Week 6 - Your Production

Research your own Shakespeare play: Hamlet, Richard III, Macbeth, Measure for Measure. What is the play about? When was it first performed? Find a contemporary production of the play you can get an idea of and research it in terms of concept, style, design, casting. Give some attention to your own character and their role in the play.

My Shakespeare play was Richard III. The contemporary production I am going to be researching and semi-evaluating is my own.

Richard III was written in 1592 and first performed in November 1633. The play's first performances were presented in daylight on the simple thrust stage of an Elizabethan playhouse. The lack of scenery was a help rather than a hindrance in allowing fast-paced, fluid action, and a focus on the actors and their speech. Music, costume (royal and plebeian), appropriate weaponry and a few essential props were the only things that were required at the time.

King Richard III

The Concept, Style, Design and Casting

In a world left in shock due to the ascendancy of the Trump, as the reality of his reign bearing down upon his subjects, we must ask questions. Shakespeare's Richard III does this eloquently for us. We see the death of his competition and the impossible to stop the rise of the Trump (Richard). The civil wars in the play explore the relationships between the Republicans and the Democrats.

In this new version of the play, many of the characters are adhere into a railing crowd baying as Richard swagger's through the play. The crowd includes those disenfranchised by Trump's policies and outlook. I.e. the Mexicans, gays, environmentalists, average people, Muslims, protesters, pundits and a dishevelled statue of liberty.

The stage is a swamp, Trump often refers to draining the swamp. A place where monsters lie and secrets are buried. Within the festering marshland type swamp, the beautifully dressed American political elite mixed with a soupçon of Tudor bling tell the story of the play. The filing cabinets props can be used to help create a kind of Oval office castle.

Donald Trump's description of 'draining the swamp'

The character list was designed to fit the politicos of today, The Obamas, The Clintons, Bernie Sanders, Sean Spicer and more. The casting list was clearly and carefully thought through regarding type-casting based on appearance and vocal sounds as well as quality. Intentionally Trump was played by a woman to make comment upon his view of females.

There were points in the play where Trumps love of twitter showed him casting aspersions and prophesying policy through his Twitter feed. The feed was projected in an unusual manner, not on to a cyclorama but instead onto the upper triangle of the White House façade. There were thoughts of placing it on the dome of the Chambers of Congress or the 'T' from Trump tower like a crucifix.

White House Façade

Chambers of Congress

'T' from Trump Tower

The lighting played a big part as we were going for low level lighting in order to create shadows in particular scenes. The lighting sometimes had complete washes of colour to foreshadow
what the coming scene could possibly consist of. It also added to the enhancement of the atmosphere. The sound was played at specific points, used for transitions and increased the effect to the stage activity in conjunction to what was being said and the theme it was creating.

Basic Plot Outline

After a long civil war between the royal family of York and the royal family of Lancaster, England enjoys a period of peace under King Edward IV and the victorious Yorks. But Edward's younger brother, Richard, resents Edward's power and the happiness of those around him. Malicious, power-hungry, and bitter about his physical deformity, Richard begins to aspire secretly to the throne - and decides to kill anyone he has to, in order to become king.

Using his intelligence and his skills of deception and political manipulation, Richard begins his campaign for the throne. He manipulates a noblewoman, Lady Anne, into marrying him - even though she knows that he murdered her first husband. He has his own older brother, Clarence, executed, and shifts the burden of guilt onto his sick brother King Edward in order to accelerate Edward's illness and death. After King Edward dies, Richard becomes lord protector of England - the figure in charge until the elder of Edward's two sons grows up.

Richard then kills the court noblemen who are loyal to the princes, most notably Lord Hastings, the Lord Chamberlain of England. He then has the boys' relatives on their mother's side - the powerful kinsmen of Edward's wife, Queen Elizabeth - arrested and executed. With Elizabeth and the princes now unprotected, Richard has his political allies, particularly his right-hand man, Lord Buckingham, campaign to have Richard crowned king. Richard then imprisons the young princes in the Tower and sends hired murderers to kill both children.

By this time, Richards reign of terror has caused the common people of England to fear and despise him, and he has devolved nearly all the noblemen of the court - even the power-hungry Buckingham. When rumors begin to circulate about a challenger to the throne who is gathering forces in France, noblemen abandon Richard in multitude to join his forces. The challenger is the Earl of Richmond, a descendant of a secondary arm of the Lancaster family, and England is ready to welcome him.

Richard, in the meantime, tries to consolidate his power. He has his wife, Queen Anne, murdered, so that he can carry marry young Elizabeth, the daughter of the former Queen Elizabeth and the dead King Edward. Though young Elizabeth is his niece, the alliance would secure his claim to the throne. Nevertheless, Richard has begun to lose control of events, and Queen Elizabeth manages to forestall him. Meanwhile, she secretly promises to marry young Elizabeth to Richmond.

Richmond finally invades England. The night before the battle that will decide everything, Richard has a terrible dream in which the ghosts of all the people he has murdered appear and curse him, telling him that he will die the next day. In the battle on the following morning, Richard is killed, and Richmond is crowned King Henry VII. Promising a new era of peace for England, the new king is formally engaged to young Elizabeth in order to unite the warring houses of Lancaster and York.

My Character's Role in the Play

My character was King Edward IV, and my American character mirror image was Barack Obama. As King Edward IV and Barack Obama, my roles in the play were very similar being the fact that I was them both, but just containing a character image. My role was to keep peace within the country and to continue being the great leader I was. I needed to show my country and the people looking up to me, that I am a communal leader and care about the people - and so attended, as well as made a speech for King Henry VI  at his funeral. It was then coming to the end of my reign and I was stepping down from being President/King to allow the next in line to take my place. Donal Trump, who was Richard of Gloucester, began to campaign to take my place although not being the next in line and I then had to make a stance to try and prevent that from happening. I was on the Democrats side of the campaign, encouraging people to vote for Hillary Clinton, who was Prince Edward. This became a failure and my role from then on, became to detest King Richard, fight for what I believe is right, and gain more followers and army fighters to defect King Richard; and fight along the allies of the Earl of Richmond, mirrored as Michelle Obama.

Barack Obama

King Edward IV

Week 5 – Shakespeare Today

Analyse contemporary Shakespeare productions with reference to live performances you may have seen or clips of footage available online. You should comment on what you notice about them and how they differ from what you know about the original performance conditions of Shakespeare’s work.

Consider how these productions are employing all the techniques, technology and resources of modern theatre.

I have seen three different Shakespeare Theatre Plays in which I have been impressed by all. Those were Imogen at the Globe Theatre, The Taming of the Shrew at the Globe Theatre, and Twelfth Night at the National Theatre.

Now

For Imogen, I was able to understand what was going on, what the storyline was, and how everything was pieced together. This is because of the theatrical techniques, technology and resources used. To start off with, they changed the way the text was said so that it gave more of a street and gang connotation. However, in The Taming of the Shrew and Twelfth Night, I found it a little bit more difficult and this was because of the way they performed with their body language along with the words; I couldn’t quite relate or be able to understand it’s context fully. The costume in Imogen wasn’t as expected as they had modernised the play in a contextual way; portraying street youths and the stereotypes, as well as archetypes, of young people themselves. The costume in The Taming of the Shrew and Twelfth Night seemed to be slightly stereotypical with a little bit of a change. In Imogen for example, their costume was presented as most characters were wearing designer tracksuits, bags, trainers; i.e. Nike, Adidas, Puma, Stone Island, Ellesse, etc. In aid of their costumes was the colours used to match them, their fellow ‘gang’ members, and the set of the stage which represented their territory. Examples are, white and gold, black and green. The colours resembled them and their significance towards other characters as well. The set in Twelfth Night was extraordinary. It was completely unforeseen. It was a huge staircase-pyramid type of shape which had revolving walls to change the set of the scenes. The sets in these plays ranged from huge and extravagant, to a fair size with fairly large props.

The lighting seemed to add the effect even more as it enhanced the atmosphere and was made clear, with the wash of colours, which territory was who’s in Imogen, and the atmosphere’s in The Taming of the Shrew and Twelfth Night. In Imogen, their use of props was versatile as there were specific colours for specific props which symbolised or represented a certain group. However, the props in The Taming of the Shrew helped add the storyline to the play, and in Twelfth Night, the props helped with characterisation. This therefore shows that props can be used in a variety of different forms to portray or evoke a specific type of technique, feeling, or sometimes enhancements of characters. The sound in Imogen and The Taming of the Shrew illustrated to the audience that it was a more modern version, due to the fact that they were using particular types of songs to go with their characters at times within the play, using the rapping artists Stormzy and Skepta for Imogen and singer, Jessie J for The Taming of the Shrew. Though, in those two plays they used recorded audio, in Twelfth Night, they used a lived band to play live music between transitions of scenes and sets, and this consisted of a pianist, a saxophonist, and a few string musicians. The way that they performed the stage fighting in Imogen was clever and very technological in the sense that they used harnesses to hoist people up into the air, by using others to walk up and down the frame ladders of the stage. The actors on stage in all three plays were also gender balanced too which is something that it very common in today’s theatre society.

Before

In Shakespeare’s time, not everyone would have been able to understand what was going on or being said, based on the fact that not everyone was privileged, or wealthy enough to get an education by attending school.  Those that did understand obviously were privileged enough, but could also have been taught by others. The costumes were totally different due to the fact that Shakespeare’s plays were stereotyped as being upper class performances, which therefore was thought that everyone would be dressed up in frilly dresses (if playing a female) and cravats. As time went on, the idea of big, exaggerated and stereotypical costumes began to become less glamorised, and so they became simplistic at times. They never really had as vibrant and bright colours that we use unnecessarily nowadays, but what they did have, and how they used it seemed to be just as important and special to them. The characters with the brightest and most vibrant colours, signified them to have more importance over the other characters. They had very basic lighting which meant that there was no extra major addition to the atmosphere or feelings created. They didn’t have a lot of props as budgets were small back then, but the props they used had to mean something particularly to resemble or signify something important in the play. Their use of sound was quite minimal to the extent where it was very traditional to their era. The music used was generally quite slow and sometimes they even had a live band perform, in which was similar in The Taming of the Shrew. Stage fighting would have been overly exaggerated to the point where it would actually look fake and unrealistic because they didn’t think of any creative ways to make them interesting. The major difference between the eras is that in Shakespeare’s time, there were no female actresses. This was because women weren’t allowed to perform in theatres and so men had to play all gender roles. Women would have been looked down upon if they had been actresses in theatres, more so than they already were.

Theatrical Employments

All or most of the productions nowadays, are taking everything for granted. Essentially, they have nearly limitless supplies of things needed for a play to be performed at a really high standard. This is because of the advanced technology we are open to, and the fact that there are loads of specialists in particular fields of production, the processes as well as the work, is able to run more smoothly without disruptions. The technology used can create illusions and visual effects to add to performances showing that there is a special effect and need for the technology which therefore can be seen as a cheat to draw in the audience. The techniques of modern theatre are being inserted and used all the time, as you can sometimes tell when a character has a specific objective that they are playing on stage with other characters. Playing on stage is a good way to keep a scene interesting because it shows that something new, and unexpected can always be created on stage, which is the reason as to why audiences sometimes receive different experiences from the same play, but from two different nights. We also seem to use as much theatrical resources as possible, thinking that it is essential to do as much as we can in a play to make it interesting because audiences are used to excitement and business sometimes. These theatrical employments are successful because they capture the essence of what their job entails and gives the audiences an enhancement on what they have witnessed.

Week 4 – Theatres, Actors, and Acting in Shakespeare’s Time

What were the theatres or ‘playhouses’ of Shakespeare’s time like and how were plays staged in them?

Who were the actors of Shakespeare’s plays and how did the experience of being an actor differ from the experience today?

Theatres and Playhouses

The stage back then was never just one type of space because the plays had to be versatile. The same play could potentially be produced in an outdoor playhouse, an indoor theatre, a royal palace – or, for a company on tour, the courtyard of an inn. The stage itself was quite bare and empty, and for most parts, the playwrights used vivid words instead of scenery to picture the scene onstage. In 1576, when Shakespeare was still a 12-year-old in Stratford, James Burbage built The Theatre just outside London. The Theatre was among the first playhouses in England since Roman times. Like the many other playhouses that followed, it was a multi-sided structure with a central, uncovered “yard” surrounded by three tiers of covered seating and a bare, raised stage at one end of the yard. The spectators could pay for seating at multiple price levels, and those that had the cheapest tickets, stood throughout the whole length of the plays.

James Burbage The Theatre

Shakespeare’s company, the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, was one of several to perform at The Theatre, and they first appeared that about 1594. The large open playhouses like the Globe was marvellous in the right weather, however the indoor theatres were able to operate suitably all-year round due to the enclosure of the stage and seating by the roofing. The indoor theatres also offered a more intimate setting with the use of artificial lighting and therefore was able to add to the atmosphere a lot more. However, the Globe Theatre now still hasn’t changed much due to the fact that it still has the “yard”, open roofing and wooden structure, but they have been able to install as well as use the most amount of lighting physically possible without damages to equipment to still enhance the evoking of emotion or atmosphere on stage. Still more indoor productions often came during the period between Christmas and New Year, and at Shrovetide (the period before Lent) at one of the royal palaces. This is where Shakespeare’s company as well as other leading companies gave command performances which were high honour that was also well-paid.

The bare stages of Shakespeare’s day had little or no scenery except for objects required by the plot. Examples of this would be; like a throne, a grave or a bed. The exits and entrances were in plain view of the audience which meant that you knew exactly when someone was going to come on or off. Cleverly, they included some vertical options too which meant that actors could descend from the “heavens” above the stage, or enter and exit from “hell” below through a trapdoor. Characters described as talking from “above” might appear in galleries midway between the stage and the heavens. In 1642, the English playhouses and theatres were closed down, and often dismantled for building materials as the English Civil War began. There were two different types of playhouse in London during Shakespeare’s time. There were outdoor playhouses, also known as ‘amphitheatres’ or ‘public’ playhouses, and indoor playhouses, also known as ‘halls’ or ‘private’ playhouses. These were very different theatres that attracted different types of audiences.

A Map of the Playhouses and Theatres

All Outdoor Playhouses had:

• A central yard that was open to the sky
• A raised stage sticking out into the yard
• A roof over the stage, which was called ‘the heavens’, although the first Rose theatre (1587-92) may not have had one
• A tiring house behind the stage with a backstage area, where actors dressed and waited to come on. Above this were lords’ rooms, rooms for storage, and a room    level with ‘the heavens’ to work the special effects from
• Galleried seating all around the yard, on several levels, which was roofed.

Indoor Theatres were different to Outdoor Playhouses as they were:

• Smaller than outdoor playhouses, holding about 500 people, not thousands.
• Built inside an existing building, so not open to the sky.
• More expensive (ranging from 6d to 2s and 6d), compared with open yard standing (at 1d) as in outdoor playhouses. (d= penny, and s= shilling).
• Lit by candles as well as daylight through the windows.

Actors and their Experiences

In any one of these settings, men and boys played all the characters, male and female. Back in Renaissance England, acting was an exclusively male profession and women were not allowed to be actresses. Nowadays, gender role characters are generally played by the same gender actor/actress, and sometimes even cross gender roles. Whilst most women’s roles were played by boys or young men in the all-male casts, comic female parts such as Juliet’s Nurse might have been reserved for a popular adult comic actor, or clown. In addition to their dramatic talents, actor in William Shakespeare’s time had to fence onstage with great skill, sing songs or play instruments included in the plays. They also had to perform the vigorously athletic dances of their day. In the modern theatre society, the acting hasn’t really differed much in terms of theatrical elements and extra skills for stage as what they used to do back then, would be equivalent to our musical theatre now.

Actors usually didn’t really aim for historically accurate costumes, although a toga might have appeared for a Roman play. Instead, they typically wore gorgeous modern dresses, especially for the leading parts. Costumes, which was a major investment for an acting company, provided the essential “spectacle” of the plays. These were often second-hand clothes that were once owned and worn by real-life nobles. In 1629, a French company came over to visit and when they performed, they were hissed and ‘pippin-pelted’ from the stage because they used female actors to play the female roles, and this is something that the audience were really outraged about. Most of the audience in the Elizabethan era didn’t sit down and watch the performances in silence like we do today. They used to clap at the heroes, boo at the villains, and cheer for the special effects. Sometimes, fights would break out due to thieving within the audience. This obviously had an impact on the actors because it would therefore possibly knock their confidence, but it would definitely make them feel as if they hadn’t done a good enough job to appease the audience. However, in theatres now, people send positive energy to everyone in the sense that whether they prefer a specific character or not, they don’t put them down and make them feel less important.

Elizabethan Actors

In Shakespeare’s time, acting was a profession only open to boys and men. Women were acting elsewhere in Europe but they were not allowed to perform in public theatres in England until 1660. In an Elizabethan production boys would play the female parts, like Ophelia in Hamlet or Desdemona in Othello, whilst occasionally men would play the older women. The life of an actor changed dramatically during Shakespeare’s lifetime. At first actors toured in companies, travelling the country to perform in towns, cities and in private homes. When William Shakespeare died, London had several permanent theatres where the actors performed and drew in huge audiences. Despite the popularity of people going to watch plays, the acting profession had a bad reputation. Actors were seen as unruly and a threat to a peaceful society. Most of the actors began their careers as young boys, and they could join a company as an apprentice, and be taught by one of the more senior actors within the company. Actors were expected to be able to sword fight, sing and dance, as well as having a good memory for learning lines. This potentially is the same as our current musical theatre aspects as they require you to sing, dance, and act all at the same time.

An actor’s earnings also depended on where the company was playing. The company made more money in London than in the country, so could pay actors higher wages. In 1597, the actor William Kendall was paid 10 shillings a week in London but only 5 shillings in the country. An average day for an actor was hectic. They normally performed in the afternoon because they relied only on natural light to be seen when on stage. The plays were performed in repertory and which meant that the same play was never performed two days in a row. Actors spent the morning rehearsing, and then perform in the afternoon. They didn’t have much time for rehearsals as they were often juggling several plays and several parts at one time based on the repertory. Actors back then learnt their lines by them saying it over and over. However, there weren’t multiple copies of the play, so each actor would have been given their own part written out to learn. An actor’s part only contained their lines and their ‘cues’. Nowadays, we have the technology and enough resources to all have a script or copy of the play each, and this therefore makes learning easier in the sense that we are able to get a feel of the other characters, and what their characters feel and think about the character in which we are playing personally.

Week 3 – Shakespeare’s London and Elizabethan Audiences

What was London like in Elizabethan times and who were the people attending the theatre?

London

London was a very big city, but that wasn’t all. It was growing very rapidly, and this was due to the migration of people from the countryside and from other countries in Europe. Between 1550 and 1600, it was estimated that London city grew from around 50,000 residents to over 200,000.  Inside the medieval walls of the city, where there was available space, it was being built on, and outside, the suburbs grew steadily into the countryside. London was a very overcrowded city and in 1599, a Swiss visitor said, “one simply cannot walk along the streets for the crowds”. Another visitor called the crowded streets “dark and narrow”. The darkness attracted thieves, and the overcrowding easily brought and spread diseases.  The plague tended to strike most summers, and in 1593, about 10,000 people were killed along with all the theatres closing. In 1607, John Donne called it “London, plaguey London, full of danger and vice”.

London was the biggest and richest city in England, and was the home of the first permanent playhouses too. London was very dirty, noisy, crowded and it was always teeming with people. The changes in the agriculture during the Elizabethan period led to people leaving the countryside, and their village lives, to search for employment and other working opportunities in towns like London. Every type of Elizabethan trade could be found in the city of London. The city was a great commercial centre of England and was home of the famous London Guilds. Housing in London was mainly apartment buildings all crammed together in odd arrangements. There were no drainage or sewage, so this meant that whatever someone may have stepped in whilst walking down the street, is what someone else probably once ate. Chamber pot faeces were thrown out of windows and onto the people below. Common London street festivities consisted of getting drunk at alehouses, bear baiting, gambling dens, and brothels. All of these festivities weren’t even frowned upon.

One of London's Streets

London Bridge wasn’t the only way to cross the Thames. People who were in a rush, or had money, could pay to cross the river by boats called ‘water taxis’. Back then, there used to be 3,000 water taxis available for use along the Thames. Coaches were popular back then and that is how quite a few people travelled to get around. However, the only thing was that they were expensive so there was no doubt that only the wealthy-enough were able to pay for them. A new coach could be bought for £34, and a second-hand coach could be bought for £8. These prices alone didn’t even include the pricing for a team or four or six horses and food to provide for them, so that made sense as to why mainly the wealthy used coaches and could afford them comfortably. As well as using the horses for pulling the coaches, they were also used individually as another mode of transport which was most popular, quickest, and easiest way of travelling.

There were loads of common crimes in London. These included; begging and unemployment, witchcraft, heresy, thievery and murder. Anyone who was not employed by a master was considered illegal in the eyes of the law. Even travelling merchants, tinkers, palm readers and other self-employed workers could be sentenced to whipping or some other form of physical torture. A great movement began in Europe in the mid-1600’s that encouraged witch hunting. Convicted witches could be banished, hanged or burned. If someone didn’t agree or submit to the beliefs of the Church of England, they faced severe sentences. King Henry VIII changing the religion of England was extremely controversial. It bothered many people that England had broken away from the Catholic Church. However, going against this reformation was punishable by death. It was illegal to steal another man’s property, and the killing of another man was a terrible violation of the law. Some of the torturing punishment for these crimes included; The Pillory, The Iron Boot, The Scavenger’s Daughter, The Iron Maiden, The Gossip’s Bridle (Brank), The Rack, The Bastinado, and The Jougs.

One of London's Markets

Audiences

Nearly everyone in the London society went to the theatre, although they were generally more men than women. In 1617, someone once described the audience as ‘a gang of porters and carters’. Some other people said that servants and apprentices spent all of their spare time there. However, the wealthier people went to the theatres too. In 1607, the Venetian ambassador bought all the most expensive seats for one of Shakespeare’s plays Pericles.

In open air theatres, the cheapest price was only 1 penny. This bought you a place amongst the ‘groundlings’ standing in the ‘yard’ around the stage. There used to be 240 pennies in one pound. For another penny, you could have a bench seat in the lower galleries which surrounded the yard. For a few pennies more, you could sit quite comfortably on a cushion. The most expensive seats however, would have been in the ‘Lord’s Rooms’. Admission into the indoor theatres started at six pence, and in comparison, one penny was only the price of a loaf of bread. The low cost of the theatre was one reason as to why the theatres were so popular.

Wealthy trades and manufacturers – and their workers – lived there. They were the people able to go to the theatre. By 1600, the number of people that went to theatres in London was 20,000 per week. London was evidently also home to royalty and much of the nobility. Rich noblemen became patrons of theatre companies, and gave financial and legal support. Royalty also supported the theatre and they loved watching plays. They didn’t go to the public theatres, but companies of actors were summoned to perform at the courts of Elizabeth I and James I.

Elizabethan Audience

From 1603 to 1613, Shakespeare’s company played at the court of King James about 15 times per year. The groundlings were very close to the action on the stage and the audience were also able to buy food and drink whilst the performance is going on. They could get pippins (apples), oranges, nuts, gingerbread and ale. There were no toilets, and the floor that they stood on as probably just sand, ash or they were covered in nutshells. Some people complained saying that the pit smelled of garlic and beer and no good citizen would go and show their face there.

The behaviour of the audience in theatres can be in some ways resonant with young people nowadays in conjunction to specific things. For example, some people only went to the theatre back then to be seen and admired and even dressed in the best clothes. But those people were not necessarily well behaved. That is like quite a few of young people in this modern day and age. We could even go to a corner shop dressed in pure designer and jewellery in case we see someone that we would possibly like to ‘impress’. Most of the audience in the Elizabethan era didn’t sit down and watch the performances in silence like we do today. They used to clap at the heroes, boo at the villains, and cheer for the special effects. Sometimes, fights would break out due to thieving within the audience.

In 1612, magistrates banned music at the end of plays at the Fortune, because they said that the crowds had caused ‘tumults and outrages’ with their dances. Due to the fact that the audiences were really large, most plays only had short runs and then were replaced. Between 1560 and 1640, about 3,000 new plays were written. To attract the crowds of dramatism, the plays often re-told old famous stories that people knew from the past, and in order to keep people’s attention, they used violence, music and humour in the plays to keep them interested. This was vital as you could tell when an audience member didn’t like a play. For instance, at the Swan in 1602, the audience damaged the chairs, stools, curtains and the walls. In 1629, a French company came over to visit and when they performed, they were hissed and ‘pippin-pelted’ from the stage because they used female actors to play the female roles, and this is something that the audience were really outraged about. And so since then, based on the major involvements of the audiences in the performance of the plays, it was vital that the plays were a success to prevent these situations from occurring again.

Week 2 – Shakespeare’s Life and Biography

Research Shakespeare’s life, ensuring you include information about his origins, family, relationships, the world he lived in and questions surrounding his work.

William Shakespeare and his Family

William Shakespeare was an English poet, playwright and actor. He was regarded the greatest writer in the English Language and the world’s pre-eminent dramatist. It is believed that he was born on or near April 23^rd, 1564 as he was baptized at Holy Trinity Church in Stratford-upon-Avon on April 26^th, 1564. It is believed that that was the date of his birth as this is the date in which scholars acknowledge it as William Shakespeare’s birthday. His actual birth was never recorded. Shakespeare, ironically, died on his birthday too on April 23^rd, 1616, Stratford-upon-Avon. When Shakespeare was just a baby, the Plague had killed about 200 people in Stratford – 1 in 5 of the population, and he was lucky to survive. Shakespeare’s parents, John Shakespeare and Mary Shakespeare had eight children. Joan (1558-unkown, died in infancy), Margaret (1562-1563), William (1564-1616), Gilbert (1566-1612), Joan (1569-1646), Anne (1571-1579), Richard (1574-1613) and Edmund (1580-1607).

William Shakespeare

John Shakespeare was born in 1531, Stratford-upon-Avon, and died on September 7^th, 1601, Stratford-upon-Avon. He was a leatherworker who specialised in the soft white leather used for gloves and similar items. Being a prosperous businessman, he married Mary Arden. John Shakespeare rose through offices in Stratford, became an alderman, and eventually when William Shakespeare was five, became the town bailiff. An alderman is a co-opted member of an English county or borough council and a bailiff is a sheriff’s officer who executes writs and processes and carries out distrains and arrests. He was much like a mayor. Mary Arden, later became Mary Shakespeare, was born in Stratford-upon-Avon, possibly around 1537, and died in September 1608, Stratford-upon-Avon. When her father, Robert Arden died in December 1556, she inherited her father’s farm, which is now called ‘Mary Arden’s House’ in Wilmcote, Warwickshire. Mary was from a family of status.

William Shakespeare, being the son of a leading Stratford citizen, almost attended Stratford’s grammar school. Like most other schools, its curriculum consisted of an intense emphasis on the Latin classics, including memorisation, writing, and acting classic Latin plays. He attended King Edward VI Grammar School, also known as King’s New School, in Stratford-upon-Avon from the age of 7 in 1571 and left school and formal education when he was fourteen or fifteen in 1578.

Marriage and Children

A few years after Shakespeare left school, in late 1582, he married Anne Hathaway. She was already expecting their first-born child, Susanna. This was quite a common situation at the time. When they got married, Anne Hathaway was 26 and William was 18. Anne grew up just outside of Stratford in the village of Shottery. After marrying, she spent the rest of her life in Stratford. Anne was born in 1556, Shottery and died in 1623, Stratford-upon-Avon. In early 1585, the couple had twins, Judith and Hamnet, completing the family. Shakespeare had three children. Susanna (1583-1649), Hamnet (1585-1596) and Judith (1585-1662). Hamnet and Judith Shakespeare were named after William Shakespeare’s close friends, Hamnet and Judith Sadler. Whilst Shakespeare worked in London, Anne and the children stayed living in Stratford. Around 1590, that’s when William Shakespeare moved to London to do his first play ‘Henry VI, Part One’. Some later observers have suggested that the separation between William and Anne, and their relatively few children, were signs of a strained marriage. However, for William to pursue his ambition and theatre career, he had no choice but to work in London.

Shakespeare’s only son, Hamnet died at the age of 11 and his eldest daughter, Susanna, later married a well-to-do Stratford doctor called John Hall. Susanna and John had a daughter called Elizabeth, in which meant that she was William’s first grandchild, born in 1608. Not long before William’s death in 1616, his daughter Judith, married a Stratford vintner, Thomas Quiney. A vintner was a wine merchant. This therefore meant that the family subsequently died out, leaving no direct descendants of William Shakespeare himself. Anne used had the profession of a homemaker and also outlived William by 7 years.

Shakespeare's Marriage and Children

London Theatre

Around 1590, Shakespeare moved to London to pursue his Theatre career. During this time, it was known that he was already in the middle of writing the Henry VI plays. In 1592, he became an established London actor and playwright, mocked by a contemporary as a “Shake-scene”. The next year, in 1593, Shakespeare published a long poem called Venus and Adonis. The first quarto editions of his early plays appeared in 1594. For more than two decades, Shakespeare had multiple roles in the London theatre as an actor, playwright, and, in time, a business partner in a major acting company called the ‘Lord Chamberlain’s Men’ (renamed the King’s Men in 1603). Over the years, he became steadily more famous in the London Theatre world; his name, which was not even listed on the first quarts of his plays, became a regular feature-clearly a selling point-on later title pages.

In 1592, a playwright called Robert Greene penned a scathing critique of Shakespeare, and called him an “upstart crow” who doesn’t belong with Greene’s university-educated dramatist crowd.’ Leading on from this diatribe, this highlights the fact that by this time, Shakespeare was successful enough as a playwright due to the fact that he was making his theatre peers jealous. In January 1593, the London theatres were closed due to the outbreak of the bubonic plague that eventually killed about five per cent of the city’s residents and citizens. Shakespeare thus used the outbreak of the plague to write poetry. That’s when ‘Venus and Adonis’ became published later in April that same year. 1694, the London theatres reopened to the public and over the next five years, Shakespeare’s troupe, the ‘Lord Chamberlain’s Men’, became one of the most popular acting groups and companies in London. They even accepted frequent invitations to perform in the royal court of Queen Elizabeth I.

Globe Theatre

In 1599, the ‘Lord Chamberlain’s Men’ built Shakespeare’s Globe. It is a wooden theatre in London and is where most of Shakespeare’s plays were performed for the very first time. The King’s Men began performing at Blackfriars theatre, an indoor theatre in London in 1608. Shakespeare’s Globe was built three times. On 29^th June 1613, the theatre burned down in about an hour. It was caused by gunpowder being held down by wadding, and a piece of the wadding caught fire when the canons were fired in the play Henry VIII. The company then built a second one, but this seemed to be a lot more extravagantly decorated than the first, using the same brick foundations of the first one. It also had a tiled roof, not a thatched one. The third Globe was built a street nearer to the river and was built to be just as accurate as the second one in every way, shape and form. They used the same tools, same techniques, same wood. The difference was that this Globe had more exits and fire doors were put in place in case of emergency. There had to be more stewards on duty to look after the audience members and the bench seating was numbered rather than the audience crowding together.

Shakespeare’s Criticism and Doubts Against Him

Anti-Stratfordians often portray the town as a cultural backwater lacking the environment necessary to nurture a genius, and depict Shakespeare as ignorant and illiterate. They also consider Shakespeare’s background incompatible with that attributable to the author of the Shakespeare canon, which exhibits an intimacy with court politics and culture, foreign countries, and aristocratic sports; such as hunting, falconry, tennis, and lawn-bowling. Some of them found that the works showed little sympathy for the upwardly mobile types like John Shakespeare and William Shakespeare, and that the author portrays individual commoners comically, as objects or ridicule. Commoners in groups they believe were depicted typically as dangerous mobs.

No student registers of the period survived, so no documentation existed for the attendance of Shakespeare or any other pupil. This means that anyone who taught or attended the school never recorded that they were his teacher or classmate. This lack of documentation was taken by many Anti-Stratfordians as evidence that Shakespeare had little or no education. They also questioned how Shakespeare, with no record of the education and cultured background displayed in the works bearing his name, could have acquired the extensive vocabulary found in the plays and poems. The author’s vocabulary is calculated to be between 17,500 and 29,000 words. No letters or signed manuscripts written by Shakespeare survived.  The appearance of Shakespeare’s six authenticated signatures, which they characterise as “an illiterate scrawl”, is interpreted as indicating that he was illiterate or barely literate.

Shakespeare’s Final Years

Financially, William Shakespeare prospered from his partnership in the Lord Chamberlain’s Men ~ King’s Men, as well as his writing and acting. He invested a lot of his wealth into real-estate purchases in Stratford and bought the second-largest house in the town, New Place, in 1597. One of the last plays in which William Shakespeare worked on, was The Two Noble Kinsmen. He wrote this with a frequent collaborator, John Fletcher around 1613. It is unknown what William Shakespeare died of, but an idea was that it may have been an infectious disease as his brother-in-law had died a week earlier; but his health may have had a longer decline as to why he survived longer than his brother-in-law.

Shakespeare's Bust

The memorial bust of William Shakespeare at Holy Trinity Church in Stratford was considered one of two authentic likenesses, because it was approved by people who knew him. The other such likeness is the engraving by Martin Droeshout in the 1623 First Folio edition of Shakespeare’s plays, produced seven years after his death by his friends and colleagues from the King’s Men.

Week 1 – Setting the Scene – Life in Elizabethan England

What sense do you get of what life was like in Elizabethan England?

What was life really like for the poor in the town and cities of Elizabethan England?

In the towns and cities of Elizabethan England, the markets were usually full of hustle and bustle, and a town could double in size, especially on market day with the amount visitors. People usually spent many hours at the market and so various fast foods were available. Food like cooked meat, pasties, pies and tasty treats were all on offer but they were pricy so they would only buy some herbs or some onions to make soup. Some women would carry baskets full of oysters, seafood or herbs to sell instead of standing by the stalls.

When it got dark, some people would look out for a man carrying a flame from door to door as most people used to find it too difficult to light their fires using a tinderbox (search what this is) and some kindling. So they used to pay for somebody to light it instead. A tinderbox is a little box containing tinder or something like flint which is readily ignited, and kindling is small sticks and twigs used to light fires.

Tinderbox and Kindling

As night falls, the towns become less safe and back then people would say that “After dark, it used to be terrifying.” This was because where there was poverty, there was crime.

Half of the entire Elizabethan population was under the age of 22 in comparison to the middle market modern times where they are/were 39. They had so much less life experience and so being younger meant that they were more aggressive, more hot-headed, and armed. Most young men used to carry a dagger and others would wear a sword. This therefore connoted that the poor were really desperate and those that were desperate for a life of crime had to remember that any penalty of crime, was death and that included the theft of just thirteen pence worth of goods. Even taking a fresh shirt from a washing line or taking some silver spoons from a rich man's house would lead to going straight to the gallows. Gallows are a structure typically used for the execution by hanging.

Gallow

If anyone was found guilty of witchcraft in England, it was likely that they would be hanged, unlike in Catholic countries where witches were burned at the stake. Back then, there were five different ways in which people could have been executed.

1.     Hanging from gallows.

2.     Traitor’s death of hanging drawing and quartering

3.     Beheading

4.     Burning at the stake

5.     Peine forte et dure (means hard and strong punishment): they were laid on the ground, and a sharp rock was placed under their spine. Heavy weights were then added one by one to a board on their body. It could take 12 hours for someone to be crushed to death.

Whilst the poor had a particularly hard time, there's one cause of suffering that is a threat to everyone. This was the weather. If they had one bad summer and all the crops failed, food became scarce prices rose, and whole families suffered from malnutrition. However, if the harvest failed for two years in a row, they starved to death. If it failed for three years in a row, as it did in the years 1594-1597, thousands died. Failed harvest meant that many people in the countryside gad no work and without a job they couldn’t afford to stay in their homes. In the 16th century, it was against the law to look after a homeless person who's not from their neighbourhood and they would be fined even for taking in a perfectly innocent homeless young couple. As a consequence, lots of people ended up walking for miles up and down the country, searching for work or food constantly being moved on. Some people even migrated to Kent on foot from as far away as Lancashire and Yorkshire (295miles).

In 1597, 3 years into the worst famine ever to be experienced, England were about to make some major changes to the law. In October, Elizabeth's government passed an act for the relief of the poor, for the first time, people attacked locally where the money was given to parish overseas to provide for the very poorest of people. This was a major change and had to account as one the turning points for English social history. From then, helping the poor wasn't just left to individual acts of charity, it's a duty that everyone shared. The new law established the system of caring for the poor for the next 200 years. For the poorer, life became better under the new laws, however, there threat especially for the poor. Death was something that they all feared, and due to the high levels of disease and society, it featured very prominently in their daily lives.

Most children lost one parent by the time they grew up, and most parents lost half their children. In Stratford in the 1560s, on average there were 63 children baptised and 43 buried. There were so many diseases that they could catch, but the one they heard about the most was the plague. The 1578 plague orders that if plague was found in a house, it is to be boarded up and guarded until everyone inside is either dead or had survived for 6 weeks. For some people feeling or experiencing the symptoms, it was known that they dug their own graves and laid down in them waiting upon death. Some medical manuals used to have strange recipes e.g. live swallow chicks ground up in a pestle in water. However, the more serious ailments would require the attention of a physician. Unfortunately, the medicines the physicians prescribed wouldn't just depend on the nature of their illness, but would also depend on how wealthy they were. Expensive medicines with the best ingredients were given to the rich and so the poor received a cheaper alternative.

Elizabethan Medicine

What was life really like for the poor in the countryside of Elizabethan England?

Elizabethan England was dominated by the rich and powerful but in the countryside, many people were poor and faced great hardship. In 1558 Elizabeth had just been crowned Queen. Elizabethans found open spaces and heaths horrific and didn't like them. Dotted around the countryside, there would be small cottages, some about hundreds of years old and when one was seen, there were no ideas that life in the countryside was pleasant. It was typically normal to find as many as 7 or 8 people living a house like the old small cottages. They lived in complete darkness; they'd go to sleep in darkness and they'd wake in darkness.

Inside their homes, it was very basic. They only had one room with an earth floor and in the middle, there'd be a fire that was permanently lit. With this being said, they'd have a lot of thick smoke filling the room. A dark smoke-filled house is one reason why they used to spend a whole day out of doors. To prevent suffocation, they made openings in the roofs and their windows are no more than just jokes in the wall because the windows are unglazed, covered only by a shutter and they let in the cold. This means that it takes more to retain as much heat as possible even in the summer months very little would enter. Candles were expensive and a poor family couldn’t afford lots of light. Nowadays, we take for granted the amount of light we have. Some families could only afford a few pots, some spoons and ladles, a basket, and a bench. Their bed used to be the floor, and if they were lucky, it was a thin straw mattress. With these living conditions, the cold stuck so deep into them that their flesh was eaten with vermin and corrupt diseases grew on them.

The Elizabethan society was strictly divided according to the class that they were born in and in 1577, a clergyman called William Harrison made a description of England. A clergyman is a male priest, minister, or religious leader, especially a Christian one. He described the ordinary sort of people that you would have met on the road or a village ale house. ‘Most countrymen fall into one of three categories; a yeoman might own or rent his farm, and employs workers, A husbandman rents the land that he works on, and Labourers simply work on other people's farms. As an unknown poor person looking for work in the countryside, their options were extremely limited and their best bet was to go from farm to farm offering their services as a labourer. If they ask around or asked the local yeoman or husbandman, they may have found someone that would employ them on a casual basis and allow them to sleep in a barn, but they had to be prepared for a hard slog.

Their working days started from sunrise and continued until sunset and if they were employed as a labourer, their reward for a whole day was a groat. The groat was a thin coin roughly the same size as a 20p coin now. The groat was made of pure silver and had been part of the English currency since the medieval times. It weighed 2.1grams and was around for 300 years. It was also referred to as ‘fourpence’ 4d. When a labourer earned fourpence a day, a chicken cost fourpence a day, and a lemon cost threepence. If chickens were as valuable to us in the Elizabethan times as it were to them, it would cost about £100 each and a lemon would cost £75. With fourpence a day, they could get a loaf of bread, a small amount of butter and some cheese every day, four small pieces of meat and three pieces of fish per week, and some ale to drink because the water was polluted. This all added up to about 6000 calories per day which is only enough for a working man and his wife. This left nothing for firewood, rent, clothing or for the children. Unless they grew their own vegetables in their garden, made their own clothes, and went without some of the food, so that they could pay for rent, they wouldn't be able to raise a family. This meant that lots of ordinary things like getting married and having children weren't possible if they didn't have enough food or money. Therefore, on a whole, life in the Elizabethan era was a very major struggle in order to survive.

The Groat