{"id":445,"date":"2019-10-08T13:53:04","date_gmt":"2019-10-08T12:53:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/shakespeare\/?p=445"},"modified":"2019-10-08T13:54:17","modified_gmt":"2019-10-08T12:54:17","slug":"molly-greeves-eden-shaw-jack-mcdonald-victoria-stewart-victoria-mezzetto","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/shakespeare\/2019\/10\/08\/molly-greeves-eden-shaw-jack-mcdonald-victoria-stewart-victoria-mezzetto\/","title":{"rendered":"Molly Greeves, Eden Shaw, Jack McDonald, Victoria Stewart, Victoria Mezzetto"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>GENERAL NOTES<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Audience suspending sense of disbelief- overacting (less realistic than today- focusing on &#8220;passions&#8221; (Stern)), boys dressed as &#8220;beautiful&#8221; women, props and costumes less realistic (Bottom turning into a donkey)<\/li>\n<li>Actors focusing on &#8220;passions&#8221; (Stern) &#8211; certain parts of the audience not being able to see\/hear as well, focus on big gestures as opposed to subtlety<\/li>\n<li>More disruptions to performance due to less preparation, rowdiness of the audience affecting the actors<\/li>\n<li>Poorer people having chaotic experience due to weather, drunk people. Noise from outside of the theatre, e.g. pleasure houses, cockfighting, bullbaiting<\/li>\n<li>Violence of cockfighting, bullbaiting etc outside the theatre was representative of what people wanted to see, violence<\/li>\n<li>The plague- theatre could have been a dangerous experience particularly for poorer people due to the exposure to illness<\/li>\n<li>Poorer people encountering things\/people on stage that they wouldn&#8217;t in real life, i.e. royals, people from different countries (the Swiss Traveller&#8217;s account of a play about &#8220;diverse nations&#8221;)<\/li>\n<li>Multiple theatres in one area, added a\u00a0 competitive element, companies trying to have big names, choosing plays with the most drama<\/li>\n<li>Music in the theatre, luring people in, competiting with outside noise and noise of the audience<\/li>\n<li>Only in England where women couldn&#8217;t act, Swiss traveller&#8217;s account that there were men dressed as women shows how a foreign perspective highlights peculiarities about theatre during this time. Less documented by Londoners as theatre was normal part of life<\/li>\n<li>Travelling- more exhaustion during play due to journey? Poorer people taking the boat vs rich people taking a carriage<\/li>\n<li>Audience had a more personal relationship to the actors (and therefore to the characters) due to seeing them previously in different plays. Attracted people to see their favourite actors<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>CREATIVE RESPONSE<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><b>When this thing gets up to 88 miles per hour, you\u2019re gonna see some serious Shakespeare&#8230;\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Great Scott! The streets are filthy and there\u2019s a raucous going on around the corner. It can only mean one thing- we\u2019re in Shakespeare\u2019s London!\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Don\u2019t panic, the abundance of diseases won\u2019t get you (well, no promises\u2026), we\u2019re only here for a short trip to the theatre. We\u2019ve plenty to choose from here on a fine late 1500s afternoon South side of the Thames, with theatres practically fighting for you to knuckle down in their yard and cheer and jeer for the classics such as <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Doctor Faustus <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">and <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Julius Caesar. <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Shakespeare didn\u2019t have a monopoly over drama in London, and there\u2019s a fair amount of competition amongst the playhouses. One of these popular playhouses is Philip Henslowe\u2019s The Rose, which became home to the Admiral\u2019s Men acting company in 1592. With more and more buildings and acting troupes popping up, theatre\u2019s started to get creative to maintain business. Extensions, extra stage levels and added seating were some of the ways in which theatre\u2019s tried to entice more audience members in.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Henslow\u2019s actually a pretty useful guy; his diaries have told us a fair bit about the theatre industry around here, so we aren\u2019t completely thrown into the unknown. One particularly interesting tidbit is a list of props and equipment the theatre had:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Item, i rock, i cage, i tomb, i Hell mouth&#8230; i bedstead.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Item, viii lances, i pair of stairs for <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/internetshakespeare.uvic.ca\/Library\/SLT\/stage\/costumes\/diary.html#phaethon\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Phaethon*<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Item, i globe, &amp; i golden sceptre; iii clubs<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Item, i golden fleece, ii racquets, i bay tree.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Item, i lion&#8217;s skin, i bear&#8217;s skin; Phaethon&#8217;s<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">limbs, &amp; Phaethon&#8217;s chariot, &amp; Argus&#8217;s head.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Item, Iris&#8217;s head, &amp; rainbow; i little altar. . .<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">i ghost&#8217;s gown; i crown with a <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/internetshakespeare.uvic.ca\/Library\/SLT\/drama\/contemporaries\/war.html\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">sun*<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">It can be hard to imagine what things had been crafted for performance, given the lack of smoke machines and strobe lights. Yet the Elizabethan theatre <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">did <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">make use of certain effects such as smoke and cannons, they weren\u2019t afraid of pyrotechnics to aid the drama of a performance. Parading a golden sceptre and lion\u2019s skin around on the stage brings a certain regality to a performance, don\u2019t you think?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">If you\u2019re feeling ever so-so, or just want to save yourself the backache, you can cough up a couple of pennies (yes, pennies!) and nab a seat in an upper tier of the theatre. This is where the line between the low and the high class is drawn. Higher seats = better view = better public image.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Globe Theatre, built from the remains of The Theatre (England\u2019s second ever permanent playhouse), is the longtime home of Shakespeare\u2019s dramatics, and it\u2019s existed since 1599. Granted, it\u2019s been reconstructed since then into what we can visit in the present day, but this is the birthplace of the \u2018box office\u2019. No, really: boxes that collected everyone\u2019s admission were a sure way of determining how successful a certain play was, ie in how much money it actually made the theatre.\u00a0 Being so famous nowadays, it clearly did quite well for itself.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Watch out for pickpockets as you muscle your way into the land of the \u2018groundlings\u2019 (us folk that hang out in the theatre\u2019s yard), the theatre going experience wasn\u2019t quite as policed as it is today. One familiar thing, however, is the chance to purchase yourself some refreshments. You needn\u2019t wait until any interval, as food and drink is available during the performance. Try not to spill your hazelnuts on your neighbour. You\u2019ll need them to throw about when your favourite character kicks the bucket (spoilers!). We\u2019re a pretty rowdy bunch, and I bet you two pennies that a good few people will leave the theatre before the end. You couldn\u2019t imagine doing that in modern times, but here, once a main character dies, some people have simply had enough. Pass the tissues.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">If you\u2019re still bloodthirsty (weren\u2019t all those murders enough?), we can head out into the streets and follow the squawks and cheers to the cockfights. The setup actually looks a bit like a theatre, giving us a great view of the violence once more, but instead of passionating, there\u2019s a lot of pecking. Some traveller\u2019s accounts have told us that people would be there to take bets, so maybe you can even make your money back and we can do all of this again tomorrow. I hear they\u2019re performing a second part to Tamburlaine. See you in the pit!\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>GENERAL NOTES Audience suspending sense of disbelief- overacting (less realistic than today- focusing on &#8220;passions&#8221; (Stern)), boys dressed as &#8220;beautiful&#8221; women, props and costumes less realistic (Bottom turning into a donkey) Actors focusing on &#8220;passions&#8221; (Stern) &#8211; certain parts of the audience not being able to see\/hear as well, focus on big gestures as opposed &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/shakespeare\/2019\/10\/08\/molly-greeves-eden-shaw-jack-mcdonald-victoria-stewart-victoria-mezzetto\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Molly Greeves, Eden Shaw, Jack McDonald, Victoria Stewart, Victoria Mezzetto<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8293,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-445","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorised"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/shakespeare\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/shakespeare\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/shakespeare\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/shakespeare\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8293"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/shakespeare\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=445"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/shakespeare\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":450,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/shakespeare\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445\/revisions\/450"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/shakespeare\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=445"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/shakespeare\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=445"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/shakespeare\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=445"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}