Shakespeare and Renaissance Theater Notes PP. 366375

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Shakespeare and RenaissanceTheater NotesPP.
366-375
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Holy Days

• People would gather in public places such as
  village greens, innyards, and marketplaces to
  celebrate
• Guilds presented plays on the backs of traveling
  wagons, usually in a sequence to tell a complete
  story miracle plays (lives of saints), mystery
  plays (Bible stories), and morality plays (vices
  and virtues are characters) were commonly
  performed
• Eventually, plays were performed in halls and
  houses of great noblemen and noblewomen

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Five-Act Play

• Common format used in Roman and Greek
  plays-revived during the Renaissance with English
  topics and themes
• Act I-Introduction
• Act II-Complication/Rising Action
• Act III-Crisis/Turning Point
• Act IV-Falling Action
• Act V-Resolution/Catastrophe/Denouement
• Acts were divided into scenes marked by
  characters entering and exiting the stage

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Types of Drama

• Comedies-end with happy results, typically
  lighthearted, action moves from order to humorous
  misunderstanding (mistaken identity, puns, word
  play) and back to order again
• Tragedies-end with tragic results, tells the
  story of he downfall of a person of high status,
  celebrates the courage and dignity of a flawed
  protagonist in the face of inevitable doom (Ex
  Macbeth-protagonist has excessive ambition and
  doesnt want to appear weak or unmanly)

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Types of Drama, contd

• Histories- plays about significant events from
  the past (Ex Henry VIII by Shakespeare
• Romances- plays containing highly fantastical
  elements such as fairies and magical spells
  (Midsummer Nights Dream)
• Interludes-short plays
• Masques-elaborate performances featuring acting,
  music, and dance

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Theater controversy during the Renaissance

• Theaters were looked at as low-rent, trashy
  places to go, mainly because groundling audiences
  were filled with miscreants and undesirables
  looking to pick pockets, pillage women, or worse
• Theaters brought large crowds together, which
  continued the spread of the plague and introduced
  and supported controversial ideas counteractive
  against the monarchy and /or Parliament
• Theaters closed many times throughout the
  Renaissance because of plague, political unrest,
  etc.

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Controversial theater, contd

• Women were not allowed to perform as actors on
  stage, so men and boys performed women's roles
• It was rumored that Queen Elizabeth used to dress
  as a man and attend performances unknown
  Elizabeth supported the theater and had two of
  her own acting groups she sponsored
• Freelance actors could be arrested and cruelly
  punished during this time, unless they were under
  the aegis of a nobleman or noblewoman who would
  support the group in exchange for credit for the
  groups success

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Theater notables

• James Burbage (1576) Built The Theater
  outside the city of London so authorities could
  not control the activities there Burbages group
  later tore down The Theater and built the Globe
  Theater with boards and materials from The
  Theater Shakespeare became a shareholder in the
  Globe at this time

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The Globe

• Octagonal ( eight-sided building)
• Open to the sky except for the thatched roof
  covering the walls and part of the stage
• The stage jutted into the middle of the open
  floor, and poor audience members (groundlings)
  could pay a penny to stand around the stage to
  watch a performance
• Wealthier people could pay more to sit on benches
  inside one of the three tiers of balconies that
  lined around the edges of the theater the better
  the view, the pricier the seats

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The Globe, contd

• A cannon shot during Shakespeares Henry VIII
  ignited a fire that burned the Globe to the
  ground
• Daytime performances due to little or no
  artificial lighting
• Very little to no scenery, and very few props,
  which is why Shakespeare includes so much
  description in his work the audience must know,
  in great detail, what he or she is to be
  imagining during a performance in the way of time
  of day, weather, sounds, smells, sights, etc.
• Do not worry about the physical appearance of the
  theater described on p. 370. I will explain as I
  refer to the theater

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Renaissance audience

• Audience was made up of a mixture of all levels
  of society. A heterogeneous group attended made
  up of noble lords and ladies, members of
  Parliament, middle class merchants, lower class
  laborers, along with pickpockets and thieves
  looking to get what they could when people
  standing on the ground were not paying attention
• The Globe seated roughly 2,500 people during one
  performance

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Marlowe

• We only know of and credit Marlowe for using (not
  creating) and perfecting the form of blank verse
  (unrhymed iambic pentameter) his blank verse is
  described as lofty and heroic while havingthe
  grace and naturalness of ordinary speech.
  Because of Marlowes use and popularization of
  blank verse, Shakespeare and other Renaissance
  writers begin to use it in abundance.

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Shakespeare

• Begins in theater with Richard Burbage, Jamess
  son-group name the Lord Chamberlains Men
• Globe Theater built after The Theater is torn
  down Shakespeare was part owner and principal
  playwright of The Globe Shakespeares group also
  performed many plays at Queen Elizabeths court
  during this time
• Blackfriars built in 1603 for winter performances
  and Shakespeares company becomes official
  servants of King James I, a.k.a The Kings Men

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Shakespeare, contd

• Shakespeare finally retires and returns to
  Stratford he dies on his birthday (April 23) in
  1616
• 1623-Shakespeares works collected and published
  in the First Folio
• Shakespeares popularity as a playwright
  attributed to how complex and human his
  characters are remember that until the latter
  part of the Renaissance, all characters were very
  flat and representative of only one or two
  aspects of human emotion Shakespeares were the
  first who represented true humans with many
  emotions and possibilities as characters, a
  wildly popular creation for the Renaissance
  audience

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Macbeth

• Evaluate every character for his or her level of
  ambition in life
• Also pay attention to the many dualities in the
  play (What is a duality? Something that exists
  in comparison or opposition to something else.
• Dualities to consider
• Macbeth and Lady Macbeth
• Macbeth and Banquo
• Macbeth and Duncan (good vs evil king)
• Kingship vs tyranny
• Cruelty vs. masculinity
• Unchecked ambition
• Banquo as ally vs. Banquo as threat
• Macbeth as soldier vs Macbeth as king
• Play begins and ends with battle (bookended)

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Macbeth contd

• Consider the various forms of manipulation that
  takes place in the play
• Lady Macbeth of Macbeth
• The three witches of various characters
• And others