Theatre as Social Unifier
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While some may view Elizabethan society as a homogenous collection of aristocrats, courtiers, and gentry, the reality is much more complicated. There were many different sorts of people, from the Queen herself down to the common beggar and everything in between. Often identity was associated with people of one's own socioeconomic class, but complicated this were issues of religion (a Catholic shoemaker might be more loyal to another Catholic than to another shoemaker), politics, and geography. Yet despite the differences among its spectators, theatre provided a space in which social unification was possible, converting the individual spectator into a group participant.

 

The experience of theatre in early modern England was an altogether different experience from a contemporary viewing of a play. Besides the physical setting (or perhaps because of it), the renaissance playgoer’s mental experience of the play would be totally foreign in many ways to the modern spectator. One of the key differences between renaissance and modern playgoers, according to Andrew Gurr in Playgoing in Shakespeare's London , is the distinction between an individual’s association as either audience or spectator. Gurr defines the audience as a “collective term for a group of listeners”, while a spectator “is an individual, seeing for him or herself”1. The essential difference between the spectator of today and the audience of yesterday is the association with the collective during a performance: “Modern playgoers are set up, by their physical and mental conditioning, to be solitary spectators…in fundamental contrast the early modern playgoers were audiences, gathered as crowds, forming what they called assemblies, gatherings, or companies.”2


Medieval morality play, c.1460, from Sharp, A Dissertation of the Pageants, 1865


A cut-away of the Rose Theatre
 One of the key ways in which this distinction was set up was through the physical setting of the stage. While there were indoor playhouses (called private playhouses), by 1600 many of the outdoor venues, such as the Globe, the Rose, and the Swan were very well attended, bringing not only prestige to their players but wealth to their pockets. It is probably more likely that the populist crowd went to these outdoor theatres rather than frequenting the indoor stage. The stage setup in these ampitheatres was a type of “theatre in the round”, where seating was not only in front of the stage, but along its sides and even at its back. Plays were performed in daylight, so the crowd could see one another, react to each others’ actions. Indeed, plays were places to see and be seen, since, with the majority of the people in front of the stage, the most expensive box seats were behind the stage, giving everybody a good look at the well-to-do. The ability to see all your fellow playgoers undoubtedly reinforced the association of oneself with the larger crowd.

The general makeup of the crowd at an ampitheatre play, while not exactly known, seems to confirm Michael Hattaway’s assertion that, at least in this period, “‘public’ and ‘popular’ were virtually synonymous”3. In other words, the breakdown between high and low culture, especially the division along socioeconomic lines, had not yet been fully developed. This is shown by the playhouses’ entrance fees. A lowly craftsman (or even beggar, for that matter) could have entered for as little as a penny4, while a nobleman could easily afford a box seat. Prostitutes frequently looked for customers among the lusty university students. Vendors hawked their goods and food in the crowd because there was no intermission. Yet these things do not necessarily mean that the majority of the audience was “common” people such as craftsmen. To access Bankside one had to take a rather expensive ferry across the Thames and back (sixpence one way). Also plays, being staged during the day, could perhaps not be frequented by those who worked during the afternoon. Craftsmen and workers could often only attend on Sundays (which partially explains the preachers' contempt for the stage).

 

The court, where the same plays performed at the public theatres were also performed

An example of Carnival's influence on the stage, also an example of the stage setup

A further breakdown of social division was the content of the plays themselves. Performances in the playhouses were also shown at court to Her Majesty. The content of the plays provided a little something for everyone, from bawdy jokes to literary references. According to Hattaway, “both aristocratic games and folk ritual” were found on stage. Audience participation, for example the common practice of collective vocal reaction to the action on stage, drew in the audience (probably both nobles and beggars alike). This audience participation could be seen as a harkening back to the days of the feudal morality plays, where community members not only gathered in the town square to see the performance, but local people (one’s friends and neighbors) produced and acted in the play. This dynamic forged an intimate connection between the individual and the stage. Plays never lost “association with seasonal revelry”5, but even embraced some of the popular customs, such as the masquerade of Carnival.

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Another space where one could find a cohesion of social identity was at the fair. Click below to see how Bartholomew Fair brought together people from every social position in Elizabethan England.

 

The Fair as Social Unifier

Home | Theatre as Social Unifier | Fair as Social Unifier | Jonson as Social Unifier

 

1. Gurr, 1.
2. Gurr, 1.
3. Hattaway, i.
4. Gurr, 31.
5. Hattaway, 18.
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