The Elizabethan Theatre

 

The Elizabethan Theatre

Elizabethan drama was the dominant art form that flourished during and a little after the reign of Elizabeth I, who was Queen of England from 1558 to 1603. 

The Elizabethan Theatre was a booming business. People loved the theatre. The Elizabethan plays and theatres were so popular. Huge amounts of money could be made. The inn-keepers increased their profits by allowing plays to be shown on temporary stages erected in the yards of their inns. Soon purpose-built playhouses and great open theatres were being constructed. The history of the Elizabethan Theatre started in 1576.

In 1576, James Burbage obtains lease and permission to build ‘The Theatre’ in London. Another open air amphitheatre called ‘The Curtain’ opened in 1577. In 1587, Surrey opened an amphitheatre called ‘The Rose’. In 1593, theatres were closed due to the Plague. In 1599, ‘The Globe’ was opened on Bankside.

The Globe was very popular in the Elizabethan age. Shakespeare wrote most of his plays for this theatre. This theatre was a wooden structure. It was hexagonal outside and round within. The stage was divided into four parts. The front stage projected far into the auditorium. This part of the stage served as a street or battlefield or garden. It was open to the sky. The back stage was the part behind the pillars. It served as a large room, a palace hall, an office or a tavern as required. The walls of this part of the stage were hung with tapestry, black for tragedy and blue for comedy. There was a screened inner stage. This served as the bedroom scene in ‘Othello’ and ‘Macbeth’. The fourth part of the stage was over the inner stage. It was the balcony or the upper stage. It served as the window in Shylock’s house form which Jessica threw the casket on the street.

The Elizabethan theatre had no front curtain. Therefore, a scene began with the entrance of the actors and ended with their exit. The theatre was bare. There was not much scenery on the stage. Shakespeare used poetry to create the necessary atmosphere. It is poetry which creates the picture of the shipwreck in ‘The Tempest’.

No women came forward to play women’s roles in the Elizabethan age. Young boys were employed to play female roles. Shakespeare did not tax the boy actors. In his romantic comedies, the heroine appeared in male guise in most scenes.

The performances were held in the afternoon because there was no artificial light. There was also no scenery to speak of, and the costumes let the audience know the social status of the characters. Because sumptuary laws restricted what a person could wear according to their class, actors were licensed to wear clothing above their station.

The majority of the Elizabethan audience  were uneducated riff-raff. Their tastes were crude. They enjoyed vulgar jokes. To please them Shakespeare used plenty of such jokes. Even in tragedies he used comic scenes and comic characters.