The performance of Gospel stories within the church may be the beginning of the theatre in England. As people grew more interested in the plays, the performance was shifted to the churchyard, the stages pitched on the green, some open space in the neighbourhood of towns and the innyards in particular. Thus, at the commencement of the Elizabethan reign, the public had opportunities of witnessing plays performed on the stage erected in the open air or in some innyard.
In the year 1576, three theatres were set up in London. They were ‘The Blackfriars’, ‘The Theatre’ and ‘The Curtain’. The last two were the only London playhouses when Shakespeare reached the metropolis. Eight more were constructed in succession. The most famous of the early theatres were, ‘The Rose’, ‘The Globe’ and ‘The Wooden O’. Shakespeare’s masterpieces were first performed in his ‘Wooden O’. By the end of the Elizabethan reign, eleven theatres were in existence. These were in the immediate outskirts of London. For, the civic authorities didn’t permit them within the city. Shakespeare was closely connected with ‘The Globe’ and ‘The Blackfriars’.
The Elizabethan playhouses were small, round or hexagonal and were mainly of wood. Sometimes they were octagonal instead of being rectangular. The greater part of the interior of the theatres was open to the weather, only the stage and portion of the galleries being covered. The stage was entirely different from the stages of modern theatres. It consisted of a platform which projected right into the area of the house. Around it, there were tiers of galleries, upper and lower, like the ‘circles’ in the theatres of today. The yard was occupied by the lower classes who had to stand during the whole performance and were known as ‘the groundlings of the pit’. The noblemen took their seats either in the boxes or on each side of the stage or in the galleries.
The players had the spectators on three sides of them. They had more living contact with the public than is possible in the modern theatres. The performance of a tragedy was signalized by draping the stage with black and for a comedy blue hangings were substituted. A flag was unfurled on the roof of the theatre when a performance was about to be given. A flourish of trumpets was another important signal at the commencement of a play. When the trumpets had sounded a third time, a figure clothed in a long black robe came forward and recited the prologue. The play then began. The actors acted their roles in masks and wigs. The female characters were rendered by boys or smooth-faced young men.
There was no movable scenery in the theatres. A curtain, technically known as ‘traverse’ divided the stage into two parts – the inner and the outer stages. The simple properties were set out upon the inner stage. When the curtain was drawn aside, the inner and the outer stages became one stage and the properties on the inner stage gave the setting to the whole. A bough of tree was brought on to represent a forest; a card board imitation of a rock served for a mountainous place or for the beach of a seashore. Wooden imitations of horses and towers were also introduced to represent a change of scene. But the most common way of indicating a change of scene was by hanging out a board indicating in large letters the name of the place of action. When the curtain shut off, the inner stage, the outer stage, bare and unpropertied became a stage in itself. For out-of-door activities, outer stage was used.
An important part of the structure was what was known as the balcony. This was behind the inner stage as an elevation. From this elevation, those actors supposed to speak from upper windows, towers, mountain sides or any elevated place, spoke to the ones down below.
Performance generally began about three in the afternoon and lasted some two hours. There is every reason to believe that the art of acting was brought to a high pitch of perfection. But the Elizabethan audience had no experience of elaborate realism on the stage. They were asked to eke out the imperfections of the stage with their thoughts.
******
Sunday, March 21, 2010
THE LAST PLAYS OF SHAKESPEARE
Cymbeline, The Winter’s Tale and The Tempest are considered to be the last plays of Shakespeare. They are mutually connected with one another. The prospect of understanding Cymbeline without The Winter’s Tale and The Tempest is really poor. The most successful of the three, The Tempest is understood well when supported by the others.
Critics differ about what Shakespeare was trying to do in these plays. We are told that Shakespeare had become religious and attempted to render a mystical conceptions of the universe in his last phase. Lytton Strachey feels that he ended his days in boredom, cynicism and disillusion and that the technique of verse was all that remained in life to interest him.
During the last phase, Shakespeare made use of improvements in theatrical devices (Eg. Indoor theatres suited to masque and pageantry) Beaumont and Fletcher seem to have influenced Shakespeare at the time. Behind them all was a stock of romantic incident, the common property of the early Jacobean age. This stock was partly medieval and partly classical. Shakespeare began using the romantic material.
In the last three plays, the old order is destroyed as thoroughly as in the main group of tragedies and it is this destruction that altogether separates them from the realm of comedy in general and from Shakespeare’s own earlier comedies in particular.
Examining the bare plots, rather than the total impression of the last plays, we find in each the same general scheme of prosperity, destruction and recreation. The main character is a King. At the beginning he is in prosperity. He then does an evil or misguided deed. Great suffering follows but during this suffering or at its height the seeds of something new to issue from it are germinating, usually in secret. In the end, this new element assimilates and transforms the old evil. The king overcomes his evil instincts, joins himself to the new order by an act of forgiveness or repentance and the play issues into a fairer prosperity than had first existed.
These plays exhibit remarkable similarities in imagery, symbols and language. We find that the language is overworked and at times even breaks down. In fact, the complexity of the language of these plays is the richness of its imagery and symbols. A recurrent image of the last plays is that of flower suggestive of recreation and regeneration. It is significant that the young heroines are associated with flowers to suggest their freshness and vitality. (Eg. Strewing of flowers by Marina in Pericles, Arviragus in Cymbeline strews flowers over Imogen supposing her dead).
Another significant and recurrent symbol is the tempest. It stands for destruction, containing itself at the same time seeds of reconstruction. It is to be noted that only after the outbreak of a tempest, causing destruction to the old order a new order emerges. In The Winter’s Tale, the tempest scene is laid in the middle of the play, serving thus as a structural principle. As for The Tempest the whole play is suffused with the tempest image.
Music is used repeatedly in these plays as an agent of recreation. The regenerative phase is in fact, set in motion by music. Ariel’s songs fill the air in Prospero’s island and produce the proper atmosphere for repentance and regeneration. Even Caliban is charmed by music.
In certain external details too, the plays reveal significant similarities. The recurrence of the masque scene is an instance in point. This accounted for by the fact that these plays were staged in Blackfriars – an indoor theatre – where gorgeous settings such as the masque required were possible and light effects could be manipulated.
It is in recognition of these characteristics which bind these plays together while setting their apart from tragedies or comedies that critics have grouped them together as dramatic romances. The term romance has been applied probably because of their resemblance in pastoral settings to contemporary romances like Sidney’s Arcadia.
Critics differ about what Shakespeare was trying to do in these plays. We are told that Shakespeare had become religious and attempted to render a mystical conceptions of the universe in his last phase. Lytton Strachey feels that he ended his days in boredom, cynicism and disillusion and that the technique of verse was all that remained in life to interest him.
During the last phase, Shakespeare made use of improvements in theatrical devices (Eg. Indoor theatres suited to masque and pageantry) Beaumont and Fletcher seem to have influenced Shakespeare at the time. Behind them all was a stock of romantic incident, the common property of the early Jacobean age. This stock was partly medieval and partly classical. Shakespeare began using the romantic material.
In the last three plays, the old order is destroyed as thoroughly as in the main group of tragedies and it is this destruction that altogether separates them from the realm of comedy in general and from Shakespeare’s own earlier comedies in particular.
Examining the bare plots, rather than the total impression of the last plays, we find in each the same general scheme of prosperity, destruction and recreation. The main character is a King. At the beginning he is in prosperity. He then does an evil or misguided deed. Great suffering follows but during this suffering or at its height the seeds of something new to issue from it are germinating, usually in secret. In the end, this new element assimilates and transforms the old evil. The king overcomes his evil instincts, joins himself to the new order by an act of forgiveness or repentance and the play issues into a fairer prosperity than had first existed.
These plays exhibit remarkable similarities in imagery, symbols and language. We find that the language is overworked and at times even breaks down. In fact, the complexity of the language of these plays is the richness of its imagery and symbols. A recurrent image of the last plays is that of flower suggestive of recreation and regeneration. It is significant that the young heroines are associated with flowers to suggest their freshness and vitality. (Eg. Strewing of flowers by Marina in Pericles, Arviragus in Cymbeline strews flowers over Imogen supposing her dead).
Another significant and recurrent symbol is the tempest. It stands for destruction, containing itself at the same time seeds of reconstruction. It is to be noted that only after the outbreak of a tempest, causing destruction to the old order a new order emerges. In The Winter’s Tale, the tempest scene is laid in the middle of the play, serving thus as a structural principle. As for The Tempest the whole play is suffused with the tempest image.
Music is used repeatedly in these plays as an agent of recreation. The regenerative phase is in fact, set in motion by music. Ariel’s songs fill the air in Prospero’s island and produce the proper atmosphere for repentance and regeneration. Even Caliban is charmed by music.
In certain external details too, the plays reveal significant similarities. The recurrence of the masque scene is an instance in point. This accounted for by the fact that these plays were staged in Blackfriars – an indoor theatre – where gorgeous settings such as the masque required were possible and light effects could be manipulated.
It is in recognition of these characteristics which bind these plays together while setting their apart from tragedies or comedies that critics have grouped them together as dramatic romances. The term romance has been applied probably because of their resemblance in pastoral settings to contemporary romances like Sidney’s Arcadia.
THE SUPERNATURAL ELEMENT IN SHAKESPEARE
Shakespeare makes an effective use of the popular superstitious and beliefs his time in many of his plays. Belief in the supernatural and wonder at the inexplicable mysteries of death was largely shared by the Elizabethans. Shakespeare is said to have introduced the supernatural elements in his plays in order to cater to the tastes of his audience. One would wonder at the way in which he blends the natural and the supernatural elements in the plays like The Tempest.
Attempts to depict supernatural beings rarely succeed. Sometimes the characters are merely beings to whom human instincts and feelings are attributed, and who are therefore not supernatural at all. Some times they are allegorical figures, expressionless, and impersonal. Sometimes they are a jumble of inconsistent elements : the author’s imagination, working outside the sphere of nature, has lost its bearings altogether. None of these faults are seen in the delineation of Ariel and Caliban in The Tempest.
In introducing the witches, Shakespeare adopted a popular dramatic convention. The Elizabethans believed in the existence of witches and considered the evil creatures. Shakespeare has transformed the most common place devices into tools of great dramatic value.
The role of witches is therefore very important. It presents comprehensively, the author’s vision of evil. In this play, Shakespeare has treated the supernatural in two ways : They are (i) the human with supernatural powers (Prospero) and (ii) the supernatural beings (Ariel and his spirits). As the supernatural element is predominant, it has a strange effect on the nature of the play. There is no scope for the development of character even though the plot is developed.
In Macbeth, the supernatural element acts as the instrument of darkness (and talks in a double sense). The philosophy of the witches is ‘fair is foul and foul is fair’ and we find that atmosphere in the whole play. The play opens with the supernatural and the conversation of the witches spells a darkness over the entire play.
The supernatural in Hamlet fills the whole play with a deep mystery. It diffuses an atmosphere of awe through which the tragedy looms more impressive. It is a reminder of the existence and immanence of the more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in our every day philosophy. The ghost in Hamlet is a representative of that hidden ultimate power which rules the universe and the messenger of divine justice. Unlike the ghost in Macbeth and Julius Caesar, the ghost in this play is not the hallucination of a single individual. It is objective and has a “real existence outside the sphere of hallucination”.
Shakespeare has created the supernatural element out of the existing Elizabethan Tradition, by selecting, improving, omitting the ridicules, loathsome, heightening and refining popular superstition.
*****
Attempts to depict supernatural beings rarely succeed. Sometimes the characters are merely beings to whom human instincts and feelings are attributed, and who are therefore not supernatural at all. Some times they are allegorical figures, expressionless, and impersonal. Sometimes they are a jumble of inconsistent elements : the author’s imagination, working outside the sphere of nature, has lost its bearings altogether. None of these faults are seen in the delineation of Ariel and Caliban in The Tempest.
In introducing the witches, Shakespeare adopted a popular dramatic convention. The Elizabethans believed in the existence of witches and considered the evil creatures. Shakespeare has transformed the most common place devices into tools of great dramatic value.
The role of witches is therefore very important. It presents comprehensively, the author’s vision of evil. In this play, Shakespeare has treated the supernatural in two ways : They are (i) the human with supernatural powers (Prospero) and (ii) the supernatural beings (Ariel and his spirits). As the supernatural element is predominant, it has a strange effect on the nature of the play. There is no scope for the development of character even though the plot is developed.
In Macbeth, the supernatural element acts as the instrument of darkness (and talks in a double sense). The philosophy of the witches is ‘fair is foul and foul is fair’ and we find that atmosphere in the whole play. The play opens with the supernatural and the conversation of the witches spells a darkness over the entire play.
The supernatural in Hamlet fills the whole play with a deep mystery. It diffuses an atmosphere of awe through which the tragedy looms more impressive. It is a reminder of the existence and immanence of the more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in our every day philosophy. The ghost in Hamlet is a representative of that hidden ultimate power which rules the universe and the messenger of divine justice. Unlike the ghost in Macbeth and Julius Caesar, the ghost in this play is not the hallucination of a single individual. It is objective and has a “real existence outside the sphere of hallucination”.
Shakespeare has created the supernatural element out of the existing Elizabethan Tradition, by selecting, improving, omitting the ridicules, loathsome, heightening and refining popular superstition.
*****
COMIC CHARACTERS OF SHAKESPEARE
The success of the comedies of Shakespeare, to a great extent, depends on his comic characters. The functions of comedians (the fools and the clowns) are invariably to make the audience laugh by their wit and humour; to keep the dialogue going in the intervals of action; to pun on words and extract fun from them and to moralise or sermonise or philosophise over certain situations and incidents or characters.
The Elizabethans as well as Shakespeare seem to have used ‘fools’ and ‘clowns’ indiscriminately. In fact, Shakespeare has portrayed only three major fools : Touchstone, Feste and the unnamed fool in King Lear. His introduction of comic characters in tragedies is to heighten the pathos of his plays by contrast or to provide comic relief from tragic tension. The grave diggers in Hamlet and the porter in Macbeth provide a good deal of fun. Very few readers of Othello remember the clown who makes a brief appearance. In Antony and Cleopatra, a clown brings asps to Cleopatra. The other clowns are Speed and Launce in Two Gentlemen of Verona and Launcelot Gobbo in The Merchant of Venice.
Touchstone of As You Like It is the first of Shakespeare’s great fools. He is the keen witted jester at Duke Frederick’s court. He ridicules folly and affectation and remains a touchstone for all the other characters in the play. Feste of Twelfth Night is the merriest and the most popular comedian. He is known for his verbal felicity and frequency of aphorisms. He always observes the mood of those on whom he jests. Like Touchstone in As You Like It he plays a prominent role in the play. The drunken Sir Toby, the foolish Sir Andrew, and Mavolio, the steward who is sick of self love provide comic relief.
Launcelot Gobbo of The Merchant of Venice is lovable and witty. But everything with him pertains to low life. His misuse of words – ‘incarnation’ for ‘incarnate’, ‘impertinent’ for ‘pertinent’, his palm reading and foretelling a glorious future and fortune for himself, his love for Jessica even after her marriage strongly qualify him to the title of a comedian in Much Ado About Nothing, the blundering constable Dogberry and his assistant, Verges are delightful comic creations. Shakespeare presents wit and pure comedy in Beatrice and low comedy in Dogberry and Verges.
Bottom in A Mid Summer Night’s Dream is the first of the really great comic figures. Puck describes him as ‘the shallowest thick skin of that barren sort’. One of the greatest comic characters in Falstaff in Henry IV. He is the most substantial comic character. He arouses uproarious laughter in the audience. He swears that he never lies but goes on lying.
Shakespeare’s genius is seen in his comic creations. The comic characters are in one way or the other, related to the main story. They are lively and life-like. A survey of Shakespearean plays reveals how the comic scenes and comic characters are more and more organically related to the main story and how they are purged of their grossness and vulgarity.
Coleridge feels that the place of the ancient Greek chorus is supplied by the fools of Shakespeare. Like the classical dramas, the fools expose the folly and affectation without any fear. In Shakespearean comedies, fools matter much and remain the source of some of his finest effects.
******
The Elizabethans as well as Shakespeare seem to have used ‘fools’ and ‘clowns’ indiscriminately. In fact, Shakespeare has portrayed only three major fools : Touchstone, Feste and the unnamed fool in King Lear. His introduction of comic characters in tragedies is to heighten the pathos of his plays by contrast or to provide comic relief from tragic tension. The grave diggers in Hamlet and the porter in Macbeth provide a good deal of fun. Very few readers of Othello remember the clown who makes a brief appearance. In Antony and Cleopatra, a clown brings asps to Cleopatra. The other clowns are Speed and Launce in Two Gentlemen of Verona and Launcelot Gobbo in The Merchant of Venice.
Touchstone of As You Like It is the first of Shakespeare’s great fools. He is the keen witted jester at Duke Frederick’s court. He ridicules folly and affectation and remains a touchstone for all the other characters in the play. Feste of Twelfth Night is the merriest and the most popular comedian. He is known for his verbal felicity and frequency of aphorisms. He always observes the mood of those on whom he jests. Like Touchstone in As You Like It he plays a prominent role in the play. The drunken Sir Toby, the foolish Sir Andrew, and Mavolio, the steward who is sick of self love provide comic relief.
Launcelot Gobbo of The Merchant of Venice is lovable and witty. But everything with him pertains to low life. His misuse of words – ‘incarnation’ for ‘incarnate’, ‘impertinent’ for ‘pertinent’, his palm reading and foretelling a glorious future and fortune for himself, his love for Jessica even after her marriage strongly qualify him to the title of a comedian in Much Ado About Nothing, the blundering constable Dogberry and his assistant, Verges are delightful comic creations. Shakespeare presents wit and pure comedy in Beatrice and low comedy in Dogberry and Verges.
Bottom in A Mid Summer Night’s Dream is the first of the really great comic figures. Puck describes him as ‘the shallowest thick skin of that barren sort’. One of the greatest comic characters in Falstaff in Henry IV. He is the most substantial comic character. He arouses uproarious laughter in the audience. He swears that he never lies but goes on lying.
Shakespeare’s genius is seen in his comic creations. The comic characters are in one way or the other, related to the main story. They are lively and life-like. A survey of Shakespearean plays reveals how the comic scenes and comic characters are more and more organically related to the main story and how they are purged of their grossness and vulgarity.
Coleridge feels that the place of the ancient Greek chorus is supplied by the fools of Shakespeare. Like the classical dramas, the fools expose the folly and affectation without any fear. In Shakespearean comedies, fools matter much and remain the source of some of his finest effects.
******
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