Shakespeare Played Small: Three Speculations about the Body

Summary

Any space we occupy deeply affects how we perceive events inside it. We are bodies which occupy space and, metaphorically speaking, are occupied by it; especially when we are present in a space marked off from the mundane, like a holy temple or a chamber for the exercise of power, we are likely to alter not only our behaviour but our frame of mental reference. Theatres, which are spaces separate from ordinary life by definition, affect us not only by their architecture and decor but also by the spatial relationship established between actor and spectator. From the hillside amphitheatres of Athens in the fifth century BC to the concrete cinema bunkers of late twentieth-century suburban shopping malls, a theatre space is inscribed with ideas about the position of drama within the culture that built it.

For Shakespeare the issue of space has assumed particular importance, and in the modern era has been highly contested, partly because the status of Shakespeare's plays has focused attention on where they can be seen to best advantage. While most of us imagine Burbage's the Theatre or the Globe when we think of the original productions, the plays were performed in their own time in a variety of public, private and royal spaces, a fact that should make us question the common notion that they were 'written for' the public theatre or were somehow contained by it.