Theatre

The Elizabethan theater in Shakespeares day was an amazing popular institution, operated by professional companies that included housekeepers, actors, playwrights, and a business manager. Theaters were visited habitually by all classes of society from peasant to aristocrat. All this was possible because the Queen Elizabeth and her court were eager supporters and admirers of theatre in Renaissance England. The insatiable curiosity and expanding world outlooks of the large audience contributed to a wide variety of theatrical themes and the enrichment of Elizabethan dramatic literature. High status of the artists and good living conditions attracted many talented actors, playwrights, and orators to the Elizabethan theatre, where they had to be trained in many techniques of voice, face and gesture. The most important genre that developed during this period is dramatic. The rise, culmination, and decline of Elizabethan theatre can be traced easily. Its development began as Elizabeth ascended the throne in 1559 it reached its height in the following twenty years of her reign, and then declined and lost its power in 1642. It would be impossible just to discuss all the features of this grand period in the history of the theater, so this paper will attempt to consider here most important elements of the Elizabethan theater, such as the main characteristics of the Elizabethan theater, types of plays, settings, how actors lived, acted and what character costumes they wore.

The Elizabethan theater became the highest point of a long development and the mixture of many different influences, processes, and progresses. It also became a precise reflection of the diversity of the social life during this period. Elizabethan stage in its various forms represented the period of the Renaissance and Englishmen of all social classes for which it existed. It made a precise imitation of the life of its contemporaries - their principles, ideas, religious faith, traditions, emotions, strong desires, goals, and preferences. The Elizabethan theater mirrored conscious national pride in the accomplishments and discoveries of Englishmen in geography, history, mechanics, scientific inventions, legal system, advanced medicine, astronomy, and other important spheres.

Popular literature and history were examined by the playwrights in the search for interesting stories  famous and unknown legends of Greece and Rome, Italian fiction and romance, English historical accounts, and also stories of the contemporary London. Surprisingly, however, whatever the source of the play, the characters and manner in which they acted were for the most part English thus, Romeo and Juliet are English young characters, however, they have Italian names Hieronimo is a English father deeply affected by sorrow and distress and who lives for the sake of revenge Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, is a gloomy and melancholy inhabitant of England.

The themes in the plays were diverse and demonstrated how intellectual horizons of the Elizabethans expanded during that time. All scientific advances and discoveries found their place in the theatre and were received with eager interest by the public. Together with its desire to absorb many-sided information, the Elizabethan public - maybe like no other in the world - was characterized by its love to the oral speech on the stage. People quickly understood that listening was much easier than reading books, and they were quick to love rhetorical style. Moreover, Elizabethans liked new words and expressions. Because of the preferences, social standings, and desires of this audience that were taken into consideration by many playwrights the theatre became an amazing place to visit. One may even say that never before or since has the theatre so fully been loved and admired by so a large proportion of the citizens.

Many public theatres were built in London, among which was the renowned Globe (Figures 1-2). In addition to the public playhouses that were most representative of the Elizabethan period, there were also various roofed-in theatres that often were called private. One of the private theatres was Blackfriars (Figures 3-4). The size of the private theatres was considerably smaller than that of public theatres, and the cost of entry was therefore much higher. Resources of the private theatres allowed for considerable mastery and inventiveness in staging.

In the summertime performances usually began at three oclock and in the wintertime at two oclock. For advertising of new performances three main methods were used the next days play was announced to the audience by the orator immediately after the play on the day of the performance a special flag was used that was put on top of the playhouse, and finally, parades and people who shouted advertisements also were used. Costs of entry were so graded that every person, from peasant to nobleman, could find an appropriate price to his taste. Actually, so many Elizabethans spent so many hours at the theatre that the members of the city council, who made their best to maintain the ideal of hard and continual work in the city, in addition to the Puritans, to whom the theatre was excommunication, were always at war with the players and playwrights. This ceaseless thread of criticism and reprehension runs all through the triumph, praise, and honor of Shakespeares day.

Superb Drama Produced 
The plays written and played by the Elizabethans contain the greatest body of dramatic texts in the English language, if not, really, in any language known in the world. Shakespeare may be easily identified as the perfect flower of the English Renaissance, but it must be also recognized that he was surrounded by many other talented dramatists. Plays written by Shakespeare were the climax and harmonization of many multifarious elements that existed and developed before him. Shakespeares forerunners and contemporaries worked on the problems of plot and character. For example, Robert Greene achieved a balance between plot and character, while Kyd and Marlowe were skillful in adjusting and incorporating subplots in the play.

Shakespeare became an English greatest dramatic talent, not only for the characters he created and variety of presentation, but also for his perfect skill in the advanced techniques of the theatre, and his impressive use of the theatre for which he created his masterpieces. In Shakespeares plays the classic tradition and heritage of the ancient past are outstandingly combined and harmonized. Shakespeare, uniting all the dramatic elements that had preceded him into one whole, produced amazing plays the playwright balanced plot and character and integrated the best elements of the existing plays. He used elements of romance, comedy, and tragedy by using them to make the tragic effect more intense. Unfortunately, his followers were not able to continue to maintain this harmony of elements, and the decline of the theatre and stagnation of dramatic development were unavoidable.

Types of Plays
It would be impossible to refer to all the names of plays and playwrights of the Elizabethan theater, so this section will attempt to consider the various types of plays that were popular and successful at the height of that period. One can distinguish four main divisions tragedy, comedy, chronicle plays, and masques. Each of these divisions, however, has various types. Tragedy, for example, was divided into two types, the classical and the native tragedy. Comedy had a large number of types, among which were the pastoral, the magical, the bourgeois, the allegorical and satirical - and innumerable combinations of all these types. The chronicle plays included historical-legendary, factual-historical, biographical, and popular-legendary (Ribner 1957).

The classical tragedies written in Shakespeares day included the classical drama combined with comic scenes, and also had subplots to emphasize the main plot. For example, the scene with porter in Macbeth, the play of the gravediggers in Hamlet, the chain of events connected with Gloucester in King Lear. In Shakespeares plays, as was said before, the genius of playwright was in including comic pieces as essential parts of the tragedies that served the role of emphasizing the tragic effects in the play. Among other important contributors to the tragic drama of the Elizabethan theater were Marlowe, Nashe, Lodge, Beaumont, Fletcher, Shirley, Heywood, Ford, and many other dramatists.

Another masterly union of Renaissance developments and classical English ideals is easy to see in the pastoral romance. In this type of comedy one can find a combination of the Italian pastoral play and the inherent English love of life in the open country. These qualities integrated into one play were greatly evident in The Pinner of Wakefield, written by Robert Greene in 1592 and reached full maturity in Shakespeares play As You Like It, written in 1599. Among the well-known legendary plays are John a Kent and John a Cumber (1594), Cambyses (1569), Locrine (1591), The History of King Leir and Three Daughters (1590). In addition to these professional productions, the court originated another type of drama of its own - the masque. It was a dramatic entertainment, consisting of pantomime, dancing, dialogue, and song, performed at court. English Renaissance dramatist Ben Jonson wrote about thirty masques for court production, and many other playwrights also produced them.

Elizabethan Actors
The position of the actors in the Elizabethan period was, in many ways, high and respectable. They were often considered as respected members of society and could be met in the best of social circles of Elizabethan London. The professional actor had a constant opportunity to grow as artists. At the same time, the demands of performance were requiring great physical and mental efforts. Therefore, the competent actor of Shakespeares day knew advanced techniques and possessed many capabilities. The closeness of the audience in the playhouses demanded complete attention from the actor, as well as skill in engaging and holding the attention of the often noisy and unrestrained crowd.

In most cases, actors received a rigorous training. Candidate for an actor position was placed as an apprentice to one of the members of the professional company of players and received individual lessons from him. When and if his training and education were considered to be completed, he could work as a professional actor and could then himself train other apprentices (Thorndike 254).

Women never acted on the professional stage in Elizabethan England. The role of women in the plays was usually performed by young boys. These boys were talented actors, and as a rule played their part very well. Probably because of this fact physical contact was insignificant between lovers in Shakespearean plays, and if there were love parts in the play, they were played from balcony to garden (Thorndike 289).

Playhouses paid a lot of attention to costuming. Specialized costumes were designed and made for many performances. Although many characters in the Elizabethan plays appeared in ordinary dress conforming to contemporary style, many of the characters also wore character costumes. Thus, allegorical characters wore distinctive costumes. Charmers and enchantresses, fools and elves, each had specific items of costume in attire and headwear, in cloaks and wigs. Besides these costumes, other types were also very popular, legal experts, teachers, clergymen, and civil authorities in the plays wore specific dress.

Elizabethan England was the greatest of all periods for playwright, actor, and audience. The demand of the Elizabethans for plays was incredible, and therefore, theatre was a profitable and enjoyable profession for those who possessed enough abilities to please the audiences taste. Creation of a free intellectual atmosphere in England challenged the skill of the actors, who improved their abilities to a powerful and effective expression in action. The greatness of the English theatre lay in its combination of foreign influences with the classical conventions to produce a national, spontaneous and popular theater. By the time the Elizabethan theater came to a fall, it had contributed to the theatre development in the whole world.