“But they’re none of them dressed a bit like the people they’re meant to be,” she objected. “They’re wearing the same sort of clothes as the people in the audience have on!”
“Yes, the Elizabethans don’t trouble about that,” Godmother replied, “and neither right costume nor proper scenery makes good acting, you know. If we had time to stay and listen, we should hear this play very well acted. Do you notice how breathlessly quiet the audience is?”
Betty followed her guide reluctantly out of this strange theatre, looking back at the curtain-hung stage, with the young men in their short velvet cloaks, seated on stools close to the players, at the crowd standing in the open space under the blue sky, and at the circular galleries thronged with people.
“So that’s how the theatres we go to now, began, I suppose?” she asked.
“Not quite. Even that rough, simple sort of building we’ve just left is an advance upon what the grandfathers of these people saw in the way of stage performances. Till the Globe, and one or two other theatres (which I’ll show you in a minute) were built, a few years ago, the plays were acted in the courtyards of inns. Let us come into the yard of this one, and I’ll explain.”
They went under an archway, and found themselves outside the Falcon Inn.
“There,” said Godmother, pointing to the wooden galleries into which the rooms of the tavern opened. “Inns like this one, were the first theatres. The stage was a number of boards laid upon trestles, and placed at the end of the courtyard. The poorer people stood here where we are standing, in the middle of the yard, and from the galleries, the richer people looked on. You see how the same sort of arrangement goes on in the new Globe theatre, only it is built in a circle, instead of in a square, and the stage at least, is protected from the weather by a roof. If you think of any theatre in our own day, you will see that there’s more than a memory in it, of these inns, and that rough building from which we’ve just come. The pit is the yard, or open space. The Dress Circle and ‘Gallery’ correspond to the galleries round the inn, or round a building like the Globe. So the most modern up-to-date play-house in our century is really only the great-great-grandchild of the play-house in Elizabeth’s day!”
“And even before her time there were the miracle plays, where at least there was a stage and actors,” said Betty. “Do they still act miracle plays, now, in this sixteenth century?”
Godmother shook her head. “Not often. The people, you see, are better educated now, and have grown out of them—especially as they have splendid stirring plays written by great men who are alive amongst them, like Shakespeare and Marlowe and Ben Jonson. We may have learnt how to make fine scenery and luxurious theatres in our day, but we can’t write plays like William Shakespeare’s. By the way,” she added, “he lives over here in Southwark, not far from the great church of St. Saviour’s. He hasn’t yet left London to go back to his old home in Stratford-on-Avon.”
“I do hope we shall see him!” Betty exclaimed.... “What are these other buildings along the river, Godmother?”