The Play in Performance

Abstract

The audience participated in the performance to an even greater degree than audiences in the Workshop and Prologue Seasons. Experience had already shown how an audience newly liberated, highly visible, and energized by the Globe’s spatial relations of building, stage and auditorium in the same light, can influence the playing of a scene. At the first preview performance of Henry V this empowerment of the audience and the energizing of the actors were reinforced. The groundlings in the yard made the most noise, especially in their responses to the French lords, who were greeted with progressively louder boos and hisses every time they came on stage. The first preview audience of each production at the new Globe includes the ‘Penny Groundlings’, the local residents who pay one penny to stand in the yard. Their responses are exhuberant. Coming offstage at the end of the performance, actors Christian Camargo (the Dauphin), Rory Edwards (Orleans) and Craig Pinder (Rambures) said they were completely astonished at the reaction — it was a little unnerving. Toby Cockerell (Katherine) was surprised at the cheers his character received when she first came on (3.5). She was greeted with wolf whistles. Henry and the English were cheered on every time they came onstage.