Shakespeare's Globe Theatre

Gwen Herat, From Bankside, London

DRAMA: It is theatre time in London as playhouses put down their shutters to bring in the Brits for entertainment with Summer saying hello to Autumn. Whether it is drama, ballet or musical events, the theatres are full up with their programmes running into December.

The Globe Theatre is mounting many of Shakespeare's plays while the British National Ballet will perform many full length ballets with Covent Garden doing their own thing.

Brits will brave the weather towards late in the year to watch their favourite events. The serious theatre goer will, no doubt, patronise the Globe.

I would still have preferred the old Globe to the magnificent Shakespeare's Globe Theatre as it stands today though it is a near replica of the former with the same facade and the timber used from original panelling including the beams.

Towards 1599 Shakespeare had taken up residence in Southwark which was very convenient for the newly built Globe Theatre. He became a shareholder of the Globe in 1598. There was an indication that he had lived there though the area around the Bankside was notorious.

Shakespeare would have felt uncomfortable in this atmosphere because after a few years he moved out and by 1604, lodged with an emigrant French family in a double tenement in a middle class neighbourhood between St. Paul's and Cripplegate which was about half an hour walk to the Globe.

Four years later Shakespeare with his King's Men leased out the indoor Blackfriar's playhouse. This was an abandoned monastery hall and served as their winter house.

Here, Shakespeare settled to a working life in a regular rhythm of alternate seasons of performance at the Globe and Blackfriars overshadowed by frequent appearances in court for litigation.

Intimacy

There is a school of thought that Shakespeare organised himself, writing in winter months though he never stopped acting, taking two or three minor roles that were more static and less important such as the Ghost in Hamlet and old Adam in As you like it.

There was a sense of intimacy between his audience and the Bard as it appeared he was familiar with all who came to watch his plays and they were the regulars. He was happy with this set-up and their inter-action was getting stronger day by day as all the plays were performed.

A dramatic turn in his career took place when in the spring of 1613, he purchased his first property in London, the Blackfriars gatehouse which was a part of the old priory complex. This was very close to the river at Puddle Wharf.

In 1616 he rented it out. The destruction of the first Globe in 1613 probably prompted Shakespeare to sell his share in the theatre but altered his plans because he never gave up acting but his writing career was over towards the end of this year.

He returned to Stratford upon Avon and died in 1616 seven years before the publication of several of his plays in The First Folio of 1623.

After his first visit to London in 1949, American actor, director and producer Sam Wanamaker decided to rebuild Shakespeare's Globe as a tribute to this great playwright and set about organising his dream project. It took 20 years for Wanamaker but he was not to be disheartened.

He founded the Shakespeare Globe Trust which was dedicated to the reconstruction of the theatre as well as an education centre along with a permanent exhibition. After 23 years of fund-raising, Sam Wanamaker died not before he secured the site for the exhibition.

Structurally complete with few timber bays of the Globe place resulted in the theatre being completed three and half years later. No one knew for sure what the first Globe looked like.

All the same the Globe was not truly circular as people imagined from certain old prints painted by unknown painters. The archaeological excavation of the Rose theatre in 1989 revealed what most scholars had long suspected, that the Elizabethan playhouses were polygonal buildings.

A small portion of the Globe itself was excavated in the same year from which two important inferences were drwan. It confirmed to be a twenty sided building with a diameter of 100 feet. It was a breakthrough to launch the new Globe.

But how would they start it? Disaster had struck on 29 June, 1613 when during a performance of Henry VIII which Shakespeare had written along with a younger writer, John Fletcher, the thatched roof of the Globe was set alight and the theatre burnt down.

Within a year it was rebuilt but with a new resident playwright, John Flethcher. The original and the second Globe left no trace to work upon.

Reconstruction

The reconstruction of the theatre was painfully accurate in technique and old architecture. For timber, green oak was felled, cut and fashioned according to 18th century practices.

They were assembled in two in two dimensional bays on the Bankside site from where I get a clear view. The roof is made of water read thatch based on samples found during the excavation.

Turning my attention to the stage which is the most outstanding and important part of the Globe, the constructors found it difficult to conjure up what the original stage would have looked like before it was burnt down.

The design for the stage was drawn from the evidence provided by the existing buildings of the period along with practical and constructive advice given by the actors who participated in the 1995 Workshop and 1996 Prologue season. Many of them may have known Sam Wanamaker.

Designed with the 21st century in mind, the new Globe has an additional exit, illuminated signage, fire-resisting equipment and some modern backstage machinery that are concessions to our times. The reconstruction was faithful to the original and traditional craftsmanship.

Very few outside London would recall the name of Sam Wanamaker, the ardent follower of William Shakespeare who made The Shakespeare's Globe a reality. Stepping out of the Globe was like stepping out of the 18th century. I was dazed.

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