Shakespeare& The Early English Theatre

He was born in Warwickshire, in Stratford-upon-Avon

He went to school there

And in his late teens marriedAnne Hathaway

By the late 1580s he was in London

…which was a hotbed of political intrigue

And was part of the explosive growth of the most potent literary/political movement in English

history….

Medieval Theatre

Theatre began as acting out of ‘dramas’ in religious scripture, such as the Resurrection and the 3 Marys coming to seek the body of Christ: Quem quaeritis?

Medieval theatre evolves

• Into ‘mystery’ plays, telling the cycle of creation history and performed by members of guilds each year, often on religious holidays, on ‘pageant wagon’ sets pulled throughout the streets or in churchyards.

• Into ‘morality’ plays, where characters like Everyman interact with other allegorical figures and learn moral and spiritual lessons, often performed by clerks & eventually professional actors in halls, innyards, and other public spaces

The medieval theatre

• Thrived on stereotypical characters called ‘vices’ and ‘virtues’

• Did not know about 5-act Greek theatre• Was overtly moral, to avoid church &

community censure• Was suspect because actors moved from

place to place, counterfeited other people’s identities, and didn’t have ‘estates’

The Early Modern Theatre

A sketch of the Swan Theatre by Iohannis De Witt, 1596-97, copied by Arendt van Buchell (around 1609?)

How widespread was access to theaters?

• Around 1580, when both the Theatre and the Curtain were full on summer days, the total capacity of London theaters was about 5,000 spectators. The population of London was about 100,000 then.

• London’s total daily theater capacity exceeded 10,000 after 1610; the population may have been as much as 200,000 then.

• In 1580, London citizens could purchase admittance to the Curtain or the Theatre for a penny; in 1640, they could gain admittance to the Globe, the Cockpit, or the Red Bull still for a penny. So theater attendance was still affordable to almost all of London.

The repertory system: How supply met demand

• The acting companies functioned on a repertory system; unlike modern productions, the companies of this era rarely performed the same play for 2 days in a row. And they didn’t have teleprompters.

• In the 1592 season of Lord Strange's Men, between Feb. 19 and June 23, the company played six days a week, minus Good Friday and two other days. They never played the same play two days in a row, and rarely the same play twice in a week.

• They performed 23 different plays, some only once, and their most popular play of the season, The First Part of Hieronimo (based on Kyd's The Spanish Tragedy), 15 times.

• Thomas Middleton's A Game at Chess ran for nine straight performances in August 1624 before it was closed by the authorities—but this was due to the political content of the play and was a unique occurrence.

Could you make a living as a playwright?

• Theatre owner Philip Henslowe paid as little as £6 or £7 per play during the Globe’s heyday

• Most plays were written collaboratively; in 1598, Thomas Dekker worked on 16 collaborations and earned £30, or a little under 12 shillings per week—roughly twice as much as the average artisan's income of 1s. per day. He collaborated on about 40 plays between 1598 & 1602.

• Shakespeare produced fewer than 40 solo plays in a career that spanned more than two decades; he was financially successful because he was a shareholder in the company for which he acted and in the theatres they used and invested his earnings in real estate. He also collaborated on plays.

• Few plays were printed because the acting companies held onto them so they would continue to be profitable to perform; estimates say a little over 600 plays were published in the period as a whole, most commonly in individual quarto editions.

In the late 1590s Shakespeare’s company built

The “Pit”, where “groundlings” watched for a penny

The trapdoor or “hell”, where actors could make surprise entrances

The “discovery space,” which could be curtained off

This is called an ‘apron stage’ or ‘proscenium’

Doors on either side of the stage led backstage to the ‘tiring rooms’ (dressing rooms)

With the three levels of covered galleries and the groundlings in the pit, the seating at the original Globe is estimated at around 3000 people.

Spectators could also be seated in the galleries above the stage; these were considered very choice seats. By the way, all the columns are wood painted to look like marble.

As the pit begins to fill up before the performance, the actors and audience could interact. (This is a performance of Julius Caesar.)

The ceiling under the stage cover is called the “heavens” and could accommodate pulleys and other stage effects.

From the “hut” above the stage, other special effects could be used; a cannon shot off from here during a performance of Henry VIII in 1613 burned down the original Globe. Oops.

Private (indoor) vs Public Theaters• Indoor theaters allowed all-

weather performances year-round

• Often in old religious buildings which were “liberties” in zoning terms

• Shakespeare’s company leased the Blackfriars Great Hall in 1608

• The King's Men "gott. . .more in one Winter in the said great Hall by a thousand powndes than they were used to gett in the Banckside."

The Globe reopened in 1997

The American Shakespeare Center has recreated the Blackfriars in Staunton, VA

Watch this spring for our 2nd trip to the ASC! We’d love to have you come along!

What did a play look like?

• Check out this very good sequence from Shakespeare in Love to see a simulated performance at the Curtain:– http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DppA5FQ

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– http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4KH2enWiBg4&feature=related leading to

– http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJ9QOXtGJvI&feature=related