A play on the page is only half a play. The script is a recipe for a performance, it's incomplete until it is staged in a theatre, in a reader's mind or on screen. When a play is staged, actors and directors bring the word to life through their interpretations. Decisions about scenery, costumes, timing, and casting, as well as about a character's gestures, expressions and motivations, can call forth contrasting meaning from even the most familiar play.
The Elizabethan theatre:
English drama came of age during the reign of Elizabeth I, developing into a sophisticated and popular art form. Although playwrights like Shakespeare were mainly responsible for the great theatrical achievements of the time, audiences and theatre buildings were equally important.
Well, before I proceed let me talk about DRAMA first. I wouldn't talk about it, but I can imagine my younger sister asking me "What is drama?"
Defining Drama:
Drama is a form of literature that tells a story through performances by actors in front of an audience. Because a drama, or play, has to hold the interest of a live audience, usual ingredients of plot- tension, confrontation between characters, and resolution- are heightened. In fact, emotional intensity is so characteristic of drama that we use the adjective "dramatic" to describe anything vivid, striking, or exciting. I use the term "drama queen" to describe my younger sister. I mean, she's very dramatic, she could be a great actress someday.
Elements of Drama:
Plays consist of two kinds of writing, each with a different purpose:
Dialogue tells a story, while
stage directions help the cast and production staff to bring the text to life.
DRAMA IS LIFE WITH
THE DULL BITS CUT OUT.
-Alfred Hitchcock
Elizabethan Drama:
During the late sixteenth century, Elizabethan drama came into full bloom. Playwrights turned away from religious subjects and began writing more sophisticated plays. BECAUSE THEY JUST HAD TO COMPLICATE LIFE. Drawing on models from ancient Greece and Rome, writers reintroduced tragedies- plays in which disaster befalls a hero or heroine. Dramatists also began writing their plays in carefully crafted unrhymed verse, using rich language and vivid imagery. Dull thing, I say so. I can speak Shakespearean you know.
I don't want to go in depth about Drama. If you are interested in Drama you can use this website to read everything about Drama.
http://www.slideshare.net/halehawk/everything-you-need-to-know-about-drama
Let me get back to my topic, Elizabethan theatre.
Before the reign of Elizabeth I, traveling theatre companies put on plays wherever they could find audience, often performing in the open courtyards on inns. Spectators watched from the ground or from balconies or galleries above. I'd love to see that, but unfortunately everything related to plays changed nowadays.
England's First Playhouse:
I believe I said something about the Globe in my first post, but because I'm too lazy to read my other post I'm just going to write some information. Excuse me if they're repeated or if you've read them in my first post.
When Shakespeare was twelve years old, an actor named James Burbage built London's first theatre, called simply The Theatre. Actors *even prominent and well-to-do actors like James Burbage* were frowned upon by the city fathers. Nonetheless, they were widely popular with the common people and were called on frequently to perform at court. A man like Burbage enjoyed reputation somewhat like a rock star's today.
THE GLOBE:
In 1597, the city fathers closed down The Theatre. In late 1598, Richard Burbage (James Burbage's son) and his men dismantled it and hauled it in pieces across the Thames to Southwark. It took them six months to rebuild it, and when they did, they renamed it the Globe. My question is why would they do such thing? Can't they just build another one? Man, those men had to act heroic.
"Can this cockpit hold
The vasty fields of France? Or may we cram
Within this wooden O the very cosques
That did affright the air at Agincourt?"
-Shakespeare, from Henry V
Scholars disagree about what the Globe actually looked like because there are no surviving drawings from the time or detailed descriptions. Shakespeare refers to the building in Henry V as "this wooden O." The building had to have been small enough for the actors to be heard, and we know that performances drew as many as 2,500 to 3,000 people. These truly packed houses must have been uncomfortable- especially when you consider that people of the era didn't bathe or change their clothes very often! Most spectators stood throughout the performance. Some of the audience sat in a gallery behind the performers. Though they saw only the actor's backs and probably could not hear very well, they were content to be sen by the rest of the audience.
There were no sets of lightning at the Globe. Plays were performed in broad daylight. There were also no sets, so the words of the play had to create the illusion of time and place for the audience. It also had to create moods like the one in the eerie first scene of Macbeth. Holding and audience spellbound was complicated by the fact that most spectators ate and drank throughout the performance.
The First Globe:
The first Globe met its demise in 1613, when a cannon fired as part of a performance of
Henry VIII ignited the theatre's thatched roof. Everyone escaped unharmed, but the Globe burned to the ground. Although the theatre was rebuilt, the Puritans had it permanently closed in 1642. Seems to me that the only plays that were performed are Shakespeare's.
The New Globe:
Building a replica of Shakespeare's Globe was the American actor Sam Wanamaker's dream. After long years of fund-raising and construction, the theatre opened to its first full season on June 8, 1997, with a production of Henry V. Like the earlier Globe, this one is made of wood, with a thatched roof and lime plaster covering the walls. The stage and the galleries are covered, but the "bear pit," where the modern-day groundlings stand, is open to the skies.
Perhaps the most striking aspect of seeing Shakespeare's plays performed at the Globe is the immediacy of the action. The performers, as Benedict Nightingale noted in the
London Times, "are talking to you, asking you questions, involving you in their fears." Is that not what theatre is all about?
Theatre today:
Today, most patrons expect a certain level of comfort and technical sophistication when attending a theatrical even- whether a concert, a Broadway show, or a school assembly.
Here's a link that talks about the difference between theatre in the Elizabethan times and theatre in modern days:
http://the-shakespeare-blog.blogspot.ae/2013/04/the-english-elizabethan-era-is-one-of.html
Oh god, this whole Elizabethan theatre is boring. But to be honest, currently reading Macbeth in class I've been wondering how would the Elizabethan actors have played those roles?
Phew.. I think I'm going to leave you with this post for another week. Parting is such sweet sorrow.
To your professed bosoms I commit him. Listen to this song:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=poMB3dkyDHc
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