ABSTRACT
This chapter begins with a consideration of the place and force of the face in early modern performance and its audience with an early but well-documented instance of Elizabeth's responsive, eloquent, and mobile audience face. A potent cultural myth has long associated the figures of William Shakespeare and Queen Elizabeth I. It considers three aspects of complex operation in relation to early modern playhouses and audiences' faces. The chapter examines the face as an aspect of being, with a particular socially determining relationship to identity. It considers the nature of the face as a biological site both for deliberate self-expression and of unconscious expression. The chapter explores aspects of the signification of faces in the early modern playhouse as examples of the interpersonal character of the theater. The distinction between performed and non-performed facial expression is critical to better understanding the dynamic of the exchange of faces and looks that informed the circulation of meaning at the early modern playhouses.
