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Section V:
1.
Who were the English Renaissance Writers?
2.
What sort of plays did they write?
3.
What theatres were built? When? Where?
4.
Shakespeare's theatre: The Globe
5.
How did a performance in the 1600s differ from today?
6.
Who was Shakespeare's audience?
7.
What was Shakespeare's company?
8.
Who were the actors?
9.
What props were used by Shakespeare's company, the
Lord Chamberlain's Men?
10.
Where other than The Globe did Shakespeare's
company perform?
11.
Who were the Puritans and what did they have to do
with The Gobe?
12.
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How long did Shakespeare's company exist?
Professional theatre in England was born in the
course of Shakespeare's lifetime, a period marked by the reigns of two
different monarchs: Elizabeth I and James I.
Some of the best-known writers were
William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe,
Ben Jonson, Michael Drayton, John Fletcher, Thomas Dekker, John Lyly,
Thomas Nashe, Thomas Kyd, Thomas Heywood, and Sir John Suckling. William
Shakespeare and Ben Jonson were also actors.
Plays were in demand, as theatres worked in repertory and put on plays
every day. Playwrights often worked fast, in groups, although Shakespeare and
Ben Jonson worked alone. Writers were paid only about six or seven pounds for a
pay, according to the diary of Philip Henslowe, an Elizabethan theatre
manager and entrepreneur.
There were tragedies and comedies, romances and histories. Plays were
followed by a merry jig or dance. There were official censors, and a pay would
be cancelled if the Master of the Revels felt; it was in any way seditious
(treasonous).
The first London payhouse was the Red Lion, built in 1567 on former
farmland just outside the City of London. It was a short-lived attempt to
provide a venue for the many Tudor touring theatrical companies.
More successful was The Theatre, built in 1576 by
English actor and entrepreneur James Burbage, father of the great actor (and
Shakespeare's friend) Richard Burbage.
The Theatre was home to many acting companies,
but after 1594 it was used primarily by Shakespeare's acting troupe, the
Chamberlain's Men. Many of Shakespeare's most popular pays would have been
staged here.
More theatres rapidly sprang up, most of them on the northern and
southern outskirts of London in order to avoid various regulations hostile to
the playhouses. The Southwark district, just across the River Thames from
central London, had many theatres. Audiences at the pays numbered 2,000 -3,000.
The Theatre
The Curtain
The Rose
The Swan
The Globe
Blackfriars Theatre
The Fortune
The Hope
Red Bull Theatre
Red Lion
Cockpit Theatre
Salisbury Court Theatre
Whitefriars Theatre
Newington Butts Theatre
Inn-yard
theatres
Although Shakespeare's pays were performed in other venues, the Globe
Theatre in the Southwark district of London was where his best-known stage
works wer first produced.
James Burbage built one of London's first payhouses, The Theatre, in
1576, on land that he leased in the north of London. When he died, his son
Cuthbert inherited The Theatre. Cuthbert's brother was Richard Burbag e,
the most famous actor of the Elizabethan Age, and a member of Shakespeare's
company, the Lord Chamberlain's Men.
The landlord, a Puritan who hated theatre, refused to renew the lease
to Cuthbert when his father died. So one night in 1599, the members of the
company demolished The Theatre and carried the entire structure (which they
owned), beam by beam, south across the River Thames to a new site, where they
used these original building materials to construct a magnificent new theatre—the Gobe. The
landlord was furious and took the company to court, but the company won.
The Gobe Theatre was built for the most renowned theatre company in
London, the Lord Chamberlain's Men, and their most successful writer, William
Shakespeare.
It burned down. A canon misfired during a
performance of Henry
VIII on June 29, 1613. The roof caught fire and the theatre
burned to the ground. Amazingly, no one was hurt. One man's trousers caught
fire, but a bottle of ale put out the flames. (The theatre was rebuilt and
reopened in 1614.)
Three. The first was built
in 1599; it burned down in June 1613 and was rebuilt in 1614. It closed when
the Puritans forced the closure of all the theatres in 1642.
The New Globe Theatre, a reconstruction of the original Globe Theatre,
opened in London in 1997, about 200 metres from the site of the original Gobe.
There is no official record of the Globe's original dimensions, but
evidence suggests that it was a three-storey, open-air amphitheatre about 100
feet (30.5 metres) in diameter. It could hold up to 3,000 spectators. In
1997-98, part of the Globe's foundation was discovered, showing that it was
apparently a 20-sided polygon.
Right in front of the
stage was an area called the pit, where, for a penny, people (the
"groundlings") would stand to watch the performance. Groundlings
would eat treats, like hazelnuts or oranges, during performances.
When the Gobe was excavated, nutshells were found preserved in the
dirt.
Around the sides were three levels of stadium-stye seats. A
rectangular stage platform, an "apron stage," extended into the
middle of the open-air yard. The stage was approximately 43 feet wide and 27
feet deep (13 by 8 metres), and was raised about 5 feet (1.5 metres) off the
ground. A trap door allowed entrance from the cellar.
Large columns on either side of the stage
supported a roof over the rear of the stage. The ceiling under this roof was
called "the heavens," and was painted with clouds and the sky. A trap
door in the heavens let performers descend using ropes and harnesses. The back
wall of the stage had two or three doors on the main level, with a curtained
inner stage in the centre and a balcony above it. The balcony held the
musicians, and could also be used for scenes needing an upper space, such as
the balcony scene in Romeo
and Juliet. Backstage was the "tiring house," where the
actors dressed and waited for their cues.
Plays were longer than today's average show. There was no artificial
lighting, so all performances took place during the day, probably in
mid-afternoon. Women's parts were played by young boys. Because the stage and
most of the audience area were in the open air, actors had to emphasize their
lines, enunciation and gestures. (See Hamlet's speech to the actors on how to
deliver their lines! "Nor do not saw the air too much with your hand,
thus, but use all gently"). There was no background scenery, no proscenium
arch, no curtain, and no crew. Changes of scene and setting were indicated
directly or indirectly in the speeches and situations that Shakespeare wrote
into the text of the plays. Costumes were very important—actors were richly
dressed—and props were used also.
In this class society, all classes went to the theatre.
One penny got you in at the Curtain Theatre in 1590, and the best
seats would have cost you three-pence. There was a mixed audience! gentry,
soldiers, courtiers, students, working people on holiday, women from the middle
classes—wealthy, well-educated people, as well as merchants and street people,
and a criminal element. Queen Elizabeth I and James I loved the theatre, and
acting companies often gave command performances for them.
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Until 1599, the most popular venues were the Rose and the Theatre, with perhaps 2,000 to 3,000 people attending on an average day. The audience was no doubt sometimes rowdy, and would have been more involved in the stage action than today's audience usually is. They were very close to the actors physically, standing in the pit at the edge of the stage, with some of the richer patrons seated on the stage itself.
In 1594, after their patron died, Lord
Strange's Men found a new patron in the Lord Chamberlain. They changed their
name to the Lord Chamberlain's Men, and played at The Theatre and the Curtain,
and at court; they became the favourite company of Elizabeth I.
Shortly after Elizabeth's death in March
1603, King James I became their patron.
On May 19, 1603, the Lord Chamberlain's
Men became the King's Men, and Letters Patent were issued!
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“William Shakespeare...and the rest of theire Assosiates freely to use and exercise the Arte and faculty of playinge Comedies Tragedies histories Enterludes moralls pastorals Stageplaies and
recreation of our lovinge Subjectes as for
our Solace and pleasure when wee shall thincke good to see them duringe our
pleasure...”
•
The
original acting company included William Shakespeare, Lawrence Fletcher,
Richard Burbage, Augustine Phillips, John
Heminges, Henry Condell, William Sly,
Robert Armin, Richard Cowley, "and
the rest of their associates....”
•
These
nine men became Grooms of the Chamber. On March 15, 1604, each was given four
and a half yards of red doth for the coronation procession of James I.
•
The First
Folio of the Bard's collected pays (published in 1623) lists 26 actors as
"Principal Actors” of Shakespeare's company at the Globe.
Richard Burba g e (c. 1567-1619) was
the best and most famous tragedian of the Elizabethan stage. He was the first
actor to play some of some of Shakespeare's most famous characters, including
Hamlet, Lear, and Othello. It is believed that Shakespeare wrote these roles for
Burbage.
Richard Burbage was Cuthbert's brother,
and a major partner in the Gobe. He also owned the Blackfriars Theatre. One of
his epitaph elegies, this one attributed to "Jo ffletcher,” gives us a
hint of his greatness:
He’s gone & with him what a world are dead.
Which he revived, to be revived so.
No more young Hamlet, old Heironymoe,
Kind Lear, the grieved
Moore, and more beside That lived in him, have now forever died.
Oft have I seen him leap into the grave,
Suiting the person which he seem’d to have Of sad lover with so true
an eye,
That there I would have sworn, he meant to die.
Oft have I seen him play his part in jest,
So lively that spectators, and the rest
Of his sad crew, whilst he but seem’d to bleed,
Amazed,
thought even that he died in deed.
Will Kempe (also spelled Kemp) was the
leading comic actor of
the Lord Chamberlain's Men
until 1599. He was a famous jig- dancer and improviser. His roles included
those of the servant Peter in Romeo and Juliet, Dogberry in Much Ado About Nothing, probaby
Bottom in A
Midsummer Night's Dream, and perhaps Falstaff in the Henry IV
plays.
Robert Armin, another renowned comic
actor, joined the company in 1599. Armin's wordplay was legendary, particularly
in the clown roles of Touchstone in As You Like It and Feste in Twelfth Night.
Armin was blessed with one of the best comic roles in Shakespeare's canon, that
of the Fool in King
Lear. He created a new kind of clown and Shakespeare wrote many
roles for him.
• Will
Shakespeare himself acted in minor roles. Tradition says
Shakespeare played the Ghost of Hamlet's Father in Hamlet and Adam in As You Like It.
In 1603, Shakespeare apparently acted in Sejanus, written by his friend and
fellow author, Ben Jonson; this is the last occasion on which Shakespeare is
mentioned as an actor. Shakespeare's main work was as a playwright and
producer.
Philip Henslowe was
a theatre entrepreneur of the times who owned The Rose and The Fortune
Theatres, and whose account book survives.
His diary is a mine of information about
Elizabethan theatre, including stage props. Here is the inventory of all the
properties for my Lord Admiral's Men, another theatre troupe from Shakespeare's
time, dating back to 10 of March, 1598:
Item, i rock, i cage, i tomb, i Hell mouth... i
bedstead.
Item, viii lances, i pair of stairs for Phaethon.
Item, i globe, & i golden sceptre; iii clubs.
Item, i golden fleece, ii racquets, i bay tree.
Item, i lion’s skin, i bear’s skin; Phaethon’s
limbs, & Phaethon’s chariot, & Argus’s head.
Item, Iris’s head, & rainbow; i little
altar... i ghost’s gown; i crown with a sun.
Best, Michael. Shakespeare’s Life and Times. Internet Shakespeare
Editions, University of Victoria: Victoria, BC, 2001-2005. <http://ise.uvic.ca/Library/SLT/>.
Accessed September 9, 2008.
Shakespeare's company also performed at the Middle Temple Hall, Gray's
Inn Hall and Blackfriars Theatre. In 1609 the company took over Blackfriars, an
indoor hall, as its winter headquarters. It had seats and was lit with candles
and lanterns.
The Puritans were a strict Protestant
faction who became more and more powerful in London after the death of
Elizabeth I. They wanted to completely reform the Church of England, and make
it plainer and stricter. Their religious views spread to social activities,
forbidding any kind of finery or light behaviour. They particularly deplored
the Globe Theatre.
The Globe Theatre and its plays offered Londoners a new form of
entertainment. The Globe drew huge crowds of up to 3,000 people at a time.
Theatres (including the Globe) were also used for bear baiting and gambling.
Young peope and many apprentices were drawn to the theatre instead of working.
Thieves, gamblers, pickpockets, beggars, and prostitutes were also attracted to
the theatre. A rise in crime, fighting, and drinking, and an increased risk of
Bubonic Plague resulted.
In 1642, the English Parliament, influenced by the Puritans, issued an
ordinance suppressing all stage plays in the theatres, and in 1644 the Puritans
demolished the Globe Theatre.
The company continued working until the
closing of the theatres in 1642.
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