Theatres, Actors and Acting in Shakespeare’s Times
In Shakespeare’s time, a stage wasn’t only one type of space; plays had to be versatile in order to be produced again in an outdoor playhouse, an indoor theatre, a royal palace or for a company on tour. In all of these settings, men and boys played all of the characters, as acting in England was an exclusively male profession. The stage itself was relatively bare. For most of the time, playwrights used vivid words instead of scenery to picture the scene onstage.
In 1576, when Shakespeare was still 12 years old in Stratford, James Burbage built the theatre just outside London. The theatre was among the first playhouses in England since the Roman times. It was a multi sided structure with a central uncovered yard.
One of the most notable parts of the acting experience is that all roles would have been played by men and boys. Until 1660 women were not meant to be seen on stage in public as it was seen as immoral. While this arguably meant more work for men, it was not without problems for them. For example, male actors would have been heavily made up to resemble women, and the make up that they, and women used in daily life contained a high concentration of lead. Today we know that lead can cause poisoning, leading to illness and death, and lots of skin issues.
The Chamberlain’s Men earned around 10 shillings in London but around 5 shillings outside the city for a week of performances. This was a considerable amount as it cost around 4 pence to feed a man for the day, with a loaf of bread costing ony 1 penny, the same as a groundling (yard standing) ticket.
The actors would have received one copy of a script and would have had to copy out their own lines to learn them. They would also have to write the cues before their lines. However, to complicate matters, they were often having to learn for, and perform, several plays at the same time as a play was never performed two days in a row. Additionally, they would only perform in natural light generally, so plays were performed mid-afternoon. Actors were sometimes not given their roles until the day of the performance. There were however prompts backstage who would whisper the lines just before actors were to say them. This is very different to today when even short plays have months of rehearsals.
As well as actors, there would have been musicians, or actors who were musically talented to perform at the end of plays and to accompany songs within plays. This is something that has only made a comeback relatively recently in Shakespearean plays. In many performances at the Globe, there is now live music played on replica instruments that accompany the production and music is played to accompany the songs that would have been accompanied when originally performed.
Shakespeare himself acted in several performances in front of Elizabeth, and in several roles. Researchers believe he may have performed in Macbeth amongst other plays.
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