Shakespeare's Globe

2 Twenty Minute Programs
Grade(s) 7 - 12
Language Arts, Drama, Theatre Studies

Shakespeare's Globe programs provide an excellent introduction to the famous Shakespearean Theatre.  These stunning recreations celebrate the recent opening of the new Globe Theatre in London, and show how stimulating Shakespeare's work can be when experienced in context.  The programs will:

  • Help students to experience Shakespearean theatre and language in an authentic setting

  • Demonstrate drama as theatre, not merely text.

  • Put the drama on social context, where students can see how theatre became an agent for linguistic change and development.

  • Illustrate the conventions of Elizabethan theatre.

Online Net Notes:

Program Outlines:
1.  The Audience  (19:12)

Alan Davies introduces the theme and we see footage of the new Globe's 1997 production of Henry V, showing the actors and audience interacting. Alan talks about Shakespeare's audience, then appears in period costume, as a barman in a tavern in 1599, observing the customers as they watch a troupe of traveling players. Two members of the audience talk about contemporary issues, such as the Plague and the Puritans' attacks on the new theatres. These two characters move on to talk about the experience of going to the theatre the crowds and the cost (one penny). They talk about what people enjoy about the theatre, such as seeing how Kings and Queens behave, witnessing murders and seeing their 'betters' mocked.

Then Alan is in modem London, telling us how the city in Shakespeare's time was surrounded by a wall and that all entertainment was banned within the wall so people had to go outside of it - usually south across the River Thames, to view such spectacles as bear-baiting and the theatre. Alan crosses the river himself, telling us about the first theatres in London. and the Puritan, John Northbrook's, scathing attacks on their morality. By contrast, Alan tells how exciting and entertaining it was to go to the theatre and mingle with a cross-section of society.  

Alan looks at a model of the 'wooden 0', the Globe, and tells us about how Shakespeare was one of the owners of the theatre and how his plays were performed there for 40 years before it was closed by the Puritans in 1642. Then he takes us to 400 years later to see the building of the new Globe theatre in London. Alan goes into the Globe and shows us around, explaining the different audience spaces and the benefits of being in the Yard (the floor of the theatre)

He explains more about what people liked about the theatre: they could see a huge variety of plays, enjoy the spectacle of people dressed up as lords and nobles (it was against the law to dress up as a member of a higher class of society) and to be made to laugh.

There is more film of the 1997 Globe production of Henry V and Alan explains how Shakespeare introduced many new words into the English language - we are treated to some choice insults from the play.

Alan explains who would sit in the galleries and in the seats behind the stage, then we see him in character costume again, mingling with the crowd in the Yard at a performance, while his friends from the tavern discuss another concern of the day, Spanish invasion.

 2. The Actor  (18:52)

Alan introduces the theme and tells us a little about Shakespeare's life. He talks about the challenges actors faced in Shakespeare's day. We see a company of actors rehearsing Julius Caesar at the Globe and learn that Shakespeare had a share in the company, the theatre and in the takings. We learn that actors often played more than one role and discover something about the history of actors in traveling troupes before theatres were built

Alan talks to Lennie James, who explains that on the Shakespearean stage, the author had to set the scene with words, as there was no scenery or lighting. He uses the example of Macbeth, in which there are constant references to night and darkness to remind the audience of the setting. We see a clip of the BBC Television production of Macbeth in 1983, which shows the use of actual darkness to create the mood in this modem medium.

Then we see Michael Maloney explaining that each actor in Shakespeare's time was only given his own part to learn, so that no one person could take the play to a printer and sell it to someone else, as there was no copyright protection at that time. A short clip of the BBC TV A Midsummer Night's Dream of 1981 shows the players in that play each being given their part

Next, Toby Cockerell, a young actor, talks about playing two roles; a boy and a princess. He describes how hard it is to change his body language between these two very different parts.

Lennie James talks again, about performing soliloquies on the Globe stage. Another clip from the BBCs 1983 Macbeth shows how the actor treats the soliloquy as if talking to himself, while Lennie explains that, due to the close contact between actor and audience at the Globe, the speech can successfully be addressed to the audience.

Actress, Joy Richardson, talks to Alan about Shakespeare's language and how actors must make it their own. She acts an emotional scene from A Winter's Tale for him. Then we see Alan in costume pretending to rehearse for his two companions from the tavern. He goes backstage and tells us about costume in Shakespeare's time.

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