Why We Can't Do Plays Like Shakespeare Anymore: The London History Show

Sources and further reading:
Bowsher, J. & Miller, P. 2009. The Rose and the Globe- playhouses of Shakespeare’s Bankside, Southwark.
Mortimer, I. 2013. The Time Traveller’s Guide To Elizabethan England.
Tucker, P. 2001. Secrets Of Acting Shakespeare: The Original Approach.

00:00 Intro
01:46 Things Are Different For The Audience
09:46 Things Are Different For The Actors

[josephkarl]

Also: AFAIK, one of the advantages Shakespeare had was he had his own company of players, and he wrote for those men. When you read Shakespeare, you're not necessarily reading King John, Hamlet, Richard iii, etc - you're reading the personalities of Richard Burbage, William Kempe and Thomas Pope. Shakespeare wrote parts based on his actors, which I'm certain made learning parts that much easier.

[marijeangalloway]

The fact that Shakespeare still packs 'em in the aisles after 400+ years of changing theatrical traditions is a testament to just how great he actually is. No doubt people will still be going to his plays when the actors are holograms or androids. "Not for an age but for all time"---indeed prophetic.

[secretforreddit]

Something about you in your fabulous period attire in a cozy, timeless room drinking a can of Monster Energy is just absolutely, wonderfully anachronistic.

[mattnyman]

There was a company in Portland Oregon who tried to do this in a park. They performed Romeo and Juliet with lots of pauses for bus traffic. After a while it turned into a comedy. At one point, the stage manager called for the performers to do the scene as zombies. Was fun chaos.

[possiblyadog]

Anyone who'd pay 5 pounds to stand during an entire Shakespeare play is a true legend. I couldn't do it

[elizabethgodwin]

It's not exactly the same, but I once did a show called "Secret Shakespeare" in which none of the actors met each other until the performance. It was wonderful! We got about a month to rehearse in our own homes and one rehearsal with the director. We were asked to come in disguise with the audience and stand up at our first line of the show. We did have a book holder, but they were in the front seat of the audience, not a corner of the stage. It felt spontaneous and exciting and the troupe instantly became friends.
We did it as a fundraiser for the theater program in a local school. 10/10 would recommend! If you are part of a theater troupe or otherwise know someone who runs a troupe please suggest to them that they run a Secret Shakespeare. It's a great time, a great fundraiser and a great challenge.

[Tinyflypie]

Many years ago I decided to form a theatre group of young actors. I wanted to show how vibrant Shakespeare is. We performed in parks, school gymnasiums etc and charged little. We encouraged our audiences to engage, we addressed them directly as if the play was a conversation. We were successful for years. The plays don't need lights or the 4th wall. Curtains lights and elaborate sets destroy the need for Shakespeare's picture painting language and their immediacy in provoking thought. Teachers in high schools would tell us the kids would hate the language and get bored. They didn't they were rollicking loud audiences who often told us that this was the first time they had understood. Unfortunately I became ill and had to stop. A big professional theatre company jumped in and began touring schools but it fizzled. Theatre is full of ego maniacs who can't stand bare theatre, it doesn't clean their pants to see audiences mad about the play, not it's actors etc. Edit: I wrote 'cream' their pants. Auto correct changed it.

[amyspeers]

My husband has a PhD in linguistics and loves languages. He actually helped to translate, or as others have said “restore” Hamlet to the original Klingon. BTW-he also spoke to our son in Klingon for the first coulpe of years. No, my son is not messed up. He’s actually an opera singer and manager of a local theater!

[kj]

"Well, it's not very dramatic now, Terry" literally made me snort in my office. I'm going to have trouble explaining this to my colleagues.

[uuneya]

Over here in the US I once got to see a local production where the actors only had their cue scripts. Since it was a comedy - Two Gentlemen of Verona - the book holder was dressed as a (US) football referee, and blew his whistle/threw down a yellow flag whenever someone flubbed a line. And since it was one of those "on the green" productions there was more of a faire crowd, with a good bit of chatter going on during the performance. It was a lot of fun!

[philippenachtergal]

Gathered from a quick internet search:

For example, in 1629 French actresses appeared at Blackfriars in London; there seems to be no record of them being prosecuted, but the audience simply booed, hissed, and pelted them off the stage. Elizabethan theatre patrons’ refusal to countenance women on stage was considered a point of national pride by writers like Thomas Nashe. If a woman were ever prosecuted for acting a role in a play in England, it would probably be before a Consistory court or some similar church court, on a charge of “immodesty” or “lewdness, ” rather than for violating some specific Parliamentary prohibition on actresses. The Puritans closed down the theatres completely during the Civil War and Interregnum, so actors and actresses were both illegal. Only at the Restoration did Charles II make it clear that actresses on stage would be met with royal favor from now on (he probably got used to them in France, where women were never kept off the stage).

source: Daniel Baker, M.A. in European History, George Mason University

[monkiespukerabbits]

As a blind person, I figured out a long time ago that one does not need to see the play. I would love to visit the Globe!

I'm not an expert on the Bard's work, but the rythm of language makes up for all of that.

I've never known what the Globe looked like; thank you so much for your description!

[SamAronow]

They do sell beer at baseball games. Baseball is very much a social occasion as well, with the stadiums being equal part sporting venue and museum, and things like the unique design of each field and stadium, view of the city from your seat, and the friends you run into are seen as essential parts of the experience. FYI, the Chicago Cubs and St. Louis Cardinals will be playing a two-game series a month from today at London Stadium. Would recommend.

[CrazyArtistLady]

Back in the 2000's a theatre in Toronto did one of the comedies this way with only the que scripts. It was hysterically funny, and much more polished the second night. My favorite line was "Methinks I shouldnst be alone" and someone came flying onto the stage😂😂

[renaia]

I went in to this thinking “Hah, I’m sure we could still put on plays like Shakespearean ones; it can’t be *that* different”. WELL. I was wrong! Thank you so much for this video, it was fascinating and insightful. Brilliant video.

[RavSoda]

Professional opera singer here…
First of all great video as usual. Love your energy and all. Just wanted to add that many of the practices you mentioned do still continue in one way or another. I work at a repertory theatre in Germany and we do a different show every night pulling something out of the back of our minds after months sometimes. Therefore we do have someone to cue us if someone forgets their lines. And while actors and singers tend to use full scripts or vocal scores containing all the parts, the orchestras play from from cue sheets and so does the chorus sometimes. It’s amazing how much has changed and just as amazing how much hasn’t.

Keep up the good work!

[Harrydewulf]

I love it when someone points out how much of the stage direction is in the text. Often it's a lot subtler than the examples you gave, too.

[timothytikker]

The bookholder is a role that survives in opera today, called a "prompter." Years ago I heard a recording of the world première of Olivier Messiaen's opera "Saint Fraçois d'Assise, " and it was recorded such that the prompter could be heard giving out lines fairly constantly -- it was, after all, a new work, and very long and musically difficult at that.

[michaelmcchesney]

My ex-girlfriend and I visited the Globe Theater in 1999 during a London vacation. She was a theater major that (at the time) worked for a theatrical supply company, so our vacation involved a lot of theater. Our tour guide explained that the new Globe was built exactly as the original Globe was built, with 2 exceptions. First, the theater had sprinklers because of the London fire code. Second were lights "because no theater could survive without putting on plays at night. We didn't see a play at the Globe, but we did see performances by two RSC-initialized Shakespeare companies. They were the Royal Shakespeare Company and the Reduced Shakespeare Company. The Reduced Shakespeare Company put on the Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Abridged. It really was very, very funny. Some years later, the play was brought to NYC, and I purchased tickets to see it with my (new) girlfriend, sister, and mother. To say they were not enthusiastic when they heard the title would be an understatement. But they did really enjoy it.

[hailtotheengineers]

I am an American and can confirm that there are people who walk up and down the stairs at not just baseball but most sporting events selling beer, food and souvenirs, for those who don't want to get up to go to the concession stands.