Theatre History THEATER DURING THE RENAISSANCE

1455

Johannes Gutenberg (Germany) 1455 Invented the printing press! This was the first form of mass communication and a principle catalyst of the Renaissance (re-birth) of learning and art in Europe.

Renaissance Playwrights  Spanish Theater / Spain had its Golden Age of Theatre with an incredible 30,000 plays written by A.D  Lope de Vega / wrote 2,000 plays  Cervantes and Calderon, are considered the greatest Spanish playwrights of the period.  Their plays are still being produced today.

Renaissance Playwrights  French Theatre  Racine (Phaedre) and Cornielle (Le Cid) are considered the most lasting writers of tragedy.  Moliere (The Miser, The Misanthrope, and The Imaginary Invalid) great comic writer and most lasting playwright in France’s History and are still performed today.

Renaissance Playwrights  German Theater  Hans Sachs, wrote 198 farcical plays and playlets.

English Theater  England’s neoclassic playwrights left more great plays than other countries or period in history, except maybe the Greeks.  Christopher Marlowe / Dr. Faustus  Ben Johnson / Valpone and the Alchemist  Thomas Kyd / The Spanish Tragedy

Shakespeare (April 26, 1564 – April 23, 1616)  Born and died in Stratford-upon-Avon Warwickshire, England  Age of 18 Married, Anne Hathaway  They had 3 children / Susanna, twins Judith and Hamnet

The Globe 1599 – 1613 (fire) rebuilt today

Shakespeare’s Plays (38 plays)

Shakespeare Quotes  “ To be or not to be: that is the question.”  Hamlet  “All the world ‘s a stage, and all the men and women merely players. They have their exits and their entrances; And one man in his time plays many parts.”  As You Like It  “Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them.”  Twelfth Night  “I am one who loved not wisely but too well.”  Othello

Shakespeare Quotes  “Some Cupid kills with arrows, some with traps.”  Much Ado About Nothing  “What light through younder window breaks.”  Romeo and Juliet  “If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?”  The Merchant of Venice

Italy’s Contribution to Renaissance Theater  Opera / they created a whole new merging of music and drama, supported by art and costuming.  Commedia dell’ arte, translates to “drama by professional actors”. Use stock characters. Created slapstick (Farce; silly comedy). Examples / Charlie Chaplin, The Keystone Cops, and the Three Stooges

Italy cont.  Perspective / objects in the distance appear smaller than object of similar size in the foreground.  Proscenium Arch / picture frame effect to the theater stage.

Europe – From Renaissance to Realism  Goldoni / The Servant of Two Masters  Goldsmith / She Stoops to Conquer  Sheridan / The School for Scandal  Oscar Wilde / The Importance of being Earnest

Europe – From Renaissance to Realism  Comedy of Manners Style / often poked fun at the wealthy, courtly people who paid to see the plays are still played in theaters today.  Elsewhere in Europe, German writers, Goethe and Schiller, and French authors, Hugo and Rostand, strong believed in the rights of the common man and often wrote about him instead of royalty and wealthy. In addition to writing some fine plays, these authors were know as the Romantics, and helped usher in the common man and The Age of Realism.