My essay, titled Shakespeare and the Theatre Scene Today was published in a journal titled Yearly Shakespeare. It is a collection of essays related to William Shakespeare. The entire essay is available here, for free.
I was a Contributor. Here is an excerpt:
The Globe’s stage had trapdoors installed on its floor that aided in enacting certain scenes, such as the burial of Mutius in Titus Andronicus. Above the stage was an enclosed balcony of sorts that became instrumental to performances, like the balcony scene of Romeo and Juliet. An arras was part of the backdrop, which may have been used for Hamlet’s killing of Polonius. The two massive ‘Hercules pillars’ that propped up the balcony and were rooted on the stage, helped depict characters hiding from another, as Feste and others hid from Malvolio during the Twelfth Night’s letter scene. However, most of these were innovations and improvisations which stemmed from directors making the most of their milieu. The arras, for instance, was likely used for actors to walk across wings. The balcony was constructed for the patron to traditionally sit above the enacted drama, and symbolically show its production to be under his auspices. That is not even to mention the inefficiency of having Hercules pillars on the stage for audience members sitting at the sides. This is all to say that the Globe was far from perfectly attuned to theatre-goers, and there was therefore a lesser emphasis on the product.
In stark contrast, NT’s interiors are expertly planned to suit its purposes. It is large enough to accommodate an opera house and three theatres. The open-stage theatre can seat over a thousand theatre-goers. The two main theatres have a common auditorium and foyer. They have been curated to be quiet, intimate and optimize acoustics. The spacious wings, magnetic doors, and control rooms are state-of-the-art. Unlike the Globe, NT makes every effort to prioritize the product consumed by audiences.
One may argue that NT and the Globe were similar in production value. The gold that ornamented the Globe’s oak stage was twenty-carat. They fired real cannons during performances to produce thunder effects like in The Tempest. It is estimated that the dress worn by the actor playing Twelfth Night’s Olivia would (accounting for inflation) cost £50,000 in 2018. But this was all because the Lord Chamberlain’s Men put to priority the spectacle, and did not care for fine arts as much as NT. In fact, the greatest indicator of the spectacle could be seen in the popularity to occupy seats that were, on the Lower Gallery, to the sides of the stage. These appear most inconvenient, since Hercules pillars would block a full view of the stage. But that was far from the priority of the audiences. Their priority was to sit next to the windows on a hot summer’s day, enjoy seats where acoustics were most optimum, and interact with actors while they waited in the wings!
The seating arrangement of the Globe features an Upper Gallery, a Lower Gallery and a large, open space in front of the stage, termed ‘yard’ or ‘pit’. Hierarchy in class structures was evident in pricing ranges. The Upper Gallery cost the most, while a ticket to stand in the yard was a penny. A special seat for Queen Elizabeth I was reserved at the Upper Gallery to the stage’s left. When performances began at 2 o’clock, the sun’s rays shone through the oculus and onto that seat. Modernity has dispensed with such shows of grandeur. In Shakespeare’s Globe, the Queen’s seat is not nearly the best seat for a full view of the stage—ergo, it is not the most expensive. The balcony is not occupied by a patron, but by musicians.
This essay will include a brief analysis of Hamlet (2015), performed by NT, starring Benedict Cumberbatch and directed by Lyndsey Turner and Robin Lough. However, since this was performed at the Barbican Theatre, let us move away from NT’s Brutalist building and focus on the interiors of the Barbican. While Barbican seating mirrors the Globe, no seat is more than twenty meters away from the stage. On December 5, 2019, the most expensive pricing ranges for As You Like It were stall seats, since they provided the best view of the stage (in contrast to cheap prices of the yard). While seats in the center were £75, those at the sides were £57.5. As one goes further upward, an obvious pattern emerges. Ticket prices for the Circle were £57 in the center and £47 at the sides; above which was the Upper Circle, priced at £37, £27 and a mere £10. Gallery prices were fixed at £10.
This is all to say that class, gender, race, etc. ceases to matter in modernity as long as one has the ability and willingness to pay the ticket price. I am reminded of an anecdote: the reconstructed Shakespeare’s Globe is engraved with names of various people on floors and walls, but this is not necessarily because they are legends of theatre, but because anyone who pays the Globe £300 becomes automatically eligible for it!
Date of publication: April 2021
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