Blog der Abistokratin

London
·         London’s population increased drastically between 1550 and 1600. One of the reasons cities like London grew so fast was because lots of people were moving there: e.g. unemployed people, artists of music and drama, business and commercial people
·         London’s inhabitants came from all social classes: aristocrats, lawyers, rich merchants, craftsmen, dismissed soldiers, servants, thieves and beggars.
·         At Shakespeare’s time, London was the most important trading city in the world. The capital reached a remarkable economic rise through inland and overseas trade.
·         Streets were very noisy, with people shouting, animals being taken to the market etc.
The narrow streets and overhanging buildings made it very crowded.
·         There was no police force, therefore criminals were punished in public to warn people about breaking the law. Public executions were popular attractions.
·         With so many people living so close together, it wasn’t long before plagues and disease spread, often via rats and because of low hygienic standards.  
·         To get to the South Bank to the theatres people had to cross the Thames, either over the crowded London Bridge or take a boat or ferry, which was expensive and not everybody could afford it, so it was mostly used by rich people or aristocrats.
·         Free-time activities at the South Bank: Loads of taverns, gambling, cockfights, bull- or bear-baiting rings, theatres.
·         London was the centre of English cultural and intellectual life. It had ten open-air amphitheatres, five hall playhouses and four city inns used for plays between 1576 and 1594.       

Beliefs

1. Great Chain of Being
o        Another common belief was the “Great Chain of Being”. It says that every being on earth has its place in the world’s hierarchy. God à Angels à Humans à Animals à Plants à Stones…  Therefore every human has also a place in the hierarchy. King à Aristocrats à subjects…
o        In Shakespeare’s plays the order is often messed up through murder and revolution, but at the end of those plays there’s the restoration of the order (e.g. Julius Caesar, Hamlet, Macbeth). Since the order is believed to be given by nature (and God), someone who produces disorder (e.g. a subject who rebels against his king) acts unnaturally or against God’s laws of the world.

2. Witchcraft
o        A real witch-mania characterised the reign of Elizabeth I. Persecution reached terrifying proportions, so between 1560 and 1603 hundreds of women were convicted as witches and executed. Most people believed in witches, though some people recognized it as superstition
o        Witches were credited with diabolic powers: fly, predict the future, cause fog or tempests, sail in sieves, curse their enemies, cause diseases, nightmares and sterility, have sex with the devil and take demonic possession of someone.
o        They were said to raise evil spirits by brewing disgusting potions with macabre ingredients. It was also believed that the devil sucked the witches’ blood in exchange for a “familiar”, a reptile, bird or beast as an evil servant. (Like the spirits in Macbeth I,1: Paddock, Greymalkin)
o        King James was as fascinated by witchcraft as his subjects. He himself investigated some witchcraft cases. Mostly the “witches” would confess anything and everything under torture.
o        In 1597 he published the book Demonology about witchcraft, which was printed when he became King in 1603. Literature about witchcraft and witch trials was very famous.
o        The fear of witchcraft came from the Christian belief in Heaven and Hell. People lived in fear of eternal damnation, which they saw as a consequence of witchcraft.
o        Shakespeare’s audience must have seen signs of a man and a woman seized by demonic possession in the play Macbeth. The religious imagery in the play would remind the audience of damnation that awaited those who challenged Christian beliefs (e.g. through murder).
o        The Weird Sisters are a typical image of witches as they were believed in at Shakespeare’s time. They brew disgusting potions, use magic spells, tell the future, sail in a sieve, have spirits, etc. 

The Elizabethan Theatre

Plays and Playwright
§   Variety of plays: comedies, tragedies, history plays, romances, sometimes a mixture.
§   The Theatre was built in 1576, rapidly followed by the nearby Curtain Theatre (1577), the Rose (1587), the Swan (1595), the Globe (1599), the Fortune (1600), and the Red Bull (1604). §   The Blackfriars Theatre, which came into regular use on a longterm basis in 1599 was small in comparison to the earlier theatres and roofed rather than open to the sky; it resembled a modern theatre in ways that its predecessors did not. It was followed by other roofed theatres.
§   Some of the men (no women were professional dramatists in this era) who wrote these plays were educated at either Oxford or Cambridge, but many were not. Although William Shakespeare and Ben Jonson were actors, the majority don’t seem to have been performers.
§   Playwrights were normally paid partly during the writing process, and if their play was accepted, they would also receive the proceeds from one day’s performance. However, they had no ownership of the plays they wrote. Once a play was sold to a company, the company owned it, and the playwright had no control over casting, performance, revision or publication.
§   Other Playwrights at Shakespeare’s time: Ben Johnson, Christopher Marlowe, Richard Brome, Francis Beaumont, Robert Green, Edward de Vere.    

The Actors
§   Actors produced and directed the plays themselves.
§   They had a repertoire of 50 plays which they could play at any time.
§   They dresses lavishly and wore second-hand clothes.
§   Scripts were changed very often and often the plays required improvisation.
§   Women were played by boys till the age of 19 since only male actors were allowed.
§   The actors had to be very good sportsmen and good movers.

 Conditions during the Performance
§   The conditions for the actors would be unacceptable today.
§   The audience in the pit had no seats
§   The actors had to shout since there wasn’t something like a microphone.
§   Since the plays took place in the afternoon there were no light effects and the actors had to give signs to the audience to tell them what time of day it was in the play.
§   The actors had no limit on their playtime and there were no breaks during the performance.
§   People ate and talked during the performances so there was always a lot of noise in the theatre. 

 The Globe
§   It was built in 1599 and belonged to Shakespeare’s theatre company.
§   There were 3 Galleries, a machine room (for effects like thunder), the stage was/is jetting out in the audience. You could also stand on the ground surrounding the stage, called the pit. The people there were called “the groundlings”. Very rich people could afford sitting directly on the stage.
§   At Shakespeare’s time 3000 visitors fitted into The Globe, today only 1500 fit into the theatre.
§   There were no curtains, but two doors through which actors could go in and out. 

 Costumes and Props
§   Costumes and properties were kept backstage in the “tiring house”
§   Actors dressed lavishly and wore Elizabethan second-hand clothes, so the costumes didn’t correspond to the period of the play
§   The symbolic use of colours, but especially black and white, was important: Black à mourning or funeral. White à innocence and purity, often worn by angels or good spirits. Leather or armour à costumes for ghosts.
§   Stage properties were necessary to define location or time of day of the play: Chairs, stools à indoor scenes, a watchman carrying a lantern à streets of a city at night, king wearing his armour à battle field, riding boots à Messenger   

The Audience
§   The audience consisted of several hundred to thousands of people
§   It was a cross-section of the English population since all classes and professions were represented.
§   There were more young people than older ones and more male than female.
§   Prices: 1 penny à pit (standing), 2 penny à back lines (sitting), 3 penny à gallery (best view)
§   There was always a lot of illness and since people stood so close (especially in the pit) the theatres had to be closed sometimes, especially in summer, because of the plague for example.
§   The audience didn’t listen in hushed silence. They talked to each other, bought fruits or sausages, from hawkers walking around.   

Shakespeare’s Biography
§   William Shakespeare, son of Mary Arden and John Shakespeare, was born on April, 26^th 1564 in Stratford upon Avon.
§   In 1582 Shakespeare (18) married Anne Hathaway (26), probably because he had an affair with her and she was impregnated by him. Their first daughter Susanna was therefore born only six month after their marriage in 1583. In 1585 the twins Hamnet and Judith are born.  
§   In 1587 Shakespeare (23) left his family in Stratford-upon-Avon and went to London. He probably joined a group of actors who came through Stratford. It’s possible that Shakespeare felt imprisoned at home with his family and a wife which he had to marry.
§   1591-92 Shakespeare wrote “The Comedy of Errors” and was becoming well-known as an actor and a writer.
§   In 1594 Shakespeare was a member of the Chamberlain’s Men
§   In 1596 Shakespeare’s son Hamnet died.
§   In 1597 Shakespeare was rich enough to buy a new house called “New Place” in Stratford.
§   Shakespeare’s theatre company opened their own theatre “The Globe” in 1599.
§   In 1603 Queen Elizabeth I died and was succeeded by King James I, who later made the Chamberlain’s man to his own theatre group, called the King’s Man.
§   In 1607 Susanna Shakespeare married the well-regarded Dr. John Hall
§   Shakespeare’s granddaughter Elizabeth Hall was born in 1608
§   Shakespeare published his sonnets in 1609 while the theatres in London had to close because of the plague.
§   In 1610 the theatres in London had to be closed again because of the plague and Shakespeare gave up his London lodgings to retire to Stratford, but he still wrote plays.
§   In 1613 the Globe Theatre burned down to the ground during a performance of Henry VIII.
§   Shakespeare died around the end of April in 1616 (perhaps April, 23^rd) in Stratford-upon-Avon, where he was buried in the Holy Trinity Church.