Although it is difficult to know th

Although it is difficult to know the exact way in which actors performed on stage at the Globe. We do know that the acting style change through time and in Shakespeare's day, actors seem to have performed with many more over the top gestures then modern actors use.

We know about these extravagant gestures and the generally exaggerated style of acting because lots of play writers make fun of it.

Like today, there were well-established conventions for what certain gestures meant and we can also see this on portraits of the period.

One of the most famous criticisms of this style of acting can be found in Hamlet. When Hamlet invites a group of travelling players to perform a play in front of his mother and uncle, but asks them no to follow the more exaggerated style.

Hatred of Jews prevailed in Elizabethan society, and this is reflected in plays of the period. Two of the strongest examples of plays containing strong anti-Semitism are Christopher Marlowe's The Jew of Malta and William Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice. In Marlowe's play, Barabas, the Jew of Malta, is a cruel, egotistic, and greedy man. In Elizabethan times, he was played in a confrontational and somewhat comic manner, with the actor wearing a red wig and a long hooked nose. Shylock, the Jewish merchant in The Merchant of Venice, is also presented as a greedy, vindictive man. Shakespeare tempers his character, however, with a bit more humanity than is found in Barabas. Elizabethan anti-Semitism was fueled in 1594 when Queen Elizabeth's Jewish doctor was executed on the charge of trying to poison her.