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Forerunners of Renaissance Drama

The First Theaters

The Globe

Structure of the Globe

A Performance at the Globe

Music Most Eloquent

Varying the Venue

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The Renaissance Theater

Miracle and Mystery Plays


• probably evolved from church ceremonies, such as the dialogue songs performed at Easter Eve services

• Mystery plays were based Bible stories from both the Old and New Testament

• Miracle plays told stories that weren’t in the Bible like the lives of saints.

Morality Plays


• started in the 1300s and 1400s, when drama moved out of the churches and into the marketplaces of towns

• dramatized the history of the human race as set forth in the Bible

• Presented vices and virtues as human characters

• gradually became less religious and began to incorporate comedy

Interludes


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• One-act plays that started around the early 1500s

• Some very similar to morality plays, others rowdy and farcical

With the introduction of interludes, playwrights stopped being anonymous.

• In 1576, James Burbage built the first public theater in England—the Theater—in a northern suburb of London.

The First Theaters

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• Later came the Curtain, the Rose, the Swan, the Fortune, the Globe, the Red Bull, and the Hope.

The Globe is the most famous of the public theaters because the company that Shakespeare belonged to owned it. Many of his plays were performed at the Globe first.

The Globe

Structure of the GlobeThe Globe was a wooden, three-story building—probably sixteen-sided—with a spacious yard in the center.

It had three main parts:

• the building proper

• the tiring house (backstage area)

• the stage

The main part of the building housed three levels of gallery seating.


For a lower cost of admission, spectators could stand in the yard and be “groundlings.”

Where’s the Audience?

The stage jutted halfway out into the yard.


Notice how close the actors are to some of the audience members.

The Tiring House


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The tiring house was a backstage area that

• housed machinery and dressing rooms

• provided a two-story back wall for the stage

A Performance at the GlobeThe actors were highly trained: They could sing, dance, wrestle, fence, roar, and weep.

Scenery was kept to a minimum, but costumes and props could be elaborate.

Often, instead of seeing a lot of scenery, the audience would hear the scene described.


Try to picture the scene this character is describing:

—Hamlet, Act I, Scene 1, lines 166–167

But look, the morn in russet mantle cladWalks o’er the dew of yon high eastward hill.

Setting the Scene

Let’s say a forest setting was called for:


• There would be no painted scenery imitating real trees.

Setting the Scene

• Instead, a few bushes might be pushed onto the stage, and the actors’ lines would take care of the rest.

In As You Like It, Rosalind simply looks around and announces, “Well, this is the forest of Arden.”

• Spooky witches and devils would emerge and descend through the trapdoor.

Spectators put their imaginations to work and enjoyed all the sensational effects.

• The stage had a trapdoor, which everyone imagined led down to Hell.


The ceiling was painted with suns, moons, and stars and was considered the Heavens.


• The Heavens had a trapdoor, too.

• Angels, gods, and spirits could be lowered through the trapdoor on a wire and even flown over the other actors’ heads.

• performers could be “discovered” and emerge onto the stage


• large props (thrones, beds, and so on) could be pushed onto the stage

From the curtained area on the back wall . . .

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Music Most EloquentRenaissance theatergoers expected to hear music during the play.

Trumpets announced the beginning of the play as well as important exits and entrances.

Musicians sat in the gallery and played between acts.

Music Most EloquentShakespeare included a variety of songs in his plays—sad, happy, comic, thoughtful—and they were all fresh and spontaneous.

A song could

• advance the dramatic action

• help establish the mood of a scene

• reveal character

Music Most Eloquent

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Most of the original music for Shakespeare’s songs has been lost, but the songs have been set to music right up to the present.

Varying the VenueActing companies also performed in

• the great halls of castles and manor houses

• indoor, fully covered theaters in London, such as the Blackfriars

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