Download Shakespeare and the Elizabethans

THE RENAISSANCE COMES TO ENGLAND
The individuality of England was emphasized by the quarrel of Henry VIII with the Church of Rome
and by the later separation of England from the Papacy in 1533. Though the ties were technically resumed
under Mary [1553-1558], the split was definite and final and resulted in the creation of a freer intellectual
atmosphere and a sharpening of individual differences such as was not possible, for instance, in Catholic Spain.
The court was the center of very lavish performances of interludes, masques, costume balls, and
tournaments under the supervision of a Master of the Revels, whose office was permanently instituted by Henry
in 1544, although it had been sporadically in existence for several years before that time.
DRAMA BEGINS TO FLOURISH
The schools, encouraged by the example of the court’s dramatic productions, began to stage the classic
plays which had for some time been used as reading exercises: so Terence, Plautus, and Seneca came to be
produced in England. Latin plays for school productions began to be written; the first school play in English
appeared, Nicholas Udall’s Ralph Roister Doister [ca. 1540].
Productions of this kind continued after the accession of Elizabeth in 1558: Gammer Gurton’s Needle at
Cambridge [ca. 1562] and the plays at the Inns of Court in London, notably Sackville and Norton’s Gorboduc
[1562]. But the accession of Elizabeth caused a significant change in court drama. Elizabeth abolished spectacle
and established legitimate drama in its stead. The acting chores were given to the boys of the Chapel Royal
under the direction of Richard Edwards. These boys, chosen from all over the kingdom for their looks and their
voices, had been primarily responsible for the musical portions of the court’s worship services, receiving both
upkeep and education for their work. Light romantic comedy was the forte of Richard Edwards; by the time of
his death in 1566, he had established a new court drama that was the delight of critics.
Richard Farrant conceived the idea of having his boys give their plays before select audiences after the
Queen had seen them, advancing the argument that such an arrangement would give the boys more practice in
public and would also be profitable financially, thus stimulating both master and boys to give more and better
plays.
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Meanwhile, the adult professional companies were also performing at the London inns, and the best
plays of the best troupes were presented before the court after having been chosen for that honor by the Master
of the Revels.
The theatre of Shakespeare and his contemporaries – the direct descendant of the popular drama of the
medieval period – was significantly influenced by both the court drama and the school plays, both of which
existed concurrently with the professional theatre.
THE THEATRICAL CLIMATE OF SHAKESPEARE
The theatre of Shakespeare’s days was the result of a long development and the combination of many
unrelated influences. It was also an accurate mirror of the diversity of Elizabethan life. In it was reflected
conscious national pride in the achievements of Englishmen. The art of living and the art of writing were
inextricably combined; conduct and expression marched together in an expanding national consciousness.
The Renaissance Englishman became increasingly acquainted with the literature of other times and
places by a swelling tide of translations from Latin, Greek, Italian, and French; if he was wealthy enough, he
finished his education with a stay on the Continent.
The Elizabethan theatre was so thoroughly national, so spontaneous and popular, in addition to
possessing the more universal and essential qualities of human sympathy, artistic beauty, variety of
presentation, and richness of motive, that no age before or since has produced its equal.
It is interesting to note that whatever the locale of the play, the characters and development were
essentially English: Romeo and Juliet are English youngsters with Italian names; Hieronimo is a grief-stricken
English father who seeks revenge; Hamlet, the Prince of Denmark, is a moody Englishman. It is this quality of
fundamental nationalism that distinguishes the Elizabeth drama from that which had preceded it and that which
followed in the Restoration.
In addition to its capacity for welcoming all kinds of information, the Elizabethan audience – like
perhaps no other – was marked by its devotion to the spoken word. Listening was easier than reading, and the
audience was quick to respond to oratory or repartee. Because of the tastes, capabilities, and aspirations of this
audience, which were accurately measured by many playwrights, we may say that never before or since has the
theatre so fully engaged the affections and loyalties of so large a proportion of the population. Some idea of the
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immense popularity of the theatre may be gained from the fact that in a population of about two hundred
thousand, no less than twenty-three professional acting companies were performing in London at the height of
the period of theatrical activity. English schools and colleges also fostered the production of plays, stressing
classic forms and making participation required.
The thriving court drama was supervised by an especially appointed official, the Master of the Revels,
whose office, as we have seen, became permanent under Henry VIII in 1544. It reached the height of its powers
under Charles I; the Office of the Revels had then about one hundred employees. The Office of the Revels
selected suitable plays for presentation, drilled the professional troupe selected to act in the plays, provided
them with proper costumes, prepared the stage scenery and properties, saw that the players reached their
destination, and managed the stage.
Because of the tradition behind them, and because of the protection from oppressors thus afforded, these
professional companies were nominally a part of a noble household. The tradition had originated late in the
Middle Ages; when the bands of strolling players were multiplying and ordinances were passed against them,
the most competent sought and found the protection of a noble house.
The theatres of Shakespeare’s day were controlled by corporations which included housekeepers, actorsharers, and a business manager; such corporations chose the plays, ran the house, and divided the profits
among themselves. They also hired and paid certain classes of actors and other employees.
Performances were usually given in the afternoon. Advertising was done through three principal media:
the next day’s production was announced after the epilogue of a given performance; on the day of the play a
flag was set on top of the theatre – white if a comedy were being given, black if a tragedy; and handbills, six by
twelve inches, were posted all over London. In addition, parades and criers were often used. Admission prices
were so graded that everyone, from apprentice to noble, found a price to his liking. Standing room in the pit cost
a penny; seating in the galleries, depending upon location, from two pence to a shilling; and the stools on the
stage for the gallants, a half crown plus six pence for the stool itself.
So many people spent so many hours at the theatre that the city fathers, devoted to the ideal of hard and
constant work, and the Puritans, to whom the theatre was revulsion, were constantly at war with the players.
When the moral opposition joined forces with political expediency the Puritans closed the theatres.
MAGNIFICENT DRAMA PRODUCED
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The plays produced by the Elizabethans comprise the greatest body of dramatic literature in the English
language, if not, indeed, any language. Shakespeare’s immediate predecessors worked out the problems of plot
and character, Thomas Kyd, developed a comparatively well-knit plot line, including necessary scenes and
motivations as well as climax and denouement. The plays of John Lyly added the element of romance.
Shakespeare’s nearer contemporary, Robert Greene, worked out a balance between plot and character, and was
more skillful than Kyd or Marlowe in merging and combining subplots.
Shakespeare, taking into account all that had preceded him, produced plays as marvelous in their way as
those of Sophocles had been: he balanced plot and character; he integrated main and subplots; he used elements
of romance; and he reconciled comedy and tragedy by using comedy to heighten the tragic effect. In his plays
the classic tradition and the medieval heritage are wonderfully combined and blended.
The rise, summit, and fall of Elizabethan theatre are clearly traceable. Its development covered the
period from the accession of Elizabeth to 1594; it reached its climax in the twenty years which followed, and
then declined to its eclipse in 1642.
We may conveniently make four major divisions: tragedy, comedy, chronicle plays and masques. Even
as we make these major divisions, however, we must recognize that there are various types in each, and the
school plays must be another consideration. Tragedy, then, was of two types, the classical and the native.
Comedy had countless types: the pastoral, the magical, the bourgeois, the allegorical and satirical – and
combinations of them all. The chronicle plays were historical-legendary, factual-historical, biographical, and
popular-legendary. The masques might be anything from the disguisings of the court of Henry VIII to the
poetic effulgence of Milton’s Comus.
The classical tragedy on the Elizabethan and Jacobean stage of the professional companies was an
adaptation of Seneca. The most famous of these blood and thunder plays is Thomas Kyd’s The Spanish
Tragedy. The usual classical tragedy, as written and performed at the schools and universities, followed the
Continental Renaissance ideal, and was attended by the unities of time, place, and action. In this form, violent
events took place off stage and were related by messengers. But the love of the Elizabeth popular audience for
action viewed rather than related, led in the public theatres to the whole-sale slaughter which takes place in full
view of the audience in many of these plays.
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Another union of Continental Renaissance and native English ideals was evident in the pastoral
romance, a type of comedy in which is to be found a combination of the Italian pastoral play and the native
English love of country life.
The magical comedy is illustrated notably by Shakespeare’s A Midsummer’s Night’s Dream [ca. 1595],
by Greene’s Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay [1594], by Marlowe’s Dr. Faustus [1588], which is indeed not a
comedy but illustrates the Elizabethan propensity for magical happenings on the stage.
The bourgeois dramas were founded upon real characters and contemporary or recent happenings. These
plays are a sort of tabloid newspaper of the times.
In contrast to the bourgeois drama and its real characters was the allegorical comedy, whose type-named
characters recall the old moralities. But the playwrights of this new age added another dimension to allegory,
and produced satires that are apt, biting, and often applicable to the universal shortcomings of mankind.
The chronicle plays, whose plots are based on factual history, are easy to trace in Shakespeare: the
Richards, the Henrys, and the Roman plays. The first English play of this sort appeared in 1550, when John
Bale wrote his King Johan; from that time on there were many anonymous scripts, as well as chronicle plays by
Peele, Greene, and Marlowe.
All people, places, and things were the stuff of the Elizabethan popular drama; and vital were the
characters and events that set the lust heartstrings of its spectators vibrating.
Simultaneous with the variety of the popular drama were the continuing productions, chiefly of the
classics, at the schools and universities. The chief products of the schools were tragedies and comedies on
classic models, written by students and by faculty. The universities, frowning on professional actors and
professional playwrights, passed consecutive ordinances forbidding their performances within a five-mile limit
of school precincts.
In addition to all of this activity, the Elizabethan court was the scene of much theatre. Besides the
productions of the professional companies which were often given command performances at court, and the
activities of the boy companies for which several of the leading dramatists wrote, the court originated a type of
pseudodrama of its own – the masque.
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LONDON BECOMES THE CENTER
The 16th century Englishman could see dramatic performances throughout the kingdom, but playhouses
were built only in London. If the traveling company was to play for the household of a noble, a stage was set
up in the great hall of the castle. In the towns, the company would be met by the mayor, who offered them the
hospitality of the town and gave a dinner in their honor. Afterwards they performed a play for this select
audience. This performance was paid for by town funds, then a subsequent performance was generally given in
the town hall and admission was charged for this second one.
Sometimes the playing space would be the courtyard of the local inn; in London the innyards were the
usual places of playing.
The passing of laws by Parliament prohibiting tours by masterless men and the requiring of licenses for
patronized groups tended to concentrate the playing companies in London, where they played during the greater
part of the year, traveling to the provinces only during the summer months. The better inns did not allow plays
because of the brawls they caused, but others permitted them for a flat rate, or on a percentage basis. To
advertise the plays, which were usually given at two or three o’clock in the afternoon, the actors, in the
morning, put on their costumes and paraded the streets with trumpets and drums.
Some nameless business man of vision, aware of the growing popularity of the plays, rented a few of the
large inns in London, and made them permanent playing places, erecting permanent stages in the innyards.
THE ELIZABETH PLAYHOUSE – FAMOUS AND INFAMOUS
There were two forces working against the drama: the Puritans who morally objected and the city
officials who opposed the drama because it spread the plague and caused quarrels, fights, and riots. As long as
these foes were kept separate, the actors were safe. But in 1573, when the Puritans elected one of themselves
Lord Mayor and dominated the Board of Aldermen and Town Council, the Town Council put a ban on all plays
saying there was danger of plague. The ban was not removed when the danger was over, so the players
complained to their patrons who, in turn, appealed to the Privy Council, who had the ban lifted. But the Town
Council was not to be defeated. It met on December 6, 1574, and passed such stringent restrictions that it was
hard to keep going at all. The Town Council’s rules stated that plays could be given only three days of the
week; they had to be censored before being presented; the inns had to be licensed for plays by the Lord Mayor
and the Aldermen, and the proprietors had to give a bond that there would be no disorder or immorality in
connection with the performances; no plays could be given during the “sickness” or when prohibited by the
Mayor; no plays could be given during the time of divine service; the proprietors must pay a poor tax.
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Elizabeth, who loved plays but who was an excellent politician and careful of her money, went no further than
to designate her own Master of the Revels as the censor and the source of licenses. The bond and the tax clauses
remained and were serious hindrances.
Finally, James Burbage, ex-carpenter, ex-actor, and utterly devoted theatreman, conceived a good idea –
he would build a theatre in one of the “liberties” in London where city officials had no jurisdiction. These
liberties were the sites of former Roman Catholic Church holdings; by special law they were free of civil
authority, being subject only to the Crown. On April 13, 1576, Burbage obtained a lease and The Theatre was
opened in the fall of that year. It was the sensation of the season, and influenced all succeeding theatre
construction of the period.
The next year, Henry Lanman leased a plot of ground close to Burbage’s, and built a theatre on it which
he called The Curtain, probably because the land upon which it was built was called Curten Close. In 1585
Burbage obtained control of The Curtain, thus becoming the first theatre monopolist in history.
The next 25 years, five more theatres were to be built in London, among them the famous Globe built by
Burbage on the Bankside in 1599 from materials salvaged from The Theatre, the rights to which he had wisely
kept in his original lease with Gyles Allen.
Burbage conceived an adaptation of the innyard playhouse, making The Theatre, however, octagonal in
form to improve the sight lines over those possible in the rectangular innyard. He provided for about 1500
spectators in three roofed galleries and a standing pit with an open top so that daylight could provide the chief
illumination and ventilation could be improved [no small consideration in those bathless days!]. That there was
no front curtain seems certain, although curtains of some kind were used, since several references speak of
them. That there was limited seating on the stage is also authenticated. The plays indicate that arrangements
were provided for and “above” and a “within”; therefore Shakespeare scholars have assumed that the stage
projected out into the pit, with the audience on three sides, while the house behind the stage was used as a kind
of permanent setting. It is supposed to have had practical doors and windows, a curtained recess at stage level
which could be used to reveal set scenes, and a gallery over the recess at the second floor level. The third floor
above the stage is presumed to have been reserved for the musicians, since “music above” is a fairly constant
reference. Over the stage house and a part of the stage itself extended a roof supported by pillars from the stage
floor. This roof was a partial shielding from the elements and allowed for ascents and descents of props and
actors as necessary; it was called “the Heavens”. “Hell” was the area under the stage; access to it was through
trapdoors and from behind scenes. Atop the stage house was a small turret-like structure from which a
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trumpeter signaled the beginning of the play, and from which a flag was flown to indicate the type of play being
given.
The economic arrangement Burbage conceived for The Theatre was also more or less followed by other
theatre operators, and was, of course, a refinement of the policies followed by the innyard players. He leased
the theatre to Leicester’s Men on These terms: the actors were to get all the pennies paid for general admission;
Burbage and his brother-in-law John Brayne, who had invested his entire fortune in the project, were to get the
extra shillings and sixpence paid for seats in the galleries. Theatre had become a business enterprise as well as
an art form.
In addition to these public playhouses, which were most typical of the period, there were various roofedin theatres called, for no clear reason, “private.” There were no standees in these private theatres, the capacity
of which was very smaller than that of public houses, and the admission prices were correspondingly higher.
Their resources allowed for considerable ingenuity in staging.
COSTUMES INACCURATE, BUT ELABORATE
We may conveniently divide the types of costuming in Shakespeare’s Day as follows: classical,
allegorical, professional, foreign, and historical.
ACTING DEMANDS VERSATILITY
The position of the actor in Shakespeare’s day was, in many ways, inconsistent. Condemned and
criticized by some and strictly regulated by various civil ordinances, he was, nevertheless, often a most highly
respected member of society and frequently moved in the best of social circles.
The professional actor had, however, one great advantage: he was a member of a repertory company,
which gave a variety of plays over great lengths of time, and he thus had opportunity to grow as an artist. The
competent actor of Shakespeare’s day was specialized and capable. The frequent change of bill, a different play
every performance, meant that several parts must be kept in mind at once and that the actor be quick in
memorizing lines. We know that performances often closed with an impromptu entertainment by one or more
of the company, called a giggue. Since many of the scripts called for some kind of fighting, the actor also had to
be an expert fencer, able to make the scene realistic without inflicting harm on his fellow-actors. A pleasing
appearance, grace of movement, a good voice, a ready wit, a lively sympathy, a keen awareness, adaptability,
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and the capacity for feeling and projecting a variety of emotions were then, as now, essential attributes of the
successful actor.
We may suppose that with the comparatively small size of the theatres, and with the close and
immediate contact of the audience, the acting style was what we would call today as “natural.”
The actor’s life was not an easy one. He rehearsed in the mornings, performed in the public theatres in
the afternoons, and spent his evenings either learning new lines or giving performances in the private theatres or
at court.
Women never appeared on the professional stage in England; the women’s parts were taken by boys. It
was an immensely practical arrangement, particularly when the company was on tour.
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