Theatre History Final
Terms
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- Dates of the Middle Ages
- 500-1400 CE
- When the Renaissance started
- 1300-1400 CE
- Reasons for the rise of the Renaissance
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1. Discovery of the ancient world
2. Rise of humanism
3. Invention of movable type
4. Exploration & merchant trade
5. Decline of church & feudalism - Discovery of the ancient world
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- Rome & Greece
- Byzantium fell, libraries moved west - Rise of humanism
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- Emphasis on study of mankind
- Concern for worth or value in this life - Protagorus said...
- Man is the measure of all things.
- Invention of movable type
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- Already invented, Gutenburg just popularized it
- Quicker printing - Exploration & merchant trade
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- Columbus
- Copernicus
- Galileo - Columbus
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- 1492
- Didn't discover, just opened trade - Copernicus
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- Earth revolves around sun
- Earth rotates once every 24 hours
- We are not the center of the universe - Galileo
- Reasserted Copernicus' beliefs
- Decline of the church & feudalism
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- Rise in nationalism
- Martin Luther - Rise in nationalism
- Formed city-states or pre-nations
- Martin Luther
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- Lutherans/Protestants
- Wrote about Catholic abuses (greed, indulgences to forgive sins)
- Three Grievances - Three Grievances
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- The individual may know God through faith
- A direct relationship with God is the only source of grace
- Salvation is entirely in the hands of God, not the church - Italian Renaissance
- 1300 CE
- Why in Italy?
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1. Italy was the first center of cultural activity in Europe
2. City-states brought wealth to the region
3. Roman-Catholic church and its struggle for power helped the arts - Italy as a cultural center
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Big families
- Sforza
- Medici
- Doge
- Esta
City-states all over the country
- Verona
- Venice
- Milan - City-states' wealth and its impact on arts
- Art is a sign of the wealthy and of power
- Italy's 3 Gifts to Theatre
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1. Italianate Scenery (technology)
2. Neo-classical Rules
3. Commedia Dell'arte - Geniuses who sparked the Renaissance
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- Dante
- Giatto
- Petrarch
- Boccaccio - Dante
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- Father of Renaissance
- "Divine Comedy" was 1st major literary work in the vernacular: accessible
- Still influenced by religion - Giatto
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- Introduced perspective into art
- Drop point perspective
- Humanized iconic figures of the Catholic church - Petrarch
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- Also considered the father of the Renaissance
- Collected & studied ancient manuscripts
- Championed human issues over theological ones
- Influenced by Seneca & urged scholars to study Greek culture - Boccaccio
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- Humanist
- "On Famous Woman": 106 snippets about women
- Celebrates corporeal bodies, sex, lust for life
- "The Decameron" written in the vernacular - 2 Noteworthy Plays of the Italian Renaissance
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- Earliest in the vernacular and most popular
1. Mandragola (1518) by Machiavelli
2. Sofonisba by Trissinio - Machiavelli
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- Author, statesman, philosopher
- Roots of commedia dell'arte
- "The Prince" about how to maintain power and destroy enemies - Sofonisba
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- Tragedy, based on Seneca
- Highly popular - Neo-classical Rules
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1. Verisimilitude
2. Two forms of drama
3. Decorum
4. Function of drama
5. 3 Unities
6. 5-act Structure - Verisimilitude
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- Having the appearance of truth
- Reality
- Morality
- Universality - Reality
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- What could happen in real life
- Removal of soliloquy
- Elimination of chorus
- Fewer battles, violence, death & crowd scenes - Morality
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- Must teach a moral lesson
- God's grand design revealed
- Wicked are punished, good are rewarded
- Melodrama (summer action movies) - Universality
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- Truth is discovered through your senses
- Examination of the phenomenon on stage - Two Regular Forms of Drama
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- Comedy
- Tragedy - Comedy
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- Middle or Lower classes
- Domestic issues
- Everyday speech
- Happy ending
- Lesson learned at the end - Tragedy
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- Nobility or ruling class
- History and sometimes mythology
- Lofty poetic rhetoric (highly stylized)
- Unhappy endings
- Lesson learned at the end - Decorum
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- Appropriateness
- Strictly observed
- Know your place - Function of Drama
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- Teach & please
- Comedy: looks at behavior to be avoided, nothing to excess
- Tragedy: horrifying consequences of mistakes or misdeeds - 3 Unities
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- Time
- Place
- Action - Unity of Time
- Action of the play occurs in 12- to 24-hour period
- Unity of Place
- Action of the play occurs in one location (sometimes outside)
- Unity of Action
- Action of the play follows a single plotline
- 5-Act Structure
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- Educated playwrights
- Got this from Horace - Commedia Dell'arte
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- 1540 - 1775
- Comedy of Professional Players (to please and make money)
- origins unknown (may be Attelan farces, Plautus, Terence, Menander)
- 2 Characteristics:
-- Improvisation
-- Stock Characters - Commedia Improvisation
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- actors worked from an outline and improvised, the actor worked his/her skill
- every actor plays same character
- made of lazzi: many stock comic bits (one is lazzo) - Commedia Stock Characters: Unmasked
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Young lovers (innamorato/innamorata)
- stupid
- naive
- romantic
- handsome/beautiful
- well-educated
- need help -
Commedia Stock Characters:
Masked (Masters) -
- capitano: soldier, braggart, talks about sexual/military prowes but has none
- pantalone: middle-aged or elderly, merchant/lawyer/banker, fool, runs after young women
- dottore: friend of pantalone, learned, discredited - Commedia Stock Characters: Masked (Servants)
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Servants
- one smart & one dumb
- always drive the action
- help or hinder their masters
- fantesca: female servant, barmaid, sterotypical, falls in love with other servant, smart/witty, sharp tongue
- arlecchino: harlequin, patchy clothes that evolved into diamonds, juggler, acrobat, smart and dumb, carried a slapstick (loud slapping sound)
- brighella: like arlecchino, but very mean and cruel, sexual appetite, cunning, cynical
- pulcinello: Punch (& Judy), dressed up to look like arlecchino, constantly beating on everyone - English Renaissance
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- 1485-1642
- Henry VIII to Puritans - Conditions that lead to the English Renaissance
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1. Queen Elizabeth
2. Isolated geographically
3. Nationalism & nation-building
4. Religious stability
5. Rise of economic power - Queen Elizabeth
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- 1558-1603
- Long and stable rule
- Virgin Queen - Geographical isolation
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- The reason it took so long to get over from Italy
- Stability due to geography
- Philip II sends Spanish Armada to destroy heretic Queen, limps back (3 times) in part due to the weather - Nationalism & nation-building
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- Unified government & policy
- Rise of chronicle play (history plays) to record and revere the current times - Religious stability
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- Rise of Protestantism
- Act of Supremacy: Elizabeth declares herself head of Church of England in her 2nd year of rule
- Act of Uniformity: sets the order of prayer and prayerbook
- Essentially freedom of religion as long as the affairs of state are not interfered with - Rise of economic power
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- Sank the Spanish Armada 3 times
- Colonial powerhouse: go into the New World and bring back what you find
- Control over emerging markets (bankers, investors)
- Literature, the arts, architecture
- Merchant/middle class
- Establishing trade
- Press, coffeehouses, tobacco - Influences that led to the development of Elizabethan Theatre
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1. Inns of Court
2. Professional Theatre
3. Establishment of theatre buildings - Inns of Court
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Grad School + Internship + Finishing School
- Gray's Inn
- Inner Temple Inn
- Lincoln's Inn
- Middle Temple Inn
- No women
- Rich, noble, aristocratic, educated
- Taught dance, poetry, oration/declamation, etiquette
- Theatre was a tool to demonstrate style and etiquette
- Latin, Greek, Italian, translations of Classics into English
- Next to brothels, links prostitution -> aristocracy -> theatre, theatre becomes political tug-of-war - People from the Inns of Court
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- Christopher Marlowe
- Thomas Kyd
- Ben Jonson - Christopher Marlowe
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- 1564-1593
- Three plays
-- Doctor Faustus
-- The Jew of Malta
-- Edward II
- Episodic structure
- Invented the chronicle play
- Blank verse: Marlowe's Mighty Line (unrhymed iambic pentameter) - Thomas Kyd
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- 1558-1594
- The Spanish Tragedy
-- Most popular of his day
-- Revenge Tragedy
-- Violence
-- Scene within a scene
-- Ghost - Ben Jonson
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- Circulated w/ aristocracy
- Stuck to Neo-classical Rules
- "Volpone" or "The Fox" / "Every Man in His Humour" / "Bartholomew Fair"
- Wrote court masques
- Collaborated with Inigo Jones
- Conscious artistry
- Introduced Italianate ideals to England
- Proscenium arch - Professional Theatre
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- Strolling players
- Elizabeth outlawed cycle plays & political plays to bring stability (1559)
- Master of Revels: officer who ensures plays get OK from the crown
- 1572 theatre legalized as long as there was a patron
- Aristocracy came
- Lord Chamberlain's Men - Lord Chamberlain's Men
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- After Elizabeth died, James (Jacobean) became patron of Lord Chamberlain's Men, they became The King's Men
- Shareholders kick in money
- Hired Men (other jobs, such as cleaning and copying sides)
- Apprentices (young boys assigned to master actors, played women) - Permanent theatre buildings
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- People came to you
- Needed a large turnover
- Repertory in case the audience is against the new play
- Audience is always right - Public theatre buildings
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- Exterior
- Larger
- Yard/Pit where the groundlings stood
- Gallery: lower - merchants, 2nd - students/aristocrats/literati, 3rd - upper nobility, politicians
- Playwrights had to appeal to all strata of society - Private theatre buildings
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- Interior
- Smaller
- Upper class/nobility - Emblematic/Iconic theatre
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- Demands that the audience listen and watch
- Emphasis on language
- Minor set (lantern = night, cloak = cold)
- Prompt imagination
- To an active listening audience (40 years later, set design shifts audience from listening to seeing) - Theatre = Evil
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- "A Treatise on Dicing, Dancing, Plays & Interludes" by John Northbrook
- Stephen Gosson: "School of Abuse" - echoes Northbrook - Shakespeare
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- 1564-1616
- Greatest Playwright Who Ever Lived
- Collaborated a lot
- 1623: Folio edited & published (36 plays)
- Lord Chamberlain's Men - Shakespeare's Plays
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- Henry VI, pt. 1, 2, 3
- Henry V
- Richard III
- Twelfth Night
- Measure for Measure
- Loves Labor's Lost
- Taming of the Shrew
- Othello
- King Lear
- Hamlet*
- Macbeth*
- Romeo & Juliet
- The Tempest
* = greatest play ever written (? - debate) - Shakespeare's Characteristics
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- Strong exposition/action starts immediately
- 2+ plots/same theme
- Action takes days, weeks, years
- Large & diverse cast
- 3D characters treated w/ sympathy
- Rich language (metaphor, mood, symbols, comedy)
- 1st existential playwright - Ben Jonson said in the Folio...
- "He's not of a time, he's of the ages."
- Blackfriar's
- - Boys' acting company, famous during James I (Jacobean), until offend him and get shut down
- Richard Tarleton
- Clown in Queen's Men
- William Kempe
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- Clown in Lord Chamberlain's Men
- Shakespeare was pissed at him frequently
- Famous for "dancing across Europe"
- Started theatre in Germany - Robert Arman
- - Replaced Kempe
- Edward Alleyn
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- Tragic actor
- Marlowe's plays
- Originated Faustus - Richard Burbage
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- Originated Richard III, Hamlet, Othello, King Lear
- In King's Men - Inconveniences of Theatre
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1. Corrupts youth
2. Vagrants (actors are horse thieves, masterless men)
3. Idleness
4. Breeding ground for plague (and STDs) - Theatres in London
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- The Red Lion
- The Theatre
- The Globe (built in 1597, burnt in 1613): Henry VIII, cannon caught roof on fire, burned in an hour, rebuilt in 1614, stayed up for 30 years
- Swan Theatre: only interior sketch
- Rose Theatre - Johannes De Witt
- - Drew interior of the Swan
- William Prynne
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- Wrote an attack on theatre and court masques
- called actresses "notorious whores"
- fined, expelled from legal profession, stripped of degrees, prison for life, part of his ears removed - Inigo Jones
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- all about spectacle, special effects
- Italianate scenery
- Perspective scenery
- Proscenium arch
- Hid set behind curtain
- Groove and shutter - John Webb
- - Inigo Jones' apprentice & son-in-law
- William Davenant
- - Wrote many of the last masques Inigo designed
- Interregnum
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1642-1660
- Civil War
- Theatre outlawed
- 1649: Charles I beheaded
- 1660: Restoration - Spanish Golden Age
- 1580-1680
- Felix Lope de Vega Carpio
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1652-1635
- Greatest of all Spanish playwrights
- episodic, large cast, ignored Neo-classical rules
- Fuenta Ovejuna (The Sheep Well): most famous play - Calderon de la Barca
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1600-1681
- Life is a Dream: greatest play written in the Golden Age
- Wrote Commedias and autosacrementales (ecclesiastical) - Corral
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- Theatre buildings
- Patio: area in front of stage
- Lunetas: crescent chair layout
- Cazuela - stew pot (all the ladies)
- Gradas - side balconies - French Neo-classicism
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- influenced by Italy because Italian leaders move to France and hijack the culture
- Catherine de Medici (married Henry II, three sons: Francois II, Henry III, Henry IV) was her sons' regent and ran France
- Cardinal Richelieu (regent to Louis XIII)
- Cardinal Mazarin (regent to Louis XIV)
- 80 years uninterrupted Spanish influence - Peace of Nantes
- Henry VI - no more religious fighting (Catholics & Protestants)
- French Academy
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- 40 geniuses of arts & letters
- Couldn't run counter to them or you couldn't be a courtier - Pierre Corneille
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- 1st great playwright of French Renaissance
- "The Cid" (The Lord/Prince/Hero)
- doesn't follow Neo-classical rules - Jean Racine
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- "Phaedra": best Neo-classical play ever written
- failure until Louis XIV became his patron
- Better it reflects Greek, better it makes society - Jean-Baptiste Poquelin
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- changed name to Moliere to avoid shame
- Upholsterer (like father) or lawyer - ran away to create L'Illustre Theatre w/ wife Madelein Bejart & her brother and sister
- Louis XIV names them King's Men - Moliere's plays
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- Tartuffe - greatest
- The School for Wives
- The Miser
- The Misanthrope
- Moderation in all things
- All in rhyming couplets - Moliere's characteristics
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- Based on commedia
- Witty dialogue (maybe wittiest ever)
- Moderation in all things