Elizabethan%20Drama

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Elizabethan Drama

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Theatre buildings

• Prior to 1576, plays frequently performed at inns
• 1576 The Theatre
• 1577 Curtain Theatre
• 1587 The Rose
• 1595 The Swan
• 1599 The Globe
• 1600 Fortune
• 1604 The Red Bull
• 1599-1629 - Indoor theatres Blackfriars,
  Whitefriars, Cockpit, Salisbury Court Theatre

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Three types of stage
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The Globe Stage

• Outer stage
• Inner stage
• Upper stage
• Hell
• Actors' entrances
• Special effects level

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The Performance

• All the actors were men or boy apprentices
• Hearing the play / viewing the play
• Setting created through dialogue
• Many stage props
• Elaborate costumes (but anachronisms)
• Audience participation

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Mimesis realism - illusion

• Definition of mimesis
• Puritans mainly reacted against theatre as
  trickery and actors as con men
• Illusions are the Devils work!
• The plays of the age became deliberately
  anti-mimetic to quieten this view
• Anti-mimetic devices the artificial language,
  boys playing women, soliloquies,
  three-dimensional playing, familiarity with
  actors, metatheatrical jokes etc.

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Performance Conditions

• Great crowd traffic - parking problems
• Plays lasted 2-3 hours
• Food and drink apples, nuts, water, bottle ale
• Toilets in the corridors (buckets) or the river
• Smells the industries, perfume, tobacco, garlic
• The hats
• Cutpurses, prostitutes, fights, riots

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Special effects

• The blood, gore, limbs
• Trapdoors in floor and ceiling
• Wires, ropes and harnesses
• Cannon in the attic
• Fireworks
• Sound effects