Transcript English Renaissance Theatre

Renaissance
Theatre
1430 - 1630
Change is coming…
In the mid-15th century three important
events happen in rapid succession that
drastically change the availability of
knowledge:
 1429 – Nicolas of Cusa discovers 12
Senecan tragedies never before seen/read
 1453 – Constantinople falls to the Turks
 1467 – printing press is invented and its
use spreads across Europe
What happens with all these changes?
A renewed interest in classical learning and
looking to humanity, rather than the
church, for the salvation of the human
race.
The Renaissance (rebirth) begins
Looking
forward…
Medieval dramas
develop into
looser theatrical
forms that rely
on sensational
effects &
romantic
adventures
Looking
backward…
Writers attempt to
imitate Greek and
Roman plays to
achieve a
“perfection of the
classic form”
Italian Renaissance – the plays
Neoclassicism – the new old-classics
Playwrights follow rigid rules & imitate Roman writers
Seneca, Plautus, & Terence
 Renaissance writers are simply adapting & updating
ancient Roman plays
 Rules stifle creativity

Results… not much good theatre is produced
Italian Renaissance – scenic design
1545 – Sebastiano Serlio writes Architettura
showing how a theatre should be planned,
scenery built and used, establishing 3 basic
settings: tragic – comic – pastoral
Goal: give the impression of distance!

All use false perspective
(closer elements are larger than
those farther from the audience)

Stage floors are raked
(floor is sloped)
Italian Renaissance – scenic design
The PROSCENIUM ARCH theatre…
n
Italy’s most significant contribution
 1618 – Teatro Farnese is first theatre built in this new
style
 Proscenium arch provides definite separation of audience
and stage action

Commedia dell’arte
Influences
Trace back to early Roman street theatre



Public performances
Partially improvised
Troupes settled in cities, but moved locations within the
city
Roman playwrights: Terence & Platus

“borrowed” story-lines from the Classics
Commedia dell’arte
Terms to know

Commedia dell’arte
- “play of professionals”

Scenario
- Standard plot outline

Intermezzi
- short “in-between” shows

Lazzi
- bits of comic business

Stock characters
- characters who remain the same in many different plays
Commedia dell’arte
Conventions
Scenarios
Most performances, the performers would agree
on a basic scenario, the characters involved
and the eventual outcome… everything else
was left as improvisational material.
Sample Scenarios:
A - Pantalone enlists Arlecchino's help in getting
a date with Lavinia, who doesn't know he
exists. Arlecchino gives him a lot of bad
advice about his clothes and how to act.
B - Alessandra tries to get her father
Pantalone's permission to marry Fabian.
Commedia dell’arte
Conventions
Set
SET – no standard set was used… playing space could be a plain
street, a pageant wagon, a ballroom or dining hall
Commedia dell’arte
Conventions
PROPS

The battacchio (called a “slap stick” in English) a club-like

object composed of two wooden slats produces a loud smacking noise,
though little force is transferred from the object to the person being
struck. Actors may thus hit one another repeatedly with great audible
effect while causing very little actual physical damage. Typically carried
by Brighella
 The origin of the modern term “slapstick comedy” comes from this
Italian device (think Charlie Chaplin, the 3 Stooges)
Characters carried other misc. props befitting their occupation & station

Many characters had signature props. For eg: female lovers carried fans,
male lovers carried handkerchiefs & a posy
Commedia dell’arte
Conventions
Costumes & Masks

Actors wore stylized versions of modern
clothing
 stylized theatrical costumes can exaggerate
some aspect of a character
 Specific colors/patterns/cuts were used to
portray characters' age, gender role,
profession, social class, personality
 Each stock character had his/her own
“stock” costume & mask
Commedia dell’arte
Conventions
Actors (CALLED PERFORMERS)





Skills needed: acrobats, dancers, musicians, singers, orators, quick
wits, politically savvy (satire)
An actor often portrayed an individual character for so long that they
were known by the character’s name, not their own.
WOMEN ALLOWED ON STAGE!!! Only place accepted until late
17th Century England
Acting companies that stayed & traveled together, approx. 10-12
people
I Gelosi – famous commedia acting company, all family: Francesco &
Isabella Andreini
Commedia dell’arte
Conventions – Stock Characters
Inamorati - The lovers
•
RANK - The lovers are of high status in their own. They are the sons and
daughters of characters who are also high on the social ladder; very often
the female lover is Pantalone's daughter (when she is not his daughter, the
male lover is his son, and Pantalone lusts after her)
NAMES - usually have beautiful, flowery, romantic names
COSTUMES – they wore the latest Italian fashions.
•
MASKS – Lovers do not wear masks. They wear heavy makeup.
•
•
•
MOST COMMON LOVERS: (female) Donatella, Fabiana, Isabella, Ottavia;
(male) Benedetto, Fabian, Giancarlo, Ottaviano
Commedia dell’arte
Conventions – Stock Characters
The Innamorati
These characters never developed, but were necessary for the action of the plays
Commedia dell’arte
Conventions – Stock Characters
Vecchio (foolish elders)




RANK: rich, old, high ranking but not always well-respected
WHO: A category of aged, male characters. The primary members of
this group are Pantalone, Il Doctoro and Il Capitano. The word means
"old one" or simply "old" in Italian. They are overwhelmingly the
antagonists, opposing the love of the inamorati; the comic ending is
produced when the zanni manage to overcome them and unite the
lovers.
MASKS: wore ½ masks with long noses, the longer the nose, the
dumber the person
COSTUMES: dress to show wealth & look pretentious, often wear
layers
Commedia dell’arte
Il Dottore
Il Capitano
Pantalone
Vecchio – Masks & Costumes
Commedia dell’arte
Conventions – Stock Characters
Zanni (clever servants) = (Columbina Arllechino, Brighella)




CHARACTER: (the name is where we get our word "zany") is a servant
character who serves one of the Vecchi. He never does well at his job,
since all he thinks about is food or sleep. Often, he is distracted while
on a mission, after hearing the name of a fruit--or after falling
asleep. Zanni is stupid, poor, and slow, and therefore is the lowest
character on the social scale.
COSTUME: usually consists of a baggy white jumpsuit or shirt-andpants outfit, since he is too poor to afford anything else.
MASK: has a wrinkled forehead with low eyebrows, giving him a
stupid appearance. He also has a very big, wide nose with nose
hair. The larger the nose, the stupider the Zanni.
MOVEMENTS: are very big, broad, and exaggerated. He leads his
body with his head and nose (his nose sticks out way in front of the
rest of his body, and wherever his head goes, his body follows).
Commedia dell’arte
Zanni – the servants
Columbina
Arllechino
Brighella
Commedia dell’arte
Influences
Here are just some of the ways Commedia has
influenced the world since the Renaissance…





English vocabulary: "pants" from Pantalone, "zany" from the Zanni, Harlequin
from Arlecchino.
“Romeo & Juliet” = a translation of Flaminio la Scala's collection of scenario
(published in 1611) (taken from the argument, or introduction to the play):
There lived in Florence two gentlemen called Pantalone and Gratiano. They were
of old and noble families, and bore a long hatred for each other ... (can you guess
what’s next?)
Moliere used stock characters in his plays.
Modern screenplays: follow common scenarios, use stock characters (teen films)
TV shows: scenarios & characters (“The Simpsons” and many others)
Spanish Renaissance
Politically independent and geographically isolated
from the rest of Europe, Spain’s theatre
develops on its own.

1580-1680 = Spain’s Golden Age of theatre

Auto-sacramental
miracle plays)


(allegorical, and like medieval mystery &
plays are the most popular
Plays were presented in court theatres or corrales
(open courtyards surrounded by houses)
Acting troupes even included women!!
Spanish Renaissance
Lope de Vega
1562-1635



Spain’s best-known playwright
Wrote 1800+ plays
His plays were secular, and combined action – suspense
– history - mythology
English Renaissance
Elizabeth I






1558 - 1603
The Golden Age of England
Theatre flourished
Playwriting becomes a viable and
more respected profession
1572 – acting is a legally recognized
profession
Acting companies form, sponsored by
royal and/or noble patrons
One of the most creative periods in all
of history
Elizabethan Theatre
Actors

Performances develop into entertainment rather
than celebration so an actor can support himself
by acting

All actors were men – women are not allowed on
stage

Actors still considered vagrants
must be “sponsored” by a patron, actors are the
patron's servants
 Acting companies must be licensed by the crown
 Public performances were outlawed within the city
limits so a theatre community builds on the “South
Bank”

Elizabethan Theatre
Playwrights
Thomas Kyd
1558-1594

The Spanish Tragedie (c. 1585)

May have written a version of
Hamlet before Shakespeare
did!!!
arrested as a heretic in 1593

Elizabethan Theatre
Playwrights
Christopher
Marlowe
1574 – 1637






Tamburlaine (c.1587)
The Tragical History of Doctor
Faustus (c.1589)
The Jew of Malta (c.1589)
Wrote for The Admiral’s Men
Possibly an atheist, possibly a
spy for England
Was he also Shakespeare?
Elizabethan Theatre
Playwrights
Ben Johnson
1572 – 1637





A Tale of a Tub (c.1596)
Volpone (c.1605-6)
Also wrote masques for James’
court (acted by courtiers, not
actors)
Acted (poorly) & wrote for The
Admiral’s Men
Poet & playwright
William Shakespeare
1564 - 1616
actor, poet, playwright
Shakespeare’s Life






Born: 23 April 1564 (estimated based on
baptism records), Stratford-upon-Avon
Education: Free Stratford Grammar School
 Good base in Latin & the Classics
(Terence, Platus, etc.) that he would
liberally borrow from for his plots later
1582 - Married Anne Hathaway (he’s 18,
she’s 26)
3 kids: Susanna, and twins Hamnet &
Judith
The Lord Chamberlain’s Men
 Actor first
 Later becomes “resident”
playwright
 1595 – becomes a shareholder in his
own acting company
 1603 – they become the King’s Men
under James I
Death: 23 April 1616, Stratford-upon-Avon
Ophelia (detail). By John
Everett Millais, 1851–52.
Shakespeare’s Work

POET = wrote 154 sonnets & 2+ narrative
poems



Prose
Blank verse
Iambic pentameter

ACTOR = starts with Lord Admiral’s Men as
an actor, then begins writing

PLAYWRIGHT



38 plays published in the First Folio (1623)
3 categories: history, tragedy, comedy
Sources: Terence, Petrarch, Holinshed's
Chronicles
Shakespeare’s Plays

Tragedies to know:





Comedies to know:



Romeo & Juliet
Hamlet
Macbeth
Othello (1st specifically black role!!!)
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
The Tempest
Histories to know:



Henry VI (3 parts)
Richard III
Titus Andronicus
Theatres

Pre Renaissance = travelling pageant
wagons, in noblemen’s ballrooms or halls

1576 – James Burbage builds “The
Theatre” (1st permanent performance
space) on the South Bank
Elizabethan Conventions
The Theatres
Standard characteristics:
Open air - usually round - Thrust stage - no lights
Terms to know:







Galleries
Pit
Groundling (Penny-stinker)
Heavens
Hell
Hut
Inner stage
Elizabethan Conventions
Set & Props
Very little of either
used…
That’s why you get so
many declarative
lines in Elizabethan
plays.
“I die”
“Is this poison?”
Elizabethan Conventions
Costumes
Actors wore clothes of the day regardless of
the time period of the play
**exception: plays set in Greece & Rome!
Elizabethan Conventions
Acting Companies

Named after their noble
sponsor (Lord Admiral’s Men, Lord
Chamberlain’s Men, King’s Men,
Leicester’s Men)


Resident playwrights wrote for
specific companies
All male…



10-20 men
3-5 boy apprentices (they played
the girls!)
About half were shareholders in
the company