The principal adult and boy players in The Battle of Alcazar (which is the only early modern play for which both a plot and a printed text is extant) speak 98% of the lines, which is consistent with with the distribution of lines in extant prompt-books from pre-Restoration London that identify the names of the players in principal parts (27).
Of interest to me, in the plot of The Second Part of the Seven Deadly Sins, "four boys plays seven principal female roles" and while several of the adult principal roles are doubled "each actor who doubles in principle [sic] parts is off-stage for an interval of at least one full scene between roles" (29).
While the plot of The Battle of Alcazar is the only extant plot for which the text of the play itself is also extant, the plot is incomplete, and there is at least one instance where the plot differs from the printed play: a 35 line scene between Abdelmelec and Zareo is cut from the version of the play upon which the plot is based (31).
In assembling tables of parts, where one character is given multiple names, King separates them with a hyphen as opposed to giving the different character names their only row in the table (33). This is slightly different from my previous practice, but seems more logical. I'm only writing it down so I remember to implement it the next time I run into this situation.
Adult actors playing larger principal roles usually do not double, but lesser principals regularly double in one or two "minor roles" (33).
The book-keeper has added the note "Enter mr Goughe" in the left margin of one of the pages of The Second Maiden's Tragedy, which King says is "probably as a reminder that this new entrance for Memphonius should be added to the plot and that his new lines should be added to Goughe's part" (35). Again, while I agree with him, King's implication is that this is the only, or perhaps even the primary, reason for so doing, and all evidence I have seen suggests this is not the case.
In his edition of Sir John van Olden Barnavelt, Howard-Hill observes that there are too many "inconsistencies, obscurities, and errors," and that "the manuscript did not give a prompter all the information he would have required to guide performances" (35 - 38). King seems to accept this without comment, but the suggestion that a book would be used to guide performances would seem to imply that a prompt-book is used in guiding the performance.
The manuscript allowed-book of The Honest Man's Fortune was probably based on a prompt book, and contains a scene (5.3) not printed with the play in the Beaumont and Fletcher Folio (1647) (40).
Assigning the greatest proportion of lines to principal players allows them to rehearse their parts independent of supernumeraries for as long as possible (48). This makes a huge deal of sense in light of Stern's argument that most of the time an early modern player spent in rehearsal would have either been on their own with the part, or in the presence of an instructor.
Summary
Evidence of who played which roles in the early modern London playhouses suggest that a single male sharer in the company tended to play the largest roles in a given play, with the other principal roles being distributed largely among company members. Principal players might have doubled with smaller roles (roles with less than 25 speaking lines), and hired men taking on other non-principal roles, and perhaps (along with playhouse staff) filling supernumerary roles as necessary.
Showing posts with label Playhouses. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Playhouses. Show all posts
Friday, December 31, 2010
Thursday, December 30, 2010
Notes on "Casting Shakespeare's Plays" - Chapter 1
Shakespeare's plays require a relatively constant number of principal actors: ten for male roles and ten for female roles. For a male role, this means a character that speaks at least 25 lines, and for a female at least 10 (1).
King's use of the term "principal" is based on Ben Jonson's identification of the principal plays of Shakespeare as a "principal comoedian" with the Chamberlain's Men when they performed Every Man in his Humour in 1598, and as a principal Tragoedian with the King's Men when they performed Sejanus in 1603, as well as from the front matter of the First Folio, which lists "the Principall Actors in all these Playes" (1).
"Not all actors in principal roles are sharers, nor do all the available sharers appear in each of the plays that the company performs" (4). Fascinating.
c.f. G. E. Bentley, The Profession of Player in Shakespeare's Time. Princeton 1984.
Doubling was a common practice within the Lord Chamberlain's/King's Men, and earlier scholarship on the casting procedures of their repertory tends to ignore this fact (4).
Roughly twenty plays printed between the 1530s and 1570s are 'offered for acting,' and are printed with cast lists that show the number of actors they require. Ulpian Fulwell's 1568 Like Will to Like is a moral interlude that describes how five actors 'may easily play' sixteen roles. John Pickering's 1567 Horestes contains a cast list demonstrating how six actors can play twenty seven characters. See also the 1570 Clyomon and Clamydes, which acknowledges that supernumerary roles, and even the excellence of costume, may be limited (4 - 5).
c.f. The Doubling of Parts in Shakespeare's Plays by Arthur Colby Sprague (london 1966). Sprague observes that 55 performances of Hamlet between 20 April 1730 and 30 April 1914 where Polonius doubles as the First Gravedigger (5).
Authors of the period prepared a plot of the play they wished to write describing how many actors would be necessary for given scenes, which they would submit to the company for approval (6).
"Some actors moved from one company to another just as acting companies moved from one playhouse to another" (7).
It seems a common practice that an author was advanced a sum of money on the acceptance of the plot, and was sometimes (based on Henslowe's records) given further advances based on stages of development. It is likely that only after such an initial payment was made would the author begin the work of writing the dialogue according to the approved plot. Before final payment for the script was made to the author, it seems the usual case for a company to insist on being given a fair copy of the play (7 - 9).
The text of the extant part of Orlando Furioso is written in secretary hand, and contains certain gaps where it seems as if the scribe was unable to decipher the writing for the player to insert later from the prompt book (10).
John Higgens, in his 1585 Nomenclator defines the book-keeper as "he that telleth the players their part when they are out and have forgotten, the prompter or book-holder" (qtd on 10).
The promptbook for Fletcher and Massinger's Sir John van Olden Barnavelt (1619) does not list the names of actors for the largest principal roles, but does give them for lesser principal roles that double. In each of these cases, the actor is off stage for a complete scene to allow for the costume change (11).
"Most of the other actors' names added to the texts of the prompt books -- and the early texts of Shakespeare -- are those of hired men who played minor parts" (11).
Principal actors sometimes doubled with minor parts, but it was rare for a hireling to perform a principal role (11).
While a modern prompt book is a complete and detailed record of all technical requirements and cues for a production, the seventeenth century counterpart did not provide nearly as complete a technical record. The book-keeper would instead prepare a scene-by-scene plot breakdown, add names of actors to characters, and would then hang this document in the tiring house; when notes appear in prompt-books about technical requirements or actors names, it is probably because the book-keeper was taking notes at rehearsals for later inclusion in the plot (13).
According to Henslowe's Diary, the time elapsed between payment to the author (or authors) for The Conquest of the West Indies was about one month, which may be the time alloted to rehearsal. In another instance, for Madmen's Morris, the same period was about two weeks (14).
Based on the evidence King examines, it seems common practice for boys' parts to not be doubled, and for playhouse employees to play supernumerary characters (14 - 15).
"Shakespeare's earliest tragedy [Titus Andronicus] (1594) and a late romance [The Tempest] (1611) have the same basic plan for casting... this plan for casting Shakespeare's plays is derived from common theatrical practice at London playhouses of this period" (19).
Summary
Using playhouse documents from the period, it is possible to discern patterns and trends of patterns in the ways in which the plays of the period were cast. This will not only help us understand how the plays were performed, it can help us understand how the plays may have been cut or adapted, and what that might imply for company sizes at various times.
Citation
King, T. J. The Casting of Shakespeare's Plays: London actors and their roles, 1590 - 1642. Cambridge: Cambridge UP: 1992. Print.
King's use of the term "principal" is based on Ben Jonson's identification of the principal plays of Shakespeare as a "principal comoedian" with the Chamberlain's Men when they performed Every Man in his Humour in 1598, and as a principal Tragoedian with the King's Men when they performed Sejanus in 1603, as well as from the front matter of the First Folio, which lists "the Principall Actors in all these Playes" (1).
"Not all actors in principal roles are sharers, nor do all the available sharers appear in each of the plays that the company performs" (4). Fascinating.
c.f. G. E. Bentley, The Profession of Player in Shakespeare's Time. Princeton 1984.
Doubling was a common practice within the Lord Chamberlain's/King's Men, and earlier scholarship on the casting procedures of their repertory tends to ignore this fact (4).
Roughly twenty plays printed between the 1530s and 1570s are 'offered for acting,' and are printed with cast lists that show the number of actors they require. Ulpian Fulwell's 1568 Like Will to Like is a moral interlude that describes how five actors 'may easily play' sixteen roles. John Pickering's 1567 Horestes contains a cast list demonstrating how six actors can play twenty seven characters. See also the 1570 Clyomon and Clamydes, which acknowledges that supernumerary roles, and even the excellence of costume, may be limited (4 - 5).
c.f. The Doubling of Parts in Shakespeare's Plays by Arthur Colby Sprague (london 1966). Sprague observes that 55 performances of Hamlet between 20 April 1730 and 30 April 1914 where Polonius doubles as the First Gravedigger (5).
Authors of the period prepared a plot of the play they wished to write describing how many actors would be necessary for given scenes, which they would submit to the company for approval (6).
"Some actors moved from one company to another just as acting companies moved from one playhouse to another" (7).
It seems a common practice that an author was advanced a sum of money on the acceptance of the plot, and was sometimes (based on Henslowe's records) given further advances based on stages of development. It is likely that only after such an initial payment was made would the author begin the work of writing the dialogue according to the approved plot. Before final payment for the script was made to the author, it seems the usual case for a company to insist on being given a fair copy of the play (7 - 9).
The text of the extant part of Orlando Furioso is written in secretary hand, and contains certain gaps where it seems as if the scribe was unable to decipher the writing for the player to insert later from the prompt book (10).
I don't know if I agree with King's contention that this was a playhouse scribe, for if it was, why would they presume the actor would be better able to read the book if they could not? Unless either the book or the copy the scribe was working from was not-quite fair copy. King cites the case of Machiavel and the Devil on page 9, where a scribe began making parts from rough copy before the play was finished.
John Higgens, in his 1585 Nomenclator defines the book-keeper as "he that telleth the players their part when they are out and have forgotten, the prompter or book-holder" (qtd on 10).
This calls into question Gurr's assertion that the use of the word "prompt book" is anachronistic, and also my own that the New Bibliographers were speaking of the duties of the prompter without necessarily having a clear understanding of what those duties were. If an allowed book had to be legible enough to use to be able to feed lines to actors, than a foul papers setting seems to not be appropriate to the task.
The promptbook for Fletcher and Massinger's Sir John van Olden Barnavelt (1619) does not list the names of actors for the largest principal roles, but does give them for lesser principal roles that double. In each of these cases, the actor is off stage for a complete scene to allow for the costume change (11).
"Most of the other actors' names added to the texts of the prompt books -- and the early texts of Shakespeare -- are those of hired men who played minor parts" (11).
Principal actors sometimes doubled with minor parts, but it was rare for a hireling to perform a principal role (11).
While a modern prompt book is a complete and detailed record of all technical requirements and cues for a production, the seventeenth century counterpart did not provide nearly as complete a technical record. The book-keeper would instead prepare a scene-by-scene plot breakdown, add names of actors to characters, and would then hang this document in the tiring house; when notes appear in prompt-books about technical requirements or actors names, it is probably because the book-keeper was taking notes at rehearsals for later inclusion in the plot (13).
I'm not sure I can accept the exclusivity of King's assertion. We use scene breakdowns and prop and costume lists all the time backstage in the modern theatre during performance, and while those are created from notes in the Stage Manager's book, the book itself is used as a guide during performance. If Higgens is correct in his contemporary description of how a prompter and book-holder used a book, there would have been someone reading along with the performance."An actor can learn a minor part of twenty-five lines or less with about an hour of study and rehearsal" (13).
According to Henslowe's Diary, the time elapsed between payment to the author (or authors) for The Conquest of the West Indies was about one month, which may be the time alloted to rehearsal. In another instance, for Madmen's Morris, the same period was about two weeks (14).
This does not mean that parts could not have been made from rough copy in advance in either case. It is a vague approximation, but that said, I know from my own experience that either time frame can be long enough to rehearse a complete play.In The plott of ffrederick & Basilea "ten leading actors of the company are identified in ten principal roles without doubling; four boys play four principal female roles without doubling. Two hired men play ten minor parts, and five playhouse attendants and gatherers play Lords, Guards, Confederates, and Soldiers" (15).
Based on the evidence King examines, it seems common practice for boys' parts to not be doubled, and for playhouse employees to play supernumerary characters (14 - 15).
"Shakespeare's earliest tragedy [Titus Andronicus] (1594) and a late romance [The Tempest] (1611) have the same basic plan for casting... this plan for casting Shakespeare's plays is derived from common theatrical practice at London playhouses of this period" (19).
Summary
Using playhouse documents from the period, it is possible to discern patterns and trends of patterns in the ways in which the plays of the period were cast. This will not only help us understand how the plays were performed, it can help us understand how the plays may have been cut or adapted, and what that might imply for company sizes at various times.
Citation
King, T. J. The Casting of Shakespeare's Plays: London actors and their roles, 1590 - 1642. Cambridge: Cambridge UP: 1992. Print.
Thursday, September 23, 2010
Notes on Shakespeare and the Rise of the Editor - Introduction
One of the authors Dr. Menzer recommended I look into when I started this project was Sonia Massai, and in what now feels like the pre-history days of last semester, I recall reading one of her articles on the matter (i.e. before I was taking obsessive compulsive notes. It's true, you never can read enough, but I definitely want to make a dent into Shakespeare and the Rise of the Editor before I go much further. The inside cover claims this to be an exploration of the prehistory of editing, which is right up my alley.
While we might commonly mark Nicholas Rowe's 1709 edition of The Works of Mr. William Shakespeare as the beginning of editing Shakespeare's plays, and of giving a prominent place to the editor, "editorial manipulation" of the texts had been taking place for nearly a century by the time of Rowe's 1709 edition (1 - 2).
Julie Stone Peters has already explored the interplay between the playhouse and the print shop. The commercial possibilities of offering new texts that were, as commonly advertised on title pages of the period, "newly corrected and amended." It is, however, impossible to say what editorial principles guided these editions. While there is a lack of direct evidence to demonstrate how this process was done, there is some evidence, such as the stationer's preface in the second edition of the Comedies and Tragedies of Beaumont and Fletcher (3 - 4).
The process of manuscript annotations to a printed copy for subsequent printing was common enough that the verb "to perfect" came to mean not only "to complete," but also "to make faultless," and was specifically used in this latter context of the preparation of printers copy (5 - 6).
From George Whetstone's dedicatory epistle to Promos and Cassandra we know that texts commonly underwent a stage where they were considered imperfect and in need of correction before being printed. To this Richard Jones, the printer, adds another epistle to the reader explaining that Whetstone didn't supply him with a perfected copy of the work, and begs the indulgence of the reader in forgiving any errors he might have committed in the process. From this, we can see that, should the author have been unavailable, it was preferable that another party should undertake this task of "perfecting" the manuscript (6 - 7).
The final sentence of Heminge and Condell's dedicatory epistle of the First Folio clearly states that they have perfected the copies of the plays (or at least are taking responsibility for that) prior to their printing (7 - 8).
Mosley's collection of the works of Sir John Suckling offers a contrary example, where Mosely states in a preface that he has left The Sad One: A Tragedy un-perfected. Mosely found The Sad One to be incomplete, and decided to print it as he found it rather than supplement Suckling's works with another author unconnected to the original (8 - 9).
"While non-authorial completion or revision of an authoritative, though fragmentary, copy was increasingly regarded as detrimental tampering, non-authorial preparation of dramatic copy for the pres was valued both when it corrected a manuscript draft of a work which the author had failed to perfect and when it corrected imperfections which had found their way into earlier editions then used as printer's copy for later re-issues" (9 - 10).
Whether the original author was able to perfect their manuscript for print, or another agent was required, the perfection of the manuscript for the printer's copy was viewed as an essential part of the printing process (10).
Since the manuscript copies, perfected or otherwise, used to set playbooks for printing do not survive, we must look to the "patterns of textual variations" that occur in plays that were printed more than once, especially when those plays specifically advertise that they are revised or expanded on their title pages (10).
Changes to a text between printings which require some knowledge of that text are the mark of editorial and not print house influence. Print house practices required setters to pay attention to the spelling of words, punctuation, and proper italicization; printers were little concerned with spech prefixes or the use of the proper word within the context of the play (11 - 12).
Similarly, the play house practice of annotating printed texts tended to be towards the end of noting sound cues, cues indicating the use of a prop, a warning to a stage hand, or an indication that the stage would be cleared. They would not have changed/normalized speech prefixes unless doing so was related to a change in the stage action relative to the printed text (13). i.e. early modern prompters annotated scripts in much the same way that modern stage managers do.
The most common written annotations to printed playbooks in the early modern period included the addition or emendation of stage directions, the addition or emendation of speech prefixes, and the correction of nonsensical language in the dialogue. While individual corrections are almost impossible to date precisely, certain letters distinctive in 16th and 17th century secretary hand were no longer in common use by the end of the 18th century (14).
It is noteworthy that manuscript emendations to playbooks by private owners of those books were common, and indicates either a familiarity with the play as performed or with the greater narrative of the text (14 - 21).
Since it is difficult to trace the origins of manuscript emendations to printed playbooks, it is best to think of the individual who make these emendations as "annotating readers." Their emendations tend to demonstrate a familiarity with the text that goes beyond what would commonly be expected of print house practice, but neither their authorial or play house nature can be firmly established (30).
Methods of the New Bibliography devoted discovery the agency of a primary author do not mesh well with the emendations left behind by annotating readers. Since these readers cannot be connected with the authorial hand (or agents of the playhouse or publisher) in any meaningful way, the emendations that annotating readers have left behind will typically be disregarded by modern editors (31).
Modern editors may also discount emendations by annotating readers because they do not fit neatly into the model of removing print house corruptions in the service of illuminating authorial or theatrical intentions (31 - 32).
Many, if not most, stationers chose not to print plays for whatever reason, and it is likely that those who did had some connection with the playing companies. If this is the case, it is more likely than not that they would have had access to authorial manuscript copies of the plays they published (34).
Analysis
Unless I miss my guess, Massai is going to trace the lineage of Nicholas Rowe and those who came after him back to the annotating readers of the early modern era. She admits that she will have little direct evidence to proceed from, but does a fine job of establishing evidence that, some of the purchasers of his printed texts felt the need to correct those texts. The source of their correction is indeterminate; while it may likely be in performance, since we can only very approximately date the annotations, we have no way of knowing if this was a performance given in Shakespeare's lifetime, or if it was at the Globe, Blackfriars, or some private venue. One is also forced to accept the possibility that the source of some of these annotations may have been in the fancy of the annotator, but even if the emendation was routed in performance, we do not have the records necessary to corroborate whether or not the annotator was remembering properly.
Still, the tie between perfected copies being sent to the print house, and the link between stationers and the playhouse is useful. That said, while Arthur Johnson did possess one other King's Men play, he clearly didn't have significant dealings with them, but there exists a connection all the same. Alternatively, the case of the bad quartos is that they derived from pirated manuscripts from an actor in the company, and since the Host character figured prominently into the Merry Wives bad quarto, it has been assumed that this actor was involved in the piracy. If that is true, than we might be seeing something similar happening with Merry Devil since a Host character plays prominently in that play, too.
Maybe Merry Devil is a bad quarto, after all.
While we might commonly mark Nicholas Rowe's 1709 edition of The Works of Mr. William Shakespeare as the beginning of editing Shakespeare's plays, and of giving a prominent place to the editor, "editorial manipulation" of the texts had been taking place for nearly a century by the time of Rowe's 1709 edition (1 - 2).
Julie Stone Peters has already explored the interplay between the playhouse and the print shop. The commercial possibilities of offering new texts that were, as commonly advertised on title pages of the period, "newly corrected and amended." It is, however, impossible to say what editorial principles guided these editions. While there is a lack of direct evidence to demonstrate how this process was done, there is some evidence, such as the stationer's preface in the second edition of the Comedies and Tragedies of Beaumont and Fletcher (3 - 4).
The process of manuscript annotations to a printed copy for subsequent printing was common enough that the verb "to perfect" came to mean not only "to complete," but also "to make faultless," and was specifically used in this latter context of the preparation of printers copy (5 - 6).
From George Whetstone's dedicatory epistle to Promos and Cassandra we know that texts commonly underwent a stage where they were considered imperfect and in need of correction before being printed. To this Richard Jones, the printer, adds another epistle to the reader explaining that Whetstone didn't supply him with a perfected copy of the work, and begs the indulgence of the reader in forgiving any errors he might have committed in the process. From this, we can see that, should the author have been unavailable, it was preferable that another party should undertake this task of "perfecting" the manuscript (6 - 7).
The final sentence of Heminge and Condell's dedicatory epistle of the First Folio clearly states that they have perfected the copies of the plays (or at least are taking responsibility for that) prior to their printing (7 - 8).
Mosley's collection of the works of Sir John Suckling offers a contrary example, where Mosely states in a preface that he has left The Sad One: A Tragedy un-perfected. Mosely found The Sad One to be incomplete, and decided to print it as he found it rather than supplement Suckling's works with another author unconnected to the original (8 - 9).
"While non-authorial completion or revision of an authoritative, though fragmentary, copy was increasingly regarded as detrimental tampering, non-authorial preparation of dramatic copy for the pres was valued both when it corrected a manuscript draft of a work which the author had failed to perfect and when it corrected imperfections which had found their way into earlier editions then used as printer's copy for later re-issues" (9 - 10).
Whether the original author was able to perfect their manuscript for print, or another agent was required, the perfection of the manuscript for the printer's copy was viewed as an essential part of the printing process (10).
Since the manuscript copies, perfected or otherwise, used to set playbooks for printing do not survive, we must look to the "patterns of textual variations" that occur in plays that were printed more than once, especially when those plays specifically advertise that they are revised or expanded on their title pages (10).
Changes to a text between printings which require some knowledge of that text are the mark of editorial and not print house influence. Print house practices required setters to pay attention to the spelling of words, punctuation, and proper italicization; printers were little concerned with spech prefixes or the use of the proper word within the context of the play (11 - 12).
Similarly, the play house practice of annotating printed texts tended to be towards the end of noting sound cues, cues indicating the use of a prop, a warning to a stage hand, or an indication that the stage would be cleared. They would not have changed/normalized speech prefixes unless doing so was related to a change in the stage action relative to the printed text (13). i.e. early modern prompters annotated scripts in much the same way that modern stage managers do.
The most common written annotations to printed playbooks in the early modern period included the addition or emendation of stage directions, the addition or emendation of speech prefixes, and the correction of nonsensical language in the dialogue. While individual corrections are almost impossible to date precisely, certain letters distinctive in 16th and 17th century secretary hand were no longer in common use by the end of the 18th century (14).
It is noteworthy that manuscript emendations to playbooks by private owners of those books were common, and indicates either a familiarity with the play as performed or with the greater narrative of the text (14 - 21).
Since it is difficult to trace the origins of manuscript emendations to printed playbooks, it is best to think of the individual who make these emendations as "annotating readers." Their emendations tend to demonstrate a familiarity with the text that goes beyond what would commonly be expected of print house practice, but neither their authorial or play house nature can be firmly established (30).
Methods of the New Bibliography devoted discovery the agency of a primary author do not mesh well with the emendations left behind by annotating readers. Since these readers cannot be connected with the authorial hand (or agents of the playhouse or publisher) in any meaningful way, the emendations that annotating readers have left behind will typically be disregarded by modern editors (31).
Modern editors may also discount emendations by annotating readers because they do not fit neatly into the model of removing print house corruptions in the service of illuminating authorial or theatrical intentions (31 - 32).
Many, if not most, stationers chose not to print plays for whatever reason, and it is likely that those who did had some connection with the playing companies. If this is the case, it is more likely than not that they would have had access to authorial manuscript copies of the plays they published (34).
Analysis
Unless I miss my guess, Massai is going to trace the lineage of Nicholas Rowe and those who came after him back to the annotating readers of the early modern era. She admits that she will have little direct evidence to proceed from, but does a fine job of establishing evidence that, some of the purchasers of his printed texts felt the need to correct those texts. The source of their correction is indeterminate; while it may likely be in performance, since we can only very approximately date the annotations, we have no way of knowing if this was a performance given in Shakespeare's lifetime, or if it was at the Globe, Blackfriars, or some private venue. One is also forced to accept the possibility that the source of some of these annotations may have been in the fancy of the annotator, but even if the emendation was routed in performance, we do not have the records necessary to corroborate whether or not the annotator was remembering properly.
Still, the tie between perfected copies being sent to the print house, and the link between stationers and the playhouse is useful. That said, while Arthur Johnson did possess one other King's Men play, he clearly didn't have significant dealings with them, but there exists a connection all the same. Alternatively, the case of the bad quartos is that they derived from pirated manuscripts from an actor in the company, and since the Host character figured prominently into the Merry Wives bad quarto, it has been assumed that this actor was involved in the piracy. If that is true, than we might be seeing something similar happening with Merry Devil since a Host character plays prominently in that play, too.
Maybe Merry Devil is a bad quarto, after all.
Friday, July 16, 2010
Making Shakespeare Notes: Chapter One
I suppose I ought to have prefaced my last post with a reminder that this blog is serving as my research journal, and presently that involves reading Tiffany Stern's Making Shakespeare. I'll be posting my notes on this and other research materials for some time.
There were two ways for most Londoners to get to the playhouses on the Bank side; either by ferry or by the bridge, both of which required paying a toll (7).
London bridge was decorated with the severed heads of executed traitors, which as a result of parboiling and taring (to prevent decomposition) were black in appearance. Thus the black faced characters (i.e. devils) that appeared on the stage would bear a striking resemblance to the visages of the condemned that playgoers had recently looked upon (8-9).
"Even the ways by which Londoners approached the playhouses might, as shown, have an affect on what they understood from the plays they saw there" (9).
Plays of the time were performed in the provinces as well as in London, and the reference to London would have only been familiar to the London audiences, which is why they are not more present (11). We can see echoes of this in modern plays, however, such as I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change, in which it is customary to localize certain place names that would be unfamiliar to a non-NYC audience.
The Theatre became the Globe when reconstructed on the Bankside, and the Chamberlain's first play in the new space, Ad You Like It, is peppered with referenced to the stage and the world being one in the same. The audiences knew that the Globe was the Theatre, and the playwright has written these jokes for his new space (14).
Henry V was probably written for the Curtain and not for the Globe, and thus the apology for he inadequate space in the prologue serves as an advertisement for the Globe, which would open shortly thereafter (15).
The proximity of the theatres in the Bankeside to the bear baiting pits created competition with those venues for the same audiences, and the spectacular use of blood and bear baiting imagery is probably a result of this proximity and competition (19-20).
The physical structure of the playhouse gains meaning in the text of the plays when considering the location of music. Music from from heaven (above) is positive and marks a turning point towards a joyous resolution of the action. Music from hell (below) is ominous and portends the downfall of the hero (25). The entrances points for certain characters would also be determined by this context; audiences would have likely assumed that the Ghost of Hamlet's father, ascending from the trap, was an evil spirit, and thus would have been more sympathetic toward Hamlet's reluctance to obey his command (26).
"The play on paper often does not record the play performed" (27).
The move to the Blackfriars clearly had an influence on Shakespeare's playwriting, as the action of a play now needed to stop every half hour or so to accommodate maintenance to the candles needed to light an indoor space; thus his fave-act structure emerges (31). Also, the closer proximity of the smaller Blackfriars stage, coupled with the more courtly conscientiousness of its audience, creates a natural shift towards topics of art and beauty (32). Brash spectacle is limited, and the audience is asked to imagine more.
Summary:
The physical space of the London playhouses, their location on the Bankside, and the tastes of the audiences all have demonstrable impacts on the plays Shakespeare (and his contemporaries) wrote. They fashioned their works to provoke responses from their audiences to keep their audiences coming back for more, and an understanding of the physical context of Shakespeare's plays is necessary for understanding how they work.
At the end of the chapter, Stern introduces evidence suggesting that the sole copy of Macbeth extant from the period may be the result of a one off court performance designed to flatter James' descent from Banquo and his attitudes towards witchcraft. Shakespeare revised not just individual plays, but his over all writing style to suite the needs of differing performance venues and their larger contexts. There's no reason we should be afraid to do likewise.
There were two ways for most Londoners to get to the playhouses on the Bank side; either by ferry or by the bridge, both of which required paying a toll (7).
London bridge was decorated with the severed heads of executed traitors, which as a result of parboiling and taring (to prevent decomposition) were black in appearance. Thus the black faced characters (i.e. devils) that appeared on the stage would bear a striking resemblance to the visages of the condemned that playgoers had recently looked upon (8-9).
"Even the ways by which Londoners approached the playhouses might, as shown, have an affect on what they understood from the plays they saw there" (9).
Plays of the time were performed in the provinces as well as in London, and the reference to London would have only been familiar to the London audiences, which is why they are not more present (11). We can see echoes of this in modern plays, however, such as I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change, in which it is customary to localize certain place names that would be unfamiliar to a non-NYC audience.
The Theatre became the Globe when reconstructed on the Bankside, and the Chamberlain's first play in the new space, Ad You Like It, is peppered with referenced to the stage and the world being one in the same. The audiences knew that the Globe was the Theatre, and the playwright has written these jokes for his new space (14).
Henry V was probably written for the Curtain and not for the Globe, and thus the apology for he inadequate space in the prologue serves as an advertisement for the Globe, which would open shortly thereafter (15).
The proximity of the theatres in the Bankeside to the bear baiting pits created competition with those venues for the same audiences, and the spectacular use of blood and bear baiting imagery is probably a result of this proximity and competition (19-20).
The physical structure of the playhouse gains meaning in the text of the plays when considering the location of music. Music from from heaven (above) is positive and marks a turning point towards a joyous resolution of the action. Music from hell (below) is ominous and portends the downfall of the hero (25). The entrances points for certain characters would also be determined by this context; audiences would have likely assumed that the Ghost of Hamlet's father, ascending from the trap, was an evil spirit, and thus would have been more sympathetic toward Hamlet's reluctance to obey his command (26).
"The play on paper often does not record the play performed" (27).
The move to the Blackfriars clearly had an influence on Shakespeare's playwriting, as the action of a play now needed to stop every half hour or so to accommodate maintenance to the candles needed to light an indoor space; thus his fave-act structure emerges (31). Also, the closer proximity of the smaller Blackfriars stage, coupled with the more courtly conscientiousness of its audience, creates a natural shift towards topics of art and beauty (32). Brash spectacle is limited, and the audience is asked to imagine more.
Summary:
The physical space of the London playhouses, their location on the Bankside, and the tastes of the audiences all have demonstrable impacts on the plays Shakespeare (and his contemporaries) wrote. They fashioned their works to provoke responses from their audiences to keep their audiences coming back for more, and an understanding of the physical context of Shakespeare's plays is necessary for understanding how they work.
At the end of the chapter, Stern introduces evidence suggesting that the sole copy of Macbeth extant from the period may be the result of a one off court performance designed to flatter James' descent from Banquo and his attitudes towards witchcraft. Shakespeare revised not just individual plays, but his over all writing style to suite the needs of differing performance venues and their larger contexts. There's no reason we should be afraid to do likewise.
Sunday, July 11, 2010
Making Shakespeare Notes: Prologue
Important Citations:
Plays were written for performance in specific playhouses, which informs the construction of the play text (1).
Playhouses of Shakespeare's time demanded a "flexible and fluid text" (3).
The study of history is no longer separable from the study of literature (6).
Summary:
In the prologue, Stern introduces her argument and describes how she will make it in subsequent chapters. She notes that archaeological advances made in the 90s, such as the discover of the wall of the Rose, the completion of the Globe in London, and the construction of the Blackfriars in VA (which was actually completed in 2001) have inspired new historical interest in the ways the spaces the plays were written for might have influenced their creation.
For consideration:
Merry Devil is advertised as a Globe play, but it was also performed at court.
Scenes described in Life and Death that are missing from play call for an above, which suggests that the version of the play we have represents edits for a space without an above, such as one might find at court or on tour.
The technology of available theatre spaces influences playwrites of the time: this is demonstrable with the increasing richness and complexity of stage directions through time.
Likewise, the technology of the printing industry influences how materials are prepare for print, and how printed materials are used.
Plays were written for performance in specific playhouses, which informs the construction of the play text (1).
Playhouses of Shakespeare's time demanded a "flexible and fluid text" (3).
The study of history is no longer separable from the study of literature (6).
Summary:
In the prologue, Stern introduces her argument and describes how she will make it in subsequent chapters. She notes that archaeological advances made in the 90s, such as the discover of the wall of the Rose, the completion of the Globe in London, and the construction of the Blackfriars in VA (which was actually completed in 2001) have inspired new historical interest in the ways the spaces the plays were written for might have influenced their creation.
For consideration:
Merry Devil is advertised as a Globe play, but it was also performed at court.
Scenes described in Life and Death that are missing from play call for an above, which suggests that the version of the play we have represents edits for a space without an above, such as one might find at court or on tour.
The technology of available theatre spaces influences playwrites of the time: this is demonstrable with the increasing richness and complexity of stage directions through time.
Likewise, the technology of the printing industry influences how materials are prepare for print, and how printed materials are used.
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