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  • Hey there, I'm Mike Rugnetta, this is Crash Course Theater, and today we're taking on

  • the theater of Renaissance England.

  • Which means Shakespeare, right?

  • Wrong, unfortunately.

  • It'll be a bit before we know of poor Yorick.

  • Get thee to the ceiling, pal.

  • Believe it or not, there are Renaissance English plays and playwrights and theaters and troupes

  • that existed totally independent of Shakespeare.

  • Well, mostly independent of Shakespeare.

  • Today we'll discuss historical context, introduce the English playhouse, and meet

  • some early plays and playwrights.

  • And we're not going to talk about Shakespeare!

  • Not at all.

  • It's gonna be much ado about somethingelse.

  • INTRO The Renaissance arrives in Englandlate.

  • Really late.

  • Like 150 years later than Italy-late.

  • Why?

  • Well, there are a bunch of reasons, but mostly England spent a lot of the late Middle Ages

  • embroiled in the Hundred Years' War with France, which obviously lasted one hundred

  • and sixteen years, and then thirty two more years fighting the Wars of the Roses, a series

  • of civil wars for control of England, which involved far fewer actual roses than you may

  • expect.

  • Once the Tudors took the throne, things got more stable.

  • Humanism and the scientific method and madrigals really took off.

  • The Tudors liked theater.

  • Like, really liked it a lot.

  • Henry VII, the first Tudor king, paid for court entertainments.

  • His son Henry VIII, the one with all the wives, established an independent Office of the Revels,

  • managed by a Master of Revels whose job it was to arrange plays and masques for the nobility.

  • There were definitely some plays the Tudors didn't like.

  • England had been Catholic and then Protestant and then Catholic and then Protestant again,

  • and sometimes plays could be used to fan the flames of religious discord.

  • So in 1558, Henry's daughter Elizabeth I cracked down on religious and political plays.

  • This pretty much ended the cycle plays.

  • She also passed a law classifying actors as vagrants who could be fined for going from

  • town to town.

  • The solution?

  • Troupes of actors hooked up with nobility and licensed themselves as servants under

  • names like The Lord Chamberlain's Men and The Lord Admiral's Men.

  • Jeez, actors just throughout history, just CANNOT catch a break, huh?

  • If these laws seem restrictive, they are!

  • But the crackdown on the cycle plays pushed the theater in new and more innovative directions,

  • while that whole vagrancy thing encouraged actors to professionalize.

  • The earliest plays of the English Renaissance predate all this licensing and vagrancy.

  • Two of the first English Renaissance plays were comedies written in vernacular English.

  • They were modeled on the work of, surprise surprise, Plautus and Terence!

  • But morality plays were an obvious influence, too, and maybe also medieval farces.

  • Neoclassicism didn't catch on in England the way it did in Italy and in France, so

  • these English plays tend to be looser and more episodic.

  • The earliest one isRalph Roister Doister,” which was written in the 1540s by a schoolmaster

  • named Nicholas Udall.

  • The title character is a braggy dolt, kind of like the Captain from the commedia dell-arte.

  • He falls in love with a virtuous widow, Christian Custance, and tries to win her over, while

  • egged on by Matthew Merrygreeke, a clever trickster type who owes a lot to the Vice

  • character from the morality plays.

  • Ralph gets tricked, beaten, and a rape almost happens.

  • But then the widow marries her rich, honorable suitor, Gawyn Goodluck, and it all ends happily.

  • Another early play isGammer Gurton's Needleby an unknown author.

  • It was first performed in the early 1560s, and it also derives most of its humor from

  • bodily harm.

  • Gammer Gurton has lost her sewing needle.

  • Diccon of Bedlam, a wandering fool and another Vice type, tries to stir up trouble by claiming

  • that her next door neighbor, Dame Chat, took it.

  • Everyone gets beaten up, including a curatewhich is sorta like a priests assistantand the

  • needle is discovered when a servant is stabbed in the butt.

  • Hilarious!

  • It was a simpler time, ok?

  • Wiseguy eh?!

  • I'm sorry,

  • Another early play tried to be all genres to all spectators.

  • It was calledCambisesfor short.

  • Whyfor shortyou may ask?

  • Well the full title goes: “A lamentable tragedy mixed ful of pleasant mirth, conteyning

  • the life of CAMBISES King of PERCIA, from the beginning of his kingdome unto his death,

  • his one good deed of execution, after that many wicked deeds and tirannous murders, committed

  • by and through him, and last of all, his odious death by Gods Justice appointed, Doon in such

  • order as foloweth.”

  • I'd love to see the poster for that one.

  • It was written by the schoolmaster Thomas Preston and mostly likely performed sometime

  • in the 1560s.

  • The episodic structure and the focus on good versus evil link it closely with morality

  • plays, but also history plays.

  • The first tragedy on an English subject isThe Tragedie of Gorboduc,” a play by

  • Thomas Norton and Thomas Sackville, first performed in 1561.

  • Because it's a tragedy, Seneca is the big influence, but there's some morality play

  • elements, too.

  • It's written in blank verse, the meter that he-who-shall-not-be-named-until-the-next-episode

  • uses, and also goes by the catchy titleFerrex and Porrex.”

  • The story goes like this:

  • Gorboduc is an ancient king of Britain who decides to divide the realm between his two

  • sons, Ferrex and Porrex.

  • They fight, Porrex kills Ferrex, and so the Queen stabs Porrex while he's sleeping.

  • Then the people rebel, killing both Gorboduc and the Queen.

  • Nobles rise up and kill most of the people.

  • Everything's a huge mess, and the succession is still unclear.

  • Now that's what I call a tragedy.

  • And yes, this obviously sounds a lot likeKing Lear,” but of course we aren't

  • discussingKing Lear.”

  • Unless what I'm saying now counts.

  • DANGIT.

  • Early English Renaissance plays weren't staged in theaters, because freestanding permanent

  • theaters didn't exist yet.

  • Not in England, anyway.

  • These plays were staged in gardens, banquet halls, inn yards and schools.

  • But as acting became increasingly professionalized and plays became increasingly popular, troupes

  • started to raise funds to build permanent structures.

  • They couldn't build them in the City of London itself, because there was a belief

  • that play-going spread plague.

  • Plays and players were basically outlawed in the city proper by the 1570s.

  • The first theater was probably the Red Lion, which was built in Whitechapel, just outside

  • of the center of London, in 1567.

  • We don't know much about it, except that it had a pretty big stage, some kind of turretand

  • that it was very badly constructed.

  • One of the only surviving documents about the Red Lion is from a complaint by the owner,

  • John Brayne, against the carpenter who built it.

  • The lawsuit over its poor construction dragged on until 1578—which may have been longer

  • than the Red Lion itself survived.

  • A longer-lasting theater was calleddrum roll please

  • The Theatre.

  • It was built in 1576 by the actor and businessman James Burbage in a neighborhood full of gambling

  • dens and brothels, because, as we'll discuss in our episode on the closing of theaters,

  • they were considered pretty immoral as far as structures go.

  • For a look at the theater The Theatre, the first important Elizabethan playhouse, let's

  • look at the Thoughtbubble: The Theatre borrowed its design from inn yards

  • or maybe bear-baiting pits, which is exactly what it sounds like.

  • In Elizabethan England, deciding what you wanted to do for the evening was like, “HMMM

  • do I feel like watching a bunch of dogs try to kill a bear, or do I feel like seeing a

  • play?

  • The Theatre had a three-level gallery structure on most sides, surrounding a thrust

  • stage and a bare-as-in-empty space in the middle where penny-paying ticket holders could

  • stand.

  • If you paid another penny, you could move to the galleries.

  • And if you had three pennies, you got a stool.

  • FAAAANNNNN-CY The Theater was associated with the Lord Admiral's

  • Men, and a bunch of the early plays by Ole What Lights Through Yonder Window Shakes.

  • Eventually a dispute with the landlord led Burbage to dismantle the theater and move

  • it across the river, where it became, dramatic pause, the Globe.

  • These early theaters were open air, public arenas.

  • They could seat as many as 2500 peopleeveryone from slumming nobles to workingmen to the

  • poor.

  • Women came, too, although it wasn't considered respectable, so some wore disguises!

  • But there were no women on stage.

  • Boys played the female roles.

  • And Scenery wasn't as advanced as it was in Italy.

  • Scenes were set with some hanging cloths in the back and maybe a few props.

  • Plays were held in the afternoon, to take advantage of the natural light.

  • A lot of snacks were sold, and beer, too.

  • And if the audience didn't like the play, those snacks would be thrown!

  • Thanks, Thoughtbubble!

  • You wouldn't throw snacks at me if you didn't like a thoughtbubble, would you Yorick?

  • HEY, NO.

  • BAD SKELLY.

  • I suppose I deserve this after the eyepoking incident.

  • In 1576, the first indoor, private theater appeared, Blackfriars Theatre.

  • It was located on the grounds of a former Dominican Monastery.

  • It fell into disuse, and in 1596, a second, fancier theater was built nearby, also by

  • James Burbage.

  • These indoor theaters seated about 750 people, and since seats were more expensive they drew

  • a ritzier crowd.

  • Whether or not that meant ritzier crackers were tossed at the talent, I'm not sure.

  • The plays they put on were thought to be wittier and more sophisticated than those in the public

  • theaters, though, and they were initially performed by companies of boys, because the

  • Renaissance andchild labor.

  • Who wrote these sophisticated plays for those child laborers?

  • Well, they were written by a group of playwrights who were later called the University Wits,

  • because unlike Billy Wiggleharpoon, they all went to Oxford or Cambridge.

  • These snobs wrote sophisticated plays for grown-up actors, too, including many that

  • are still performed today.

  • Basically these guys started with, and improved, the early dramas we looked at, making them

  • bettertruer, livelier, with more awesome poetry.

  • They prepared the way forok,fineShakespeare, WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE ... though they didn't

  • always like him.

  • One of them called him anupstart crow.”

  • Yeesh!

  • Get thee some milk of the poppy to relieve the scorch from that Rennaissance Burn!

  • Among the University Wits were Thomas Kyd, John Lyly, Robert Green, and Christopher Marlowe.

  • Thomas Kyd is best known forThe Spanish Tragedy.”

  • It borrows from Seneca, helps kick off the craze for revenge tragedy, and has a strong

  • influence onHamlet,”.

  • John Lyly wrote charming pastorals, which probably inspiredAs You Like It.”

  • Robert Green, wrote comedies and pastorals and is best known forFriar Bacon and Friar

  • Bungay,” which is a history play and a love story and also a morality play with magicians

  • and a talking head.

  • YES, YOU ALSO ARE THAT, except you're pretty quiet...

  • And then there's ChristopherKitMarlowe, who led a very busy life before dying in a

  • tavern brawl before he was 30.

  • He went to Cambridge, where he earned a master's degree.

  • He also worked for the Elizabethan government in some secret capacity, maybe as a spy.

  • His plays are long and intense and full of gorgeous, vivid blank verse which heavily

  • influenced Shakespeare.

  • Marlowe's characters are ambitious.

  • Really ambitious.

  • They want to conquer the world or change it.

  • Oras in the case ofDoctor Faustus,” his most famous playmake a deal with the

  • devil that guarantees you a couple of decades as the smartest and most powerful person on

  • earth.

  • His tragedies are tragedies of overreaching... of characters who want too much and usually

  • get it, with disastrous consequences.

  • Since he's a big ole deal, we're gonna be devoting our next three episodes to Shakespeare.

  • Also, Yorick insists.

  • Try to remember that Shakespeare doesn't come from nowhere.

  • Okay, yes, Stratford-upon-Avon, kind of is nowhere.

  • But he doesn't arise ahistorically, or come from nowhere artistically.

  • He arrives in a theatrical culture that's already professionalized and thriving, in

  • a London of established troupes, competing theaters, and eager beer-swilling, snack-throwing

  • audiences.

  • Who We'll see plenty of next time.

  • Until thencompost those tomatoesand curtain!

Hey there, I'm Mike Rugnetta, this is Crash Course Theater, and today we're taking on

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英國文藝復興,而不是莎士比亞。戲劇速成班#13 (The English Renaissance and NOT Shakespeare: Crash Course Theater #13)

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    Pei-Yi Lin 發佈於 2021 年 01 月 14 日
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