The Renaissance Theater

1
The Renaissance Theater

• Shakespeare and Macbeth

2
Types of Plays

• Miracle and Mystery plays
• Taught people stories from the Bible and saints
  legends
• Moralities
• Taught people how to live and die
• Interlude
• One-act plays, some indistinguishable from
  moralities, others rowdy and farcical

3
Old Traditions, New Theaters

• 1576 James Burbage
• Built first public theater
• Called The Theater
• - 2nd playhouse
• Called the Curtain
• The Rose, the Swan, the Fortune, the Globe, the
  Red Bull, and the Hope

4
The Globe This Wooden O

• Shakepeares company owned it
• Has three main parts
• The building proper
• The stage
• The tiring house (backstage)
• Flag flew from peak to indicate performances
• Three stories high
• Would hold up to 3,000 people

5
Behind the Scenes

• Tiring house contained machinery and dressing
  rooms and provided back wall for the stage
• Gallery specatators sat, musicians could
  perform, or parts of play could be acted

6
Music Most Eloquent

• Play goers expected to see tragedy or comedy
• Play goers expected to hear music
• Vocal and instrumental

7
Shakespeare

• 36 remarkable plays
• Born April 26, 1564
• At 18 married Anne Hathaway (26)
• Had three children
• Susanna
• Hamnet and Judith

8
Background

• Women on stage by late 1660 (a woman played
  Desdemona in Othello)
• Shakespeares company had 12 adult members and
  four boy apprentices

9
Renaissance Tragedies

• Drama had to be about real people whose deeds are
  recorded in history

10
Macbeth

• About real people
• Men and women tempted by ambition and power
• Caught up in a web of wants and needs
• King James I (whom Macbeth is about)
• Historical Lady Macbeths name Gruach 1909
  British Isles Dictionary of National Biographies

11

• Macbeth brave and intelligent man deliberately
  murders one of his fellowmen, his friends, his
  Kinsman, his guest, his king, - and then he must
  kill two other men
• Evil course leads him to further appalling crimes
• Eventually leads to disgrace, alienation,
  isolation, despair, violent death, and
  decapitation

12
Tragedy

• Human actions have inevitable consequences in
  which the characters bad deeds, errors,
  mistakes, and crimes are never forgiven or
  rectified
• Literary work depicting serious events in which
  the main character, who is often high ranking and
  dignified, comes to an unhappy end

13

• Tragedy centers on a hero
• High status
• Possesses a weakness, or tragic flaw
• Ultimately causes characters downfall
• Catastrophe and conclusion leave audience with a
  sense of cartharsis or cleansing

14
Themes

• Ambition
• Guilt
• Power

15
Imagery

• Blood
• Clothing
• Light and darkness
• Sickness and health
• Unnatural events in nature that mirror human evil

16
Witchcraft

• According to superstition, the body parts of
  people who had suffered violent deaths were very
  powerful in working black magic

17
Understanding Archaic Language

• Archaic Form
• hath
• oer
• afeard
• didst

• Modern Translation
• has
• over
• afraid
• did