1. Performance space and theatrical conventions
British Theatre
Performance space and theatrical conventions

2. Classical Antiquity Britain is one province in the Roman Empire
Outdoor performance spaces – audience seated on hillside/slope above performers
Surviving theatres in St. Albans and Chester
These traditions lost with fall of Rome.

3. audience
performance space
backstage
audience
St. Albans

4. Fall of Roman Empire ~450AD
Theatre disappears from Britain as Latin speakers lost

5. Drama re-emerges after ~1200
not from a revival of classical Roman traditions,
but from the Christian rituals of the Mass.

6. Medieval Drama Place of medieval drama in history of European drama
no connection to classical drama
not entertainment
not money-making
begins as liturgy or ritual
dramatizing liturgical moments, i.e.. elevation of the host
supports religious values and practices
earliest dramatized liturgy reenacts the Passion and the Resurrection

7. Plays performed in inner courtyards of medieval inns.

8. The George Inn in London

9. York Cycle (1 of 4 extant cycles)
Begins sometime after ~1325; closed down by Reformation censors in Elizabeth’s reign (~1580); this is Shakespeare’s boyhood.
Associated with towns – not villages or hamlets – showed wealth, power, pride, civic organization and institutions, literacy, and religious belief.
Literate townsmen put on plays for less literate farmers

10. Cycle plays performed
on wagons in streets
of York over 1-3 days
in late June. Audience
stayed in place, and
wagons moved to ~12
viewing stations. Played to crowds on 3
sides. Same script every
year. Compare to tail-
gate party.

11. Tudor Drama (1485-1603) Before Elizabeth –
Some revivals of Latin/Roman dramatic forms, especially tragedy
Elizabethan dramatists: first modern English playwrights – theatres and admission costs
Theatre as business proposition
Money in acting, writing, but esp. producing
How to earn a living as a writer without a wealthy patron

12. London ~ 1590
Today’s West End Theatres
National Theatre
London Eye
Many theatres south of the river in “Southwark” because outside of control of London’s conservative aldermen.

14. Early Modern Public Theatre
Large, outdoor but partially roofed, daylight only illumination
Variety of standing/sitting price options
In the 3/4ths (audience on three sides of a thrust stage
Three levels of play space (below stage trapdoor; stage; balcony)
Two back entrances

15. Note thrust stage – audience on 3+ sides
1599
Thus daily at two in the afternoon, London has two, sometimes three plays running in different places, competing with each other, and those which play best obtain most spectators. The playhouses are so constructed that they play on a raised platform, so that everyone has a good view. There are different galleries and places, however, where the seating is better and more comfortable and therefore more expensive. For whoever cares to stand below only pays one English penny, but if he wishes to sit he enters by another door, and pays another penny, while if he desires to sit in the most comfortable seats which are cushioned, where he not only sees everything well, but can also be seen, then he pays yet another English penny at another door. And during the performance food and drink are carried around the audience, so that what one cares to pay one may also have refreshment.
Note thrust stage – audience on 3+ sides

16. 1647 woodcut

17. Note the thrust
stage, the three
levels on which
the audience may
sit, and the floor
space for the
“groundlings” to
stand. ~

18. A modern production in the reconstructed Globe Theatre.

19. The stage lit by candles in the new Sam Wanamaker theatre
at the Globe, where we will see The Little Match Girl.

20. Middle Temple in Inns of Court – banquet hall and first performance space for Twelfth Night

21. Puritan Commonwealth ~1642-1660
Charles I executed 1649
Theatres closed 1642, but re-opened on Restoration of the Monarchy after death of Oliver Cromwell in 1660.
Charles II returned from exile in France and brought “French fashions” into British theatre
women performers
proscenium stage rather than thrust stage

22. Mid 17th C French theatre with stage behind curtain

23. Proscenium Stage
Dominates British theatre from Restoration (1660) to modernism (early 20th C)
You have likely seen this theatre in your HS auditorium.
Actors on stage behind curtain
Scene changes indicated by curtain
Audience sits in dark
Actors pretend audience not present

24. Some 20th & 21st C innovations
Often returns to earlier forms
Theatre in the round
Direct interactions audience/actors
Chorus or narrator
Musical Theatre
American origins,
but hugely popular in the UK

25. Stratford-Upon-Avon is home
to three stages on which Early
Modern (and other) plays are
performed.
This is the stage at the
National Theatre on the
South Bank near the
London Eye and Houses
of Parliament.

26. One stage on which we’ll see plays in Stratford-Upon-Avon.

27. Curious Incident

28. Much Ado

29. Gielgud