U6 L5 Elizabethan Drama Flashcards
Where did English drama originate from?
Middle Age church plays
What was the purpose of Church plays?
educate people on Latin liturgy
What is liturgy?
forms of ritual or public worshup
How were the lines of Church plays delivered?
chanted or sung
What led to the church forbidding plays on church property?
1-plays became elaborate/humorous, no longer educated worship
2-transferred outdoors
3-audience lost dignity, destroyed church property
After Church plays, where did plays find new support?
town authorities who used trade guilds and dramatic companies
What were the characteristics of Mystery Play production and what they were based on?
- Scripture
- secularized
- dramatized plan of salvation in Old and New testaments
What were the wagons where Mystery plays were performed called?
pageants
What did the first, second, and third wagon portray in Mystery plays?
1-creation
2-fall of angels
3-fall of man
What were Miracle Plays based on?
- NOT SCRIPTURE
- lives of Saints and Mary
When were Morality plays developed?
Late Middle Ages
What did Morality Plays portray/perform?
- dramatized allegory
- personified abstract virtue and vices (eg. Mercy and Shame)
- competed to win souls
- BASICALLY DRAMATIZED SERMONS
Where were Morality Plays performed?
- inner courtyard of inns
- three sides of apartments surrounded
- balconies for rich, unroofed inn yard for poor
- stage: sawhorses supported platform, curtain behind scaffold hid actors
What is a scaffold?
temporary wooden stage
Is the exact definition of Interlude known?
no
Where might have Interludes originated?
- Henry VIII reign
- brief skit btw banquet courses
What are interludes?
brief play btw events of dramatic performance, entertainment, or feast
Some interludes developed from and resembled what kind of play?
morality plays
What are the characteristics of interludes?
- primarily to amuse
- educational interludes to teach moral
- everyday details and realistic approach
- comic elements to amuse and not instruct have recognizable value
What is an allegory?
story where people, things, and happenings have another meaning
What does secularized mean?
deprived of religious character or significance
What did the first Elizabethan playhouses resemble?
innyards
Who were the groundlings in Elizabethan playhouses?
- paid one penny to occupy open yard
- aka stinkards
- loud and raucous
Where would the more sophisticated people be in Elizabethan playhouses?
seated in galleries
What were the characteristics of Elizabethan Playhouse stages?
- three-sided
- jutted halfway into the audience
- meaning actors and audience physically close and got emotionally involved
How did the groundlings/audience get physically involved with the actors in Elizabethan Playhouses?
they would:
- boo
- applaud
- throw vegetables/fruits
- jump on and off the stage edge
What were the characteristics of Elizabethan Playhouse theaters?
- 8 sided building
- unroofed yard in stage front
- 2-3 floors of gallaries
What did Elizabethan Playhouses not have?
- curtain to mark end of scenes or acts
- printed programs of time and place of each scene for audience
- props for setting on stage
How did the Elizabethan Playhouse audience know what setting or scene the actors were in?
playwrights descriptions through character dialogue
What did the trap door in the stage provide and entrance for?
ghosts and evil spirits
What did the trap in the canopy over the stage provide an entrance for?
(called the ‘heavens’)
lower angels and good spirits
Was there any artificial light in Elizabethan Playhouses?
no, has to use natural light so plays were performed in afternoon
When was the first English Playhouse built? And by who? What was it called?
- 1576
- Elizabethan actor, James Burbage
- The Theatre
Which playhouse do most people associate Shakespeare with? When was it built?
- the Globe
- 1599
What were the plays of Shakespeare that were first performed in the Globe?
- Hamlet
- Macbeth
- King Lear
Did women/actresses play a part in Elizabethan plays?
no, used boys whose voices were not deep
Did actors have a good reputation?
no
What did some local laws classify actors as? What does it mean?
vagabonds, shiftless, idle or disreputable person
Because of actors’ poor reputation at the time, they formed groups that were organized under who?
patronage of a member of nobility
What word best describes the costumes in Elizabethan theater?
anachronistic, out of proper historical time
What was the renaissance belief that the characters and plots of Elizabethan plays reflected?
human beings are exciting subjects for close examination
How were Elizabethan plays’ characters and plots more realistic than past plays?
- no personifications of single personalities
- portrayed real life people and conflicts
Who ordered the playhouses to be closed and when?
Puritans, middle of 17th century
When were playhouses reopened?
end of 17th century
How did playhouses after the 17th century differ from ones before it?
- building rectangular and roofed
- artificial lighting
- movable scenery
- women on stage
- stage receded into wall
