Educational Media Reviews Online

Shakespeare’s Globe is not about the man, or even his work, but the reconstruction of his famous theatre. The dream, realization, and construction came from vision of a little known American actor Sam Wanamaker. Already living in England as director of the New Shakespeare Theatre, he refused to return to the States when blacklisted by the House Un-American Activities Committee. Without access to any of the Globe’s original plans, he and his devotees were dedicated to the use of original materials and craft. This added greatly to the cost and time needed to construct. The film contains interviews and narration from past and present theatre folk close to the workings of the Globe and its company. A former artistic director who followed Wanamaker leads viewers on an extensive tour of the new Globe’s exterior and interior. Once inside, actors from the company go through their everyday paces in the green room, costume and wardrobe, stage fight, and onstage warm ups. Throughout the excellent film work, appropriate Elizabethan music plays in the background. In addition to the meticulous design and construction of the Globe as a replica theatre, the film highlights its education programs that contact 70,000 students a year and its extensive online resources available worldwide. Backstage glimpses from an actual performance of Romeo and Juliet are carefully chronicled. Brief scenes from the actual performance are all it takes to demonstrate how contemporary Shakespeare remains. Though the casual viewer might not be interested in the entire 50 minutes, anyone looking for as much information as possible from a single video source will treasure Shakespeare’s Globe.