SHAKESPEARES GLOBE THEATRE

During the first years of Elizabeth’s reign, the English playing companies used inns, inn yards, college halls and private houses for their performances. It was not until 1576 that the actor-manager James Burbage built the Theatre in Shoreditch, the first purpose-built playhouse in London. Shakespeare joined the resident troupe at the Theatre in the 1580s and the company (later known as the Chamberlain’s and then the King’s Men) flourished there for 20 years.

In 1596 a dispute arose over the renewal of the lease and negotiations were begun to acquire a disused hall in the precincts of the old Blackfriars priory to use as an indoor theatre. James Burbage died in February 1597; in April the lease expired, but the dispute continued for two years, during which time the company performed at the nearby Curtain playhouse. In Christmas 1598 the company sought a drastic solution: they leased a plot near the Rose, a rival theatre in Southwark, demolished the Theatre and carried its timbers over the river. To cover the cost of the new playhouse, James Burbage’s sons Cuthbert and Richard, offered some members of the company shares in the building. Shakespeare was one of four actors who bought a share in the Globe. By early 1599 the theatre was up and running and for 14 years it thrived, presenting many of Shakespeare’s greatest plays.
In 1613, during a performance of Henry VIII, wadding from a stage cannon ignited the thatched roof and the theatre burned to the ground ‘all in less than two hours, the people having enough to do to save themselves’. The theatre was quickly rebuilt, this time with a tiled roof. Shakespeare may have acted in the second Globe, but he probably never wrote for it. It remained the home for Shakespeare’s old company until the closure of all the theatres under England’s Puritan administration in 1642. No longer of use, it was demolished to make room for tenements in 1644.
The project to rebuild Shakespeare’s Globe was initiated by the American actor, director and producer Sam Wanamaker after his first visit to London in 1949. Twenty-one years later he founded what was to become the Shakespeare Globe Trust, dedicated to the reconstruction of the theatre and the creation of an education centre and permanent exhibition. After 23 years spent tirelessly fundraising, advancing research into the appearance of the original Globe and planning the reconstruction with the Trust’s architect Theo Crosby, Sam Wanamaker died, the site having been secured, the exhibition undercroft structurally complete and a few timber bays of the theatre in place. Three and a half years later the theatre was completed.
What did the first Globe look like? Nobody knows for sure. Printed panoramas, such as those by John Norden and Wenceslaus Hollar, give some idea of the theatre’s exterior; written accounts, usually by visitors from overseas, building contracts and one sketch (of the Swan theatre) tell us something about the interior. In addition, there are suggestive descriptions included in the plays themselves, such as the famous Chorus which begins Henry V: ‘And shall this cockpit hold the vasty fields of France / Or may we cram within this wooden ‘O’...’
All the same, the Globe itself was not a truly circular building. The archaeological excavation of the Rose Theatre in 1989 revealed what most scholars had long suspected, that the Elizabethan playhouses were polygonal buildings. In the same year, a small portion of the Globe itself was excavated, from which two important inferences were drawn: that it was a 20-sided building with a diameter of 100 feet.
Techniques used in the reconstruction of the theatre were painstakingly accurate. ‘Green’ oak was cut and fashioned according to 16th-century practice and assembled in two-dimensional bays on the Bankside site; oak laths and staves support lime plaster mixed according to a contemporary recipe and the walls are covered in a white lime wash. The roof is made of water reed thatch, based on samples found during the excavation.
The stage is the most conjectural aspect of the reconstruction. Almost nothing survives from the period to suggest the appearance of this part of the theatre. Its design was drawn from evidence provided by existing buildings of the period and practical advice offered by the actors and directors who participated in the 1995 ‘Workshop’ and 1996 ‘Prologue’ seasons.
The new Globe is also designed with the 21st century in mind. An additional exit, illuminated signage, fire retardant materials and some modern backstage machinery are all concessions to our times.
The reconstruction is as faithful to the original as modern scholarship and traditional craftsmanship can make it, but for the time being this Globe is – and is likely to remain – neither more nor less than the ‘best guess’ at Shakespeare’s theatre.