The globe

THE GLOBE

When Sam Wanamaker, a young American actor, came to London in 1949 he had an idea in is mind - he wanted to see the Globe, the theatre where all Shakespeare's plays were performed at the beginning of the 17^th century and where Shakespeare himself had minor roles in his plays. He knew that the Globe lay in Southwark, near the south bank of the river Thames, but the only thing he found there was a bronze plaque on the wall of a brewery which said "Here stood the Globe playhouse of Shakespeare".

It was then that Sam Wanamaker conceived the project of building an exact replica of the Globe as a memorial to William Shakespeare, the greatest playwright of western civilization.

In 1968, the Shakespeare's Globe Trust was formed and the battle to rebuild the Globe began. It would last up to 1986, when the courts finally decided in favour of the Globe Trust against the Southwark Council. The place where the New Globe lies now in only 200 yards from the place where the original theatre was. The old playhouse was built in 1599 and was destroyed by fire in 1613 during a performance of Shakespeare's play Henry VIII. Luckily, all 3000 spectators safely escaped the fire, except for a gentleman whose trousers caught fire, but were extinguished with a bottle of beer.

The Globe was rebuilt in 1614, two years before Shakespeare's death. In 1642, the government controlled by Puritans closed all theatres. The Globe was pulled down in 1644, to make room for new buildings.

But what did the old theatre look like? Fortunately, quite a lot has been discovered. There are old engravings which show the Globe and the Rose, another famous playhouse, on the south bank of the Thames. There are also sketches and prints of the interiors of similar theatre. The most famous one was drawn by Johannes de Witt, a Dutch student who visited London in 1596. He attended a play in London at the Swan Theatre and during the performance he made a drawing of the theatre interior.

However, the best evidance came from the discovery of the foundations of the Rose Theatre in 1989. In the same year, some of the foudations of the Globe were also discovered. Although the Globe and other similar theatre seem to have a circular shape in the old engravings, they were actually polygonal. The problem was to establish how many sides they had, probably from 16 to 24. The remanis of the foudations of the Globe prove that it had 20 sides. Sam Wanamaker did not live to see his project completely finished. He died in 1993.

The next year Theo Crosby, the architect who joined Wanamaker's project in 1969, also died. He spend 25 years of his life working on the building of the New Globe which was finally opened in June 1997.