The Early Modern TheaterCultural Context

Tudor Period: (1485-1603) 1517: Reformation begins/LutherHenry VII to Elizabeth 1588: Spanish ArmadaElizabethan (1558-1603) 1605: Gunpowder Plot

Stuart Period: 1620: Pilgrims land in PlymouthJacobean (1603-1625) 1649: Charles I beheadedCarolinean (1625-1649) 1662: Act of Uniformity; 1673: Test Act; Commonwealth (1649-1660)1686: Tolerance

Restoration (1660-1685) 1665, 1666: Fire, PlagueCharles II (1660-1685) 1681: Exclusion CrisisJames II (1685-1688) 1689: Bill of Rights

ReformationFeudal to capitalistic societyUnrest and conflict: negotiation btw “divine right of kings and liberty of people” (Thomson 192)

Birth of a truly professional theater; also meant decline of truly popular/populist theater; increasingly becomes a high cultural activity

Major developments in Renaissance Theater History: Court Pageantry, Progresses, and Household Players

Developed in part from Medieval processionals, adapted for the civic demands of an early modern state

Machiavelli: A prince “at convenient seasons of the year, ought to keep the people occupied with festivals and shows.” To calm the masses? To reaffirm power?

The “progress”--a monarch's parade or procession through his or her dominions, displaying self, wealth, power to public (Thomson 175, 190)

Court pageantry marks a delight in representation, but also expensive “self-advertisement” and tactics for enacting the “claim[s] to political power” (Berthold 368)

Household players: liveried precursors to professional actors in England; provided powerful families entertainment, also went on tour, representing powerful families (opportunities for spying!) Warwick's Men, Leicester's Men, etc. to King's and Duke's Men, professional troupes given patents after Restoration

Tudor legislation moved increasingly to limit unlicensed or strolling players, in part to control the “masterless men” (Thomson 179).

In 1572, in fact, players were defined as vagabonds—criminals subject to arrest, whipping, and branding unless they were “liveried” servants of an aristocratic household. Burbage's company and others used this loophole in the law to their advantage by persuading various lords to lend their names (and often little more) to the companies, which thus became the Lord Chamberlain's or the Lord Strange's Men. Furthermore, “popular” drama, performed by professional acting companies for anyone who could afford the price of admission, was perceived as too vulgar in its appeal to be considered a form of art.

—Steven Mullaney, “Shakespeare and the Liberties”

Major developments in Renaissance Theater History: Professional Theater

First professional, secular drama developed in the Renaissance; by late 16th century, theater “had become an established part of city life” (Berthold 391); popular entertainment that embraced a variety of ranks and classes. Cost for admittance to an open air playhouse: 1 penny

Actors and managers could become wealthy; early modern “star system” developed, which would continue well into the modern period

Companies were organized like guilds and businesses; all takings went into a common pool, from which shareholders who put up money for performances recouped expenses; extra went to actors

Some actors were also shareholders

Playwrights didn't own their plays; sold copyright to a principal who then made money from performances. Actually received very little money, unless a member of the company or a shareholder.

Plays were commodities, and actors, entrepreneurs (Thomson 181)

Elizabethan Theater: Censure of the Stage

Stephen Gosson, Playes Confuted in Five Actions (1582)

Thomas White (1577): theater a sink of iniquity that “set a-gog: theft and whoredom; pride and prodigality; villainy and blasphemy”

Master Rainoldes, Th'overthrow of stage-playes (1599), a diatribe specifically against crossdressing in the theater

Some censure legitimate: opportunities for lawlessness and violence, congestion of traffic, encouragement of disreputable taverns, and danger of the spread of the plague. Theaters were often closed throughout the period, often in times of political turmoil or when contagions were feared.

Some less so: blasphemy of cross-dressing; 1580, an earthquake, and 1581, resurgence of the plague: signs from god (one churchman wrote that the theater caused these disturbances); chastised as “popish” (especially when discovered that the Church had used theater to teach scriptural history in Medieval period)

Increasing suspicion of acting as deliberate deception; “sensitivity about the very idea of impersonation” (Thomson 187)--CHIEFLY B/C OF THREATS TO AUTHORITY. CAN AN ACTOR PLAY A KING?

The Elizabethan Theater

Two forms: private and public, as usual! (Private: some court functions, plays performed for/by private families, or in schools)

Public theaters: octagonal ring-like structures; roofs weren't added until Jacobean period (Thomson 192)

BUT, enclosed—this lead to more accuracy in moneytaking; the first box office (Thomson 178)

First permanent building designed purposely for theater: 1567, The Red Lion (Stepney) ;1576 , James Burbage built The Theatre (Shoreditch); 1577, The Curtain [all these men were entrepreneurs, marketeers interested in profit]

On the right bank of the Thames (Southwark): The Rose (1587), the Swan (c.

1595), and the Globe (1599), built from timbers of the original Theatre

Located in “the liberties” of London, its outskirts—areas free from certain authorities (Steven Mullaney)

When performances were to occur, playhouses would fly flags: white for comedies, black for tragedies

"Hope Theatre: London theatres c. 1600." Online Map/Still. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. 25 Feb. 2008 <http://www.britannica.com/eb/art-2974>.

The “liberties or suburbs” of early modern London bear little resemblance to modern suburbs in either a legal or a cultural sense. They were a part of the city, extending up to 3 miles (5 km) from its ancient Roman wall, yet in crucial aspects were set apart from it; they were also an integral part of a complex civic structure common to the walled medieval and Renaissance metropolis, a marginal geopolitical domain that was nonetheless central to the symbolic and material economy of the city. Free, or “at liberty,” from manorial rule or obligations to the crown, the liberties “belonged” to the city yet fell outside the jurisdiction of the lord mayor, the sheriffs of London, and the Common Council, and they constituted an ambiguous geopolitical domain over which the city had authority but, paradoxically, almost no control.

—Steven Mullaney, “Shakespeare and the Liberties”

Viewed from a religious perspective, the liberties were marked as places of the sacred, or of sacred pollution in the case of the city's lepers, made at once holy and hopelessly contaminated by their affliction. From a political perspective, the liberties were the places where criminals were conveyed for public executions, well-attended and sometimes festive rituals that served to mark the boundary between this life and the next in a more secular fashion. From a general point of view, the margins of the city were places where forms of moral excess such as prostitution were granted license to exist beyond the bounds of a community that they had, by their incontinence, already exceeded.

—Steven Mullaney, “Shakespeare and the Liberties”

"Southwark: view of London from Southwark." Online Photograph. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. 25 Feb. 2008 <http://www.britannica.com/eb/art-11110>.

‘Long View' of London from Southwark, Wenceslaus Hollar, 1647.

Note the clearly visible—and labeled—Globe, as well as the nearby Bear Garden.

The Material Stage

Round/octagonal structure with three tiers of spectator galleries and the pit; small, people were crowded together; but, rowdy and loud.

Social background and ability to pay dictated where members of the public sat or stood in a theatre.

- Groundlings/Pit: 1 penny admission- Covered bench seats in upper galleries: 2 pennies- “Lords' rooms” next to the balcony, overhanging the stage: 6 pennies, a day's wages

for a highly skilled worker

Proscenium stage (thrust stage—as opposed to simple platform, more playing space than on Continental stages; less “raking,” no perspective scenery [203])

Gallery above stage supported by pillars (for musicians, noble patrons, upper stage for acting)

Above gallery, windowed loft (trumpeters, etc) Behind stage, dressing rooms accessible by doors; also where actors

entered/exited Very few props, very little if any scenery; essentially a bare stage Played in contemporary dress; rich patrons could afford rich clothes for

actors; sumptuary law exemptions (Thomson 170) No women on stage, though women did attend performances regularly

Jan de Witt, Dutch visitor to England in 1596, describes the Rose and the Swan as the finest of the four London playhouses.

This is a Renaissance drawing of the Swan made for him from his notes—the only extant visual contemporary record of an Elizabethan theater (outside of maps, which frequently shows their locations).

Note the trumpeter in the loft, the flag announcing a performance, the Lords' seats, the three tiers of bench seating, the pit, and the proscenium stage.

The Material Stage

Bare stage, few props, daytime performances (3:00-6:00pm) Mood had to be created by actor himself and the words he speaks Called “spoken decor”--a “crucial stylistic feature of the Elizabethan

stage” (Berthold 403) Playwrights used it for both aesthetic and practical purposes, and

actors used it to capture the audience The crowd “was silent only if the actors silenced it” (Thomson 181) Midsummer Night's Dream: the Rude Mechanicals' inept, overdrawn

attempts to paint a night scene and describe an actor as a wall:

Pyramus

O grim-look'd night! O night with hue so black! O night, which ever art when day is not! O night, O night! alack, alack, alack, I fear my Thisby's promise is forgot! And thou, O wall, O sweet, O lovely wall, That stand'st between her father's ground and mine! Thou wall, O wall, O sweet and lovely wall, Show me thy chink, to blink through with mine eyne!

Other Considerations:

Because outdoor (noise from city, Thames) and populated by unruly crowds (rotten fruit thrown at bad actors), acting likely dependent on a clear, “penetrating voice and widely visible gestures” (Berthold 401)

Some evidence that bombast and ranting becoming less acceptable, but definitely not absent—especially in tragedies

In comedies, low humor was enjoyed by all classes; NOT SIMPLE “COMIC RELIEF”!!! (Thomson 189, 190-191), though theater moving in direction of “high culture” by way of professionalization/gentrification

Significant gestures still very choreographed and meaningful, a practice that continues into the Restoration period—not “realistic” acting by our standards

No stage lighting

Relatively less stage machinery—trap doors were used, and some cranes, but in general relatively unspectacular (unlike Continental Renaissance and Medieval performance)

By this time, England had become a Protestant nation

Some things have double the ill, both naturally in spreading the infection [of the plague], and otherwise in drawing God's wrath and plague upon us, as the erecting and frequenting of houses very famous for incontinent rule [italics added] out of our liberties and jurisdiction.

—Nicholas Woodrofe, lord mayor of London in 1580

Playhouses were regarded not merely as a breeding ground for the plague but as the thing itself, an infection “pestering the City” and contaminating the morals of London's apprentices. Theatres were viewed as houses of Proteus, and, in the metamorphic fears of the city, it was not only the players who shifted shapes, confounded categories, and counterfeited roles. Drama offered a form of “recreation” that drew out socially unsettling reverberations of the term, since playhouses offered a place “for all masterless men and vagabond persons that haunt the highways, to meet together and to recreate themselves [italics added].” The fear was not that the spectators might be entertained but that they might incorporate theatrical means of impersonation and representation in their own lives—for example, by dressing beyond their station and thus confounding a social order reliant on sumptuary codes to distinguish one social rank from another.

—Steven Mullaney, “Shakespeare and the Liberties”

Jacobean and Stuart Court Theater Under James II and Charles I, strict regulation of political topics in drama (Thomson

195) Elaborate masques “celebrat[ed] the serene authority of a King” (Thomson 196) were

the most “significant early Stuart contributions to the development of English theatre” (196), not because of the drama, but because of the “theatrical conduct” of the event itself.

Members of the court—women included—performed roles in an elaborate “courtly ritual” (196); example of Charles I becoming part of Salmacida spolia (201)

Gave an “illusion of security” belied by the rebelliousness and popular appeal of the public theaters, and of the very real political tensions of the period. Masque/antimasque—order/disorder harmonized and neutralized (200)

Very expensive, elaborate, stylized (198)--Inigo Jones “the acme of theatrical elitism” (199); Hierarchy, perspective...

Antitheatricalism continued to grow William Prynne (201-2); Court theater “reeked of Catholic ritual”; “corrputing guile of

women” (201) Harshly punished by Charles I [Gunpowder plot, Catholic intolerance; Charles I

tyranny—execution, itself a theatrical event (203)

Interregnum Some theater, but not much; public theaters closed 1655, Lord Mayor's pageant reestablished, Davenant lured back to stage an opera

(204)

Major developments in Early Renaissance Theater HistoryPerspective Scenery

Flowering of arts and sciences in Reniassance led to refinements in stage décor and construction

Beginning in Italian renaissance, stages “raked” to accommodate a vanishing point well beyond the back of the theater.

Offered a perfect illusion—to the person seated in the right place. Court and “humanist” theater, not really “popular” or “public”

Italian architect Sebastiano Serlio codified the scenery for comedies, tragedies, and pastoral plays (1545, Architettura)

In England, Inigo Jones brought Italianate perspective scenery to the stage—but this was only in the beginning of the 17th century, and it primarily impacted court theater.

Jones and Jonson: the Stuart court masque—perspective scenery part of elaborate court theater, but not likely popular/public (Thomson 203)

Teatro Olimpico, the first permanent indoor theatre, designed by Andrea Palladio and completed by Vincenzo Scamozzi, 1585, Vicenza, Italy.

Fixed scenery in the Teatro Olimpico, built by Andrea Palladio. Opened in 1584.

Serlio's plans for (left to right) tragic, pastoral, and comic plays. Note the use of perspective and the shortened acting space, marked out in squares.

Jacobean Public Theater

Period known for its “revenge tragedies,” like Ford's 'Tis Pity—which also has a masque in it! But there, the illusion of security is not maintained; the masque becomes a mockery of the idea itself, because Hippolyta tries to kill Soranzo there

Indoor theaters

Innovated largely by consideration of the weather Drew fashionable audiences, trend that would continue during the Restoration Indoor theaters very small (St. Paul's playhouse—less than 200) Some on-stage seating, making the spectator an actor (Thomson 192) “liveliness of discourse between actor and audience” (192) More decline in truly popluar theater, toward “gentrified” activity—though no less

rowdy in the Restoration!! All later development was indoors

Restoration Theater

Two monopolies granted by Charles II to Duke's and King's Men; others could be prosecuted for playing without patents or licenses (two companies merged in 1682)

Governed by symmetry—important in plays (like The Rover), as in theaters themselves; sense of order, control

The Material Stage

Two rooms, separated by archway and drop-curtain; musicians' balcony above (212)

Scenic stage (court masque innovations/perspective scenery/machinery) proscenium/forestage (site of action) and auditorium

Lit by candles—length of burning indicates play intervals (206) Audience and actors in close proximity, though this would wane by century's

end Forestage acting gives actors a lot more freedom and power, contact with

audience• Three, sometimes four distinct seating areas

Increasingly, the theater became a place to “see and be seen.” Some members of the audience—wealthier, privileged—could sit on the stage,

making them part of the drama. Pit, boxes, galleries (upper/lower)

Gentrifying the Popular Playhouse

• Truly popular playhouses and opportunities for dramatic expression (like those in the Medieval period) going the way of the dodo under demands of professionalization

• Minority clientele; higher admission costs (fewer could attend)• Pit: half crown admission (2s 6p); Benches appeared after 1660• Galleries: 18 pence (middle/lower); 1 shilling (upper—rear of

playhouse)• Boxes: 4 shillings (multitiered boxes rising above pit on all 3 sides)

• Seating for 600-800 (remember Greek theaters???)• 3:00 starting time (meant workers couldn't attend); but, as century

progressed, time pushed back, to generate more audiences• After early play, more partying for the wealthier classes—for the aristocratic

theater-goer, the day didn’t start until the theater began

Sexual and Social Spectacle

• Each seating area occupied a distinct price point, and therefore distinct classes of people occupied each.

• Box seating was the most expensive area of the auditorium, a box costing 4 shillings (20p).

• Boxes were used by people of high class and mostly by ladies and their protective husbands, though women often went to the playhouses unattended.

• A gallant might approach the boxes in an attempt to charm the lady of his choice, but it was certainly no place for him to spend the entire performance. In some theatres approach to the boxes was in fact quite easy as the height of the pit brought the boxes and pit almost level.

• Wits sat in the pit: Sparkish in The Country Wife will not sit in the boxes as he wants to be thought of as a theatre critic not just an admirer of fashion: 'SPARK. Pshaw! I'll leave Harcourt with you in the box to entertain you, and that's as good; / if I sat in the box, I should be thought no judge but of trimmings' (here 'trimmings' means fashions. Act ii, Scene i.)." 

Restoration Mores

“Reassessment of sexual values” (207); more permissive theater-going society under Charles II (wealthier clientele)

“Charles II, a gentleman and a libertine, set the style of the public theatres” (207)

Actresses

Actresses introduced onto the public stage with the two patents Charles II lived on Continent during interregnum, familiar with female actresses Made to seem “social reform”, but not really—women on stage became “sex

objects rather than symbols of sexual equality” (208) Frequent rape scenes—sexualizes the assault; Breeches parts—designed to show

off women's legs Women sold more tickets (like physical comedy did in Elizabethan times)

Restoration Comedy

Charles II: the “merry monarch”; comedy favored Most set in town, or at least speaking to town concerns [history thus far almost

demands it—professional, urban, commercial center] Rambling: wandering the town in search of sex or material pleasures (213)**, is a

frequent source of plot Typically conclude in marraige, but more as a convention than a moral imperative;

a “necessary rite of passage” Worldly-wise, often cynical, very frank about sexual exchange and commerce

Moral Opposition Grows

By the end of the 17th century, “moral opposition to the theatre was growing” (218)

1692: Society for the Reformation of Manners Jeremy Collier: 1693, A Short View on the Immorality of the Stage “Powerful propaganda signalled the end of an age”, but didn't cause it (218)--

London theatres were being hit where it hurt the most: the pocket Prosecutions, managerial in-fighting and power plays, lack of competition (after

United Company) Many famous and respected actors made a point to return to provincial tours

and fairground performances, so “refus[ing] to be tied down by any one” Moves to “disempower actors had begun” (219); it would become a manager's

theater, rather than an actor's theater. Before long, the forestage interaction between actor and audience, essential to

Restoration theater, would be curtailed and the audience would be separate from the drama on stage—our legacy, today.