Elizabethan Times and the Theatre

Queen Elizabeth I, her reign was so important to English history she even has her own era named after her! The Elizabethan times for England was a BIG deal. As of right now, personally, what I know about this Era is little to nothing but praise the lord for internet. Queen Elizabeth's reign spanned out over 45 years (1558-1603). It's known as the golden age of England's history. Britannia's symbol was first used in 1572 and marked the age as a renaissance that inspired much national pride and classical ideal, not only that but in this period Britain sustained great naval success over the dreaded Spanish and expanded their influence internationally. It truly was a great and prosperous time for England.

Probably the biggest influence in the English renaissance was their huge step forward in navigation and exploration, as if this accomplishment wasn't good enough the best thing was how well off England was compared to so many of the other European nations like Italy and France. After Sir Francis Drake's circumnavigation (1577-1580[learned that in a video game! who would've thought]) and England's triumph over Spain's armada, England was at the forefront of  international trade and the race for colonization. England's renaissance in terms of it's thought and art is epitomized (my word) by the recognition given by Queen Elizabeth I to Oxford and Cambridge. These universities quickly became recognized as the country's centre for learning and scholarly activities. England's invention of the printing press made literature more available to the people.

Now let us move on to the theater at that time where I have some nice pictures lined up!
To clear things up, London was separated by the River Thames, and on the southern side of the river was the city Southwark. at the time there was no bridge connecting London and Southwark so if one wished to cross they needed to hire a boat man to take them across. Southwark was not held under the same laws that London was, so naturally people went there to do things disallowed in London.

This painting by William Hogarth depicts Southwark about 100 years later but it gives you an idea,
There were taverns filled to the brim with people getting drunk on beer and ale, there was gambling, prostitution, pick-pockets and other criminals as well as animal cruelty the most people today would find barbaric, I won't be going into that however.

Theatre was another thing that was surprisingly illegal in London as it wasn't seen as the high class art form we see it as today, instead it was seen as common and crude compared to the poetry recitations which the higher class folk in London preferred. So London theaters were closed in 1596 by the church of England under the influence of the puritans who believed that plays, along with everything else that didn't worship the lord explicitly, was immoral. But there was also the fear of the bubonic plague (aka the black death), they feared that large gatherings of people would spread the disease more rapidly. So Shakespeare had to dismantle his theater, board by board and rebuild it in Southwark.

Shakespeare famously called his theater "The Wooden "O""

Shakespeare's theater was named "The Globe". Like a stadium the theatre was open aired in the middle and the one thing they didn't have was artificial lighting so all of Shakespeare's plays had to take place in the day. The inside of the theatre had an elevated stage, A balcony above, mainly used as a gallery over the back of the stage where all the audience members could be seated or musicians, it had a cannon that could be fired for battle scenes, there were what we call flies which was the area above the stage where the actors could be hoisted up to give the appearance of them flying and there was at least one trapdoor so that an actor could give the appearance of disappearing or appearing.

Now to advertise these shows they raised a colored flag so that people across the river could tell what genre was being played. A white flag meant they were putting on a comedy, a red flag meant they were showing a history, and a black flag meant they were putting on a tragedy.

The wealthy viewers of the plays had to pay money to sit in shaded seats while the poorer spectators were forced to watch directly in front of the raised stage platform vulnerable to sunlight. This period was also when the trend of cheering when the hero entered the scene and booing when the villain entered began, also, if the spectators where not pleased with the performance they would start throwing rotten food and such at the actors (personally, I believe we should implement this strategy in schools for boring class presentations). Moving on, down in the area for commoners, people would try selling roasted hazelnuts, oranges and beer, kind of like the equivalent to buying hot dogs and peanuts at baseball games today.

Something I personally find humorous is that back in the Elizabethan times, there were no women allowed on stage, women were normally played as young boys in costumes. This is because at the time plays were considered something women should not attend, in fact when women did come to watch the plays they even wore masks to conceal their identity! This explains why Shakespeare's plays had a lack of kissing and things of the sort.

Now what do I think...
Personally I think that the theaters back in the day sound pretty exciting and fun, and if I had the choice, I'd probably be down with the groundlings (Name for commoners bellow the stage) mainly because I'd get a better shot at hitting the actors and I hate to admit it but whenever I go to stage performances back in the US, the child in me still immensely enjoys tossing popcorn at the antagonist. In fact, I think me and Karim would fit right in to a group of loud and often obnoxious individuals. I think also a lot is to be said about Shakespeare really pursuing his dream of being a play writer and even when his theater was closed he completely rebuilt it by moving the parts across the river! That takes a lot of work and commitment.

Omar