Download Elizabethan Theatre

THE WORLD OF THE THEATRE
The Comic Genres
During the reign of Queen Elizabeth the
travelling companies continued to provide
entertainment:
• Commedia dell’arte = a cast of masked
stock characters (the miserly old man, the
young wife, the ardent seducer)
• The medieval INTERLUDES
INNYARD
• Many of these inns had tiers of galleries all
round the yard
The Great Hall of noble places
DISADVANTAGES
• the Players always had to rely on the
hospitality of inn-keepers or of the
noblemen
• they had no storage space, so they had to
carry all their properties and costumes with
them.
• the biggest disadvantage of all was that the
City of London authorities were hostile to
them.
In the Renaissance
performances in the courtyards were banned so
public outdoor playhouses were build .
In the second half of the 16th and in the 17th c.
Drama flourished.
This period was characterized by the performance
of thousands of plays, most of them free reelaboration by the major playwrights since there
was no copyright law.
ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND
• Country unified, trade and
commerce flourished
• Age of exploration
• Expanding with confidence and
reflecting in it the drama of the
period
• England became a dominant
force under Elizabeth I (15581603)
• London largest city in Europe.
Population 200,000 1559.
Doubles again in 50 years.
when Shakespeare was only eleven
• In 1575 the City authorities imposed a Code of
Practice upon the Players which so displeased
them that they decided to withdraw outside the
City boundaries.
• Thus it was that in the following year, 1576, the
first London theatre, called 'The Theatre' was built
in Finsbury Fields and the next year, 1577, The
Curtain was built in the same area
• These two theatres were so successful that ten
years later other buildings were built
• but this time across the river on Bankside,
which gradually became a theatre centre. In
1587 The Rose
• in 1595 The Swan
• in 1599 The Globe
• in 1600 The Fortune, all in the same vicinity.
ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND
• The Theatres in London
were not on the “better”
side of the River Thames
• Surrounded by brothels,
pubs and gaming houses
• Bear baiting, cock fights
and tournaments were
being held in the same
space that the original
theatre was performed
London’s permanent theatres
It was a break with the past
THEATRE: A COMMERCIAL
VENTURE
•
•
•
•
No longer state or church
6 days a week (NO Sundays)
In the afternoon,(2-5)No lights
Changed plays often to keep the
people coming
• They announced what kind of
play was showing with flags:
Black-Tragedy,White-comedy,
Red-History
• One play could be performed up
to ten times in a season
• New plays in constant demand
The Globe was built by
the Burbage Brothers
• after 1599, Shakespeare's company,
at that time called the
Chamberlain's Men, performed his
plays in
THE GLOBE THEATRE
the first was burned down in 1613
during a performance of Henry VIII.
It was rebuilt in 1614
the Blackfriars was taken over for winter
performances by Shakespeare's company,
which since the accession of James I in 1603
had been known as the King's Company
The architecture of theatres
The
playhouses:
• round or
octagonal in
shape
• were 12 metres
high
• made of wood
•It was an open-air theatre
•the building surrounded an open yard (like the
old Inn –Yards )
•the galleries, however, were thatched
THE STAGE
• It was divided in three
parts:
• outer
• inner
• upper stage
It was rectangular
the stage was jutting
out into the audience
There were numerous trapdoors on the stage
The main stage had doors on each
side at the back and between these
doors was a small curtained recess:
the inner stage ( dressing room)
• Round three sides of
the yard ( PIT) were
three tiers of galleries
where the wealthier or
superior members of
the audience sat
• the rest of the
audience stood in the
open yard around the
stage :
• 'the Groundlings'
SCENERY
It relied very little on
set, but heavily on
author’s ability to tell
the tale
The scenery was very
little: simple objects
simbolized a place or
the role of an actor
(e.g., a table stood for
a room.)
• a thatched roof over
the back part of the
stage
• the front of the stage
was open to the
elements; if it rained
the actors, like the
groundlings, got wet.
the upper stage with a balcony and
perhaps a small gallery above the
upper stage.
"two penny gallery" on the top tier
The GROUNDLINGS paid for their entertainment.
THE GROUNDLINGS
It cost a penny to get into the theatre
The Actors
The Actors
 The condition of the actors
changed with the rise of the
popularity. According to the
law they were classified as “
vagabonds” so they needed
protection, they put
themselves under the
protection of noblemen or the
king/ queen. ( Lord
Chamberlain’s Men- The
king’s men)
The actors
The female roles were performed by boys
disguised as women
They had to vary their repertoire
 They had no more than two weeks to prepare a
new play
. They often found themselves playing several
roles in the same performance
 They should have excellent memory
LOOK AT THE VIRTUAL TOUR
OF THE GLOBE
The clown and the fool
The clown
rough peasant whose
language
counterbalanced other
characters’ heroic or
romantic language
The fool
professional
jester dressed
in motley, cap
and bells
Elizabethan Drama was influenced
by:
• Italian humanism
• Translation of Italian works, it became a literary
work, with a dramatic narrative, a story ( not only
songs, dancing and pantomime)
• Italian Commedia dell’Arte travelling companies
• Seneca’s plays
Seneca’s plays
 horrific and bloody incidents
 revenge- vengeance
 omnipotence of destiny
 Supernatural
 cruel tyrant
 where the protagonist comments on his own
situation
 rhetorical and declamatory style
 monologue or soliloquy
 lively dialogues
The theatre had to mirror the society
Society had to mirror the divine order
of the Universe ( the macrocosm),
inside which man ( the microcosm) had
to respect a precise hierarchy.
God is at the top.
Drama derived from the breaking of
this order
every action disturbing the balance is
“ dramatic”
• criminal actions brought chaos and anarchy to
society
• the strict relationship between the laws of man
and the laws of nature were emphasized:
prodigious phenomena were presented as
consequence or presage of criminal actions
• man full of passion and doubts replaced the old
allegorical character
In the Elizabethan Drama:
• Fate and destiny were replaced by free and
personal choice
• Still conflict between good and evil
• No observation of the 3 units : Time ( no
more than 24 hours), place ( setting never
changes), action ( no subplots)
Why did Drama reach such a
popularity?
Because it was:
• Open and understandable by everyone. The
cost of the tickets depended on the seat.
• The language was alive and direct
• Talented playwrights
• Theatre-going habit as entertainment
Language
The language, alive and direct, was affected by the
concept of hierarchy
Being in verse, the Elizabethan theatre borrowed
from poetry the use of metaphors and the blank
verse
Blank verse, similar to real living speech ( written
to be performed ) written in lines of iambic
pentameter, but does NOT use end rhyme.
Audience
All social classes went to the theatre:
nobles, commoners, citizens, lawyers…
people with different tastes and cultural
background
The audience were involved in the
performance, since they were in direct
comunication with the actors
The audience
•
The spectators ate and drank during the performance
•
They freely expressed their emotions with laughter or
tears
Geoffrey Rush in Shakespeare in Love
directed by John Madden, 1998
Authors and works
 C. Marlowe (1564-1593)
- Tamburlane the Great
- Doctor Faustus
- The Jew of Malta
 B. Jonson (1572-1637)
- Volpone
- Bartholomew Fair
 W. Shakespeare (1564-1616)
- Hamlet
- Romeo and Juliet
- King Lear...
Jacobian Age ( James I )
• Theatres no more for all classes
• , no more part of the same audience; there was a division
between PUBLIC OUTDOOR theatres and PRIVATE
INDOOR theatres
• The middle class started to consider theatres as a place of
perdition
• More refined plays, like masques , were held in
noblemen’s palaces
• Language more elaborated ( similar to what happened in
poetry with the Metaphysical poets)
• Structure more complex ( subplots )
• Content reflected the scepticism and melancholy of the age
• Subject: often dogmas and taboos were challenged (
sexuality, religion)
The most important Jacobean
Dramatists
• John Webster : The Duchess of Malfi
• Thomas Middleton A Game at chess.
PURITAN AGE
• Theatre became such a powerful vehicle for
entertainment , satire and controversial ideas that
one of the first things that the rising Puritan
movement did was to close down all theatres, thus
putting a stop to something they considered
scandalous and socially dangerous.
• Theatres remained closed until the Restoration of
the monarchy in 1660.
Early Tudor Costume
Late Tudor Costume
Restoration drama
General features
After the Republican period (1649-60), the
theatres were re-opened (1660) and people began
to attend playhouses again
Drama was the branch of literature which best
mirrored the society; it was affected by the new
spirit of the time: imagination was replaced by
reason
Restoration drama
Structure
 The new theatres were indoor
and smaller than the Elizabethan
ones
 The old platform stage was
eliminated:only the back and the
front stages remained and a
scenery, painted in perspective,
began to be used
 The audience was sitting in the
dark, separated from the stage
that was brightly lit and no
longer bare
Restoration drama
Themes
 Drama included three main genres: heroic play, tragedy
and comedy and turned to France (style) and Spain (plot)
for inspiration; nevertheless it was able to preserve a
national character
 The best expression of the new spirit of the time, however,
was comedy: people went to the theatre mainly to be
amused; they wanted humour, sex, wit and elegance
 Marriage was one of the main ingredients for creating
intrigue, piquant situation or simply a conventional happy
ending to the play
Restoration drama
Language
The change in taste affected the language, too:
playwrights used five-foot rhymed couplets for
heroic plays, blank verse for the tragedies and
prose in comedies
The brillance and perfection of the prose resulted
from the witty sparkling dialogues, which were
also the chief means of portraying the characters
Restoration drama
Audience
As the Restoration privileged private rather than
public theatres, the audience, mainly formed by
courtiers, aristocrats and the upper middle class,
became more and more socially restricted and
homogeneous
Drama became more and more a class drama and
the national and popular character of thee
Elizabethan theatre disappeared forever
Restoration drama
Authors and works
John Dryden (1631-1700)
- The conquest of Granada
- All for love
William Congreve (1670-1729)
- The Way of the World
- Love for Love
Realistic Drama, the Modern
Stage, and Beyond
• Realism = plays that drop some of the
dramatic conventions in an attempt to
portray real life more accurately
• Expressionism = dreamlike atmospheres
• Theater of the absurd = depicts a world
without meaning where everything seems
ridiculous