A BRIEF SHAKESPEAREAN BACKGROUND

In the 12th and 13th centuries, drama was an important part of church life. These dramas were religious plays portraying episodes from the life of Christ. During the Middle Ages, Miracle Plays became popular. These were re-enactments of incidents from the lives of saints. Mystery plays showed incidents from the Bible and morality plays, which showed good triumphing over evil, were also common. There was no established theatre and the plays were performed in the churches or in the churchyard.

In towns, craft guilds began to put on drama festivals, the plays being performed on wagons, which moved from location to location. Again, these plays were of religious nature.

As time passed, drama lost the connection with religion or moralising and was eventually banned from churches. Players now wandered in bands from village to village. They performed at the houses of nobles where the plays were lavish entertainments including dance, pantomime, music and poetry. Schools and universities began to revive plays of Greek and Roman writers.

The Renaissance brought new forms of art including the commedia dell'arte - a short witty play always revolving around the same characters. In England, playwrights began to write short plays or farces which were performed in schools.

The high period of English drama was the Elizabethan Age. In 1576, and actor, James Burbage, built the first public theatre or playhouse in London. It was called "The Theatre". It was designed after the stages set up in inn courtyards with the audience on three sides of the stage.

The Globe, in London, was the site of many of Shakespeare's plays. It also had an apron (or "thrust") stage open on three sides with a built up fourth side with doors through which the actors appeared and exited. The doors could also represent caves, roads, or other rooms. Above, there was a balcony used as a balcony (Romeo and Juliet), mountains or hills, or ship's rigging or watch towers.

There was no curtain. Actors had to exit the stage to show the end of a scene. Shakespeare often used the convention of a rhyming couplet to let the audience know a scene was finished.

There was very little scenery. That was usually written into the script of the play to let the audience know where the scene was taking place. Weather and lighting was also written into the script, as were some stage directions.

In Shakespeare's day, costuming was not essential. Most plays were performed in Elizabethan dress and the audience used its imagination. Sometimes mistakes can be found in the plays because of this. For example, in Julius Caesar we find the actors' clothing referred to as "doublets", an Elizabethan form of jacket, definitely not Roman.
There were no actresses, the female roles being played by young boys whose voices had not yet broken. They, of course, wore dresses and wigs. There are several very strong female parts in Shakespeare's works, e.g. Lady Macbeth, Portia, and Cleopatra, which leads us to believe Shakespeare had superb young actors to carry off the illusion.

Shakespeare was an actor himself, writing and acting in his own plays as well as directing them. The plays we have today were not meant to be read, but acted and there were constant changes being made to scripts; lines being altered, and whole scenes changed. Piracy was common. Those who wished to steal a play and produce it as their own attended the performances and wrote down as much of the script as they could. The results were usually dreadful, e.g. the "Ur Hamlet" a plagiarised. edition of Hamlet. Constant changing of the script made plagiarizing more difficult.

William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare was born in Stratford-upon-Avon, England in 1564. He was christened on April 26 of that year. The day of his birth is unknown, but has long been celebrated on April 23. He was the third and oldest son of John and Mary Arden Shakespeare.

Shakespeare's father was a tanner and glove maker. He was an alderman of Stratford and also served a term as mayor. Toward the end of his life, John Shakespeare had lost most of his money.

Shakespeare went to the town's grammar school and his studies were mainly in Latin. In 1582, he married Anne Hathaway, who was eight years older. They had a daughter, Susanna, and twins, Hamnet, and Judith.

It is not known what Shakespeare did between 1583 and 1592. Various stories say he might have taught school, worked in a lawyer's office, served on a rich man's estate, or travelled with a company of actors. By 1592, Shakespeare was definitely in London and was already recognised as an actor and playwright.

Shakespeare became good friends with the son of James Burbage, Richard, who was the greatest tragic actor of his day. James manages two playhouses, the Theatre and the Curtain. In 1598 the Burbages built the famous Globe Theatre. Shakespeare was associated with the Globe Theatre for the rest of his active life.

In 1607, when he was 43, he may have suffered a serious physical breakdown. He retired from his theatre work in 1610 and returned to Stratford. In 1613, the Globe Theatre burned down, and Shakespeare lot much money in it, but was still wealthy. He shared in the building of the new Globe.

He was never a famous actor and probably began his writing career by patching up old plays his company wished to perform. His first completely original play was Love's Labours Lost in 1591(?). The first collected edition of his plays was published in 1623. All 37 of his plays were written between 1590 and 1613. He's the world's most published playwright.

On April 23, 1616, Shakespeare died at the age of 52 (Julian calendar - Gregorian calendar date would be May 3, 1616)