Chapter 5

1. Chapter 5 Creating a Professional Theatre

2. Creating a Professional Theatre • Revived interest in the classical world included Greek and Roman plays and theatrical practices • The Renaissance understanding of the classical theatre was severely limited and often distorted. • Educated people began to perceive alternatives to medieval practices, • playwrights began to write plays that imitated or adapted classical subjects and forms or that mingled medieval and classical elements. Roman theatre at Amman, Jordan

3. Creating a Professional Theatre(cont’d) • During the sixteenth century, disputes over church doctrine and practice led to secessions from the Roman Catholic Church and the formation of several Protestant sects. • Forbidden to perform plays on religious subjects, the theatre had to become secular, and for its subjects it turned to classical literature, historical chronicles, and legends. Sacred Heart Church in Bowie, Maryland, established in 1729

4. Creating a Professional Theatre(cont’d) • To survive, professional groups had to • be able to play often, • have a stock of plays sufficiently large and varied to keep the limited available audience coming back, • have a performance space large enough. • Had to own or control their own costumers, scenery, and other production elements. • Had to assemble a company of actors and production personnel. Kneehigh, Miracle and the Hall for Cornwall - the trinity of Truro professional theatre

5. Creating a Professional Theatre(cont’d) • Technically, actors became “servants” of these patrons and therefor were no longer master less. • During Shakespeare’s time the acting companies had such titles as the Lord Admiral’s Men, the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, and the King’s Men as indications of their legal status. • Patronage brought little financial support.

6. Creating a Professional Theatre(cont’d) • Despite these problems, by 1600 English acting companies were creating what many consider the greatest theatrical era the world has known. Shakespeare and the Globe Theatre were opponents of the children's companies

7. Shakespeare and the Globe Theatre • Others included Thomas Kyd, Christopher Marlowe, Ben Jonson, John Fletcher, and John Webster, all of whom contributed to making the years between 1585 and 1642 exceptionally fertile. • Shakespeare’s plays were not collected and published until several years after his death. Video link of Shakespeare In Love

8. Shakespeare and the Globe Theatre(cont’d) • The stage was sheltered by a roof (“the heavens” or “the shadow”) supported by two posts near the front of the stage platform. • At the back of the stage • multilevel façade. • On the stage level, • at least two large doors permitted exits and entrances and served as openings through which stage. • The second level of the façade • an acting space used to represent balconies ( as in Romeo and Juliet), windows, battlements, or other high places. Video link of Romeo and Juliet

9. Shakespeare and the Globe Theatre(cont’d) • This stage was an adaptation of medieval conventions. • Most characters were clothed in Elizabethan garments appropriate to their rank, age, and profession. • Elizabethan theatre included a considerable musical element. Video link of The Merchant of Venice

10. Shakespeare and the Globe Theatre(cont’d) • Elizabethan acting companies • learned quickly how to make the theatre fully professional and sufficiently attractive and remunerative to support a large number of persons. • The other important ingredient was the playing audience • among whom backgrounds and tastes varied considerably. • It is representative of Elizabethan drama in its story, structure, and conventions • But one of the world’s great tragedies, it is superior to most plays of its time. Video link of Elizabeth: The Golden Age

11. Hamlet • Like Oedipus the King, Hmaletconcerns a man charged with the duty of punishing the murderer of a king. But Shakespeare uses a broader canvas than Sophocles and includes within his drama more facets of the story, more characters, and a wider sweep of time and place. • Shakespeare organizes his action with great skill Video link of Hamlet

12. Hamlet(cont’d) • Shakespeare skillfully interweaves this main plot with the subplot concerning Polonius and his family. • All of the main characters in Hamlet are drawn from the nobility or aristocracy. • Many people consider Hamlet to be among the most demanding roles ever written for a tragic actor, • in part because the actor must project one set of attributes and responses to the characters and another to the audience. Hamlet 劇照

13. Hamlet(cont’d) • Like Hamlet, Ophelia is sensitive, having little knowledge of the world, and is easily led by her father, Polonius. • Claudius is doubtless suave and charming, otherwise it would be difficult to understand how he is able to deceive so many people. • Shakespeare’s dramatic poetry is generally recognized as the finest in the English language. John William Waterhouse's "Ophelia"

14. Hamlet(cont’d) • Probably the most important element in Shakespeare’s dialogue is figurative language. • Shakespeare’s language makes special demands on the actor. • The action of Hamlet occurs in many places • Shakespeare envisioned them all in terms of stage properties, costumes, and the movement of the actors. David Tennant Hamlet on Stage.

15. Hamlet(cont’d) • Costumes added to the visual effect • Sounds also added to the overall effect • Hamlet isrich in implications, • which concern the shock of betrayal by those one has most trusted. • Another set of implication concerns • the nature of kingship and the need to rule oneself before attempting to rule others. • The English public theatre continued most of the practices of Shakespeare’s day until 1642, • when civil war brought the forced closure of all theatre until 1660. Hamlet 劇照

16. The Theatre Experience in Renaissance Italy(cont’d) • Another of the theatre’s great eras occurred in Italy during the Renaissance. • In mounting these festival, • the Italian drew on classical sources, especially De Architectural by Vitruvius(aRoman architect of the first century B.C.) • who described how a theatre is laid out, as well as the setting appropriate to three kinds of plays: tragedy, comedy, and pastoral. The theatre was the final design by the Italian Renaissance architect Andrea Palladio

17. The Theatre Experience in Renaissance Italy(cont’d) • Because they had no permanent theatres, the Italians at first set up temporary performance spaces, usually in large halls of state. • The principles of perspective drawing had been developed during the fifteenth century. • The acceptance of perspective scenery is of profound importance, • because it signaled a movement away from the formal and architectural stage to the representational and pictorial stage.

18. The Theatre Experience in Renaissance Italy(cont’d) • The Greek, Roman, and Elizabethan stages • all had in common a formalized architectural façade as the basic background for all plays. • Terms upstage and downstage • From this need came the proscenium arch, used to frame the stage opening(the “picture-frame stage”). • The desire to shift scenery was inspired by the love of spectacle and special effects, • which the Italians exploited primarily in intermezzi (interludes) between the acts of regular plays Renaissance theatre

19. The Theatre Experience in Renaissance Italy(cont’d) • The appeals of intermezzi were eventually absorbed into opera, • a new from that originated in the 1590s out of attempts to re-creat the relationship between music and speech found in Greek tragedy. Elizabethan Stage

20. Commedia dell’Arte • Improvisation, a distinguishing feature of commedia, • facilitated by the use of the same characters in all the plays performed • by the same troupe • by the same actor always playing the same role with its fixed attributes and costume. • The stack character, commedia’sbest-known feature, can be divided into three categories: lovers, masters, and servants. Commedia dell'arte

21. Commedia dell’Arte(cont’d) • Three masters recurred most often: Pantalone, Dottore, and Capitano. • The most varied of the commedia types were the servants ( the zanni– the origin of the English word zany ). • Of the zanni, Arlecchino(Harlequin)eventually became the most popular, although originally he was of minor importance. Pantalone, Dottore, and Capitano

22. Commedia dell’Arte(cont’d) • Harlequin’s most frequent companion • a cynically witty, libidinous, and sometimes cruel servant. • A commedia troupe averaged ten to twelve members(seven or eight men and three or four women). • Commedia was most vigorous and popular in the years between 1575 and 1650, • but it continued into the last half of the eighteenth century. For other uses, see Harlequin (disambiguation). "Arlecchino" redirects here. For the opera by Busoni, see Arlecchino (opera).

23. Commedia dell’Arte(cont’d) • Although numerous scenarios have survived from the period when commedia was at its peak, they are too bare in outline to convey the flavor of a commedia performance. Claude Gillot – Commedia Dell´arte

24. The Servant of Two Masters • Goldoni wrote The Servant of Two Masters in 1745 for a Venetian commedia dell’arte troupe that permitted him to write out all of the dialogue. • Goldoni’s Pantalone has none of the miserly traits typical of the character in earlier scenarios, and Brighella has been deprived of his libidinous and cruel traits. Video link of The Servant of Two Masters

25. The Servant of Two Masters(cont’d) • The plot of The Servant of Two Masters relies on disguise, coincidence, misunderstanding, and withheld information. • Goldoni is a master of plot development • The most important character is Truffaldino, who has all of the characteristics of Arlecchino – being both clever and stupid, wearing a black mask and particolored costume, and carrying a slapstick. Riz's Blog Review: "The Servant of Two Masters" at Yale Rep

26. The Servant of Two Masters(cont’d) • He also has the greatest number of opportunities to improvise lazzi: • dealing with the porters who carry the trunks. • Opportunities to improvise comic business are also provided other characters. • Goldoni wrote for a company that performed in a public theatre of the kind then typical: • box, pit, and gallery arrangement of the auditorium, and picture-frame stage with wing-and-drop, perspective scenery. A. Bryan Humphrey (left) as Pantalone, Sara Kathryn Bakker as Beatrice, and David Ivers as Truffaldino in The Servant of Two Masters, 2003.

27. The Servant of Two Masters(cont’d) • The Servant of Two Masters does not achieve a high level of characterization or social commentary, but Goldoni was not seeking profundity. THE SERVANT OF TWO MASTERS By Carlo Goldoni

28. The French Background • The Development of French theatre • had been interrupted by the civil wars that grew out of religious controversy in the sixteenth century and recurred in the seventeenth. • Although Richelieu and others favored them, these rules were not widely known or accepted in France until 1636, when The Cid by Pierre Corneille (1606-1684) became the most popular play yet written in Fance) French Theatre Buildings

29. The French Background • Richelieu in 1641 had the first theatre in France with a proscenium arch erected in his own palace. Portrait of Cardinal Richelieu, 1637, Philippe de Champaigne

30. Moli’ere and 17th-Century French Theatre Practice • Just as Corneille and Racine set the standard for tragedy, Moli’ere(1622-1673) set the standard for comedy. Moli’ere began his career as an actor in 1643. • Like Shakespeare, Moli’ere was involved in every aspect of the theatre. He was head of his own company, • its principal actor, and its principal playwright. • He was not part owner of a theatre, however. French Theatre in the 17th Century

31. Moli’ere and 17th-Century French Theatre Practice • Despite the differences between the Elizabethan and French stages, their acting companies had many features in common. • Casting was simplified because each actor played a limited range of roles. • By the 18th century, actors were being hired according to “line of business”(according to the type of characters they played) and remained in those lines throughout their careers. Repertory companies

32. Moli’ere and 17th-Century French Theatre Practice • In France, actors were expected to furnish their own costumers, a major expense for the actors. • As on the Elizabethan stage, most costumes were exceptions, especially for Near Eastern, Moorish, and classical characters. • The scenic demand of regular comedy and tragedy were simple. • Ordinarily, in compliance with the neoclassical rules, the plays were set in one place and required no scene changes. Sir John Gilbert's 1849 painting: The Plays of William Shakespeare, containing scenes and characters from several of William Shakespeare's plays.

33. Moli’ere and 17th-Century French Theatre Practice • Because the theatre was now indoors, lighting was a concern. The available illuminants were candles and oil lamps. • These were the prevailing practices during the years 1658-1673, when Moli’ere performed in Paris. Model of 17th Century French Theatre with Lighting Constellation

34. Tartuffe • Tartuffe is concerned with religious hypocrisy. • The play’s title character denounces others for their pursuit of worldly pleasure while privately seeking those pleasure for himself. • The most likely target of Moli’ere satire was the Company of the Holy Sacrament • a secret society of the time, whose purpose was to improve morals by being ”spiritual police” who spied on the private lives of others. • Moli’ere read Tratuffeto several persons before it was produced in 1664. Tartuffe, by Moliere

35. Tartuffe(cont’d) • Whether or not Moli’ere had the Company in mind, he was clearly thinking of groups like the Company • who feel that they alone can discern true piety from false, creating conditions under which hypocrites flourish. • The conflict in Tartuffe is established quickly in the opening scene, as Madame Pernelle, Orgon’s mother, storms out of the house while denouncing the entire household for failing to appreciate Tartuffe’s piety. Alan Stocks as loyal & Eithne Browne as Madame Pernelle

36. Tartuffe(cont’d) • Orgon’s role is the one most evenly distributed throughout the play. • Although the Tartuffes of the world are dangerous, they can exist only because of the Orgons, because the success of the wicked depends on the gullibility of the foolish. • When Tartuffe is finally unmasked, Orgon’s character remains consistent; failing to see the difference between hypocrisy and piety. Tartuffe, Orgon and Damis

37. Tartuffe(cont’d) • Little indication is given of the age or physical appearance of the characters. • Because Moli’ere wrote with his own company in mind and directed the play, he did not need to specify every detail in his script. • In Tartuffe • Moli’ere uses the verse form that by that time had become standard in French drama • the alexandrine( twelve-syllable lines, with each pair of adjacent lines rhyming. In Molière's great comedy, the consummate hypocrite Tartuffe (played by John Rensenhouse at Court Theatre) sets his sights on Elmire (Deanna Dunagan), his host's wife.

38. The Elizabethan, Italian, and French Traditions • Although Shakespeare and Moli’ere are among the world’s great dramatists and were separated in time by only a few years, they worked within different theatrical traditions. • During the Restoration, several of Shakespeare’s plays were adapted to make them conform more nearly to the neoclassical ideal. • For example, at the end of Nahum Tate’s adaptation of King Lear(1681) only the wicked people died; Lear, Gloucester, and Kent retired to the country, and Cordelia and Edgar married and became the rulers of England. King Lear mourns Cordelia's death, James Barry, 1786–1788

39. The Elizabethan, Italian, and French Traditions(cont’d) • English theatre between 1660 and 1700, a period usually referred to as the Restoration, • was noted principally for its comedy of manners. • Which focused on the amoral behavior and witty verbal exchanges of the rich and idle upper class. • Restoration comedy was concerned above all with sexual conquests, advantageous marriages( in which live played little part), the latest fashions, and a seeming determination to be shocked at nothing A husband and wife engage in a merry war betwixt the sexes in 'Restoration Comedy'

40. The Elizabethan, Italian, and French Traditions(cont’d) • Commedia dell’arte influenced many European playwrights. • The degree of its influence on English writers of Shakespeare’s day is still debated, but it was clearly evident in 18th century English theatre, especially in pantomimes. • Commedia’s influence on Moli’ere and other French playwrights is undeniable • this influence continued throughout the 18th and into the 19th century, even after commedia had ceased to be a separate form Commedia dell'arte troupe Gelosi in a late 16th-century Flemish painting.

41. The Elizabethan, Italian, and French Traditions • By the 18th century, although there were still obvious differences, among the theatres of various European countries, they shared the same basic conventions. • The theatre had made the transition from festival offerings to professional, secular entertainment. Poster for a 1908 production of Verdi's 1871 opera Aida, performed by the Hippodrome Opera Company of Cleveland, Ohio, USA