Romantic Inspiration

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 »

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 »

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 »

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 »

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 »

The Curtain was the second London playhouse, built in 1577, next to the Theatre, north of the London Wall. It had the same structure as the Theatre, only slightly smaller, and at times the two were under the same management. Between 1597 and 1598, the Curtain was the home of the Chamberlain’s Men, before they moved to the Globe in 1599. The Curtain was used by many popular acting companies after the Chamberlain’s Men, including the Queen’s Men (from 1603-1609), and the Prince Charles’ Company (after 1621), but there is no record of the Curtain after 1627. Read the rest of this entry »

Shakespeare, one of the foremost of the Great Elizabethan playwrights and also a notable Actor, was a member of an Acting Troupe called the Lord Chamberlain’s Men. Later, under James II, they rechristened themselves as the King’s Men. Most of Shakespeare’s famous plays were written for this troupe, of which he was one of the Chief Shareholders, and the combination was extremely successful.

During Shakespeare’s time, the principal theaters in London were The Rose, The Swan, The Hope, The Theater, and Blackfriars. Some of these theaters were open-aired while others were roofed. The Lord Chamberlain’s Men originally performed at the venue known simply as the Theater, which had been built in 1576 on the outskirts of London by the famous actor-turned-entrepreneur, James Burbage. Read the rest of this entry »