What did Elizabethan audiences do if they did not like a play?

Answer 1

When somebody didn't like the play or the actors they were very open about it - some threw rotten fruit but most just booed extremely loudly.

Answer 2

Audences at the Globe who didn't like the play could eat, chat, smoke, or flirt (there are references to all of these behaviours - they are even included in some of the plays - such as Dekker's 'Shoemakers Holiday').

Audiences didn't often cause trouble - unless there was something they didn't like onstage. There were riots when a company of woman players tried to perform.

Answer 3

Shakespearean audiences would boo the actor off the stage, throwing tomato and other rotten fruits and vegetables at them. In cases like "The Merchant of Venice" the audience hated Jews so much that when the leading man Shylock the Jew walked on the whole theatre would shout for him to walk off.

Answer 4

When somebody didn't like the play or the actors they were very open about it - some threw rotten fruit but most just booed extremely loudly.

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Jeering in some way, very likely, but booing is much more modern and allegedly American in origin.

Answer 5

They would heckle the actors with catcalls and rude remarks. We get a sample of this sort of thing in Act V of A Midsummer Night's Dream, where the audience, especially Demetrius, heckle poor Peter Quince and company mercilessly, causing them sometimes to go out of character or forget their lines entirely. In extreme cases, audiences were reported to have thrown rotten food at actors in a really bad play.

Answer 6

they would throw rotten food at the actors, scream , curse and fight.

Answer 7

they would throw things at the stage.