I am Not an Original Groundling

By Michael Hartigan (From the Literary Traveler Archive)
I am not an original Groundling. Nor could I ever be, what with widespread theatrical ambivalence, modern day health codes and a personal dislike for sloshing through human waste.
However, had I been a child of the 60s (the 1560s), I might’ve felt right at home on the wrong side of the Thames, amongst the bawdy bards and applauding proletariat. Right there, on the floor, standing room only at Shakespeare's Globe, ankle deep in mud, stale ale and whatever that steaming liquid over there in the corner might be – reveling in revelry with a ...

To continue enjoying this please login or subscribe today.

Related Articles

William Shakespeare’s Globe Theater

A crowd of twentieth century “groundlings” stands in the open yard of the new Globe Theatre in Bankside, London. We’ve paid five pounds approximately $8.50 to see a performance of The Life of Henry the Fift (Henry V.) In the early 1600s, at the first Globe Theatre Shakespeare’s “Wooden O,” groundlings (commoners) paid one English penny.