The Elizabethan Theatre: Origins, Structure, and London's Permanent Theatres

The Elizabethan Theatre

A modern reconstruction of the Globe, named 'Shakespeare's Globe', London.

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Origins of Theatre

1. The origins of the theatre
   • Linked to religious celebrations;
   • took place in the nave of the church;
   • later they moved outside:
     • English replaced Latin;
     • lay people took the place of monks and priests;
     • these plays, called 'miracle plays', were staged on pageants.

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Development in Drama

1. The origins of the theatre

The next development in drama ‘morality plays':

• performed at lords' mansions;
• they dealt with human vices and virtues;
• their characters: personifications of vices and virtues.

Interludes:

• short plays which combined comic and serious elements;
• their aim: to arouse people's laughter.

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Sources of Elizabethan Theatre

1. The sources
   • The Italian Commedia dell'Arte;
   • the works of Niccolò Machiavelli with their display of horrors, unnatural crimes, vice and corruption;
   • the Greek theatre with its celebration of national history;
   • the Latin philosopher and tragedian Seneca in the division of the play into five acts, as well as a taste for revenge, the use of rhetoric about conflicting emotions and passions.

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Reasons for Development

1. Reasons for development

Why did drama become the main form of art? Because:

• entertainment was rooted in communal life;
• the public were more trained in listening than in reading;
• permanent theatres were built on the South Bank in London;
• the theatres prospered as economic enterprises.

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London's Permanent Theatres

1. London's permanent theatres

The building of permanent playhouses in London was a break with the past.

The Red Bull The Theatre City wall Guildhall administrative London Theatres c.1600 The Curtain area CLERKENWELL The Fortune COUNTY OF MIDDLESEX Other buildings FINSBURY FIELDS Gray's Inn BARBICAN ST. Cripplegate HOLBORN HOLBORN Trinity Hall Moorgate Lincoln's Inn Newgate Aldersgate All Hallows on the Wall Greyfriars Drapers Hall Y Warwick Inn The Boar's Head Stationers Hall Ludgate WEST CHEAP St. Pauls School Merchant Taylors Hall CORNHILL Aldgate The Red Lion Middle Temple Blackfriars The Bell Inn Northumberland Place House Pauls Wharf STREET 0 1/4 mi Tower of London 0 1/2 km RIVER THAMES Bankside Paris Garden Manor House Bull Ring The Swan Ist Bear Garden The London Bridge The Hope Clink COUNTY OF SURREY The Globe SOUTHWARK (1997, Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc. FLEET STREET Whitefriars Bel Savage Inn Porters Hall Leadenball Cross Keys Inn . Salisbury Court St. Pauls Cathedral The Wardrobe Mermaid Tavern EAST CHEAP GRACECHURCH ST. FENCHURCH THAMES Mercers Hall The Bull Inn St. Katherine Christ Church The Cockpit (Phoenix) in Drury Lane Fleet Ditch St. Olaves Church Carpenters Hall Bishopsgate - "Guildhall MOOR FIELDS (marsh) Halls and other buildings used as theatres

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Theatres Built in the 16th Century

1. London's permanent theatres

Towards the end of the 16th century, several theatres were built:

• the Theatre (by James Burbage, 1576);
• the Curtain (by James Burbage, 1577);
• the Swan (by Francis Langley, 1595);
• the Globe (by Cuthbert and Richard Burbage, 1599).

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Structure of Theatres

1. The structure of theatres

The open-air playhouses:

• were round or octagonal in shape;
• could hold up to three thousand people.

The Globe Theatre was built in 1599 by Shakespeare's playing company, and was destroyed by fire on 29 June 1613. A modern reconstruction of the Globe, named "Shakespeare's Globe", opened in 1997. It is on London South Bankside.

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Playhouse Features

1. The structure of theatres

The playhouses:

• had a rectangular stage, called ‘apron stage', 12 metres wide;
• had no curtain.

A reconstruction of the Globe Theatre. Folger Shakespeare Library.

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Internal Layout

1. Internal layout

The same basic structure consisted of:

• a stage partially covered by a thatched roof, or 'shadow', supported by two pillars and projected into a yard, or 'pit'.

Globe Theatre Stage, 1997.

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Theatre Structure Details

1. Internal layout

Aic planities faire metre.

The structure included:

• three tiers of roofed galleries around the stage with the actors' tiring house at the back;
• a trap door in the front of the stage used for apparitions or disappearances;
• an inner stage used for discoveries or concealments.

The interior drawing of 'The Swan' by Johannes de Witt, circa 1596. The Swan Theatre was built by Francis Langley about 1595, south of the Thames. The Swan was one of the largest and most distinguished of all the playhouses in London.

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Theatre Performance Conditions

1. The internal layout

• Theatre performances took place in the afternoon because there was limited artificial lighting;
• limited number of props: the theatre relied on the audience's imagination;
• the action was continuous and a scene ended when all the actors lefts the stage.

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The Audience

1. The audience

• Poor people stood in the pit (around the stage);
• wealthy people were granted access to seated places in the covered galleries;
• nobility sat around the stage.

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The Actors

1. The actors

The Elizabethan actor was:

• a busy man and had to vary his repertoire;
• he had no more than little time to prepare a new play;
• he belonged to an acting company and he worked on the basis of a share system made money from the profits of the plays.

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Female Roles

1. Female roles

• There were no actresses;
• the parts of young women were performed by boys;
• companies included 5-6 boys to play female roles until their voices broke.

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