Fennor is the only witness who adds the intriguing detail that the play’s supporters ‘did applaud’ Sejanus, and though this may refer to their reception of the printed version, the most plausible reading is that their ‘silver shouts’ were drowned out by the hissing in the theatre. Though it is impossible to say for certain whether Osborne’s ‘hissed … off the stage’ means that the play was not allowed to finish, these accounts all point more convincingly in that direction than they do to the audience simply hissing disapproval at the end of the play. Nor can we say for sure what went wrong. As Fennor goes on to say, ‘The stinkards oft will hiss without a cause’.

Two possibilities are discussed at greater length in the Introduction: one reflects the distinction made by Jonson and his supporters between the learned element and the rest of the audience. The version of Sejanus which survives in the 1605 quarto text (though avowedly different from that which was performed) is a very wordy play. It is true that the audience of 1603 could grasp the language, spoken faster, better than a modern one. Even so, when Jonson later boasted to Drummond that he had included ‘a whole oration of Tacitus’ (Informations, 481), he was rather complacently suggesting that he had challenged his audience with his translation of Cordus’s speech at 3.407-60. It may have been this which the audience disliked, as later they were to ‘dislike the oration of Cicero’ in Cat. (‘To the Reader in Ordinary’, 5-6). Cordus’s speech might have impressed those who recognised its source, but it can hardly have held the attention of those who did not appreciate its accuracy, and were not unreasonably looking for drama in the theatre. This and other lengthy speeches, however, may not have been given in the Globe in 1603. Not only did Jonson revise the quarto, but the King’s Men were an experienced company, and Jonson was not sufficiently established in 1603 for him to control just what they did with his play. Just over 400 years later, when attention spans were admittedly shorter and the pace of speech apparently slower, the RSC version was cut by 800 lines, a quarter of the play as printed in 1605. The other possible cause of the audience’s reaction, hinted at by some of the commendatory verses in the quarto edition, was not boredom, but over-simple political interpretations of the play, with some in the audience relating Tiberius to the recently dead Elizabeth, and Sejanus to Essex.

Jonson’s custom of including the names of the ‘principal tragedians’ at the end of each play in the folio edition, and apparently placing them in order of the importance of their parts, allows limited identification of the cast. Sejanus himself was undoubtedly played by Richard Burbage, first in the folio list, and by now easily the leading actor of his age, arguably of any age. He had recently created the part of Hamlet, and at around this time was to create that of Othello. Three years later reliable evidence confirms that he was the original Volpone (Riddell, 1969) . Contemporary accounts stress the relative naturalism of Burbage’s acting, and although one generation’s naturalism becomes another’s over-acting, it can be assumed that for the Globe audience Burbage’s Sejanus would have seemed a realistic incarnation of the unscrupulous and hubristic favourite. Shakespeare, placed opposite Burbage in Jonson’s list, probably therefore played opposite him as Tiberius. This casting accords with John Davies of Hereford’s contemporary statement that Shakespeare had ‘plaid some Kingly parts in sport’ (The Scourge of Folly, 1611, Epigram 159) . This is the last time Shakespeare is recorded in such a cast list, other than the general one in his own first folio of 1623. He did not play in Volpone or The Alchemist, and there is no contemporary evidence that he ever acted again. After Shakespeare’s name, the casting becomes more uncertain, but if the order depends on the importance of the parts in the play, Augustine Phillips, third in the list, played Arruntius, the leading figure among the Germanicans. Arruntius not only has over 300 lines in the quarto version, the next largest part after Sejanus and Tiberius, but his is a major role as a bitter choric commentator on the corrupt action around him. Phillips was already an experienced actor when he was first mentioned in records in 1590, and though no evidence survives as to the kind of roles he played, Arruntius must have been well within his scope. Opposite his name is that of John Heminges, who may therefore have played Silius, the next largest part in the quarto version. If one was to continue this mechanistic intepretation of Jonson’s list, William Sly would have played Macro, Henry Condell Sabinus, John Lowin Lepidus, and Alexander Cooke Eudemus. But such simple line-counting is unrealistic. The actor who played Eudemus, for example, could easily have doubled as Lepidus, the latter first entering at 3.12, over 360 lines after Eudemus’s last exit. Similarly, the actor who played the relatively small but important role of Cordus could have returned at 3.660 as Macro. These, and other such combined roles, would have qualified as ‘principal’. The names of the boys who would have played Livia and Agrippina are not recorded. Here again doubling would have been possible, with Livia not appearing after 2.138, and Agrippina first entering at 2.427. Livia’s is a small part, and such a combination would have been well within the scope of the apprentice who was soon to play Isabella in Measure for Measure and Desdemona in Othello.

Some clues testify as to the costumes and appearance of the actors, and they suggest that slightly more historical verisimilitude was attempted than appears to have been the case in the well known ‘Longleat MS’ drawing of a scene from Titus Andronicus, in which only the major characters wear Roman costume. This had probably also been the case in Poetaster, where some characters at least wear Elizabethan clothing. In Sejanus it is clear that Burbage as Sejanus wore a ‘robe’, as Macro makes clear when he says he will ‘tear off thy robe, / Play with thy beard’ (5.647-8). It follows that Tiberius must also have worn a toga-like ‘robe’, but the only detail of his costume is supplied by Arruntius’s reference to the laurel wreath he habitually wears to ward off lightning (3.123). Probably all the other senators wore such robes, though Arruntius’s reference is indecisive in that he tells them, as they hurry to pay their craven respects ‘in the wide hall of huge Sejanus’ that they should ‘Stay not to put your robes on’ (5.432-4). Although this could be a convenient way of passing off the fact that some of the actors were wearing contemporary costume, the senate scenes in acts 3 and 5 would have looked decidedly unconvincing if only the principal characters were dressed in ‘Roman’ robes. In the quarto version at least, Jonson looks for historical accuracy among other minor characters when he makes Sejanus demand that the priest should wear his ‘night vestments’ (5.91) when sacrificing to Fortuna, and the priest himself refers to the fact that he and his ministers all bring ‘pure vestments’ to the sacrifice (5.174). Whether such characters as the lictors would also have worn togas is unclear, but at 3.470 they are told to ‘resume [take up] the fasces’. The sight of actors dressed in the uniform of Elizabethan guards carrying the Roman fasces, might, however, have been acceptable to an audience used to such anachronisms on stage.

All of the Globe performance could have taken place on a bare stage, apart from the two occasions on which Jonson specifies the Senate as the location (3.1, 5.478). In each of these cases he makes much of the seating arrangements, and benches or chairs must have been brought onstage for these episodes, since they are too long, too populous, and too important to be played ‘aloft’ as the senate scene in Titus Andronicus had been. The gallery may well have been used in an earlier scene, the conversation between Sejanus, Eudemus, and Satrius at 1.261-375. Evidence for this is inconclusive (see the Commentary), but it is much stronger for the later use of the gallery as a hiding place ‘between roof and ceiling’ from which Rufus and Opsius spy on Sabinus (4.93-114). It may also have been used for the unusual inter-act music, which at this date was a ‘not received custom’ at the Globe (J. Marston, Plays, ed. H. H. Wood, 1.143) . Another aspect of the staging of the first production has been clarified by recent productions at the ‘new’ Globe. Jonson twice directs that a group of characters ‘pass over’ the stage (1.176.1, 5.460.1). In each case they do so under the eyes of Arruntius and his fellow Germanicans, and it is possible that rather than coming out of one tiring house door and exiting by the other, the group who ‘pass over’ did so by walking through the yard, climbing steps onto the stage, and leaving in the same way (see Commentary, 1.176.1).