Task 1: Exploring Techniques: Shakespearean Theatre / Elizabethan Theatre

 Shakespeare

What is Elizabethan Theatre?

• Elizabethan theatre consists of plays that were performed in England during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I and it originated in 1558. 

• All acting was undertaken by men as it was seen as an unsuitable profession for women. Teenage boys played female parts as their voices hadn't yet broken so had higher voices than adult men. Actors were known as 'players' and they were apart of a company that was often sponsored by rich noblemen. Rehearsals were brief and led by the lead or actor or playwright. Scripts weren't full so actors often just learnt their own part as scripts had to be hand written. This then meant actors were expected to improvise/extemporise around their part, especially for comedy roles. In a typical script, there were no stage directions or details about the scene's location as the descriptions/instructions were embedded into the lines. This led to the surroundings being described by the characters. Audiences came to hear plays not necessarily to actually see. Plays/ theatres brought it such big audiences which meant you couldn't always actually see the stage and what's being performed on it. The layout of The Globe theatre reflects this.

 The Globe Theatre

• This theatre is associated with the actor and playwright, William Shakespeare and it was built by Shakespeare's playing company, 'The Lord Chamberlain's Men'. The original Globe theatre was destroyed in a fire on the 29th June, 1613. A second replacement Globe theatre was built on the same site by June 1614 but it closed in 1642. In 1997, a modern reconstruction of the Globe (named "Shakespeare's Globe" was opened approximately 230 metres from the site of the original theatre. 

• The photo to the left is a drawing of the original Globe theatre and on the right is a photo of the modern reconstruction of the Globe theatre.

• The Globe theatre is an open-air theatre. This allowed daylight to get into the theatre as the shows had to be in daylight as electricity didn't exist. If shows were at night, you wouldn't be able to see anything as there was no way to light up the stage other than candles which wouldn't light the stage up properly or to today's standard.

• The Globe theatre's stage is part theatre in the round and part thrust stage. The stage is raised and flat and is surrounded by walls all around it to give the theatre this circular shape. This places audiences all around the stage and has an audience member able to see every angle of the performances.
• The theatre had trapdoors for trickery paired with a large acting area that was 14x9.5m (approximately) with 2 pillars. All special effects in sound were done live, for example, a cannon ball down a shute was used to create a lightning sound effect. Shows began at 2pm to ensure there was enough daylight to light up the actors and the stage. 3000 people attended each show and the entrance fees depended on where you sat in the theatre, for example, the groundlings paid a penny to stand in front of the stage. 
• Set and scenery was moved up and down on winches and the costumes were in the style of the day. However, different use of fabrics denoted status. For example, Royalty was denoted through a rich fabric, a comic character might have had a quirky costume like a feather in a cap. 
• Most importantly, the acting style was dramatic and over the top!

Techniques in Elizabethan Theatre

Soliloquy

• Literature's most famous soliloquy has to be Hamlet's, "To be or not to be...". A soliloquy is a literary or dramatic technique in which a single character talks aloud their inner thoughts to him or herself but not within earshot of another character. The only ones who actually 'hear' the soliloquy is the audience. Soliloquy's are typically lengthy with a dramatic tone. 

Aside

• The aside existed in Shakespeare's times but continued into the melodramas of the 19th century. An aside usually involves one character who is addressing the audience "on the side". When the character addresses the audience they are delivering valuable information in relation to the plot or other characters. This empowers an audience as they now know more about what's happening on stage than most of the characters do. 

Boys Playing Female Roles

• Women were not allowed to be actors as it was seen as an unsuitable profession for a woman to do. Women were not legally permitted to act on a stage until King Charles II was crowned in 1660. Due to no female actors, young boys who had not yet hit puberty had to play the female roles as their voices had not yet broken, while the men played all male roles. The image below shows a young boy playing Juliet from the movie, 'Shakespeare in Love'. 

Masque                                                             

• Masque were allegorical stories about an event or person involving singing, acting and dancing. It was normally performed indoors at the King or Queen's Court. It was spoken in verse and involved beautiful costumes as well as  an intellectual element appropriate for mainly people who were upper class and educated. Characters in a Masque wore elaborate masks to hide their faces.

Eavesdropping

• Eavesdropping was a dramatic technique that was a mixture of the techniques soliloquy and an aside. Unlike a soliloquy, eavesdropping is where certain characters would strategically overhear others on stage, therefore informing themselves and the audience  of the plot while the characters being overheard have no idea. This technique gave playwright's the opportunity to evolve plots for plays. Shakespeare's play, 'Much Ado About Nothing' uses this technique throughout the play. 

Presentational Acting Style

•  Scholars agree that Elizabethan acting was largely presentational in style. Plays were more like a 'performance' and the actors on stage were aware of the audiences presence instead of ignoring them when they are on stage. Techniques such as, aside and soliloquy were all variations on a characters' direct address to the audience. Movements and gestures were also more stylised and dramatic than what you'd think a modern naturalistic or realistic drama would have.

Dialogue

• 
  Plays contained dialogue that was poetic and dramatic. This was what the speech was generally like but depending on what class the character is from depended on that characters dialogue. Often a character that is lower class had speech that was colloquial. This means the speech is not formal and is ordinary or familiar conversation. An upper class character would speak stylised with rhythmic speech patterns known as verse. Shakespeare took great care writing the dialogue for his plays that was sometimes blank or unrhymed. He also used rhyming couplets and often used iambic pentameter. Iambic pentameter is a literary device that uses 5 stressed syllables in a line of dialogue. To the right is an example of iambic pentameter in Shakespeare's, 'Hamlet'.

Play Within a Play

• This technique was used by a range of playwrights, the mots famous being William Shakespeare. It involves staging a play inside the play itself. One of the most famous examples of this technique is in, 'Hamlet' when Hamlet organises an out-of-town troupe of performers to attend one evening and perform a play to king Claudius who Hamlet is suspicious of and accuses hum of murdering his father for the throne. The play that is performed by the troupe involves the same plot line as the events in the larger play but in a different setting. This technique was used judiciously and with purpose.

Stagecraft

• 
  Costumes in Elizabethan theatre were flamboyant and elaborate but the scenery was the complete opposite. Stages and acting spaces were empty which is known as a 'bare stage'. The set pieces were isolated and there was a minimal use of props. Due to lack of imagery on stage, the dialogue had to be full of imagery to describe the scene's location and to describe what the characters are supposedly 'seeing' to an audience. There were no stage lights due to the lack of technology at the time and the set sometimes had a balcony at the rear of the stage could be used for scenes including fantastical beings, Gods or Heaven. On the other hand, a trap door could be used to take a character to hell or raise characters up from beneath. Unlike modern theatres, the stage exits were 2 doors at the rear of the stage instead of the usual side wings. 
  

Who is Shakespeare?

Background

• 
  William Shakespeare was born on the 23rd of April in 1564 in Stratford-upon-Avon. He died on his birthday in 1616. He was a renowned English poet, playwright and actor and he became one of the most influential and significant people in not juts theatre but in English history. He was a writer during the Elizabethan and Jacobean ages of British theatre.
• John Shakespeare and Mary Arden married and together they had 8 children, one of them being William Shakespeare. William Shakespeare lived at home in his house on Henley street until he was 18 when he married 26 year old, Anne Hathaway. Together they had 3 children: Susanna, Hamnet and Judith. Hamnet died at aged 11. 
• Shakespeare's career jumpstarted in London but there is no evidence to when Shakespeare arrived to London and no data of his existence for some years. Scholars refer to these as, 'The Lost Years'. They were between the year's 1585 to 1592.
• There is one thing we know. In 1585, Shakespeare was appointed to Lord Chamberlain's office. During this time, Shakespeare founded/ became a part of an acting troupe and by 1590 they were known as, 'The Lord Chamberlain's Men'. At this time, Shakespeare wrote his plays and his actor friend, Richard Burbage was the first to play some of Shakespeare's famous characters including, 'Othello', 'Lear', 'Hamlet' and 'Macbeth'. 
• For the rest of his career, Shakespeare remained with, 'The Lod Chamberlain's Men' but it's name changed to, 'The King's Men' under the patronage of King James (from 1603).
• During this time, many of Shakespeare's most famous tragedies were written, such as, 'King Lear' and 'Macbeth'. As well as his most famous tragedies, this time period also welcomed Shakespeare's great romances, like, 'The Winter's Tale' and 'The Tempest'.
  

Shakespeare's Plays

• In his career, Shakespeare wrote 38 plays, 2 narrative poems, 154 sonnets and a variety of other poems. Shakespeare's farewell to the stage was his play, 'The Tempest'.  

Shakespeare's Techniques - LANGUAGE

• Anaphora: The deliberate repetition of words at the beginning of a line or phrase. 
• Antithesis: where 2 opposite ideas are placed side by side.
• Aside
• Dramatic Irony: where the audience know more than the characters on stage.
• Iambic Pentameter: where a phrase with 10 syllables has a stressed and then unstressed syllable for emphasis in a line/phrase.
• Imagery: describing, this helped with the lack of elaborate set designs.
• Soliloquy
• Sonnet: a poem with 14 lines written in a specific rhyme scheme and structure.
• Stichomythia: dialogue in which a single line spoken by one character is answered by another character's line that plays off the language of the first.
• Symbolism: where symbols are used to represent ideas or qualities, beyond an object's literal meaning.
• Juxtaposition: 2 things put together that have a contrasting idea.

Shakespeare's Techniques - DRAMA

• Staging
• Setting
• Characterisation
• Aside
• Monologues: a long speech performed by one actor/character
• Soliloquy
• Dramatic Irony
• Costume
• Sound
• Symbols
• Motifs: repeated pattern that can either be an idea, sound or word.
• Humour
• Contrast
• Special Effects 
• Foreshadowing: warning or indication for a future event.

A Midsummer's Night Dream

                                             

Synopsis

• After conquering the warrior Amazons in battle, the Duke of Athens, Theseus, is now planning to marry their queen, Hippolyta. Theseus orders amusements for his wedding and he hires Bottom the weaver and other tradesmen to prepare a play for the duke and his bride. The preparations of the play are interrupted by Egeus, an Athenian, who brings his daughter Hermia and her 2 suitors to Theseus and wants him to command Hermia to marry Demetrius. Hermia disagrees with this engagement as she in actually in love with her other suitor, Lysander. The duke orders her to obey her father under penalty of death or confinement in a convent. To avoid marrying Demetrius, Hermia and Lysander plan to meet in a nearby wood and flee to another country. Hermia tells this plan to Helena. Helena is in love with Demetrius. In order to win his love, Helena tells him of Hermia and Lysander's plan.
• In the forest, the fairy king and queen, Oberon and Titania are at odds. Oberon says to the mischievous fairy, Puck to pour a love-juice into Titania's eyelids when she sleeps in order to make her fall in love with the first  thing she sees when she wakes up. At this point, Oberon sees Demetrius, who has gone into the forest on search for Hermia and Lysander but instead he finds Helena. Seeing Helena's love for Demetrius and his coldness and distaste to Helena, Oberon makes Puck pour the love potion into Demetrius' eyes so that he falls in love with Helena.
• Meanwhile, Lysander and Hermia arrive. Instead or pouring the potion into Demetrius' eyes Puck mistakes him for Lysander and pours the potion into his eyes. Upon waking, Helena walks by and Lysander immediately falls in love with her and abandons Hermia. While all this is happening, Bottom the weaver and all his tradesmen are having their final rehearsal for their play for the duke in the same spot in the forest where Puck has been spelling Lysander and Demetrius. Puck passes them in the forest and notices Bottom. Puck magically crowns Bottom with a donkey's head. In terror, the other players run away from him. Bottom stumbles across a sleeping Titania. When she awakes, she sees Bottom first and falls in love with him.
• Oberon finds out about Pucks mistake with Lysander and Demetrius so Oberon breaks Demetrius' spell with a new potion. Demetrius notices his neglected Helena being wooed by Lysander. This awakens a jealousy in him and his love for Helena blossoms and he is ready to fight Lysander. Helena thinks they are both mocking her and Hermia is dazed by the current events. Oberon's fairies intervene with the conflict and make the four walk in the dark in the forest until they are tired and fall asleep. Puck repairs the events by breaking the spell in Lysander's eyes. When everyone awakes all will be back. Lysander will love Hermia and Demetrius will love Helena. 
• Titania is still in love with donkey-headed Bottom but this angers Oberon and he removes the spell on Titania and Bottom is restored to his human form. Bottom returns to his acting group in Athens. Theseus has a hunting trip in the forest and discovers the 4 lovers. The duke bestows Helena upon Demetrius and Hermia upon Lysander.
• Instead of one wedding feast for Theseus and Hippolyta, there is now a feast for 3 couples; Hermia and Lysander and Helena and Demetrius all get married. Bottom's players come to the feast to perform a play that is a 'comic' tragedy or Pyramus and Thisbe. After the company retires for the night, the fairies dance through the corridors on a mission of blessing and goodwill for the 3 wedded pairs.

Context

• A Midsummer Night's Dream is set in ancient Athens but in many ways the play sounds as if it is set in Elizabethan England. For example, the duke, Theseus may be a character from ancient myth but he is called a Duke and behaves like an English aristocrat. The play is very much centred in the cultural norms of the Elizabethan era. The play is thought to have been written to celebrate the wedding of Elizabeth Carey, the daughter of an English nobleman. The bride's grandfather was Lord Hunsdon, the Lord Chamberlain, a patron of Shakespeare's theatre company. The key themes of the play are love, appearance and reality.

Characters

Royalty

• Theseus: Duke of Athens
• Hippolyta: Engaged to Theseus
• Hermia: Loves Lysander but is engaged to Demetrius
• Lysander: Loves Hermia
• Helena: Previously engaged to Demetrius, still loves him
• Demetrius: Engaged to Hermia

Fairies

• Oberon: King of the fairies
• Titania: Queen of the fairies
• Puck: Oberon's jester
• Cobweb: Fairy servant
• Mustardseed: Fairy servant
• Moth: Fairy servant
• Peaseblossom: Fairy servant

Rustics/Players

• Bottom: The weaver who gets his head transformed to a donkey's head
• Quince: The leader
• Flute: Aspiring actor
• Snug: The joiner
• Snout: The tinker
• Starveling: The tailor

Main Characters