A morning with Shakespeare

“Our doubts are traitors, and make us lose the good we oft might win, by fearing to attempt.”

William Shakespeare, Measure for Measure

As short-term denizens of London, Amanda and I have been trying to take advantage of all the city has to offer on the weekends. We have been on half a dozen different walking tours, visited numerous museums and spent a bit of time just wondering around aimlessly. One of our more recent weekend activities took us to what is the third incantation of William Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre.

While Stratford upon Avon is renowned as the birthplace and home of the world’s most quoted wordsmith, London is where Shakespeare made a name for himself. As many luminaries have exclaimed before, the strength of Shakespeare’s works emanate from the transcendent themes found within the stories he tells. The construction of the original Globe completed in 1599 fittingly has a story all its own which includes a dispute between a landlord and the Lord Chamberlains Men theatre company, a clandestine dismantling and subsequent reconstruction on marshy farmland on the south bank of the river Thames.

The Globe’s story actually begins in 1576 in the London Burough of Hackney in a Parish known as Shoreditch. Shoreditch is now considered to be a district of the East End of London with a budding technology industry, yet in Shakespeare’s time it was a growing parish community on the outskirts of London. During Shakespeares time many theatres were built just outside the city due primarily to the high cost of land which made building a theatre prohibitively expensive. Ultimately, the building that eventually became known as the globe was first built by James Burbage on property he leased from Giles Allen for 21 years. Eventually ownership of the theatre passed to Burbage’s two sons Richard and Cuthbert who owned the majority stake in the theatre while four others including Williams Shakespeare owned an equal stake of the remaining shares. However, in 1598, a year after the lease had terminated; the question of theatre ownership remained unresolved with Giles Allen claiming the theatre belonged to him as soon as the original lease had expired.

Rather than relinquishing ownership of the building itself members of the Lord Chamberlains Men along with help from a few friends and a carpenter by the name of Peter Street covertly dismantled the theatre while Allen was celebrating Christmas in 1598 and transported the entire building to a warehouse on the waterfront owned by Street. I can’t help but wonder what Mr. Allen thought upon his return from Christmas holiday but I can’t imagine he would have been pleased!

Street stored the theatre in its dismantled state at his warehouse until the spring of 1599 when it was transported across the river and reconstructed on a marshy plot of land 100 yards south of the river bank in an area known as Southwark. The property did not drain properly and was subject to regular flooding, especially during high tide, but the Lord Chamberlains Men finally had their theatre back and could also boast owning the first theatre built by actors and for actors.

The theatre reopened in its new location in the autumn of 1599 as The Globe, although the exact date is disputed, and remained there until it burnt down during a performance of Henry VIII on June 29, 1613. No one was seriously injured although a pint of bitter was sacrificed to douse the flames of mans trousers which had caught fire during his escape. The Globe was rebuilt the following year and operated uneventfully until it was closed by the Puritans in 1642 and subsequently torn down in 1644. Amazingly the importance of the Globe had more or less drifted out of public consciousness for more than 300 years until American actor and director Sam Wanamaker funded Shakespeare’s Globe. The new theatre is built near the site of the original Globe and the design is based on historical documents dating from 1599 and 1614 to make it appear like it would have during Shakespearian times. The new theatre has a really good museum that describes both the history of two preceding theatres as well as what life would have been like for the actors who performed there.  You can even take in a live performance throughout the year as there’s always something on. In fact during our guided tour we were able to watch nearly an hour of rehearsal for “A Midsummer's Night Dream” which was playing later that night. What an amazing experience.