English Renaissance theatre, spanning 1562 to 1642, saw the evolution of drama from a unified social expression to one increasingly segmented by class with the advent of private theatres. Performance spaces included schools and universities, leading to the establishment of major public playhouses. The era is often subdivided by the monarchs of the time: Elizabethan, Jacobean, and Caroline.
English Renaissance theatre, also known as Elizabethan theatre, flourished in England from 1562 to 1642. Initially, court and commoners shared the same plays, but the rise of private theatres catered more to upper-class tastes. This period saw the development of dramatic performance in grammar schools, choir schools, universities, and Inns of Court, culminating in the establishment of public playhouses like the Globe.
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| Back | English Renaissance theatre, also known as Renaissance English theatre and Elizabethan theatre, refers to the theatre of England between 1562 and 1642. Background The term English Renaissance theatre encompasses the period between 1562—following a performance of Gorboduc, the first English play using blank verse, at the Inner Temple during the Christmas season of 1561—and the ban on theatrical plays enacted by the English Parliament in 1642. The phrase Elizabethan theatre is sometimes used, improperly, to mean English Renaissance theatre, although in a strict sense "Elizabethan" only refers to the period of Queen Elizabeth's reign (1558–1603). English Renaissance theatre may be said to encompass Elizabethan theatre from 1562 to 1603, Jacobean theatre from 1603 to 1625, and Caroline theatre from 1625 to 1642. Along with the economics of the profession, the character of the drama changed towards the end of the period. Under Elizabeth, the drama was a unified expression as far as social class was concerned: the Court watched the same plays the commoners saw in the public playhouses. With the development of the private theatres, drama became more oriented towards the tastes and values of an upper-class audience. By the later part of the reign of Charles I, few new plays were being written for the public theatres, which sustained themselves on the accumulated works of the previous decades. Sites of dramatic performance Grammar schools The English grammar schools, like those on the continent, placed special emphasis on the trivium: grammar, logic, and rhetoric. Though rhetorical instruction was intended as preparation for careers in civil service such as law, the rhetorical canons of memory (memoria) and delivery (pronuntiatio), gesture and voice, as well as exercises from the progymnasmata, such as the prosopopoeia, taught theatrical skills. Students would typically analyze Latin and Greek texts, write their own compositions, memorize them, and then perform them in front of their instructor and their peers. Records show that in addition to this weekly performance, students would perform plays on holidays, and in both Latin and English. Nathan Field, who began his acting career as a boy player Choir schools Choir schools connected with the Elizabethan court included St. George’s Chapel, the Chapel Royal, and St. Paul’s. These schools never performed plays and other court entertainments for the Queen. Between the 1560s and 1570s these schools had begun to perform for general audiences as well. Playing companies of boy actors were derived from choir schools. An earlier example of a playwright contracted to write for the children's companies is John Lyly, who wrote Gallathea, Endymion, and Midas for Paul’s Boys. Another example is Ben Jonson, who wrote Cynthia’s Revels. Universities Academic drama stems from late medieval and early modern practices of miracles and morality plays as well as the Feast of Fools and the election of a Lord of Misrule. The Feast of Fools includes mummer plays. The universities, particularly Oxford and Cambridge, were attended by students studying for bachelor's degrees and master's degrees, followed by doctorates in Law, Medicine, and Theology. In the 1400s, dramas were often restricted to mummer plays with someone who read out all the parts in Latin. With the rediscovery and redistribution of classical materials during the English Renaissance, Latin and Greek plays began to be restaged. These plays were often accompanied by feasts. Queen Elizabeth I viewed dramas during her visits to Oxford and Cambridge. A well-known play cycle which was written and performed in the universities was the Parnassus Plays. Inns of Court Gorboduc TP 1565 Upon graduation, many university students, especially those going into law, would reside and participate in the Inns of Court. The Inns of Court were communities of working lawyers and university alumni. Notable literary figures and playwrights who resided in the Inns of Court include John Donne, Francis Beaumont, John Marston, Thomas Lodge, Thomas Campion, Abraham Fraunce, Sir Philip Sidney, Sir Thomas More, Sir Francis Bacon, and George Gascoigne. Like the university, the Inns of Court elected their own Lord of Misrule. Other activities included participation in moot court, disputation, and masques. Plays written and performed in the Inns of Court include Gorboduc, Gismund of Salerne, and The Misfortunes of Arthur. An example of a famous masque put on by the Inns was James Shirley’s The Triumph of Peace. Shakespeare’s The Comedy of Errors and Twelfth Night were also performed here, although written for commercial theater. Masques Establishment of playhouses The first permanent English theatre, the Red Lion, opened in 1567 but it was a short-lived failure. The first successful theatres, such as The Theatre, opened in 1576. The establishment of large and profitable public theatres was an essential enabling factor in the success of English Renaissance drama. Once they were in operation, drama could become a fixed and permanent, rather than transitory, phenomenon. Their construction was prompted when the Mayor and Corporation of London first banned plays in 1572 as a measure against the plague, and then formally expelled all players from the city in 1575. This prompted the construction of permanent playhouses outside the jurisdiction of London, in the liberties of Halliwell/Holywell in Shoreditch and later the Clink, and at Newington Butts near the established entertainment district of St. George's Fields in rural Surrey. The Theatre was constructed in Shoreditch in 1576 by James Burbage with his brother-in-law John Brayne (the owner of the unsuccessful Red Lion playhouse of 1567) and the Newington Butts playhouse was set up, probably by Jerome Savage, some time between 1575 and 1577. The Theatre was rapidly followed by the nearby Curtain Theatre (1577), the Rose (1587), the Swan (1595), the Globe (1599), the Fortune (1600), and the Red Bull (1604). |
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