The lease, which had been granted to Richard Burbage and his brother Cuthbert Burbage upon the death of their father, expired the following year. The sight of the deserted Theatre prompted these lines from a minor satirist of the day: But see yonder, One like the unfrequented Theatre Walks in dark silence and vast solitude. This state of affairs forced the Burbage brothers to take drastic action to save their investment. In defiance of the landlord and with the help of their friend and financial backer William Smith, chief carpenter Peter Street and ten or twelve workman, they dismantled the theatre on the night of the 28th December and moved the structure piecemeal across the Thames.
The pieces of The Theatre were then used in the construction of the Globe Theatre. No remains of The Theatre survive. Its former site is marked by a plaque at Curtain Road, Shoreditch.
It appears to have been a success, but scant information about it survives. The Red Lion was a receiving house for touring companies, whereas The Theatre accepted long term engagements, essentially in repertory. The former was considered a continuation of the tradition of playing at inns, the later a radically new form of theatrical engagement. There is no evidence that the Red Lion continued beyond the summer of , although the law suit, from which we know much of the little we know of it, dragged on until The Swan was a theatre in Southwark, London, England, built between and , during the first half of William Shakespeare's career.
It was at the northeast corner of the Paris Garden estate that Francis Langley had purchased in May , east of the manor house, and yards south of the Paris Garden stairs at the river's edge. Langley had the theatre built almost certainy in When it was new, the Swan was the most visually impressive of the existing London theatres. Translated from the Latin, his description identifies the Swan as the "finest and biggest of the London theatres," with a capacity for spectators.
It was built of flint concrete, and its wooden supporting columns were so cleverly painted that "they would deceive the most acute observer into thinking that they were marble," giving the Swan a "Roman" appearance. De Witt also drew a sketch of the theatre.
The original is lost, but a copy by Arendt van Buchell survives, and is the only sketch of an Elizabethan playhouse known to exist. If the Lord Chamberlain's Men acted at the Swan in the summer of —which is possible, though far from certain—they would be the actors shown in the Swan sketch. A useful Elizabethan London Map has been provided in the Elizabethan Theatre section in which all of the famous Elizabethan theatres have been highlighted. James Burbage was the famous theatrical entrepreneur who was responsible for the introduction of the theatre in London including the Globe Theatre.
Learn about this important man in his biography. Elizabethan Theatre History and Timeline The history of the theater is fascinating.
Elizabethan England Queen Elizabeth I. Click here if you need more detailed facts and information about the Globe Theatre and William Shakespeare. Elizabethan Theatre. Picture of the Globe Theatre.
Elizabethan England. The Elizabethan Theatre was a booming business. Elizabethan Times. Elizabethan Clothing. Elizabethan Sitemap. Elizabethan Index. Elizabethan Life. Elizabethan Sports. Elizabethan Period. By , three years before Elizabeth died, the robustness of Elizabethan drama began to fade. If you use any of the content on this page in your own work, please use the code below to cite this page as the source of the content.
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These cookies ensure basic functionalities and security features of the website, anonymously. Typically, a soliloquy is lengthy with a dramatic tone. The audience now feels empowered, knowing more about the events on stage than most of the characters do. Shakespeare and his contemporaries therefore had no choice but to cast young boys in the roles of women, while the men played all the male roles on stage.
Spoken in verse, a masque involved beautiful costumes and an intellectual element appropriate for the mostly educated upper class.
Masques were allegorical stories about an event or person involving singing, acting and dancing. Characters wore elaborate masks to hide their faces. Eavesdropping was a dramatic technique that sat neatly between a soliloquy and an aside.
Certain characters would strategically overhear others on stage, informing both themselves and the audience of the details, while the characters being overheard had no idea what was happening. This convention opened up opportunities for the playwright in the evolving plot. It is generally agreed by scholars Elizabethan acting was largely presentational in style.
Movements and gestures were more stylised and dramatic than one might ordinarily expect in a modern naturalistic or realistic drama, speech patterns were heightened for dramatic effect, and the use of conventions such as the aside, prologue, epilogue and word puns directly connected characters to the audience watching.
Elizabethan plays commonly consisted of dialogue that was poetic, dramatic and heightened beyond that of the vernacular of the day. Shakespeare took great care in composing dialogue that was sometimes blank unrhymed , but at other times rhyming couplets and often using five stressed syllables in a line of dialogue iambic pentameter. This Elizabethan convention was a playwriting technique used by Shakespeare and others that involved the staging of a play inside the play itself. It was not a flimsy convention, but rather one that was used judiciously and with purpose.
One of the most famous examples of this convention occurs in Hamlet, when the title character is convinced his uncle Claudius murdered his father for the throne. So Hamlet organises an out-of-town troupe of performers to attend one evening and perform a play before King Claudius that involves the same plot line as the events in the larger play murder of a King , but in a different setting … all to let Claudius know Hamlet is on to him!
In terms of stagecraft, Elizabethan dramas used elaborate costumes, yet quite the opposite for scenery. There were no stage lights of any kind, with plays strictly performed during daylight hours. A simple balcony at the rear of the stage could be used for scenes involving fantastical beings, Gods or Heaven, while a trap door in the stage floor could also be used to drop characters into Hell or raise characters up from beneath.
Entrances and exits were at two doors at the rear tiring house and not the side wings, as is the case in modern theatre. An Elizabethan actor exiting side stage may well have landed in the groundings after falling off the edge of the three-sided thrust stage that jutted out into the audience!
So how does a contemporary student of theatre interpret 16th century Elizabethan theatre conventions? Without changing a single line of dialogue, a group of students performing Act I, Scene I of King Lear modernised it into 70s anti-authoritarian punk.
Lear wore leather pants, large leather boots and an armless t-shirt emblazoned with a huge Union Jack. The anti-authoritarian bitchiness of the older sisters Goneril and Regan were expressed through coloured hairstyles, heavy make-up, tartan skirts, stockings and high leather boots.
Shakespeare is rarely performed today in Elizabethan costumes.
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