ancestry. In general, the Interlude had little plot, little characterization; the writer's aim was to write as clever dialogue as he could to write talk purely for talk's sake. An outline of one of the best-known interludes, The Four P's, by John Heywood, the most famous name that has come down to us connected with this form, will demonstrate this fact. A Palmer, a Potycary (= apothecary), and a Pardoner,1 meeting by chance, decide to contest for the distinction of being the biggest liar; and a Pedlar who chances to come along is asked to act as judge. After Palmer and Pardoner have told elaborate stories to show their power of mendacity, the Potycary wins the prize with a narrative of about twenty lines, concluding: “Yet in all places where I have been, Of all the women that I have seen, Earliest Real Dramas. The first productions that are properly called dramas date from about 1550 to 1570. The first in time was King John, a sort of chronicle history. The next, Ralph Roister Doister, usually named as the first English comedy, is built on the model of the Latin comedies of Plautus. Although this play is quite un-English and artificial, with type characters and with situations almost transferred from the Latin, it was of much value as a specimen of well-constructed plot. The first genuine tragedy, written some ten years after the history and comedy just mentioned, was Gorboduc, or 1 A Palmer was a man who had been on some religious pilgrimage, usually to the Holy Land. A Pardoner had a special license from the Pope to enter any parish without permission, to preach, and to dispose of pardons, usually for money. Most pardoners were scoundrels, not a few palmers were, and apothecaries were under suspicion much oftener in the sixteenth century than they are now. Ferrex and Porrex, based on British legendary history and modeled on the plays of the greatest Latin tragic writer, Seneca. Following this model Shakspere's great tragedies would have been impossible; for as in the Senecan tragedies always, the action takes place off the scene and is reported by messengers. Gorboduc, however, like the Latin comedy, helped in fixing for later writers the idea of construction. The last of these four early dramas, Gammer Gurton's Needle (Gammer means "Grandmother ") is a comedy as well constructed as Ralph Roister Doister, and far superior to that in substance. The plot is absurd the hunt for a lost needle, discovered at last by one of the characters in the seat of his trousers; but the characters and setting are English, and the dialogue is a faithful reproduction of peasant life of the day. The First Theatres. The interludes, and the early plays just described, were not performed on the pageant wagons of the later miracle plays. Until 1576 they were given in inn-yards, on public lands in towns, or in any kind of building that could be had. In the year named the first building designed solely for the acting of plays was erected in London, and was called merely "The Theatre." When Shakspere left London some thirty years later, there were probably ten or twelve theatres, in two of which the Globe and the Blackfriars the dramatist was a shareholder. Structure of the Elizabethan Theatre. Continued research has brought out much information regarding the structure of these buildings, and the manner of presentation of plays in them about 1590–1610. There was no roof except over the stage and the balconies. In the pit, where now are the most desirable seats in a theatre, there were no seats, and the spectator had to stand unless he carried a box or stool along with him. Here would be found the laborers and servants, who not infrequently engaged in fist fights over choice positions or purloined seats. Balconies and Stage. The better classes of society had seats in the balconies extending around three sides of the building, though some of the young "sports sports" were allowed, on paying an extra fee, to sit on the stage. Instead of being shut off from the auditorium by a curtain such as is used to-day, the stage extended out into the room. At the rear was a raised portion used as Juliet's balcony, as the walls of a city, or as a hill from which a distant view might be had. Costumes and Scenery. The actors' costumes, though often elaborate, made no pretence of appropriateness. Very little scenery was used; a bed, a throne, a desk, or a few trees in wooden tubs indicated the place of the action. The absence of realistic appeals to the eye resulted in a greater demand on the imagination. To this situation, perhaps, are due many of the superb descriptions in Elizabethan drama, such, for example, as that of Dover Cliff in King Lear, or Duncan's description of Macbeth's castle. Since there was no artificial lighting in the house, performances were given in the afternoon. A flag flying from the roof was the notice that a performance was to take place; but one had to come near enough to read the sign on the building to know what play was to be performed. Women in the Theatre. - Probably the fact most surprising to an investigator is that there were few women in an Elizabethan theatre. Respectable women in the audience wore masks; and more remarkable still, there were no women on the stage. Women's parts were taken by boys until after the middle of the seventeenth century; and strange as it may seem to think of a boy playing Lady Macbeth or Portia or Ophelia, these parts were apparently played with real success. Chief Dramatists before Shakspere. Of the chief dramatists belonging to the two decades preceding the beginning of Shakspere's work (about 1570-1590) very brief mention is sufficient. George Peele wrote Edward I, worthy of note in the development of the chronicle-history play; and David and Bethsabe, based on the Biblical story, and containing passages of admirable poetry. Robert Greene's Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay is a pure English comedy carrying forward the tradition of Gammer Gurton's Needle; and his James IV contains a theme worked out delightfully several times by Shakspere - a heroine leaving home in the disguise of a man to avoid some unwelcome situation. Thomas Kyd, in his Spanish Tragedy, produced a play which has striking points of resemblance to Hamlet, and which one can but think the greater dramatist studied when writing his play. John Lyly's comedies have been mentioned as important forerunners of the best type of Shaksperean comedy. CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE, 1564-1593 Life. The greatest name in drama before Shakspere is Christopher Marlowe, son of a shoemaker, born a few months before Shakspere in Canterbury, County of Kent. By the aid of influential friends he attended Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, from which he was graduated in 1583. Four years later, at the early age of twenty-three, his first play was produced in London. In the six years between this and his death, Marlowe wrote six more plays, a few notable lyrics, and the intense love-narrative in verse, Hero and Leander. Like many of his profession in his day, he led a wild life; and his death in 1593 resulted from a tavern brawl. Character of Marlowe's Plays. - Four of Marlowe's plays are, by general consent, assigned an important place in English dramatic history- Tamburlaine, Doctor Faustus, The Jew of Malta, and Edward II. A feature common to them all is the presentation of a particular ambition in exaggerated form. Tamburlaine aspires to be the world's master; and in each of nine acts (the play is in two parts) he conquers an empire. The ambition of Faustus is for knowledge, in the pursuit of which he sells his soul to the devil. |