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