Shakespeare Globe Player Goes Live

Posted on: 8 June 2015

For the past five years, we’ve captured dozens of Globe productions on film for DVD and cinema release. We sell DVDs all over the world, and last year we distributed films of our 2012 productions to cinemas in eleven countries. On the day of its UK release, our Twelfth Night with Mark Rylance and Stephen Fry was the fifth most successful film in the national marketplace. While most British arts institutions are currently ramping up their digital offerings, there is sometimes a bit of fretful muttering about ‘cannibalising’ live audiences. But our experience has been that offering our productions on film is actually diversifying and internationalising awareness of the Globe and its work – and we still continue to average 95% capacity for our Shakespeares in our 1,500-person capacity outdoor theatre every summer. Globe Player can give Shakespeare enthusiasts who aren’t based in the UK the opportunity to see Globe shows they would otherwise miss, engage brand new audiences who wouldn’t usually consider attending a theatre production, and allow die-hard Globe fans to revisit productions they saw and loved here on Bankside. The films also open access to our work to those patrons for whom a visit to the theatre may have become impossible. It’s our hope that local patrons who have been forced to stop attending performances in person as a result of age or ill health will reconnect with Shakespeare’s plays in their own homes thanks to this technology.

Eyebrows have also been raised about whether or not the live theatre experience can actually be fully represented on film. There are various aspects of seeing a play at the Globe – particularly if one is standing in the yard – that are incredibly special and unique and resistant to digital capture. This summer the groundlings found themselves sprinkled with wine by tribunes, jostled by a rowdy hunt scene and co-opted into celebrations for the Roman feast of Lupercalia. One extremely lucky audience member received a kiss from Eve Best’s mischievous Cleopatra each show. These are moments that are inherently and unavoidably live. But there are many other things about the Globe experience that do lend themselves wonderfully to film. The circular galleries and thrust stage mean that the audience is visible from almost every angle; the gasps, laughter and applause of spectators are inevitably part of the finished films and help to imbue them with the raucous, exuberant spirit of the Globe.  We also work with some very skilled production teams to capture as much as we can of the full Globe experience – the acoustics created by the alchemical geometry of the space and the great open roof, the sweep of the expansive oak stage, the summer skies deepening and darkening above the heads of the groundlings.