A puritan's view of the audience
One (biased) account of the Elizabethan audience is recorded by Stephen Gosson*, a puritan who wrote an attack upon writers, poets, and, above all, dramatists. At plays (he writes) there were the most awful goings-on:
In our assemblies at plays in London, you shall see such heaving, and shoving, such itching and shouldering to sit by women; such care for their garments, that they be not trod on; such eyes to their laps, that no chips light in them; such pillows to their backs, that they take no hurt; such masking in their ears, I know not what; such giving them pippins [apples] to pass the time. . . such ticking, such toying, such smiling, such winking, and such manning them home, when the sports are ended, that it is a right comedy to mark their behaviour.
- Masking
- Whispering through masks--the masks worn to preserve anonymity.
- Manning
- Escorting, with a pun on manning in the sense of managing (compare "manning" a ship).
Footnotes
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Stephen Gosson
In The School of Abuse (1579). Gosson had earlier been a poet, playwright, and probably a player as well. He later took Holy Orders and became rector of the church of St. Botolph's in Bishopsgate, London.