Explain the Theatrical Background of William Shakespeare

If it weren’t for a fortunate conjunction of events, William Shakespeare would NOT have been the great success that we know today.

The English theatre had its origins in religious dramatizations of Biblical stories. These religious morality plays slowly gave way to folklore topics, pageants, tournaments, and processions. At the schools and colleges, Renaissance humanism revived old Roman models: Seneca for tragedy and Plautus for comedy. (Indeed, Shakespeare’s earliest plays would use these Roman playwrights as models).

At the time of Shakespeare’s birth, there were no permanent theatres, and acting was considered a profession of lazy vagrants. But as the drama slowly became more respectable, both of those problems were soon solved.

In 1576 London opened its first permanent theatre, called THE THEATRE, and shortly thereafter actors received the special protection of noblemen, and so were safe from vagrancy laws. Once actors grouped together to form companies, they could rehearse, have access to a regular theatre, and most importantly, train new actors for the future.

All that was needed now were new plays to supply the popular demand—for EVERYONE went to see plays: rich and poor, commoner, nobility, and royalty. By 1615 there would be 11 permanent theatres and nearly twice that number of acting companies.

When I said "everyone" went to plays, I exaggerated.

The leading citizens of London disapproved of the theatre; they tended to be religious purists who saw performances of plays as sinful—full of rowdy drinking, swearing, and worse (in the audience—not on stage!). They prohibited theatres operating within the city limits, so all the theatres were just outside the walls or across the river (London was much smaller then).

There were 3 types of theatres, with three different audiences: outdoor, enclosed (indoor), and those at court (which were also enclosed). The outdoor theatres, like the famous GLOBE theatre, held nearly 2,000 people. People from all parts of society attended the outdoor theatres; the cheapest tickets allowed you to stand in the central part of the theatre, an uncovered area on the ground level; the stage was 5 feet above you. If you paid a bit more, you could have a seat in a covered area. There were 3 stories of covered galleries. The audience was rowdy--they talked loudly, ate, drank, and indulged all their appetites during the show. The closest thing to modern experience might be crowds in large bars or nightclubs (Las Vegas?)—or even at a rock concert…

The stage projected out into the cheaper seats, and so the actors had an audience on three sides. The stage had a trapdoor in the center, a place for stage machinery above the stage, and a backstage area behind.

Several things were quite different between going to see a play (or film) today and seeing a play back then.

First, the actors’ costumes were NOT realistic; they tended to wear VERY fashionable clothing to make a spectacle, with a few pieces of extra costume to help tell who they were.

Second, they used few props—a bed, a throne, a table and chairs, a sword…

And finally, they used almost NO SCENERY and had to depend on NATURAL LIGHTING.

All of these combined together meant that for the play to succeed, the actors had to use LANGUAGE and gestures to communicate to the audience what was going on. And for its part, the audience had to use its imagination.

See a drawing of an outdoor theater

The indoor theatres were smaller, usually in a big hall somewhere with "bleacher seats" on each side and seats in front of the stage. The tickets were a bit more expensive, so the audience tended to be a bit more exclusive (though not necessarily well behaved). All seats were protected from the weather, but they had to depend on artificial lighting (torches and candles).

See a drawing of an indoor theater

When unfavorable circumstances occurred in London (such as too much competition, a breakout of the plague, or a fire burning a theatre down…), the companies went on the road, performing in the smaller country towns at Inn Yards.

I cannot stress enough HOW POPULAR going to the theatre was at this time. MOST EVERYONE went and enjoyed it. But like all good things, this popular form of entertainment came to an end. In 1640, a radical religious group took over the government and closed ALL the theatres. When the theatres were reopened 20 years later, mainly as aristocratic entertainment, they NEVER regained the popularity they once had.

Thus the demand for this new popular entertainment, and permanent theatres for them to be performed, and actors to perform them, and playwrights to write them, all just happened to come together at the time William Shakespeare and several other great playwrights chose the theatre as their livelihoods.