Renaissance Era Theatre Techniques - Report Example

of the Visual Art and Film Studies of the Concerned 19 March Renaissance Era Theater Techniques The amazing thing is that the theater and drama tend to differ from many other literary genres in the sense that theater happens to be an integral aspect of the performing arts. Theater involves acting and performing stories before a variegated audience. Thereby, theater is not only subservient to an array of techniques pertaining to speech, spectacle, sound and gesture etc, but the theatrical techniques used in any specific era also stand subservient to the stage architecture and literary conventions that stood to be popular and venerated. In that context it was in England that Renaissance brought forth the best theatrical masterpieces of the age. The thing that needs to be noted is that it was the framework and configuration of the Renaissance stage in England that impacted the nature and character of some of the theatrical stars of that age (Parker & Zitner 90). For instance it was the shape and nature of the Renaissance stage in England that forced the dramatists of the era to contrive a particular and specific arrangement of scenes (Parker & Zitner 224). The Renaissance era theatres in England happened to be way smaller as compared to the Greek theatres and ascribed to a seating capacity of almost 2,000 to 3,000 audiences (Ingram 49). Thereby, the theater techniques in the Renaissance era stood subservient to the kind of theatres in which the plays were performed. The dramatists of the Renaissance era paid an immense attention to the configuration and capacity of the theaters in which they performed their plays. In England during the Renaissance era, the theatres mostly came out as primitive concerns, comprising of spacious wooden sheds, which were sparsely thatched with rushes and had a flagstaff on the top that used to be surrounded by some sort of a trench (Harrison 151). These theatres used to populate the banks of the river Thames and happened to be a source of much consternation to the peaceful neighborhoods in the area (Harrison 21). The thing that needs to be noted is that during the Renaissance era, irrespective of the objections registered by the people living in the area and much fuss and criticism put forth by the Puritans, the theatres thrived rapidly. It is indeed interesting to say that in the year 1633, there functioned almost 19 theaters in London, which happened to be a city of merely 3, 00,000 citizens (Harrison 180). This depicts the extent to which the masses evinced interest in theater in England during the Renaissance era. The private theaters during the Renaissance Era aspired to replicate the framework of Guild Halls. In contrast the public theaters tried to replicate a typical Inn Yard. As it happened in the Greek times, during the Renaissance, in public theatres the auditorium happened to be open to the sky while the stage happened to be roofed. No doubt, bad weather in those days must have certainly marred the innocent pleasure of watching a Shakespearian comedy. No tickets were sold to the audience in those days. A small fee facilitated an audience with a reasonably airy standing space in the theater yard (Harrison 151). The rich spectators used to watch the plays from the relatively comfortable confines of the boxes placed on respective sides of the stage (Harrison 29). The more spacious theaters did have an upper box which used to house the orchestra (Harrison 29). The amazing thing is that the royal audience tended to occupy the more fashionable part of the theater, which used to be present on the stage itself. The dramatic personalities of the Renaissance England also used to occupy this part of the stage, which were mostly accorded free passes (Harrison 234). It does need to be mentioned that during the Renaissance era in England, the theater in which a particular play was to be performed specifically influenced the plot of that play (Dessen 170). Dramatists always used to keep some specific theater in mind while writing their plays. Actually it is quite possible that the particular actors employed by a theater also did influence the writing of a play. In the public theaters that mostly happened to be unroofed and held almost more than 2,000 spectators, the actors were required to cope up with an audience hailing from all classes including inns of court men, ordinary citizens and their wives, university men, journeyman, gentlemen and their wives, soldiers, apprentices, thieves and pick pockets. No doubt the task of pleasing and engaging such variegated and diverse audiences must indeed have been very difficult. No wonder the main aspect of any Elizabethan theater used to be the pit open to the sky and occupied by groundlings (Dessen 161). It does need to be mentioned that during the performance of the Renaissance plays, the audience if got displeased, did not hesitate from getting unruly (Dessen 161). Besides the plays relied on much fanfare and the actors used to wear rich and expensive dresses and there used to be much dancing and singing accompanying loud instrumental music (Dessen 22). Usually a play used to begin with a trumpet blast followed by a prologue rendered by some actor in a long black coat. The performance of any tragedy in the Renaissance Theater in England was marked by the draping of stage in black (Dessen 122). In case of comedies the black draping was replaced with blue hangings (Dessen 122). A placard announcing the scene of the play usually used to be hung upon one of the many stage doors (Gurr 10). When the scene was changed, the placard also used to be changed accordingly (Gurr 10). To make the common citizens and lower sections of the society engaged and interested there used to be employed a jester who used to dance and frolic between the acts (Gurr 26). No women actor appeared on the stage and the role of women characters were also performed by young boys. Besides, really few women went to watch stage performances. On special occasions, the Queen or the members of the royalty and the court summoned the actors and players to perform in the court (Bevington 65). In that sense it would not be wrong to say that the Renaissance Theater did happen to be very adaptable and versatile, and open to a highly variegated and mixed audience configuration. People belonging to all classes and strata of society did manage to find something to their liking in the Renaissance plays. The one other interesting thing about the Renaissance plays was that they hardly ever used any scenery as a background during the performance (Gurr 210). The Renaissance plays deployed only a handful of props like chairs, beds and trees to make a suggestion regarding the location in which the action used to take place. The plays of Renaissance dramatists like Shakespeare and Marlowe simply cannot be typified as mere works of literature. While analyzing the Reniassance plays, one also does need to consider the stage conventions and theatre of that age. The plays of Shakespeare and Marlowe do have an innate theatrical element and quality which can only be appreciated when one studies the stage techniques during the Renaissance era in a historical context. The Reniassance plays were not only produced to abide by certain stage conditions and conventions, but they also used to be molded and shaped by these conditions and conventions (Gurr 121). Since in the Reniassance era the theatres relied on minimal background scenery and props while staging plays, it made it necessary in case of the Renaissance dramatists to bring in an array of explanatory references in the play. Thereby, the actors were required to render dialogues that actually told the audience it was night time, that they were seeing a castle, a garden or a bed chamber. No doubt such explanatory references did used to be rendered in the plays in the guise of rich poetry as one notice in the plays of Shakespeare (Gurr 131). Especially Shakespeare relied much on the implicit meaning and suggestiveness of the dialogues in his plays to involve and influence the imagination of the audience who watched his plays. Such literary contrivances and techniques made the audiences really appreciate and enjoy, what was being performed on the stage. This allowed them to grasp the full relevance and the implicit meaning of varied scenes being staged in any particular play. The Reniassance playwrights did rely on rich and sumptuous costuming, but actually speaking such costuming rarely happened to be authentic and accurate (Gurr 239). The costumes were contrived and designed while taking into consideration the taste and understanding of the audience before which any play was being staged (Prouty 25). What the simplicity of stage setting took away from the Reniassance plays; it was much more compensated for by the rapidity of action and movement on the part of actors (Chambers 343). This was also necessary and imperative as there was no change of scene in the Elizabethan theater as there used to be no arrangement or provision for a curtain that could be dropped. The other thing is that as there used to be no curtain that could be dropped in Renaissance English theaters, it used to get a must for the specific artists presenting a scene to wind it up to its natural conclusion, without stopping or halting, while waiting for the climax (Curr 10). As there used to be no curtains in the Elizabethan theater, it was practically impossible to remove the specific characters from the stage except for winding up a scene and removing all the characters from the scene, in full presence of the audience (Curr 10). No wonder one does find specific commands being conveyed to the servants and soldiers in the plays of Marlowe and Shakespeare. The plays of Shakespeare for that purpose did not affiliate to the three unities, because his plays were meant to be performed on stage and that is why they did not require such unities. Actually speaking the Reniassance stage did happen to be better as compared to any modern stage in many respects. It did not rely on realistic effects, but rather exploited stylized and conventional imagery to present a realistic effect and influence. The interesting thing about the Reniassance Theater in England was that it relied on scripts that were not individual works of literature, but actually happened to be an integral aspect of a performance genre and thereby affiliated to its constraints and the possibilities inherent in it. Unlike the modern theaters, the theaters in Reniassance England did not rely on realistic effects and stage imagery to produce impact. Instead they relied on old fashioned stage conventions and the skills of actors performing the play. That is why they managed to garner such influence, which is as relevant today as it happened to be during the Renaissance times. Works Cited Bevington, David. English Reniassance Drama. London: WW Norton and Company, 2002. Print. Chambers, EK. The Elizabethan Stage. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1923. Print. Gurr, Andrew. The Shakespearean Stage 1574-1642. London: Cambridge University Press, 2009. Print. Harrison, G.B. Elizabethan Plays and Players. An Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press. 1956. Print. Ingram, William. The Business of Playing. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1992 Print. Parker, R.B., and S.P. Zitner. Elizabethan Theater. Newark, DE: University of Delaware Press, 1996. Print. Prouty, Charles T. Studies in the Elizabethan Theater. Hamden, CT: Shoe String Press, 1961. Print. Read More