I somehow talked myself into taking three college courses this spring, despite having a full-time job, a book to finish, loads of manuscripts to edit, and a family that deserves my attention. One of those college courses is on Shakespeare. While I don’t feel like I’ve gotten to do the deep dives into Shakespeare’s plays like I envisioned going in—largely because my schedule is simply too full—I have enjoyed the course. And I recently read a book chapter for this course that gave me a whole new appreciation for the early stage.
The book is called Shakespeare’s Theatre’s and the Effects of Performance, and the chapter is titled “‘They Eat Each Other’s Arms’: Stage Blood and Body Parts” by Lucy Munro. As the title suggests, it’s all about how blood and gore were depicted on stage during the Shakespearean age. And—damn!—those plays sound like fun events to watch!
The passage discusses more than just Shakespeare, touching on several plays in which violent and depraved acts are depicted. You could attend one of those early plays and witness beheadings, cannibalism, and all sorts of limbs being chopped off, with blood and gore all over the place. In a play titled Claudius Tiberius Nero, two brothers eat each other’s arms. Sounds pretty fucking wild, right?
Sometimes the early production companies would use paint to depict blood. But more often, probably because it’s easier to clean and cheaper, they would use real blood, typically sheep blood, because of the prevalence of sheep in Great Britain. They would even use sheep organs and innards when some murderous part of the play required them. How would you like to get all dressed up for an elegant night at the theatre only to see a hyper-realistic depiction of a disembowelment?
They manufactured realistic body parts, used sponges saturated in blood, and even sheep bladders filled with blood. One quote from the chapter states, “He thrusts out his head, and they cut off a false head made of a bladder filled with bloud.” (Yes, they spelled blood that way; probably an old British thing.) False heads were apparently very common. But plays depicted dismembered body parts of every sort. Hands and other limbs were common. Even severed tongues were shown, and you bet your ass they used real animal tongues! No mention is made of dicks, although “more intimate body parts” suggests there was the occasional cock being chipped off.
Imagine seeing all this! You crowd into a relatively small theatre, shoulder to shoulder with all these other non-bath-taking folks, (something I’ve also learned in this course is that everyone from peasants and prostitutes to dukes and nobles attended plays) and you’re subjected to violence and gore that modern movie directors struggle to match. Here’s an interesting quote from the chapter: “Stage blood addresses the eye and, if animal blood was used, the nose, while a consistently developed rhetoric of blood addresses the ear; together, they create a multi-sensory impression of violence and bloodshed.” Yeah, the fucking smell! Now that’s some shit you don’t get at the movies!
It gets even better. Like the grindhouse theaters of the 50s, 60s, and 70s, if you wanted to really get a taste of the depravity, you hit-up the less well-known establishments, the stage plays where no one really knew the writers or actors. “As with the use of stage blood, amateur playwrights appear to outdo their professional counterparts in their use of gory special effects.” Damn right! Just like indie horror films and books. Tromeo and Juliet, anyone?
Anyway, this book chapter was really intriguing and insightful. Really makes me want to visit a back-alley playhouse in about the year 1600 or so, just to check it out. I want to see that level of gore up close and personal. No fucks given. I’m sure there are gory plays you can see these days, but there’s no way they’re comparable. For one thing, they wouldn’t be using real animal blood and organs. And I’m not suggesting they should; but to have seen it just once . . .
This PC3 Horror substack is not some pretentious, nonsense peer-reviewed journal that no one wants to read. Thus, I’m not doing a works cited page in MLA format like some joyless academic in pursuit of tenure. I will, however, link to the book, Shakespeare’s Theatre’s and the Effects of Performance, edited by Farah Karim-Cooper and Tiffany Stern: Amazon.