Archive for the ‘Theatre’ Category
The Reasons Behind Shakespeare’s Influence and Popularity
Ben Jonson anticipated Shakespeare’s dazzling future when he declared, “He was not of an age, but for all time!” in the preface to the First Folio. While most people know that Shakespeare is, in fact, the most popular dramatist and poet the Western world has ever produced, students new to his work often wonder why this is so. The following are the top four reasons why Shakespeare has stood the test of time.
1) Illumination of the Human Experience
Shakespeare’s ability to summarize the range of human emotions in simple yet profoundly eloquent verse is perhaps the greatest reason for his enduring popularity. If you cannot find words to express how you feel about love or music or growing older, Shakespeare can speak for you. No author in the Western world has penned more beloved passages. Shakespeare’s work is the reason John Bartlett compiled the first major book of familiar quotations. Read the rest of this entry »
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The characters in ‘Hamlet’ are a true replica of human nature. Read on and know the analysis of characters in Hamlet
The play ‘Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark’ is one of the four greatest tragedies of William Shakespeare. It is the longest play written by him and also one of the most powerful. The play is about the conflict of a person, who had to chose between moral values and personal revenge.
Understanding Hamlet
Hamlet is a complex play involving the themes of revenge, treachery, moral corruption and incest. Read the rest of this entry »
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Posted in Theatre
Although Romeo and Juliet is classified as a tragedy, it more closely resembles Shakespeare’s comedies than his other tragedies. The lovers and their battle with authority is reminiscent of As You Like It and The Winter’s Tale. “Characteristically, those comedies concern themselves with the inborn, unargued stupidity of older people and the life-affirming gaiety and resourcefulness of young ones. The lovers thread their way through obstacles set up by middle aged vanity and impercipience. Parents are stupid and do not know what it best for their children or themselves . . . [Romeo and Juliet] begins with the materials for a comedy – the stupid parental generation, the instant attraction of the young lovers, the quick surface life of street fights, masked balls and comic servants” (Wain 107). Indeed, one could view Romeo and Juliet as a transitional play in which Shakespeare merges the comedic elements perfected in his earlier work with tragic elements he would later perfect in the great tragedies — Hamlet, Othello, Read the rest of this entry »
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Posted in Theatre
THE ROYAL PALACES AND INNS OF COURT
ii. The Royal Palaces
The royal family did not, for obvious reasons, attend plays with the common populous in the playhouses, and so Shakespeare and the Chamberlain’s Men would, on occasion, be requested to perform at court. During Christmas, 1594, Shakespeare acted before Queen Elizabeth in her palace at Greenwich in two separate comedies, and during Christmas, 1597, the Chamberlain’s Men performed Love’s Labour’s Lost before the Queen in her palace at Whitehall. In 1603, Shakespeare performed multiple times before King James I at Hampton Court. Read the rest of this entry »
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Posted in Theatre
The Rose was built by dyer and businessman Philip Henslowe in 1587. Henslowe, an important man of the day, had many impressive titles, including Groom of the Chamber to Queen Elizabeth from the early 1590’s, Gentleman Sewer to James I from 1603, and churchwarden and elected vestryman for St. Saviour’s Parish from 1608. Henslowe built the Rose above an old rose garden on the Bankside near the south shore of the Thames, in Surrey. The Rose property consisted of a plot lying on the corner of Maiden Lane and Rose Alley — an alley about 400 feet long, “leadinge [south] from the Ryver of thames into the saide parcell of grownde,” according to Henslowe’s own papers. Read the rest of this entry »
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Posted in Theatre
In December 1574 the Common Council of London, under the influences of puritanical factions, issued a statement describing great disorder rampant in the city
by the inordinate haunting of great multitudes of people, especially youth, to plays, interludes, namely occasion of frays and quarrels, evil practices of incontinency in great inns having chambers and secret places adjoning to their open stages and galleries, inveigling and alluring of maids, especially of orphans and good citizens’ children under age, to privy and unmeet contracts, the publishing of unchaste, uncomely, and unshamefast speeches and doings . . . uttering of popular, busy, and seditious matters, and many other corruptions of youth and other enormities . . . [Thus] from henceforth no play, Read the rest of this entry »
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London’s First Public Playhouse
The Theatre was the first London playhouse, built in 1576 by the English actor and entrepreneur James Burbage, father of the great actor and friend of Shakespeare, Richard Burbage. It was located in a northern suburb of London (north of London Wall which bounded the city proper); on the edge of Finsbury Fields, just past Bishopsgate Street, where Shakespeare called home up to 1597.
There are no images of the Theatre, but written accounts of the building describe a vast, polygonal, three-story timber structure, open to the sun and rain. Its exterior was coated with lime and plaster. It had features similar to those of the future Globe playhouse and other playhouses of the day, such as galleries, upper rooms, a tiring house, Read the rest of this entry »
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