Theatre in the Elizabethan Age

Shakespeare and the Globe

The Elizabethan Age

A brief period of largely internal peace

During this period the government was centralized, well-organized, and effectiveEngland was also well-off compared to the other nations of Europe; the country began to benefit greatly from the new era of trans-Atlantic trade

Throughout the Middle Ages, plays were performed on “pageant wagons” and were religion-based, often retelling stories from the Bible. This ended after Henry VIII’s break from Rome and formation of the Church of England in 1533.Therefore, playwrights took inspiration from the Roman theatre and writers like Seneca, who wrote about crime, revenge, witches and ghosts.Elizabethan writers introduced theatre audiences to horror, the supernatural, and gore.

Theatre

London TheatresIn the early days, Elizabethan theatre space was located in courtyards and the larger homes of noble patrons.“The Theatre,” the first permanent theatre space in England, was built by James Burbage in 1576, but when the lease on the land expired, the landlord claimed he owned the building. On 28 December 1598, while the landlord was celebrating Christmas at his country home, a carpenter and the players dismantled The Theatre beam by beam and transported it to a waterfront warehouse.The following spring, the lumber was ferried over the Thames and reconstructed as The Globe in Southwark. William Shakespeare owned 12.5% of the theatre.

The Globe

Theatre

At The Globe

Shakespeare wrote for and performed with the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, which became the King’s Men when James I became king in 1603.

The Globe could accommodate up to 3000 people per performance.

There were no restroom facilities, and plays were performed without intermissions.

The AudienceThe public who came to the theatres paid accordingly for where they were during the play. In the yard or pit, “groundlings” paid a penny.Seats in the gallery were higher priced, perhaps two pennies for the first level, three pennies for the second and so on. It was customary to charge an extra penny when a new play was being presented.

The GroundlingsThe groundlings were very vocal and demonstrative during the plays, hissing and booing the villains and cheering for the hero. If they thought the play was bad, they would let their feelings known by throwing garbage at the stage and the actors; if they thought it was good, they would cheer loudly.

The GalleriesTo in the gallery was more expensive than in the pit, so the audience who chose to watch from here was more wealthy, consisting of shop-keepers or merchants.They would often rent straw pillows to use on the rough wooden benches used for seating in these areas.There were middle and upper galleries, and the higher in these you sat, the larger the fee to sit there.

The Lords Room

The most expensive seats were situated above the stage and the balcony. This area was used by the very wealthy to watch the plays from above.

The seats had an added benefit of allowing the rich to be seen by everyone else.

The StageTheatres of this era had what is known as a thrust stage, described this way because it projected into the yard, and the audience was able to surround it on three sides.

Heaven and Hell

On the stage, there was a trap door for performers to enter from the "cellarage" beneath the stage.Large columns on either side of the stage supported a roof over the rear portion 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 enabled performers to descend using some form of rope and harness.

The Performances There was very little scenery available, so dialogue was used to explain where the scene was taking place. Costume was very important in Elizabethan theatre; costumes would tell the audience the character’s status, family ties or profession. The Elizabethan theatre used a variety of sound effects, such as thunder, running horses, falling rain, and cannon blasts.Music played an important role in the setting the mood of the plays. Musicians performed from one of the balconies above the stage.Plays were performed in the afternoons, lit only by daylight.

Flying the Flag

The flag of the Globe pictured Atlas with the world on his shoulders.

Performances were announced by hoisting a flag above the theatre—white for comedy, black for tragedy, and red for history. Since so many people could not read, a simple system to advertise performances was necessary, especially since the plays were different almost every day.

Shakespeare TodayElizabethan theatre still plays a part in our day to day lives, mostly through the influence of Shakespeare. You can find references to his work in films, novels, plays, musicals, songs, poetry, artwork, satire…even today his characters and storylines continue to inspire.

Shakespeare in Language

Shakespeare coined over 1600 words still used today, including: accommodation, aerial, amazement, apostrophe, assassination, auspicious, baseless, bloody, bump, castigate, changeful, clangor, control (noun), countless, courtship, critic, critical, dexterously, dishearten, dislocate, dwindle, eventful, exposure, fitful, frugal, generous, gloomy, gnarled, hurry, impartial, inauspicious, indistinguishable, invulnerable, lapse, laughable, lonely, majestic, misplaced, monumental, multitudinous, obscene, perusal, pious, premeditated, radiance, reliance, road, sanctimonious, seamy, sportive, submerge, and suspicious

     

And lastly… “If you cannot understand my argument, and declare "It's Greek

to me", if your lost property has vanished into thin air, if you have ever refused to budge an inch or suffered from green-eyed jealousy, if you have played fast and loose, if you have been tongue-tied, hoodwinked or in a pickle, if you have knitted your brows, insisted on fair play, slept not one wink, laughed yourself into stitches, if you have too much of a good thing, if you have seen better days or if you think it is high time and that that is the long and short of it, if you believe that the game is up and that truth will out even if it involves your own flesh and blood, if you lie low till the crack of doom because you suspect foul play, if you have your teeth set on edge (at one fell swoop) without rhyme or reason - it is all one to me, for you are quoting Shakespeare!”

The End