THEY didn't do things by halves in Shakespeare's day. When the playwright's directions called for cannon fire, they got a stage cannon into The Globe Theatre in London and" fired off cotton rags. Unfortunately, during a performance of Henry VIII, one of the rags, smouldering high up in the thatched root, ignited. The audience was quickly evacuated, the only casualty being a man who had to be doused with ale when his breeches caught fire. The Globe, however, burned to the" ground.
Nearly 400 years later, in 1995, in the borough of Southwark, else by the Thames, the new and glorious Globe - a faithful replica of the old theatre - was topped by a roof of Norfolk reed, the first thatch to be put on a building in London since the Great Fire in 1666.
The reconstruction of The Globe - the theatre in which most of Shakespeare's plays were performed and in which he had shares - was the dream of Sam Wanamaker. Arriving from America as a young actor, he made straight for the site of the old Globe and found a blackened plaque, set into the wall of a brewery, the only tribute to the western world's greatest playwright. Wanamaker established The Globe Playhouse Trust in 1970 and 20 years later, his project received its greatest boost when archaeologists unearthed the remains of The Rose Theatre - the Globe's main rival in Shakespeare's day. (On one occasion, when a performance at both theatres ended at the same time and the two audiences spilled out onto the streets, hand to hand fighting took place.) Encouraged by this discovery, the archaeologists pressed on and later that year uncovered the foundations of the original Globe.
RECONSTRUCTION of the historic, open-air theatre began immediately. The circular, timbered framework is made from unseasoned oak, the seats from seasoned Scots Pine. The largest piece of timber - the 44 foot beam across the Heavens or painted ceiling of the stage area - came from a 70 foot high tree in Hereford. Six thousand oak pegs have been used to lock the frame into position. In the original Globe, plaster for in-filling the frames was made with sand, lime and cowhair, and here an interesting discovery was made: cows nowadays do not grow their hair as long as their Elizabethan ancestors did, which is why Kashmiri goat hair has been used as a substitute. The thatched roof, curving gracefully round the whole building, has been specially fireproofed and the sharp-eyed will be able to detect small sprinklers sticking out of the decorative ridge every few feet.
In Elizabethan times, the Globe could accommodate 3,000 people but present-day safety regulations limit the audience to half that number, 1,000 of whom will sit on bench seats under cover in the three-tiered galleries, with the rest - the groundlings - standing in the area immediately in front of the stage, exposed to the elements.
""I'll give you a tip about seating," says Valery Alliez, one of the Globe's guides. "The best place to sit, in any of the galleries, is at the back of Row E. You'll be able to rest your back against the wall. And if you're a groundling, don't stand near the galleries because if it's raining - and umbrellas are not allowed - you'll get all the drips from the thatch."
In Elizabethan times, ticketing was simple: one penny to stand, another penny to sit and a third penny to have a cushion. A side benefit of being seated in the gallery was that not only could you see, you could also be seen, as important among theatre-goers then as it is today.
Last summer, the Globe had a three-week Prologue season a sort of run-through to see how everything worked. "One of the most disconcerting things for the actors," says Alliez, "is that they could see the audience clearly - and at close quarters, because the groundlings can come right up to the stage and actually lean on it. And of course, there was lots of shouting and barracking. At the end of The Two Gentlemen of Verona, when Juliet is about to take back the villain, Mark Rylance, playing the part of Proteus, had to deal with 1,500 people hissing at him and listen to the audience urging Juliet not to do it."
GROUNDLINGS are free to walk about during the performance as they did in Elizabethan times. "They can do pretty much as they choose," says Valliez. "They can eat and drink, though they're not allowed to throw things at the actors. They can go outside during a performance and come back in again. Or not come back in again. Sometimes, people might want to use the lavatory in the middle of a performance and they can do that - the lavatories are outside. Of course, in Elizabethan times, there were no lavatories." So what did people do? "They went where they were.
Such sanitary arrangements made for a lot of problems in - those days. The Thames was polluted, so people drank from it at great risk. Shakespearean characters are usually heard calling for ale or wine never water. The Rose Theatre, in particular, was noted for its putrid drains, which is why Shakespeare's sly comment: "That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet" could always be sure of raising a laugh in The Globe.
The rebuilding of The Globe - the final cost of the project will be £30 million - has been of major international interest. Ten per cent of the Friends of Shakespeare's Globe - the main fund raising charity are from overseas. American donors have been prominent. New Zealand's contribution is a set of four embroidered hangings created by five hundred embroiderers. One of the hangings incorporates a picture of Hercules carrying the world on his shoulders and it was a flag bearing this image which was always flown from the roof of the theatre whenever a performance was about to take place.
A similar flag will fly from today's Globe and will be visible from the other side of the Thames. Instead of a warning bell, a trumpet will sound. In Shakespeare's day, performances always took place during the hours of daylight. Today, performances will take place in the afternoons and early evenings and large stage lights will be on throughout the performances so that the darkening skies will go unnoticed. One thing, however, that cannot go unremarked is the fact that the Globe lies directly beneath one of Heathrow's flight paths. Valery Alliez is philosophical: "You get used to it. One important advantage is that we're not near any main thoroughfares, so we don't have the steady drumming of traffic. And there's no car park, so people will have to find their way here on foot or by taxi. Or by riverboat, when the jetty is built."
A few things still remain to be done. A restaurant, pub, library and research centre will be added and by the millennium, a foot-bridge across the Thames will 1 have been built. The 300-seat Inigo Jones Theatre, part of the main complex, is nearing completion. The floor of the yard on, which the groundlings stand is about to be covered with an amalgam of ash, soap waste and nut shells - as it had been originally, the soap waste and shells being industrial waste from nearby soap works. (We have popcorn, Elizabethans had nuts.)
VALERY Alliez has a secret plot, concerning the groundlings. "I'm a member of the Richard III Society and I've told Mark Rylance (now the Globe's Artistic Director) that we should have a special performance of Richard III for our members. That'll give the actors a fright - when 1,500 people start booing Henry Tudor and cheering Richard. There won't be one single member of the audience on their side." And she smiles in anticipation.
As a besotted Richard groupie, I have to say I want to be there too, among the groundlings, throwing my sweaty night-cap in the air and yelling support for the most wronged Plantagenet that ever was. Going to The Globe promises to be fun.
