British TheatrePerformance space and theatrical conventions

Classical Antiquity Britain is one province in the Roman

Empire Outdoor performance spaces – audience

seated on hillside/slope above performers Surviving theatres in St. Albans and

Chester http://

www.stalbansmuseums.org.uk/Sites/Roman-Town/Roman-Theatre

www.chesterwalls.info/amphitheatre.html These traditions lost with fall of Rome.

St. Albans

performancespace

backstage

audience

audience

Fall of Roman Empire ~450AD Theatre disappears from Britain as Latin

speakers lost

Drama re-emerges after ~1200 not from a revival of classical Roman

traditions, but from the Christian rituals of the Mass.

Medieval Drama Place of medieval drama in history of

European drama no connection to classical drama

not entertainment not money-making

begins as liturgy or ritual dramatizing liturgical moments, i.e.. elevation of

the host supports religious values and practices

earliest dramatized liturgy reenacts the Passion and the Resurrection

Plays performed in inner courtyards of medieval inns.

York Cycle (1 of 4 extant cycles) Begins sometime after ~1325; closed

down by Reformation censors in Elizabeth’s reign (~1580); this is Shakespeare’s boyhood.

Associated with towns – not villages or hamlets – showed wealth, power, pride, civic organization and institutions, literacy, and religious belief. Literate townsmen put on plays for less

literate farmers http://

jerz.setonhill.edu/resources/PSim/applet/index.html

Cycle plays performedon wagons in streetsof York over 1-3 daysin late June. Audiencestayed in place, and wagons moved to ~12viewing stations.Played to crowds on 3sides. Same script everyyear. Compare to tail-gate party.

Tudor Drama (1485-1603) Before Elizabeth –

Some revivals of Latin/Roman dramatic forms, especially tragedy

Elizabethan dramatists: first modern English playwrights – theatres and admission costs Theatre as business proposition Money in acting, writing, but esp. producing

How to earn a living as a writer without a wealthy patron

London ~ 1590

Many theatres south of the river in “Southwark” because outside of control of London’s conservative aldermen.

London Eye

National Theatre

Today’s West End Theatres

Early Modern Public Theatre Large, outdoor but partially roofed,

daylight only illumination Variety of standing/sitting price options In the 3/4ths (audience on three sides of

a thrust stage Three levels of play space (below stage

trapdoor; stage; balcony) Two back entrances

Thus daily at two in the afternoon, London has two, sometimes three plays running in different places, competing with each other, and those which play best obtain most spectators. The playhouses are so constructed that they play on a raised platform, so that everyone has a good view. There are different galleries and places, however, where the seating is better and more comfortable and therefore more expensive. For whoever cares to stand below only pays one English penny, but if he wishes to sit he enters by another door, and pays another penny, while if he desires to sit in the most comfortable seats which are cushioned, where he not only sees everything well, but can also be seen, then he pays yet another English penny at another door. And during the performance food and drink are carried around the audience, so that what one cares to pay one may also have refreshment.

1599

Note thrust stage – audience on 3+ sides

1647 woodcut

Note the thruststage, the threelevels on whichthe audience maysit, and the floorspace for the “groundlings” tostand.~1550-1642

A modern production in the reconstructed Globe Theatre.

The stage lit by candles in the new Sam Wanamaker theatreat the Globe, where we will see Knight Burning Pestle.

Middle Temple in Inns of Court – banquet hall and first performance space for Twelfth Night

Puritan Commonwealth ~1642-1660 Charles I executed 1649 Theatres closed 1642, but re-opened on

Restoration of the Monarchy after death of Oliver Cromwell in 1660.

Charles II returned from exile in France and brought “French fashions” into British theatre

women performers proscenium stage rather than thrust stage

Mid 17th C French theatre with stage behind curtain

Proscenium Stage Dominates British theatre from

Restoration (1660) to modernism (early 20th C)

You have likely seen this theatre in your HS auditorium. Actors on stage behind curtain Scene changes indicated by curtain Audience sits in dark Actors pretend audience not present

Some 20th & 21st C innovations Often returns to earlier forms

Theatre in the round Direct interactions audience/actors Chorus or narrator

Musical Theatre American origins, but hugely popular in the UK

Stratford-Upon-Avon is hometo three stages on which EarlyModern (and other) plays areperformed.

This is the stage at theNational Theatre on theSouth Bank near the London Eye and Housesof Parliament.

One stage on which we’ll see plays in Stratford-Upon-Avon.

Matilda