3. Elizabethan theatre:
It was two centuries since drama had moved out of the church and into the streets, although the Mystery plays, which dramatized biblical stories in all-day cycles on summer holy days, continued into Shakespeare’s time. There was a public appetite for drama, which explored the interests of a large new City, chiefly on the South Bank of the Thames, the home of diversions not permitted in the city. The Puritans feared the theatre; the Court watched it; plays were licensed.
The first proper theatre as we know it was The Theatre, built in 1576 by James Burbage. After this, other open air playhouses emerged, among which the Globe in 1599. The new Globe stood three stories high, near Southwark Cathedral. Built by Shakespeare’s company out of the old timbers of The Theatre, the Globe could hold up to three thousand people.
The plays were put on in the afternoon and there was no scenery to change. As one scene ended, another would begin. The audience did not suspend disbelief within a darkened theatre, because all performances were in broad daylight. Plays did not pretend to be real, female roles were played by men, verse was a convention, as was the soliloquy and the aside. |