The Elizabethan Stage

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The Elizabethan Stage

• Basic Information Theater
• Audience Information
• Physical Aspects of Globe
• The Sets and Effects
• The Actors

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Basic Information

• performed wherever they could find space, usually
  in court yards
• First permanent theater
• built in 1576
• outside of London
• Built by James Burbage
• named The Theater

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The Theater Changed

• 1599 The Theater moved across River
• Moved b/c of raised rent
• Renamed The Globe Theater

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Audience Information

• Audience stood seats for only paying customers
• Officials tried to close theaters due to waste
  of time
• 1592-1594 London closed theaters to help not
  spread the plague

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Physical Aspects of the Globe

• Wooden O
• open space - 65 in diameter
• surrounded by a circular building
• 30 high with 3 tiers of seats
• stage 5 high, 40X30 rectangle

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New Globe Theatre Stage Picture New Globe Theatre Stage Picture New Globe Theatre Stage Picture
                                                                                          
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Globe Theater

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Globe Performance
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Balcony Seats The Globe
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The Sets and Effects

• Bare stage, but used flags, banners and musicians
• actors lowered from heavens by cranes
• Torches used to make night
• Sound Effects- Cannon
• (sparks from cannon set fire to Globe and
  destroyed it)

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The Elizabethan Actor

• Fencing Audience loved duels
• Tumbling Lots of movement
• Dancing
• Elocution Words were very important
• Acting Many young boys played female roles with
  wigs and makeup
• Music

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ACTORS

• All actors were male (played both roles)
• considered rogues, vagabonds, sturdy beggars,
  common players

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Shakespeares Life

• Lived 1564-1616 days of Queen Elizabeth
• Greatest and Famous Playwright/poet
• Born April 23, 1564 in Stratford-on-Avon
• 1 of 8 kids

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Family Life

• 1582 he married Anne Hathaway.
• 1583 first child born, Susanna
• 1585 twins born, Hamnet and Judith

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Shakespeare Married

• His wife, Anne, was the daughter of a local
  doctor in Stratford.
• This was Shakespeare and Annes home in
  Stratford.

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The Playwright

• Rival was Robert Greene
• Was an actor for 20 years from 1585-1605
• 1594 Charter Member of
  
  Lord
  Chamberlains Men
• 1603 Lord Chamberlains Men became the Kings
  Men

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His Works

• 154 sonnets, 37 plays, 2 book length narratives
  poems
• Histories, Comedies, and Tragedies
• Great Tragedies Julius Caesar, Hamlet, Othello,
  King Lear, Macbeth, Antony and Cleopatra, and
  Romeo and Juliet

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More Info. on Works

• All plays written for Kings paid 40 per play
• His plays were published 7 years after his death
• 1623 the First Folio was published-this is a
  collection of the supposed true original copies
  of Shakespeares plays

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What Inspired him?

• characters were REAL people (some historical
  people)
• other plays and poems

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Caesar Inspiration

• (well be reading parts of this play later!)
• 1599 Julius Caesar was written it was inspired
  by Plutarchs Lives of Noble Grecians and Romans

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What was his Genius?

• Understanding of the people
• Commoners
• Rich
• Human nature
• Skilled with words
• Charismatic

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Why does he appeal to us?

• People are always quoting him.
• It was Greek to me
• A sorry sight
• In a pickle
• To be or not to be
• All that glitters is not gold
• elbow room
• downstairs
• The long and short of it

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Appeal?

• He is serious, funny, angry, ironical
• He does not make moral judgments
• He captures in words and actions all the great
  problems that have tormented human beings
  throughout the ages. We take comfort in the
  fact that the hero has flaws and is not perfect.