Theatre

Ben Jonson’s The Alchemist was released in 1610 as a satirical, comedic play to be performed by the King’s Majesty’s Servants. Like many plays of the time, it was meant to appeal to a very broad audience, ranging from the royal and the rich sitting in the nicer, covered seats of the theater to the peasants of England sitting in the very front of the stage for a penny, rearing to throw tomatoes when the play wasn’t up to their standards. It is safe to assume that The Alchemist is a play the groundlings enjoyed as it’s still a reputable play in this day and age.

The Alchemist is a play that follows three con artists, Subtle, Face, and Dol, as they try to bamboozle people out of their money and goods, operating out of Face’s master’s house, who has left London in an attempt to escape the plague. Throughout the play, the cast meets a variety of people who they attempt to scam, including Sir Epicure Mammon, Drugger, and Dapper. Their scams involve Subtle, Face, and Dol playing a variety of different characters including a doctor, captain and a great lady. Their scams will sometimes prove successful, other times not so much. There is constant argument during the course of the play between Subtle and Face about who is the more pivotal figure within the group’s dynamic and Dol is the one to calm these two testosterone filled men down.

The play ends with Face being the most successful con man as Subtle and Dol get tricked by him and are forced to flee from the ones they’ve scammed, however they flee without any of their rewards and Face gets to keep it all. Much of the play focuses on analyzing the gullibility and greed of mankind, from all different spectrums of life, the average person, to a sir and even to supposed men of God with Tribulation and Ananias. Oddly enough, Sir Mammon and the men of God are the greediest of them all, with a strong thirst for wealth and power. The play features lots of rapid fire dialogue, ripe with proforms for analysis.

The first thing to note about the proforms within The Alchemist is that they are rather modern in comparison to pieces of literature a few centuries prior such as The Canterbury Tales. There are still a few “thy’s” and “thee’s”, but they pale in comparison to the number of the more modern and regular proforms of “your” and “you”. It’s not just the proforms that are modern, but much of the grammar and vocabulary also read as more modern than what one would expect for a piece of literature from the year 1610. It is very fair to say that The Alchemist is not far removed from what modern English is today, which makes it much more digestible and easier to understand.

“Thou” is used sparingly throughout the course of the play, making an appearance no more than 15 times. It is used in two scenarios, as a direct address noun or as a way to represent the subject. The direct address noun is best seen in line 64 of Act 1 Scene 1 when Subtle is ranting and raving at Face about how he is the more important figure within the con group’s dynamics. He uses “thou” as a way to directly address Face by saying “Thou vermin, have I ta’en thee out of dung” (Jonson). With this line, Subtle is using “thou” as a way to make himself appear stronger and more important than Face. Subtle only really uses “thou” in this one rant in which he is trying to express his dominance and skill over Face.

In his more normal vernacular, Subtle is much more prone to use the “you” proform. This makes it appear that the usage of “thou” is confined to moments in which Subtle is trying to appear bigger and more dominant than what he is by using “thou”, a word that was probably at this time fading out in usage aside from the more upper class citizens. By using “thou” Subtle is trying to assert the idea that he is intellectual and intelligent. In response, Face also starts to use “thou” to appear equal with Subtle. This makes the usage of “thou” a mixture of a social constraint and emotional constraint.

The social constraint idea continues with the fact that Sir Gammon is the major other character that utilizes the “thou” proform. He is using it more as a way to stand out amongst the crowd and show people that he is a “Sir” by using more presumably upper class words such as “thou”. The emotional constraint aspect stems from the testosterone battle of pride between Subtle and Face. The two men only use it when word sparring with each other, either as a direct address or subject.

The proforms “thy” and “thee” work in a similar way as to how they are used. “Thy” is always used as a possessive by Subtle and Face when they are arguing with each other. In all other instances of the two talking, they will use “your” as the possessive. The only other major character to use “thy” as the possessive is Mammon, most likely as he thinks it makes him sound more intellectual and royal, but even he uses it sparingly. It seems as if this play was released in a time when “thy” was used in a syntactic constraint, in that it alters the noun, to make it possessive.

On the whole though, “thy” was in a general transitional state on its way out, being replaced more or less entirely by “your” except in the certain instances when a character wanted to sound more intellectual and royal. The proform “thine” did not appear any in the play, thus making it appear as if “thine” was an obsolete word at this juncture in time. The lack of “thine” also further cements the idea that “thy” was used as a syntactic constraint in The Alchemist, as “thy” could only be used as pronominal determiner.

The proform “thee” could was used in three different ways throughout the course of the play. It was used as an object of preposition, direct object, and indirect object. The first instance of “thee” comes from Subtle’s first line from Act 1 Scene 1, “Thy worst! I fart at thee!” (Jonson) in which the “thee” is used as an object of preposition as it comes after an “at”. This is an outlier for the context in which Subtle usually uses “thy” and “thee” as he used the words in a very lowly manner involving a vile joke involving a fart, which would roughly translate to something along the lines of “I shit on you”, in modern terms.

Aside from this one instance, the characters in the play tend to use “thee” in a very similar manner to “thou” and “thy”, in that they will use it when they are trying to impress or better each other in intellect. Many of the usages of “thee” come in Subtle’s long rant about how he is better than Face and then Face retaliates with a similar speech involving many of these proforms as opposed to the more prevalent “you” and “your”. Mammon also utilizes the proform “thee”. Twice as an object of preposition and twice as an indirect object. When used as an indirect object, “thee” basically acts as a less modern way to say “you”, which makes sense as “thee” was eventually replaced by “you” as the preferred second person pronoun for much of the English language and this play.

Again, “thee”, “thou” and “thy” are primarily employed by Jonson as a method to make the characters who use these words sound more intellectual and superior, thus meaning that when a character wants to appear in a certain intellectual or superior fashion, they will be more prone to use the proforms of “thee”, “thou”, and “thy”. With this in mind, one could assume that much of what Jonson wrote in was the common day vernacular of England at the time to appeal to the groundlings of the theater.

The least used proform would be “ye”, which made one appearance in the first 5 lines of the poem with Dol’s line “Nay, look, ye! Sovereign, General, are you madmen?” (Jonson) as a plural subject. She is talking to Subtle and Face, trying to get them to calm down as she can sense the fact that another verbal fight is about to take place. This is the only instance of the usage of the word “ye”. One could assume that Dol’s usage of “ye” is Jonson implementing eye dialect to make Dol look slightly lesser than her men compatriots, as she was a prostitute. England, being a fairly religious place at the time, probably looked down upon prostitutes, especially ones who were also con artists. However, it doesn’t appear that Dol’s usage of “ye” was meant to make her lesser, but more as a way to make her endearing to the audience as she is often the voice of reason when the two men bicker with each other.

The two most commonly used proforms in the play would have to be “your” and “you”. To count all of the “you’s” utilized in the play would be tedious work as it popped up a lot. “Your” was used for anytime a character needed to use a possessive, save for the few times Subtle, Face and Mammon used it for their intellect. “Your” could be used as either in the singular or the plural. It was much more common for it be used in the singular. The only time that “your” was used as a plural was a line in which Dol was getting angry with the men and said “I’ll cut your throats”. It is inferred that the “your” here is referring to both Subtle and Face, thus giving it the plural form. It does not seem overly common for there to be a plural possessive in this time as there was probably not a “y’all” yet.

By far the most commonly used proform in The Alchemist is “you”, which could be used in a variety of ways including a direct object, indirect object, subject, and even a direct address. Again, it was much more common to find “you” used in the singular, but from time to time it would be utilized in the plural, mainly by Dol attempting to calm down Subtle and Face. One such example is line 82 in Act 1, scene 1 where Dol says “Will you undo yourselves with civil war?” (Jonson).

Here she is referring to both Subtle and Face, the subjects of the line, as they won’t stop bickering. It is easy to tell that the “you” is in the plural because of the “yourselves” which gives it away with the plural of self, “selves”. One of the difficult things about the “you” pronoun is determining whether or not it is an object or subject. Sometimes it can be pretty apparent such as in Act 1 Scene 1 line 50 with Subtle’s line “You and the rats here kept possession” (Jonson). Here, it is obvious that he is referring to Face and that Face is the subject of the sentence, being the one that keeps possession of the master’s house. Six lines down, things

get a little more difficult with Subtle’s line “Made you a pretty stock, some twenty marks” (Jonson), here one can only assume that “you” is referring to Face, but as he is the recipient of something, it would have to make him the indirect object of the line. There can even be a case made “you” as a direct address in Act 1 Scene 1 line from Subtle, “Away, you trencher-rascal!” (Jonson). Here he is addressing Face directly by resorting to the lowly insult form of name calling. It is no surprise that “you” is the most commonly used proform throughout the play as it is the most versatile, being that it can be used in a singular or plural sense, but most likely only in the plural state when Dol is reprimanding Subtle and Face. It can also play a pivotal part in the construction of sentences as it can be a subject or object.

As a whole, it would be fair to make the blanket statement that a reasonable prediction for which proform the characters are going to use at any given point in the play revolve around the more modern proforms of “you” and “your”. This can be chalked up to the fact that this play was written sometime in the beginning of the 1600’s, which was the around the advent of early Modern English. With this in mind, it makes sense that “thou”, “thy” and “thee” are used sparingly and only in certain situations that require for the characters to appear a certain way i.e. intellectual and superior to those around them. For “ancient” literature, The Alchemist feels very modern in that it is readable and utilizes a lot of grammar structure and vocabulary that is reminiscent of the literature of today.

Works Cited

1. Jonson, Ben. The Alchemist. Ed. Helen Ostovich. London: Longman, 1997. Print. Ben Jonson: Four Comedies.

“Anytime you write something, you go through so many phases. You go through the ‘I’m a fraud’ phase. You go through the ‘I’ll never finish’ phase. And every once in a while, you think ‘What if I actually have create what I set out to create, and it’s received as such.’” – Lin-Manuel Miranda. (Brainyquotes). Lin-Manuel Miranda has an arsenal of talents; from singing to rapping- even dancing and writing is his repertoire. But where did it all begin? In this essay we will explore how an immigrantś son who lived in the hood was able to overcome all obstacles and make multiple award winning Broadway musicals. Lin-Manuel Miranda is son to Luz Towns-Miranda and his father Luiz A. Miranda Jr. His mother gave birth to him on January 16, 1980, in Manhattan, New York. His mother is a clinical psychologist and his father worked as a political consultant. Lin-Manuel Miranda grew up in the Inwood neighborhood of Manhattan with both his parents and his older sister, Luz Miranda-Crespo. Both Lin-Manuel and his sister took piano lessons growing up.

Lin-Manuel Miranda’s mother, Luz Towns-Miranda got her PhD in Clinical Psychology in the year 1985 from New York University. After getting her PhD, she continued to work until she got a postdoctoral degree in both Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy in the year 1995. Since she pursued an internship in early childhood, she was able to work in many headstart programs in Newark, a town in New Jersey. Because of her love for children, she ran an Early Childhood Program at Bronx Lebanon that deals with children diagnosed with autism. And in 2000, Mrs. Miranda joined the staff of the Department of Social Medicine at Monteflore Medical Center, where she trained family physicians in the biopsychosocial aspects of medical care. Lin-Manuel Miranda’s parents owned of Broadway musicals while he grew up. HIs mother enjoyed “Camelot” and would blast it in the car. His father was obsessed with “The Unsinkable Molly”. The bus driver that Lin-Manuel Miranda had, on the completely opposite spectrum of music, had a passion for rap. The bus driver drilled the lyrics by Boogie Down Productions, Geto Boys, and Sugar Hill Gang. Since he was exposed to so many different genres of music at such a young age, Miranda was inspired to write and started to scribble while studying at school.

Lin- Manuel Miranda attended both Hunter College Elementary School and Hunter College High School. During his time in Hunter College High School he put on a number of plays and met a lot of different people. He was the lead in Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Pirates of Penzance and immediately became a fissure in the high school’s drama department. During his time in high school, he met Stephen Sondheim, who would later become a mentor to Lin-Manuel Miranda along with theatre legend John Kander. After high school, Miranda furthered his career as musical genius in Wesleyan University. While attending university he continued to perform in musicals and write his own songs and shows. He began to write the Tony winning musical In The Heights, which took place in Washington Heights, during his studying at Wesleyan University. While in university, Miranda also helped fund a group called Freestyle Love Supreme- a hip hop comedy ensemble that was predominantly an improv group- while he was he was earning his undergraduate degree in Connecticut. Other founder and members would include Anthony Veneziale, Utkarsh Ambudkar, Chris Jackson, Christopher Sullivan, Bill Sherman, and Arthur Lewis.

Before he produced In The Heights and began to write full time, he was substitute teaching for his old high school, Hunter College High School. After he was a substitute teacher for a while, the principal offered him a full time position as a full time teacher at the high school. At this point of his life, Miranda was already debating on pursuing writing music full time. He asked his father what he should do, whether he should accept the job or go full time into the writing. His father gave the advice that Lin-Manuel should do whatever he thinks will benefit him in the end, even if at the time it makes absolutely no sense. Before he decided to write full time, Miranda caught a few roles in popular TV shows like “The Sopranos”, “Modern Family”and “How I Met Your Mother” while he continues to write In The Heights. He also starred in a few movies, like “The Odd Life of Timothy Green” and “200 Cartas”. He made an appearance in “Mary Poppins Returns” in Christmas of 2018.

Lin-Manuel Miranda decided to marry Vanessa Nadal, a scientist and former underclassmen during high school. The couple got married on September 5, 2010, at the Belvedere Mansion. Vanessa Nadal lived in Washington Heights and was extremely mathematical, a good dancer, and was not afraid to share her opinions in anything. Nadal attended MIT and earned a bachelor’s in chemical engineering. She spent a few years as a testing scientist for the company Johnson and Johnson before she decided to get a law degree from Fordham University. Miranda and Nadal have two children, the oldest one named Sebastian and the younger one Fransico, who was born on February 2, 2018. Lin-Manuel Miranda soon published In The Heights and ended up receiving a Tony for his amazing writing. When the musical Hamilton came to the stage, it was an immediate hit, winning 11 Tonys and being nominated for 16, beating a record for the most nominated person for a Tony award. In 2016, Miranda’s golden year, he composed lyrics for the animated film Moana and ended up earning an Academy Award for original song. In the end, Miranda ended up recieving a plethora of awards for his musical works, including a MacArthur Genius Award, two Oliver awards, a Pulitzer Award, and there are many more awards in his future if he continues to write.

In the modern world, entertainment is a major part of people’s everyday lives. From television to Broadway to WWE, modern people are looking to be entertained by things that have a basis in the theatrical. Without classical Greek theatre, the entertainment that we know today would not exist, as theatre had its origins in the Greece of antiquity.

We currently have access to only a small number of the plays that were written and performed in ancient Greece. There are only forty-six surviving pieces of theatre from the ancient Greek world, which only makes up for around one to five percent of all of the plays that were written at the time, and all of those were written by Athenians (McLeish and Griffiths 1). The earliest dated play is Persians, written by Aeschylus in 472 BC, and the newest is Menander’s The Wealth, written in 388 BC (McLeish and Griffiths 1). While all of the surviving plays that we have access to originated in Athens, there may have been earlier productions created in the Crete of the Minoans or the southern part of the Peloponnesian peninsula, but Athens is where theatre really became popular (McLeish and Griffiths 1).

Greek theatre started as a celebration of the god Dionysus, in village shrines and at the base of the Acropolis, the center for his worshippers (McLeish and Griffiths 1). Dionysus, the god of impulse and ecstasy, was worshiped at the beginning and end of wine-making season, because wine was seen as Dionysus’ gift to humans, and the equivalent of the nectar of the gods and the thing that gave them immortality (McLeish and Griffiths 2). During their ceremonies, worshippers of Dionysus would work themselves into trances and act like wild beasts, dancing and shouting, and getting lost in the god they were worshipping (McLeish and Griffiths 2). Some of the celebration was formal, with singing and dancing called Dithyrambs, while some of the worship was less formal and boisterous (McLeish and Griffiths 2).

Aristotle claimed that the theatre of the Athenians came from the ceremonies worshipping Dionysus, because during the celebrations, the participants would split into two groups, which resembled Greek choruses, who would address each other with music, words, and dance (McLeish and Griffiths 2). Each group would have a leader, and it is theorized that an author whose name was Thespis, was responsible for standardizing the use of a solo performer against a larger chorus. (McLeish and Griffiths 2). At the time, it was possible that these choruses were numbered in the fifties, before it was reduced in size by the more recent playwrights (Weiner 205). The name of Thespis is still used by performers referring to themselves as “Thespians” (McLeish and Griffiths 2). Aristotle went on to claim that Greek tragedies originated in the more serious Dityrambs, and Greek comedy and ‘satyr’ plays were based off of the more informal worship of Dionysus (McLeish and Griffiths 2).

Taking place around the same time as the Dionysian celebrations were recitations of the epic poems of Homer, such as the Illiad and Odyssey, which also may have contributed to the birth of theatre in Athens. As a part of the Panathenaic Festival, whose purpose was to celebrate the military, trade, and political standing of Athens, the recitations were not related to the worship of a god, unlike the worship of Dionysus (McLeish and Griffiths 3). They used either a single speaker reading for all of the characters, or a relay of readers, each reading for different characters (McLeish and Griffiths 3).

As drama began to play a more central role in the lives of the Athenians, two competitive festivals emerged in which drama was the main focal point (McLeish and Griffiths 4). The first of the festivals was the Lenaia, which was held between December and January (McLeish and Griffiths 4). This festival tended to be a more domestic affair, due to the travelling difficulty that winter in Athens would entail, and not much is known about the sequence of events that would take place (McLeish and Griffiths 4). However, one thing that is known is the number of plays that were performed: a total of five comedies, all by different playwrights, and two tragedies each by two playwrights, making for a total of four tragedies (McLeish and Griffiths 4).

There is much more that is known about the second festival, The City Dionysia. This festival, celebrating the arrival of Dionysus in mythical Athens, tended to be a much larger and grander affair, with visitors from all over Greece (McLeish and Griffiths 4). It was held in spring, usually between March or April, and began with processions, speeches, and the worship of a statue of Dionysus, before a dithyramb competition between ten choruses, five of men and five of boys (McLeish and Griffiths 4). Then, on each day across days three to five of the festival, there would be three tragedies and a satyr play in the morning, and one comedy in the afternoon (McLeish and Griffiths 4). Overall, three tragic playwrights each submitted four plays, and five comedic playwrights each submitted one play (McLeish and Griffiths 4). Because this was a theatrical competition, day six of the festival was used to give out prizes and have the closing ceremonies (McLeish and Griffiths 4).

The only form of theatre known before realism was romanticism so the world was very scared to accept the new, scary kind of plays. Especially considering that the new style was not always perfect and nice, but sometimes sad and disappointing. Realism didn’t really catch on so only 20 years later, naturalism was formed. Unfortunately, naturalism did not do so well either. In the 18805-1 9005, symbolism started to appear. This was a very significant step in the life of theatre and is still very often used today. The creators of homeboys believed that reality can only be expressed indirectly and through symbols.

They used many medieval symbols and religious paintings in their plays as well as allegorical signs. Around the same time period is when impressionism made it’s short appearance. This movement was primarily seen in the set designs because it was believed that “artist is affected internally through external reality”. Oftentimes in plays today, you will notice a certain painting or color in the background of the set that looks random but always has a deeper, much more interesting reasoning. This all started in the asses with symbolisms and impressionism!

In the years 1916-1924 is when theatre started to become more… Artsy. This is when dada and surrealism became genres. Both of these focused on what was unusual and different to the audience. Dada started as a reaction to the First World War. The word “dada” itself is a made up word that means nothing. It was sought to outrage the audience into action. Sets and costumes often looked blurred together like a big mess – or they were just completely outrageous. Similarly, surrealism said that art must transcend reality by ding all arts into one single vision that suggests a harmony.

Many times, there would be what seems like way too much on stage or on a costume but in surrealism, somehow it always blends together peacefully. Surrealism seems to be, in many ways, the most preceding of the -isms because of how prominent it still is in theatre and film. Through all of my research, have learned that theatre today is nowhere close to what is was when first created. Am sure that in the next years, theatre will continue to change even more and I cannot wait to see where it ends up when my children are my age!

History of Theatre Early in the 1700’s British people that were involved with theatre were mostly middle class. There were 2 kinds of new dramatic theatre: sentimental comedy and domestic tragedy. The fist playhouse was in the American colonies was built in Williamsburg, Virginia. In 1741 the greatest British actor was born and his name was David Garrick. Aeschylus wrote the first major playwright and multiple contests. “The Orestria” was the last remaining tragic trilogy. Sophocles pioneered painted scenery and added the third choral leader, wrote “Antigone. Euripides went against popular belief and pioneered female protagonist. Aristophanes was the first comedian and made fun of current leaders, rated “M” for mature. Gotthold Ephraim Lessing was the head German dramatist during the Enlightenment, as well as a critic, a philosopher, and an aesthetician. His works advocated liberal thinking and religious tolerance. He wrote the first German plays of “Note and Sought” to make German drama as an entity seperate from French and classical influences.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe is permanently associated with the German romantic movement and is the major literary figure in German history. A true Renaissance man, he was a novelist, playwright, translator, natural philosopher, poet, musician, composer, scientist, and finally a historian. His Faust is a “closet drama”, a work in dramatic form to be read not performed. In the late 1700’s, German theatre changed dramatically by the Romantic movement known as “Sturm und Drang” (storm and stress).

In 1773, British playwright Oliver Goldsmith attacked the popular sentimental comedy and proposed a more humorous and realistic “laughing comedy. ” In his fast paced comedy She Stoops to Conquer, Goldsmith had achieved his goal. Rich Brinsley Sheridan got into sentimental comedy in the 1770’s with his plays The Rivals and The School for Scandal. The American Revolution had a crippling effect on all forms of theatre. Congress passed a resolution discouraging theatrical “entertainments”, and after the U. S. eclared independence, the individual states passed laws forbidding all stage performances. Most of the anti-theatre laws remained in effect until the early 1780’s. construction of the Paris Opera House began in 1861 and was completed in 1875. The idea for a protected performance area arose after a royal procession escorting Napoleon the third and his wife to the opera was bombed by a group of revels and scores were killed. Napoleon wanted an opera house where royalty could enter less publicly, and created a contest calling for new designs.

The architect Charles Garnier won. The Paris Opera House has 17 stories, covers three acres of land, and seats 2000 people. Gaston Leroux’s novel The Phantom of the Opera took place here and Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical based on this too. The “Father of modern drama,” was a Norwegian playwright who’s name is Henrik Ibsen. James A. Herne began his theatre career as a very good actor. Later he became a stage manager at Baldwin’s Academy of Music in California, a job that brought him many more roles.

In 1878, he married the actress Katherine Corcoran, a member of the Baldwin acting company, and began a career as a playwright to write leading parts for him and his wife. Naturalism was a theatrical school of thought developed in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s. it introduced sets that looked as real as possible, characters who spoke in a natural way, and story lines that were plausible. The primary spokesperson for early naturalism was French novelist Emile Zola(1840 – 1902).

Shakespeare is widely regarded as the world’s greatest playwright, and there’s no real reason to dispute that. People are still seeing his plays 400 years after he wrote them, not because it’s “trendy” or “hip,” but because they’re so good. His insight into the human spirit has never been equaled. This paper is a brief biography of Shakespeare and a discussion of the times in which he lived.

Discussion

His life: It’s somewhat difficult to find factual information about Shakespeare because the “first attempts at biographical research were not begun until over half a century after Shakespeare’s death”. In addition, there were few biographies written of important persons at this time, especially dramatists, since plays were not considered “serious literature”. In addition, the Puritans closed the theaters in 1642, and many manuscripts and other records were lost. It also doesn’t help that there are numerous spellings of his name. Nevertheless, scholars have pieced together a fairly complete picture of his life, and where facts are not known, they have drawn reasonable inferences.

However, the fact remains that much of what we know is based on indirect information. William Shakespeare was born in Stratford-upon-Avon sometime in April 1564, the son of John Shakespeare and Mary Arden. Although there is no record of the exact date of his birth, there is a baptismal record at the church, so most scholars put his birthday as the 23rd of April, 1564. John Shakespeare was a “prominent and prosperous alderman” in Stratford, and was “granted a coat of arms by the College of Heralds”. Little is known of Shakespeare’s boyhood but it is believed that he probably attended the “Stratford Grammar School”. There is no record of him having gone on to either Oxford or Cambridge, both of which were well established by his time. Shakespeare’s name turns up next in 1582 when he marries Anne Hathaway, some eight years his senior. Their daughter Susanna was born in 1583 and twins, Judith and Hamnet, were born in 1585.

Once again Shakespeare disappears from the records and doesn’t turn up again for seven years, by which time he is “recognized as an actor, poet, and playwright”. His recognition comes in the form of an insult from a rival, Robert Greene, who calls Shakespeare “an upstart crow” in his (Greene’s) play, A Groatsworth of Wit (Hanna – Life). It’s thought that at about this time (1592) Shakespeare joined an acting troupe known as The Lord Chamberlain’s Men, one of the best in London. The troupe leased the theater (named, unoriginally, “The Theatre” where they performed; they lost the lease in 1599. By this time, though, the troupe had enough money to build their own theater, across the Thames on the less fashionable South Bank; this new theater was, of course, The Globe. The Globe opened in July 1599, with some of the old timbers salvaged from The Theatre used in its construction. The Globe featured “Totus Mundus at histrionic” (A whole world of players)” as its motto.

When James I ascended the throne in 1603, the company changed its name to the “King’s Men” or “King’s Company” (Hanna – Life). The company’s instructions, conveyed to them in Letters Patent, told Shakespeare and eight other company members specifically to “use and exercise the art and faculty of playing Comedies, Tragedies, Histories, Interludes, Morals, Pastorals, stage plays … as well for recreation of our loving subjects as for our solace and pleasure” (Hanna – Life). Things went well for the newly-christened King’s Men for another ten years, until 1613 (Hanna – Life). Then, on June 19, a cannon fired from the theater’s roof during a “gala performance of Henry VIII” set the Globe’s thatched roof on fire and the theater burned to the ground (Hanna – Life). The audience was so absorbed in the play that at first, they ignored the fire, but when the walls and curtains went up, they surely must have run (Hanna – Life). By some miracle “there were no casualties, and the next spring the company had the theatre ‘new built-in a far fairer manner than before’” (Hanna – Life). Shakespeare “invested in the rebuilding” effort, but by that time he had retired to Stratford, to the “Great House of New Place” that he’d bought in 1597 (Hanna – Life). There were considerable landholdings associated with the house, and Shakespeare remained there, where he continued to write, until his death in 1616 (Hanna – Life). Ironically, he died on his alleged birthday, April 23 (Hanna). He was 52. Although he died at what we would consider a young age, he left behind a body of work that has made him immortal and continues to light up theaters around the world.

His Times: The world 400 years ago is often seen as romantic and noble, but it was brutal, unsanitary, and often terrifying. We’re familiar with a lot of the history of the time through films and TV shows; a movie about Elizabeth I was released recently. Shakespeare lived at a time of political upheaval and court intrigue, as well as a time of exploration. For example, a man named John Hawkins sailed to the New World a second time in 1561 (Hanna – Times). Trips like this were dangerous and daring, but also yielded treasure and more importantly, lands for the Crown. From 1577-1580 “Francis Proke sailed around the world”. In 1586 when he was 22, Mary Queen of Scots was tried for treason and executed the following year (Hanna – Times). And in 1588 one of the greatest events in English history took place: the English under the command of Queen Elizabeth I defeated the Spanish invasion fleet known as the Armada (Hanna – Times). Unfortunately, this was also the time of the great plagues; plague swept through London in 1592-93, necessitating the closure of the theaters; plague struck again in 1603 (Hanna). This was also the year that Elizabeth I died and James IV, King of Scotland became James I of England (Hanna – Times). It was at this point that the “Lord Chamberlain’s Men” became the “King’s Men”; James I liked the theater and was a writer himself, publishing works on such subjects and witchcraft and “the divine right of kings”. In 1605, the “Gunpowder Plot” was hatched and Guy Fawkes leads a group of Catholics in an attempt to assassinate James and blow up Parliament. The English still celebrates “Guy Fawkes Day. ” As we saw, the Globe burned down in 1613 by which time Shakespeare had returned to Stratford. He lived only another three years.

The origin of masked theater dates back to Ancient Greece, between 550 BC and 220 BC. Initially masks were part of an annual festival dedicated to honoring Dionysus, the Greek god of wine and fertility. The festival, named City Dionysia, was held in Athens and the most significant rituals involved masked performances. Inspired by City Dionysia, the Greek acting fraternity soon decided to incorporate the use of masks into theater. Thespis, a Greek actor and writer was the first recorded actor to wear a mask in a play.

It is from him that we have derived the word, “Thespian”, a synonym for actor. Greek masks were made from light weight, organic materials such as stiffened linen, leather, wood or cork. The masks had exaggerated, distorted facial features which allowed the audience to clearly see what character was being portrayed, whether it was a male, a female, a priest or a peasant. The wideness of the mouths also served as megaphone to amplify the actors’ voices in a massive theater. The costumes and props used in Greek theatre differed according to the play and character being presented.

A peasant would wear shoes with a thin sole and a simple toga while a wealthy merchant would wear elevated platform shoes with colorful, embellished robe. If an actor had to play a female, then he would wear a mask with long hair and a chest device called a prosterniad to give the illusion of breasts. Since Greek plays were only performed by a maximum of three men and a chorus of fifteen, they needed versatility to be able to switch seamlessly from act-to-act and character-to-character. Actors needed to be able perform in front of a large audience and have good memorization skills, effective body positioning and spacial awareness.

A loud, clear voice and singing capabilities was also important. The job of the chorus was to narrate and reflect on the action of the play as well as being extras if needed. Two of the most influential types of plays invented by the Greeks were tragedies and comedies. Tragedies were serious plays based on mythology and most often depicted the downfall of a hero or heroine. Tragic masks had mournful or pained expressions. The actors wore boots that elevated them above the actors to show status since the plays often involved depicting social hierarchy. Religious themes were more focused in tragedies while omedies were lighter in message and involved jokes, parodies and slapstick humor. Comedic masks had hugely distorted smiling or leering faces to convey mischievousness and hilarity. Today the tragedy and comedy masks are renowned symbols of dramatic arts. Unfortunately, any physical evidence of a Greek mask has not survived and the only source of evidence is from artworks and written accounts. There were several reasons why masks were incorporated in Greek drama. Masks allowed actors to easily play more than one character, especially since Greek drama had very few actors (no more than three men, excluding the chorus) in a play.

The masks also allowed actors to portray animals and deities, and even female characters, since women were forbidden to act. Additionally, because the division between the stage and the audience of the theater was so vast, the exaggeration and noise amplification function of the masks allowed even the least-educated audience members to easily identify and hear the characters. The performance space itself was a large, open-air structure constructed on a specially chosen slope of a hill. The Greeks always performed in circular outdoor theaters to successfully project the voice of the actors to the immense number of spectators.

Greek theatre is still considered to have one of the best stage acoustics, even compared to today’s theaters. Theaters, such as the Theatre of Dionysus, were built to entertain an audience of up to twenty thousand. They consisted of three principal elements: the skene, the orchestra and the theatron. The skene was a large rectangular building that served as an ancient equivalent of a backstage area. It was a place for the actors to change their costumes and masks and perform the killing scenes since it was considered to be inappropriate to depict a murder in front of an audience.

The skene was also decorated to serve as a backdrop for the play, resulting in the English word “scenery. ” Typically, there were at least two doors to allow the actors to exit and enter the skene and onto the orchestra. The orchestra was a flat semi-circular area where the performance or religious rites tool place. This was the stage where the actors performed on and were on average 25 meters wide in diameter. Some orchestras had an alter specially built for sacrifices dedicated to Dionysus. The theatron were the rows of tiered stones where the spectators sat.

It was curved around the orchestra to allow the audience members to see and hear the play, even if they were at the very top. As Greek architecture continued to improve, the theaters became more elaborate and introduced the parodoi, paraskenion, proskenion, hyposkenion and the episkenion to the skene. Today, all that is left of the original skene of many Greek theaters is an arch surrounding the proskenion, which inspired the proscenium arch. Although Greek theater is quite different to what we have done in drama, we can certainly relate the practice of Greek mask theater to what we have learned throughout our mask unit.

Like the Greeks, we had to learn to exaggerate our movement (through body language, articulation, clocking and tension states) to ensure the audience understood our storyline. We also incorporated the use of costumes and status like the Greeks to make our plays easier to understand. Because the mask concealed facial expressions, everything depended on the body yet we had to learn how to prevent from “talking with our hands”. Very much like the Greek actors who unaccustomed to the mask, suffered disorientation and restriction when masked, learning to perform fluidly with the mask was one of the biggest challenges we faced.

We definitely learned that mask work was not easy. It required skill, patience and practice to create a short play that would capture our audience’s attention. In conclusion, Greek theater has certainly made a substantial impact on modern theater and drama. It is to the Greeks that we owe not only the first great plays of tragedy and comedy, but paved the pathway of mask theater, its acceptance in performing arts and of dramatic construction and theory. Thanks to the Greeks, today we know mask work is a dramatic art form that has centuries of history and should be respected and preserved.