Shakespeare's Globe Stage, Bankside, Southwark, London, UK
As I mentioned the other day, we saw Love's Labours Lost as groundlings. In Elizabethan England, everyone withing walking distance went to the theatre. Those who could afford it paid for a seat. Those who couldn't, paid to stand in the yard surrounding the stage. Theatre was much more... interactive back then. If you liked the play, you shouted your approval as and when you felt it. If one of the bad guys came on stage, you expressed your displeasure by yelling, and maybe throwing some old food at him.
There were also no reserved seats (or spaces to stand for groundlings). If you moved, someone else was free to take your place. Not that movement was all that easy, as there were no fire regulations, so patrons were packed like kippers in a tin. And if you were actually able to make it outside the theatre, you had to pay to get back in. Unfortunately, all this meant that, if one of the groundlings needed to relieve himself, he usually did it where he was standing. Yuck.
Today's Globe is far more safe and sanitary. A dirt yard would probably be more comfortable on tired feet, but I'm sure the asphalt is much easier to maintain.
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 License.