While the historical icon that is Shakespeare’s Globe Theater almost burned down last night due to a rogue firework display, there are many quirks in this building that has passed into cultural lore waiting to be explored. One of these is the color coding system of flags used designed to give theater lovers a little extra information before entering the carefully crafted worlds of William Shakespeare’s genius.
Different colored flags are flown above the unique theater to let audiences know what type of play is currently showing, a practice that has been going on for over 400 years, London tour guide Jonnie Fielding (AKA Bowl of Chalk) said on Instagram. This is because in Shakespeare’s time literacy was quite low so written posters would only serve to confuse the audience, he said.
In an Instagram feed, Jonnie said: “Most of them (the audience) wouldn’t be able to read so there’s no point in having posters telling them what to see so they came up with colour-coding. Flags, different colored flags telling them what you would see.
“So the red flag – comedy, the black flag – tragedy (everybody’s going to die), and a white flag for a history play. At the moment they have a lot of ado about nothing on, absolutely brilliant, so they have a red flag because it is a comedy.”
Last night a “red flare” landed in the standing area of the theater among the “groundlings” as they are called. It is believed that these were fireworks from a nearby celebration of the founding of an Algerian football club. The audience had to be evacuated at 10pm during the closing scenes of Anthony and Cleopatra.
Mark Johnson, a Tooting resident who witnessed the incident while watching the Shakespearean drama, described it as a “miracle” that no one was hurt. He told the Daily Mail about the confusion in the theatre, saying: “It was really confusing. It felt like it was near the end of the show when we saw bright red lights in the sky. Most of the audience looked up and we saw fireworks and there was a general feeling of confusion Even the actors and actresses looked up.
Shakespeare was a huge celebrity in his day and his plays drew audiences of 15-25,000 people a week to the City of London, Jonnie said. He was born on April 23, 1564 and died in 1616 on the same day rather strangely.
The modern reconstruction we see today is actually about 230 meters from this original site and was completed in 1997 and named Shakespeare’s Globe. The reconstruction is based on academic estimates of the available evidence from the 1597 and 1614 buildings. It began with a screening of Henry V.
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