Zusammenfassung der Ressource
Elizabethan
Theatre
- Playwrights
- Wiliam
Shakespeare
- Cristopher
Marlowe
- Ben
Jonson
- Thomas
Dekker
- Thomas
Kyd
- Thomas
Heywood
- Robert
Greene
- Acting &
Staging
Conventions
- soliloquy
- literary or dramatic
technique in which a
single character talks
aloud inner thoughts to
himself (or herself), but
not within earshot of
another character.
- aside
- one character addressing
the audience “on the side”,
offering them valuable
information in relation to
the plot or characters that
only the audience is privy to.
- eavesdropping
- characters strategically
overhearing others on stage,
informing both themselves
and the audience of the
details, while the characters
being overheard have no
idea of what is happening.
- boys
performing
female roles
- Women were not legally permitted to act on the English
stage until King Charles II was crowned in the year 1660.
Shakespeare and his contemporaries therefore had no
choice but to cast young boys in the roles of women,
while the men played all the male roles on stage.
- presentational
acting
style
- direct address
to the
audience
- soliloquy
- aside
- prologue
- epilogue
- actors were aware of
the presence of the
audience
- movements
were stylised
and dramatic
- speech patterns
were heightened for
dramatic effect
- dialogue
- generally poetic, dramatic, heightened
when spoken by upper class characters
- Shakespeare's
plays
- blank
verse
(unrhymed)
- rhyming couplets
(often iambic
pentameter)
- in prose, more colloquial, when
spoken by lower class characters
- play
within
a play
- involves the staging of a
play within the play
itself, as in Hamlet.
- Types of plays
- Masque
- It was an allegorical story about an event or person
involving singing, acting and dancing. Characters wore
elaborate masks to hide their faces.
- Comedy
- at the beginning of the play there
is always an element of discord,
which is resolved before the close
- Tragedy
- tragedy of
circumstance
- people are born into their situations, and
do not choose them; such tragedies explore
the consequences of birthrights,
particularly for monarchs
- tragedy of
miscalculation
- the protagonist's error of
judgement has tragic
consequences
- revenge
play
- the protagonist seeks revenge for
an imagined or actual injury
- usually involved sufferings and the
death of the main character
- History
play
- depicted English or
European history
- Tragicomedy
- romantic play that violated the unities of time,
place, and action, that mixed high- and low-born
characters, and that presented fantastic actions
- Stagecraft
- elaborate, rich
and colourful
costumes
- bare stage
- minimal use
of props
- no stage
lights