What effect did the lack of electricity have on the production of plays during thwe Elizabethan era?

Answer 1

One might more properly ask "What effect did the invention of the electric light have on the production of plays?" because electric lights allowed a director to change the lighting from scene to scene--to employ differently coloured gels to simulate different times of day or different locations. The electric light has also virtually done away with that mainstay of 18th and 19th century theatre, the main curtain. Many and indeed most productions nowadays don't bother with a curtain to signal the end of an act; they just turn off the lights.

Elizabethan theatres didn't have curtains either, and signalled the end of an act by a resounding exit line, followed by having the stage emptied. They dealt with the lighting problems in two ways: they kept their indoor theatres very small so the stage could be seen by the light of candles or other flames, and they left the outdoor theatres partly unroofed so they could use the natural light of the afternoon sun (this is why the stages of all the theatres faced west). The lighting for each scene clearly had to be the same.

Elizabethan actors needed to have big voices to be heard throughout the theatre, often over catcalls and other audience noise. No artificial amplification was possible. However, all stage actors have always studied how to make their voices bigger and still do, notwithstanding the availability of electronic amplification. This innovation has not had as big an effect as one might think.

Answer 2

Actors performed only in daylight