Modern scholarship has done much to reconstruct the conditions under which Shakespeare worked and the theatre in which his plays were first produced…There were not long periods of rehearsal, which would make complicated business and stage movements difficult to achieve. Stage directors in the modern sense were unknown. Scenery, that localized the setting or contributed a supporting visual or spatial design, was not used. The language of the plays was complex, metaphorical, richly suggestive, and artificial…The audience had to listen in a way they do not have to listen in the modern theatre. They went “to hear a play” rather than to see it. (Brubaker, Shakespeare Aloud, 1977, 50)
Performance Approaches to Shakespeare 