Actor's eye view at the RST
This is the actor’s eye view of the auditorium at the RST – imagine it full of people, the audience. There is a performance on the stage perhaps you are playing Valentine in The Two Gentleman of Verona, it is beginning of act five, scene four, you have just entered alone to do your soliloquy “How use doth breed a habit in a man!…” . You are looking out at the audience, its all going well. They are seated quietly, keeping still, clearly engaged with your performance, no coughs sneezes or fanning of programmes. So far no one’s mobile has gone off, tonight is a good night!
But consider for a moment how different it would have been for Shakespeare’s actors. The first Valentine would have entered to a very different scene. He would have been in daylight of course and as his eyes roved over the audience he might have noticed several people amongst the standing crowd in the Pit (this was the cheap standing area, roughly where the expensive seats are today) talking to each other, some would have been buying nuts from the sellers who were pushing themselves through the crowd. Halfway through the speech a disagreement might have broken out as someone noticed their purse had been slit. In the upper galleries ladies with big hats and fans craned over the rail to get a better view. The actor had better be good because if people don’t like him they will at best ignore him at worst jeer at him. If there are questions in the actor’s speech he will have to assume that the audience (if they are listening) might well respond. The actor would be able to see people coming and going – too or from what passed for a toilet (there were no intervals in the original performances) or just trying to get a better or a different view. It would have seemed very distracting I would think.
It must have been hard to be an actor in those conditions, or at least so it seems today when our theatre etiquette is one of respect and passivity. Perhaps though if Shakespeare’s actors could take to the stage now they would find themselves feeling very exposed facing the theatre lights and a sea of silent expectant people…
