Theatrical traditions and practices in the Elizabethan time

1
Theatrical traditions and practices in the
Elizabethan time

• Medieval and classical traditions sources of the
  Renaissance theatre.
• Theatres outside the City representations of
  power on stage.
• Censorship and royal protection.
• Ownership of plays.
• Social status/position of players.
• The Elizabethan stage and theatre structure.
• Elizabethan audience.
• Representations of power in Elizabethan politics.
  Theatricallity in political life.

2
Medieval and classical traditions as sources from
the Renaissance theatre

• The Greek culture is the originator of theatrical
  performance
• It produced the first permanent, purpose built
  performance arenas
• The Greek tradition entered the Roman world
• Following the conversion of the Roman Empire to
  Christianity, theatres closed in the 5th Century
• The church provided the impetus for the revival
  of theatre, commissioning a variety of plays on
  religious themes (Miracle and Mystery Plays)
• A third kind of religious drama, the Morality
  Play appeared around 1400 as a dramatized
  allegory

3
Censorship and royal protection

• Respectable people and officers of the Church
  frequently made complaint of the growing number
  of play-actors and shows
• The plays were often lewd and profane,
  play-actors were mostly vagrant, irresponsible,
  and immoral people
• Taverns and disreputable houses were always found
  in the neighborhood of the theaters
• The theater itself was a public danger of
  spreading disease.
• Fortunately, the stage had a powerful friend in
  Queen Elizabeth.
• The fight over the theatres resolved itself
  mainly into a struggle on the part of the queen's
  agents, or counsel, to outwit the decrees of the
  city Corporation

4
Composition and ownership of plays.

• A play might be written, handed over to the
  manager of a company of actors, and produced with
  or without the author's name
• Often the author ignored all subsequent affairs
  connected with ownership
• Dramatists of the time served an apprenticeship
• Plays were the property, not of the author, but
  of the acting companies
• The parts were learned by the actors, and the
  manuscript locked up.
• Neither authors nor managers had any protection
  from pirate publishers, who frequently issued
  copies of successful plays without the consent of
  either

5
Theatres built outside the City impact on
representation of power on the stage

• In 1574 regulations were brought in and applied
  to playing-places within the city limits.
• Playwrighters used the stage as a sort of forum
  for the dissemination of their opinions
• Under Queen Mary rules were strict on the ground
  that they encouraged freedom of thought and
  criticism of public affairs.
• Under Elizabeth political and religious subjects
  were forbidden on the stage.
• Elizabeth's policy was to compromise. She
  regulated the abuses, but allowed the players to
  thrive
• The Puritans wanted to stop plays altogether, as
  the works of Satan.

6
Social status/position of the players

• The 16th century a chronic state of resentment
  on account of play-actors and playhouses.
• The reasons for their complaints were, for the
  most part, sound enough.
• Some people contended that it was sacrilegious
  for men to dress up in clothes belonging to the
  other sex.
• To avoid charges of vagrancy, players would join
  a company with a nobleman as a patron.
• The stigma of dishonor rested upon playwrights,
  players, and on the theater itself

7
The Elizabethan stage and the structure of the
theatre

• Public performances generally took place in the
  afternoon
• The price of entrance varied with the theater,
  the play, and the actors
• The audience was near and could view the stage
  from three sides
• Effects were gained from bright decorations of
  the stage, the gorgeous and costly costumes of
  the actors and their skillful performance.
• The stage consisted of three main areas
• The Open Stage
• The Inner Stage.
• The Upper Stage

8
Elizabethan audience

• Audiences were socially mixed servants, grooms,
  apprentices and mechanics jostled each other in
  the pit
• Women of respectability were few
• On the stage would be seated a few of the early
  gallants, playing cards, smoking
• The public theatres were built to cater to a wide
  variety of levels of income
• The most sophisticated members of audience would
  have been the actors
• Queen Elizabeth herself saw many of Shakespeare's
  plays in special performances at Court.

9
Representation of power in Elizabethan politics.
Theatrically in political life.

• Elizabeth was the first monarch to understand the
  importance of public relations
• Elizabeth had to improvise a new model, one that
  would overcome the cultural liability of her sex.
  
• The monarch was at the pinnacle of the state, a
  relatively impoverished and weak state.
• Elizabeth developed a strategy of rule that
  blended imperious command with an extravagant,
  histrionic cult of love
• Her passion for dress was bound up with political
  calculation and an acute self-consciousness about
  her image
• Artists celebrated her in a variety of
  mythological guises Diana, the chaste goddess of
  the moon Astraea, the goddess of justice
  Gloriana, the queen of fairies