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Theater
Chapter 7:
The Renaissance
Italian Theatre
divided into 2 types:
Professional Theatre
Theatre for the court
Commedia dell’arte
Physical, highly improvisational style of
theatre that originated in Italy in the 1500s.
Most commedia troupes had10-12 members,
both male and female performers, which used
colorful costumes & masks. There were a few
tragedies, but most are comedies that didn’t
rely on scenery, and could be performed
anywhere.
Scenarri
(scenarios): plot outlines that served as
the scripts for commedia plays. The
scenario gives a summary of the story
lines, certain complications faced by
protagonist(s) and how the story
should end. The rest, including all of
the dialogue, was improvised by the
actors.
Comedy Tonight!
Improvisation: unscripted form of theatre
where the actors “make it up as they go,”
feeding off of the crowd.
Lazzi: standardized comic bits used in a
commedia performance.
(pronounced Lot-cee)
(example: The Three Stooges)
Renaissance Theatre
Stock Characters: The same familiar
characters who appear in the various
commedia scenarios. There were three
categories: lovers, masters, and servants.
The Lovers:
didn’t wear masks, wore the latest fashions,
usually the children of the masters who
didn’t want them (the children) to fall in
love. Usually asked their servants to help
them meet or elope.
(think Romeo and Juliet)
The Masters:
There are 3 common types of masters
DOTTORE
PANTALONE CAPITANO
Dottore:
• a lawyer or doctor who
liked to show off how
smart he was by
speaking in Latin (his
pronunciation and
grammar were usually
terrible).
Pantalone
• an old man with
mask that had a
large, hooked
nose and a
scraggly grey
beard. (This is
how Uncle Sam
and Santa Claus
developed.) They
usually wore red.
Capitano
• a braggart who
boasted of his
prowess in love and
war but was really
coward. He wore a
cape, sword, and a
large, feathered
headdress.
The Servants:
• usually called the zanni, from which we get
the word “zany”. There were usually 2
servants in each company (one clever and
one stupid). One of the most popular
servants was Arlecchino (Harlequin) who
was a mixture of cunning and stupidity.
Wore a clown-like suit with a black mask
and carried a slapstick.
Slapstick:
• a device made out of 2 pieces of wood
hinged together. When the two pieces
came together with force it would make a
loud slapping sound. Commedia
characters often beat one another with
these sticks. It is from this simple prop that
we get the modern term slapstick comedy.
Comeddia Literature
• L’Arte Rappresentativa: A book published
in 1699, this is Andrea Perrucci’s first hand
account of how a commedia dell’arte
troupe operated.
• Architettura: Sebastiano Serlio’s 1545
account of how to create a performance
space within an existing room.
Humanism:
• by the early 16th century, the surviving
plays of the great Greek and Roman
playwrights had been rediscovered,
translated, and published in Italian. This
movement strove desperately to recreate
the style, staging, and structure of classic
Greek and Roman Theatre.
Invented by Italians
- Perspective Scenery: a form of three dimensional scenic
painting that is still extremely common today.
- Raked Stage: on a raked stage, the stage floor gets
higher as it moves away from the audience so that the
back of the stage is actually taller than the front.
- Proscenium Arch: the most common form of stage. The
audience faces the stage from only one direction and the
performance area is framed by a large arch (much like a
picture frame). Much of our modern stage terminology
comes from the proscenium.
Back to Basics
• Autos Sacramentales: Spanish liturgical
dramas performed on the pageant wagons
and platform stages popular in medieval
times.
• Iambic Pentameter: (blank verse): style of
verse which Shakespeare wrote in. Blank
verse lines contain ten syllables, with light
and strong stresses alternating, five light
and five strong.
University Wits:
• A student theatre group that wrote plays in
the style of the ancient Greeks and
Romans. Thomas Kyd and Christopher
Marlowe were both members of this group.
Playing in the Yard
• Yard: in the theatres of Elizabethan
England, this was a standing room only
section on the ground in the center of the
theatre, where approximately 800 people
could stand and watch the play. (used in
the thrust stages)
• Groundlings: notoriously rowdy patrons
who watch Elizabethan plays from the
yard.
Thrust stage:
• in a thrust stage, the audience is seated
on three sides and tends to be nearer the
action than in a proscenium staging, but
since one wall is available for scenic
elements, there can be more use of
spectacle than in the arena. The runways
used at fashion shows are a type of thrust
stage.
Elizabethan Theatre
• The Globe Theatre: perhaps the best
known Elizabethan theatre. It was the
original staging ground for some of
Shakespeare’s greatest plays.
• Spoken décor: convention of the
Elizabethan stage where the actors
described a play’s different locations to the
audience.
Theatrical Terms
• Role: modern term for the part an actor plays. It
comes from the Elizabethan Practice of handling
the actor his lines on a roll of paper.
• Part: a modern term for the character an actor
plays in a production. It comes from the
Elizabethan practice of only giving the actor the
part of the play he was in, rather than an entire
script.
Mardi Gras’ Predecessor
• Masques: Lavish productions, usually
staged in banquet halls for the monarch
and an invited audience.
Time for Some French
• French Theatre: Cardinal Richelieu, Louis
XIII’s prime minister wants France as
cultural center of Europe. They adopt
perspective theatre and proscenium arch
theatre from Italy. Richelieu wrote rigid
interpretation of Aristotle’s writing on
theatre as the “neoclassical ideal”.
Neoclassical Ideal:
• A series of rigid rules for theatrical writing
and performance based on the humanist
interpretation of Aristotle’s writings on
theater. The neoclassical ideal came to
dominate most of European theatres for
centuries
Neoclassical rules:
• Only 2 legitimate forms of drama: tragedy and
comedy, never to be mixed together in one play.
• Tragedy had to be stories about royalty and
nobility.
• Comedy should feature the middle and lower
classes.
• All plays must contain five acts.
• Play must uphold the concept of “poetic justice”.
Bad character punished and good rewarded.
• Misinterpreted Aristotle’s 3 unities.
Three Unities
• The neoclassicist believed that all plays
should adhere to the unities of time (all of
the play’s action should occur within 24
hours), play (all of the play should occur in
the same place), and the action (the play
should have only one plot).
France’s Big 3 Playwrights
• Pierre Corneille (1606-1684): a tragedian,
best known for his 1637 play, Le Cid. Was
later attacked by critics for not following
the “rules” of French theatre.
• Jean Racine (1639-1699): wrote many
adaptations of Sophocles and Euripides.
Most popular is Phaedra, a tragedy. Strict
follower of neoclassical rules and unities.
And the BIGGEST…
• Moliere (1622-1673): considered the
greatest French playwright of all time.
Joined a traveling theatre troupe at 21.
Studied and mastered the techniques of
Italy’s commedia dell’arte; huge influence
on his writing. Most famous for his
comedies; many of his plays were satire
on French court & society, causing
controversy.
French Staging Innovations:
• Both audience and stage sit for the entire
performance.
• Seating of audience on the stage.
• Women as well as men in acting companies with
equal rights.
• Totally indoor theatre – experimenting with
variety of candles & oil lamps for lighting the
stage. Used reflectors for increased illumination.