Elizabethan Playhouses and Performance Conventions

When Elizabeth became Queen of England in 1558, there were no peculiarly designed champaign grammatical constructions. Companies of impostors (usually small, made of 5 to 8 members) tou carmine the country and performed in a wide variety of temporal black marketing spaces, primary(prenominal)ly in inn strides, scarce overly in churches, T experience Halls, Town Squargons, majuscule halls of Royal Palaces or other great ho works, or anywhere else that a large crowd could be gathered to view a mathematical process. It is verit able-bodied that they continued to tour through with(predicate)out Elizabeths reign (e peculiar(a)ly during the Plague in London, when theatres were closed or earned scarcely little m wholenessy).Nevertheless, given the laws passed by the Queen to control wandering beggars and vagrants which implicitly affected the acting companies as well galore(postnominal) operators were encouraged to wadtle down with permanent bases in London. The first p ermanent theatres in England were old inns which had been apply as temporary acting areas when the companies had been touring. E. g. The Cross Keys, The Bull, The Bel Savage, The Bell all innovationally make as inns.Some of the inns that became theatres had substantial alterations made to their structure to allow them to be used as scathouses. The first purpose built theatre building in England was simply called The Theatre, eventually giving its name to all such(prenominal) building erected in the outskirts of London and functioning until the closing of the theatres in 1642 during the well-bred War. The Theatre was built in 1576, at Shoreditch in the northern outskirts of London, by the Earl of Leicesters Men who were led by James Burbage, a work turned actor.It seems that the design of The Theatre was based on that of bull-baiting and bear-baiting yards (as a bet of fact, bull baiting, bear baiting and fencing shows were very popular by that m, and they were a good deal organized before the revives started. ). The Theatre was followed the next year (1577) by The Curtain, in 1587 by The Rose and in 1595 by The Swan (to bring up but the virtually famous theatres). In 1599, a dispute over the land on which The Theatre stood determined Burbages sons to secretly rip down the building and carry away the timber to build a new playhouse on the Bankside which they names The Globe.By this time, the Burbages had become members of superior Chamberlains Company, a commodious with William Shakespeare, and The Globe is famously remembered as the theatre in which many of Shakespeares plays were first performed. (The Globe was destroyed in 1613 in a fire caused by the sparks of a cannon fired during the effect of Shakespeares Henry VIII. Rebuilt, it was closed and demolished in 1644 during the Civil War. The advanced(a) reconstruction of Shakespeares Globe Theatre in London was undefiled in 1997. )Before going into much details regarding the structure of the Elizabethan theatre, distinction should be made, however, between twain categories of playhouses the public (outdoor) theatres and the private (indoor) theatres. The causality were amphitheatre buildings open to the air and therefore cheaper The Globe, for instance, charged 2 pence for a seat in the galleries or a single penny to jut out in the yard. The latter (e. g. Blackfriars The Cockpit) were built to a hall design in enclosed and usually rectangular buildings more like the theatres we admit today.They had amore unshared consultation since they charged considerably more the cheapest seat in a private theatre speak to sixpence. The adult companies did not start to use the private hall theatres until after Elizabeths death, but they were used by the boy companies (made up entirely of child and teenage actors) in Elizabeths reign and were used by Shakespeares Company by this time the Kings Men and other adult companies in the Jacobean period. Structure and Design o f Public/ Outdoor TheatresPublic theatres were polygonal hexagonal outside and round inside (a wooden O as Shakespeare puts it in Henry V). An open-air arena called pit or yard had, at one end, a wooden arcdegree supported by large pillars, with trap doors for special exits (to allow ghosts, devils and similar characters to be raised up) and was surrounded by three tiers of roofed galleries (thatched, later on tiled roofs) with balconies, overlooking the back of the peak. The install interpret was covered by a roof which they called Heavens through which, by means of ropes, they ould note down the actors playing the gods/ angels, etc. , for flying or dramatic entrances held up by massive pillars and obstructing the view of reference members from various angles. The stage circumvent behind these pillars was called Frons Scenae (taken from the name given by Imperial Rome to the stage rings of their amphitheatres) translated with doors to the left and to the right and a curtained central doorway referred to as the discovery space which allowed characters to be suddenly revealed or a play within a play to be acted.The rear wall of this inward stage was covered by tapestry, the only usual scenery used on the stage. Immediately above the inner stage, there was the stage header which could be used for multiple purposes as an acting space on either sides, there were bow-windows used for the frequent window/ balcony scenes (e. g. Romeo and Juliet). Thus the em dressment of a front stage and twain-storeyed back stage permitted three actions to go on simultaneously and a life-like parallelism of events. another part of the impulsion could be used as a medical specialty-room.Music was an extra effect added in the 1600s. The musicians started playing an hour before the beginning of the play and also compete at appropriate moments throughout the performance. when necessary, approximately of the boxes of the stage head were used for audience po se. They were referred to as the Lords rooms and considered the outdo (and hence the most expensive) seats in the house despite the inadequate view of the back of the actors. (Nevertheless, the audience at large would rich person a good view of the Lords and the Lords were able to hear the actors clearly.There were also redundant balconies on the left and right of the Lords rooms called the Gentlemens rooms, also meant for the rich presenters of the theatres. As previously mentioned, the stage wall structure contained two doors (at least) leading to a small structure, back stage, called the tire House used by actors to dress, prepare and wait polish offstage. Above the stage drift, there is a third storey connected with the Heavens extending send on from the tiring-house over the rear part of the stage, which was often used to represent the walls of a castle or a city.Last but not least, on top of this structure, there was also what might be called a quaternate storey of t he tiring-house, referred to as the Hut presumably used as a storage space and housing suspension gear for flying effects, turn the third storey stage cover served as a core room for players preparing to fly down to the stage. On top of the hut, a flag (a black one, if it was a tragedy, a white one, if it was a comedy, or a red one, if it was a history) was erected to let the world sack out a play was to be performed that day.The access to the playhouse was ensured by one main entrance, where playgoers had to put the portal fee i. e. 1 penny, for those who watched the play from the yard, standing, called the Groundlings (shopkeepers, craftsmen, apprentices), or more, up to 4-5 pence for the gentry and the great lords sitting in the galleries. The galleries could be r all(prenominal)ed by the two sets of stairs in the structure, on either side of the theatre. The first gallery would cost another penny in the box which was held by a collector (gatherer) at the front of the stair s.The second gallery would cost another penny. At the start of the play, after collecting money from the audience, the admission collectors put the boxes in a room backstage, called the box office. The Players There were unendingly many more split than actors. Elizabethan Theatre, therefore, demanded that an actor be able to play numerous roles and make it obvious to the audience by changes in his acting style and costume that he was a new psyche each time.When the same character came on disguised (as, for example, many of Shakespeares female characters disguise themselves as boys e. . The Merchant of Venice or Twelfth Night) speeches had to be included making it very clear that this was the same character in a new costume, and not a completely new character. on the full of the actors in an Elizabethan Theatre company were male (which might develop the scarcity of female roles in Elizabethan drama). There were laws in England against women acting onstage and English travelle rs abroad were amused and amazed by the funny customs of Continental European countries that allowed women to play female roles.Exceptions One charwoman Mary Frith, better known as Moll Cutpurse was arrested in the Jacobean period for singing and playing instruments onstage during a performance of a play about her life (Middleton and Dekkers The Roaring Girl) and some(a) suggest that she may actually shake been illegally playing herself in the performance, and women sometimes took part in Court Masques (a very stylised and striking sort of performance for the Court, usually dominated by singing and dancing), but otherwise English women had no part in the performance of Elizabethan plays.The male actors who played female parts cede traditionally been depict as Boy Actors they were actually boys whose voices had not changed. The rehearsal and performance schedule that Elizabethan Players followed was intense and demanding. Unlike new-fangled theatres, where a successful p lay can run for years at a time, Elizabethan theatres normally performed six different plays in their six day week, and a especially successful play might only be repeated formerly a month or so. For example, in a typical season, a theatrical company could perform xxx-eight different plays.The Elizabethan actor did not break often time, therefore, to prepare for each new play, and must have had to learn lines and prepare his blocking largely on his own and in his spare time likely helped by the tendency of writers to have crabbed actors in mind for each part, and to write roles which were suited to the particular strengths and habits of individual actors. There were few formal rehearsals for each play and no equivalent of the modern Director (although presumably the writer, theatre managers, and the most key actors who owned shares in the theatre company would have given some direction to other actors).Instead of macrocosm given full scripts, each actor had a written par t, a long roll with nothing more than his own lines and minimal cue lines (the lines radiusn by another actor just before his own) to tell him when to speak this protected on the laborious task of copying out the full play repeatedly by hand. There was a bookholder or prompter who held a complete script and who helped actors who had forgotten their lines. Costumes, Scenery and EffectsElizabethan costuming seems to have been a strange combination of what was (for the Elizabethans) modern dress, and costumes which while not being genuinely historicly or culturally accurate had a historical or foreign flavour. Strict laws were in force about what materials and types of costume could be worn by members of each social class laws which the actors were allowed to come across onstage so it would be immediately obvious to the Elizabethan audience that actors wearing particular types of clothes were laying great deal of particular backgrounds and types.The color were also carefully chosen so as to suggest red blood black gloom, evil yellow sun white honor scarlet doctor gray friar blue serving men. encompassing make-up was almost certainly used, oddly for the boys playing female parts and with dark make-up on the face and hands for actors playing blackamoors or Turks. There were also conventions for playing a number of roles some of which we know from printed play scripts.Mad women, like Ophelia, wore their hair loose and mad people of both sexes had disordered clothing. Night scenes were often signalled by characters wearing nightdresses (even the touching of Hamlets father appears in his nightgown, when Hamlet is talking with his gravel in her chamber). The Elizabethans did not use fixed scenery or particoloured backdrops of the sort that became popular in the Victorian period hence the playwrights had to provide the actors with spoken descriptions of landscape which with Shakespeare represent memorable poetry.That does not mean, however, that the Elizabethans performed on a completely bare stage. A wide variety of furniture and hold up were brought onstage to set the scene as necessary ranging from simple beds, tables, chairs and thrones to whole trees, grassy banks, prop dragons, an unpleasant looking cave to represent the sass of hell, and so forth. Death brought out a particular ingenuity in Elizabethan actors and they apparently used copious quantities of animal blood, fake heads and tables with holes in to stage decapitations.Heads, hands, eyes, tongues and limbs were dramatically cut off onstage, and probably involved some sort of blood-drenched stage trick. A number of other simple special effects were used. Real cannons and pistols (loaded with powder but no bullet) were fired off when ceremonial salutes or battles were required. Thunder was imitated by rolling large metal cannon balls backstage or by drumming, while lightning was imitated by fireworks set off in the heavens above the stage. One thing that E lizabethan theatres almost completely lacked was lighting effects.In the outdoor theatres, like the Globe, plays were performed from two oclock until about four or four thirty in the afternoon (these were the times fixed by law, but plays may sometimes have run for longer) in order to take service of the best daylight (earlier or later performances would have cast distracting shadows onto the stage). eve performances, without daylight, were impossible. In the hall theatres, on the other hand, the stages were lit by candle flame which forced them to hold occasional, probably musical, breaks while the candles were trimmed and tended or replaced as they burned down.Elizabethan actors carried flaming torches to indicate that a scene was winning place at night, but this would have made little disparity to the actual lighting of the stage, and spectators simply had to use their imagination. The nearest that the Elizabethans came to lighting effects were fireworks, used to imitate li ghtening or magical effects. Performance Techniques We know very little, unfortunately, about how Elizabethan actors actually played their roles. Performances probably ran ceaselessly without any sort of interval or Act Breaks.Occasionally music may have been played between Acts or certain scenes, but scholars think this was quite unusual except in the hall playhouses, where candles had to be trimmed and replaced between Acts. We do not even know how long Elizabethan plays usually ran. The law (mentioned above) expected plays to last between two and two and a half hours, but some plays such as Hamlet, which in modern times runs for more than four hours seem much too long to have been performed in such a pathetic time.What props and scenery there were in the Elizabethan Theatre were probably carried on and off while the scenes continued, while actors were continually moving out front and backward into the midst of the surrounding audience. All entrances and exits were through th e doors at the rear of the stage proper one actor left through one door while a second actor would appear through the second door to swing into the next scene. That means that there would have been no need to wait for scene changes.The actors were kept in constant motion and, given the design of the stage, they had to face in as many different directions as possible during a scene. Another aspect of Elizabethan performance that we know a little about was the use of clowns or frivol aways. Shakespeare complains in Hamlet about the fact that the fool often spoke a great deal that was not included in his script, and in the early Elizabethan period especially it seems to have been normal for the fool to include a great deal of improvised repartee and jokes in his performance, especially serveing to hecklers in the audience.At the end of the play the Elizabethan actors often danced, and sometimes the fool and other comic actors would perform a gigue which could be anything from a sim ple ballad to a quite conglomerate musical play, normally a farce involving adultery and other off-colour topics. Some time was apparently put aside for the fool to respond to challenges from the audience with spectators inventing rhymes and challenging the fool to complete them, asking riddles and questions and demanding witty answers, or simply arguing and criticising the fool so that he could respond.With no modern stage lighting to enhance the actors and put the audience into darkness, Globe audience members could see each other exactly as well as they could see the performers and the Groundlings in particular were near enough to the stage to be able to touch the actors if they wanted to and the front row of the Groundlings routinely leaned their arm and heads onto the front of the stage itself. The Groundlings were also forced to stand for two or three hours without much movement, which encouraged short attention spans and a trust to take action rather than remain complete ly immobile.This means that the Groundlings often shouted up at the actors or hissed the villains and cheered the goodies. Elizabethan audiences seem to have been very responsive in this way as their interactions with the Fool suggests and were particularly well known for hurling nut shells and fruit when they disliked an actor or a performance. The Elizabethan audience was still more distracted, however, since beer and fare were being sold and consumed throughout the performance, prostitutes were actively soliciting for trade, and pickpockets were busy stealing goods as the play progressed.Elizabethan audiences may have viewed plays very differently, hence the origin of the word audience itself. The Elizabethans did not speak of going to see a play, they went to hear one and it is possible that in the densely crowded theatre obstructed by the pillars and the extravagant headgear that richer members of the audience were wearing the Elizabethan audience was more concerned to h ear the words spoken than to be able to see the action.This idea is given extra weight by the fact that in the public outdoor theatres, like the Globe, the most expensive seats were not the ones with the best views (in fact the best view is to be had by the Groundlings, standing directly in front of the stage), but those which were most easily seen by other audience members. The most expensive seating was in the Lords box or balcony behind the stage looking at the action from behind and therwise the higher the seats the more an audience member had to pay. (Some Elizabethan documents suggest that the reason for this range of prices was the richer patrons desire to be as far from the stink of the Groundlings as possible. )Specific aspects of Elizabethan performances bear-baiting three bears in ascending size are set upon by an English hound in a contract to the death fencing less gruesome, this civilized sport also took place before plays. umb-shows/processions parades or spectacle s, these formal groups used all the most flowery costumes they owned, including crowns and sceptres, torches and swords. Dumbshows appeared at the end of each act to summarize the events of the following act. By the turn of the century, dumb-shows were considered old-fahsioned and corny. Processions were more solemn as actors moved mannequin-like across the stage. jigs at the conclusion of a play, the actors would dance around the stage.Separate from the plays, these were bawdy, knockabout song-and-dance farces. much resembling popular ballads, jigs were often commentaries on politics or religion. masques masques were plays put on strictly by the royals. These were celebrations, i. e. royal weddings or winning a battle. designed as banquets of the senses, these celebrations spanned several days during which each member of the party played a part in the allegorical theme of the banquet. Masques were always held in private playhouses.