DRENCHED in blood, littered with corpses and illuminated by candlelight: for the first time, modern audiences can enjoy an indoor production of John Webster's "The Duchess of Malfi" that would be familiar to 17th-century theatregoers. This twisted drama is the inaugural production at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, a painstakingly recreated Jacobean theatre that recently opened in London in an annexe to the Globe theatre. Sam Wanamaker, an American producer, director, actor and anglophile, was the driving force behind the plan to rebuild two Shakespearean theatres on a single site near the location of the original Globe. Sadly he didn't live to see the open-air theatre open to wide acclaim in 1997 nor know that the reconstructed indoor theatre would carry his name.

Wanamaker was inspired by theatrical history. In the later part of Shakespeare’s career his company, the King's Men, had two purpose-built theatres at their disposal, an unusual luxury. On the south bank of the River Thames was the open-air Globe, built in 1599 with room for around 1,500 people. From 1608 they were able to extend their performances into a winter season at the Blackfriars, a covered theatre on the north side of the river. With half the Globe’s capacity, the Blackfriars invited a different sort of writing, lighting, music and performance.

No plans exist of the original Blackfriars, so inspiration for the reconstructed theatre came from a number of sources. Two loose sheets of architectural drawings for a 17th-century, covered playhouse were found in the 1960s in a book of work by Inigo Jones, a renowned architect of the day. They became the main source for the modern structure, which has the audience sitting on three tiers of oak benches that curve around a stage extending into the auditorium. The proximity of actors to audience makes for an inclusive, intimate experience.

For information on the lighting, Martin White, a professor of theatre at the university of Bristol, visited the 18th-century playhouse at Cesky Krumlov in the Czech Republic. The one-century difference was not a problem, he says, pointing out that “candle technology doesn't move very fast." In Shakespeare's day candles made using tallow (sheep or beef fat) were a quarter of the price of beeswax ones, but the animal fat disintegrated faster, resulting in a tall flame on a saturated wick. When a draught blows on a flame it increases the burn rate and causes smoking, so in the 17th century four intervals were needed to allow the candles to be trimmed or replaced. Shakespeare probably used a combination of tallow and beeswax, but all the candles at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse are pure beeswax, chosen after much testing by Professor White for the quality of their light. Only one interval interrupts the action, but a single performance still requires more than 100 candles, and 3,000 are stored on site to ensure a steady supply.

Little contemporary writing about 17th-century theatre lighting exists. Professor White believes that the chandeliers could have been raised or lowered to vary lighting effects. In an open-air theatre the claustrophobia of a scene set in darkness has to be implied, but in a theatre like the Blackfriars both audience and players could experience something infinitely more chilling. There is a stage direction in ”Catiline His Conspiracy” by Ben Jonson—"a darkness comes over the place"—that some scholars believe is simply an instruction for the audience to use their imagination. But what if, Professor White suggests, Jonson was thinking of a candlelit performance in an indoor playhouse that could actually achieve this darkness. Similarly, the night-time murder scene in John Ford's "Tis Pity She's a Whore" is deliberately followed by a wedding scene, affording the actors a perfect opportunity to relight the candles.

Inside the tiny auditorium at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse the candles don't gutter or smoke. A faint odour of honey hangs in the air. The heat from 350 theatre-goers, the moving currents in the ventilation system and draughts from the doors have all been meticulously balanced. The theatre is discovering how candlelight can be managed, directed to create shadows, sent dancing across parts of the theatre, and played with by costumes, finding ruffs and collars that act as reflectors onto the actors' faces. Excellent acoustics mean that delicate instruments can be played with a subtlety that would be lost in the more robust outdoor Globe and the gentle thud of a severed limb falling onto the stage reaches to the topmost tier of seating. The seats may be hard and the room hot, but this makes a wonderful complement to the Globe, whose company—like the King’s Men—can now perform all year round.