The Globe Theatre

The Globe Theatre

The Globe Theatre was built in 1599 near the river Thames, outside London, but in 1597 his license expired and his owner had to move it to the other side of the river changing its name. It served the company of the famous William Shakespeare and had the honour of being the birthplace of works such as King Lear, Macbeth, Hamlet or Othello, among others.

It was a polygon about 30 metres diameter and allowed the entry of 3,350 spectators. The stage was a rectangle into the proscenium and measured about 13 metres wide by 8 metres deep and a metre and a half high. It had two traps through which the actors reached the stage from the bottom. The bottom of the stage was known as Hell and there appeared and disappeared supernatural characters such as the ghost of Hamlet. The columns of the stage held the roof, where was another trap door from which divine characters hung.

The three doors that gave on the stage led to the back stage, where the actors waited for their entry and the characters that died outside scene went through. On top of these doors was a balcony that was used when another space to develop the action was necessary; one of this most famous uses was in the balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet.

Like most theatres of the time, The Globe was built without a roof over the proscenium, which did not allow performances in rainy days, or in the cold of winter; the theatre only worked during the summer (from May to October). The performances took place during weekends, from approximately two in the afternoon until before the evening.

In 1613 a fire destroyed the premises of The Globe Theatre, but was immediately rebuilt in 1614 and demolished in 1644 under the orders of English Puritanism, which condemned the theatre performances of the Elizabethan era. In 1997 the theatre reopened its doors under the name of Shakespeare's Globe Theatre, respecting the shape of the old building but with capacity for only 1500 people.

Laia R, Andrea R & Rosa Mª M

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