Download Theatrical Machines

Theatrical Machines
By Brendan Lacy
Features of Elizabethan Theatre
Architecture
Often had mechanisms that allowed players to be
lowered down onto the stage, and also equipped
with trapdoors.
Costume was extremely important. Actors wore
colorful and elaborate costumes that would tell the
audience the characters status, family ties or
profession.
Used a variety of sound effects including thunder,
running horses, falling rain, cannon blasts, etc.
Fundamental Features of
Elizabethan Theatres
1) Conventional constructions rather than
innovative designs
2) Scale corresponded to “found spaces”
3) Form recognizably classical
4) Finish of theatres was itself an illusion
e.g. marble painted on, not real
5) Packed in as many people as possible
Theatre Staging
Possibilities
Figure 2: Hodges’s interpretation of the evolution of the tiring-house façade in
order to stage ‘on the walls’. There are token gestures towards creating the
illusion of battlements. However, it is difficult to imagine that these were a
permanent fixture, although there may be a case for employing such detail for
military plays, where much of the action involved the walls, for example the
three parts of Henry VI. The important, and perhaps necessary feature, is simply
the space above, which could be occupied by the actors when they were required
to come upon the walls. (Hodges 1999: 62–5) (2)
The Globe Theatre
Held about 3,000
people
Circular polygon with
an open roof
Inside the Globe Theatre
Surrounded on three
sides by seating galleries
3 stories of galleries @
12ft, 11ft, and 9ft in height
Stage 43 feet wide
Extended ½ way into the
yard (about 27 ½ ft)
Inside the Globe Theatre
Flags of the Theatre
Raised flag was a signal that a play would be
staged that afternoon and continued to fly until
the end of every performance.
"Each play-house advanceth his flagge in the
aire, whither quickly at the waving thereof are
summoned whole troops of men, women, and
children" --Curtain-Drawer of the World, 1612
White= Comedy
Black= Tragedy
Red= A history (associated with bloodshed)
Description of the “Groundlings” in
Elizabethan Theatre
“Within one square a thousand heads are laid,
So close that of heads the room seems made;
As many faces there, filled with blithe looks,
Show like the promising titles of new books
Writ merrily, the readers being their own eyes,
Which seem to move and to give plaudites;
The very floor, as t’were, waves to and fro,
And, like a floating island, seems to move,
Upon a sea bound in with shores above”
- Thomas Middleton (1570-1672)