In order to give you a sense
of what the Elizabethan theatre was like during
Shakespeare's time, Sarah and I have decided to
travel back in time to London in the year 1600. Shakespeare is in his
late 30s and about halfway through his professional career. Six years earlier, Shakespeare,
along with eight other actors, founded the Lord
Chamberlains' Men, which has since
established itself as the most successful
acting company in London. They recently moved into
their new theatre, the Globe, which we are going to
visit but not just yet. Had we traveled back in
time just 25 years earlier, we wouldn't have found any
building in London that you could properly call a
theatre or playhouse. The few plays that
were then performed took place in the
kind of establishment that you see behind us,
the Boar's Head Inn. There were five or six of
these large public inns around London. And in the large
central courtyard, the proprietor occasionally
arranged entertainment for his customers which
sometimes consisted of a troop of actors who
received compensation from the innkeeper for
boosting alcohol sales, along with whatever they could
collect from the audience. One of these
itinerant actors was one of those rare men
who changed history by combining an inspired vision
with entrepreneurial skill. His name was James Burbage. And with only
slight exaggeration, he has been called the father
of the English language theatre. Burbage may have been inspired
by ancient Rome whose grandest theatres were among the empire's
most impressive architectural monuments, seating over 10,000
spectators and whose leading dramatist, Seneca, was
both a renowned philosopher and a leading statesman. But James Burbage, a
carpenter by trade, was nothing, if not a
practical businessman. And his business
model probably came from an immensely popular
and profitable form of entertainment at the time-- bear baiting. Here we are inside
the Paris Garden, one of the more famous
bear baiting arenas. A bear would be
chained to a stake in the middle of the ring. And then a pack of hunting dogs
were set loose to attack it. To our modern
sensibilities, bear baiting is a repugnant blood sport. But in 16th century
England, it was big business and popular
with all the social classes. Even Queen Elizabeth
enjoyed entertaining foreign dignitaries with bear
baiting at Whitehall Palace. With bear baiting arenas
as a starting point, Burbage designed and built
a structure specifically for the performance of plays. He called it The Theater,
a word that, at the time, referred to those open-air
semicircular stone arenas, the Romans used. Burbage's theatre could
accommodate an audience of around 2000, many times
more than a public inn. And when his acting company took
up permanent residence there, the modern English
theatre was born. By 1600, the theatre
industry's flourishing, boasting five or six
large theatres similar to Burbage's original design. But not everyone looks
favorably on this new form of public entertainment. London officials oppose the
theatres and eventually banned the performance of all plays
anywhere inside official city limits. One of their concerns is
that the theatres attract the criminal class. [VOMITING SOUNDS] Psst-- how about an ounce
of pure Virginia tobacco? Just 3 shillings. No thanks, we're good. Another concern is with public
health and for good reason. With no sewage
system to speak of, London is a filthy,
unhygienic, overcrowded city. The worst disaster to
ever afflict Europe occurred two centuries earlier
when the bubonic plague first arrived. Within two years, it killed
almost half the population of Europe. Periodic outbreaks of
the plague continued to ravage European
cities all the way up until the 19th century. Three years from now,
in the summer of 1603, one such outbreak will
kill 38,000 Londoners, 20% of the city's population. Though it will be centuries
before the exact cause of bubonic plague is understood,
a bacteria that resides in rats and their fleas. Officials know the
disease spreads easily. So when the death count
reaches a certain level, all large public
gatherings are banned. Three times during
Shakespeare's career, the theatres will be closed for
periods ranging from several months to two years. But in addition to concerns
about crime and public health, some Londoners opposed the
new theatres on moral grounds. Just as in America today,
Elizabethan Society had a small but vocal
religious right-- militants from the new
fundamentalist sect of Christianity, Protestantism. These Puritans, as
they were called, think it's against God's
natural order for men to portray what they
are not, particularly, for young boy actors to dress
as women for the female roles. And their Protestant
work ethic is offended by actors who create
nothing of tangible value, and what's worse, who seduce
real workers to idle away their time in mere
entertainment. Despite all these obstacles,
the theatres have prospered. Let's step inside the Globe
and see what one is like. [CHIME SOUND] To prevent the doorkeepers from
pocketing some of the receipts, the spectators dropped
their penny admission fee through this slot. One penny doesn't
sound like much. But it's a little more than
the average hourly wage and equal to about twice what
we'd pay for a movie ticket. For that penny, you get to
stand in this area in front of the stage, while
the more well-to-do, pay an additional penny to
sit in these tiered galleries. It's a lot like what we call a
theatre in the round until you look up. Since it's not practical
to artificially illuminate this large space, it's necessary
to leave most of the roof open and schedule performances
during daylight. And since this is
London, that makes for a lot of damp performances. As we mentioned, the Globe
is the permanent home of the acting company, the
Lord Chamberlain's Men. Unlike the modern theatre
where actors are hired for a particular play, an actor,
in the Elizabethan theatre, tried to become a shareholding
member of a permanent acting company where he likely would
stay for his entire career. These sharers, as
they're called, are equal business
partners in the enterprise. After giving a fixed
percentage of the box office to the theatre owners and
the fixed expenses are paid, the sharers split any remaining
profits among themselves. Acting companies
with poor attendance have meager or
non-existent profits. But if the acting
company is popular, them both the theatre owner
and sharers do quite well. The Lord Chamberlain's
Men attract huge audiences and become the only acting
company successful enough to construct their own theatre,
which means they don't have to share any profits
with a theatre landlord. Now that the Globe has
opened, Shakespeare and his fellow sharers are
each earning the equivalent of about $1 million a year. Not bad for the
son of a glovemaker who arrived in London 12 years
earlier with little education, money, or contacts. But the Lord Chamberlain's
Men faces stiff competition from other companies such as the
Queen's Men and the Admiral's Men. You've probably surmised
from the company names that each one of
these is associated with a powerful nobleman. But these noble patrons
have, essentially, no artistic or
financial relationship with the companies. In fact, this new theatre
industry is representative of an emerging and soon-to-be
vital part of the British economy-- capitalism
and free enterprise. So how do Shakespeare's company
entice the average Londoner to pay an hour's wages, give
up an afternoon of work, and stand up through a
three-hour performance in the drizzling rain? One clue is this week's
schedule here at the Globe-- five different plays. In fact, Shakespeare
and his fellow actors are currently performing
nine plays in rotation. And before this year's
out, they will have performed 30 different plays. To a modern actor, who
performs one play at a time and maybe five in a year, this
is an almost unimaginable feat of memory and a reminder to us
of how important oral culture was in Shakespeare's day. So why this frequent rotation of
plays in Elizabethan theatres? It's all in the numbers. With their surrounding
population and a large number of tourists, modern
day New York and London can each draw on a potential
audience of about 20 million. But the population of
1,600 London is only 1% of that, about the size
of current day Grand Rapids, Michigan. So while a play in New York
can run for four months, playing to a new
audience every night, the Globe Theatre has to attract
repeat customers by offering a large selection of plays. But where do all
these plays come from? Since the industry
is still young, there isn't a large repertoire
of old classics to draw upon. So the acting companies need
to commission new plays-- lots of them-- but by whom? Though the printing
press was invented over a century earlier,
and the publishing industry has grown steadily
ever since, it's only now that we
see the emergence of the first
professional writers. That is men able to make a
living just from their writing. This development is
due in large part to the huge demand for new
plays by the acting companies and to their ability to
pay handsomely for them. Initially, this new
writing profession was composed mainly
of a group we've come to call the
University Wits, because they were graduates
of either Oxford or Cambridge. You might think that
university students during this period come from
the very wealthy classes. But a few, like
our new dramatists, came from modest
families and had to make a living
from their education. They found that writing
plays was much more lucrative than being a school headmaster. And at least two of them, Robert
Greene and Christopher Marlowe, found it much more fun reveling
in that tawdry underworld across the Thames River where
their new benefactors were located. Thinking of themselves
as following in the footsteps of the famous
ancient Greek and Roman poets, the group wrote grand tragedies
about heroic historical figures often favoring rhetorical
style of a literary substance. They were also a
pretty snobbish bunch. Robert Greene, in a letter
addressed to his fellow writers, publicly denounced
theatre actors or players, as they were called, as
uneducated journeyman. And he singled out one
actor in particular, disdainfully labeling
him a theatrical jack of all trades, a
Johannes factotum, for having the audacity to
attempt to write plays as well as act in them. For there is an upstart crow
beautified with our feathers that with his Tiger's
heart wrapped in a player's hide supposes he
is, as well, able to bombast out a blank
verse as the best of you. And being an absolute
Johannes factotum is, in his own conceit, the
only Shake scene in a country. That upstart crow is,
of course, the new kid in town, William Shakespeare. But the demand for new
plays is much too large to be limited by class prejudice
or academic credentials. So by this time, London
has an eclectic group of professional playwrights
cranking out 40 plays a year for sale to the
acting companies. With pressing deadlines and
so much money to be made, it's not surprising that some
writers resorted to an assembly line production process. Like a writing team
for television shows, they start with a formulaic
plot and then divide up the scenes for quick writing. As you might guess, the results
are often less than memorable. [CROWD BOOING] While on the other end of the
quality spectrum, you have-- well-- Shakespeare. The Lord Chamberlain's
Men were lucky enough to count on their talented
in-house playwright for two excellent plays each year. So almost overnight, the
theatre has established itself as a dominant part
of English culture. But is it, as the University
Witt's have proclaimed, a renaissance of the highest
form of literary expression? Or is it, as the Puritans
protest, something akin to bear baiting-- just idle and
immoral entertainment for the emerging middle class? One thing's for sure. The Elizabethan theatre changed
the way its audience saw themselves and the
world around them. Comedies pointed out the
silliness and vanities in their society. The histories instructed
them on their country's past and helped create,
for the first time, a sense of English
national identity. And the tragedies
caused them to reflect on the internal struggles
and external dilemmas they faced in an increasingly
uncertain and complex world. On an even deeper level, one
could argue that this rebirth of theatre reflected a change
in our very sense of self. Society was becoming
more and more a place where we put on roles
where, like an actor, we have to step into new
and evolving identities. Unlike the Middle
Ages where everyone had a fixed place in society,
the early modern society of Shakespeare's
time was starting to allow movement among roles. And as a result, the experience
of a gap between our deepest sense of self and how we might
appear to those around us. Shakespeare's character, Hamlet,
has this exact kind of problem. Is he simply a prince who
must avenge his father's death like all princes should? Or is he his own person-- free to choose how he
will be in the world? As Shakespeare, himself, puts
it in his play, as you like it, all the world's a stage. And all men and
women merely players. They have their exits
and their entrances. And one man in his
time plays many parts. Looks like it's back to
the 21st century for us. Let's ask our audience
what they think-- is the world a stage? What parts will you play? [BUS MOTOR NOISE]