The theatre

The secularisation consisted in the fact that the drama was removed from Church's building itself to the street and put in the hands of lay people. So performances were held on a platform or stage with wheels called pageant.

After secularisation, plays were called Mystery plays, its were responsibility of the Guilds, corporations of craftsmen and its were written in English. The text of Mystery plays consisted in Bible's stories. In the 15^th century, drama moved out of the religious sphere and took the name of Morality plays.

The characters of this kind of plays were personifications of vices and virtues. Its gave moral lessons to understand what is right. The most famous morality play is Everyman.

Everyman represents all men. In this play, Death appears to inform him that he will soon die. Everyman asks his friends, like Beauty, Strength, Good Deeds, Fellowship and Kindred to accompany him but all, except Good Deeds, refuse.

Everyman so realises that friends and pleasures of life are of no help to man in death.

In the latter part of 15^th century, another drama form appeared. It was called Interludes, and was inserted between an act and another one of the boring morality plays.

Its were comic scenes that represent ordinary people with their own identity. Interludes were based on disguises that created comic situations.

In the Renaissance, Morality plays were retaken by Ben Johnson with the name of Comedy of the Humours. He took, in fact, inspiration from the medieval theory of humours. In this theory, human beings are considered to be made up of four specific humours which, mixed in various ways, produce different human types.

The art of drama

A play is written by a playwright or dramatist. To bring it to life, it requires actors, a director, a stage, props and audience. The set is constructed on the stage. A play can be accompanied by some music. So theatre is a mixture of text, sound, voice, music and image. Every performance at theatre is unique and takes place live. A play is divided in acts and every act is divided into scenes. Shakespeare's plays are divided into five acts and every act is divided into five scenes.

Types of drama

In the 16^th century, drama began to move away from Bible's stories. In this period we speak about comedy and tragedy that derived from Latin. Tragedy came from Seneca who got from Greek tragic drama. Comedies came from Plautus and Terence.

Tragedy

A tragedy is a story with a unhappy ending that involves the death of one of the characters.

Aristotle thought tragedy was a representation of universal truth because it provokes our fear and pity. He thought it had an effect of catharsis, purification of passions because audience identified with actors and their actions. Plato thought, instead, that seeing violent actions, people could be encouraged to violence.

Nietzsche, a famous German philosopher, of the 20^th century, thought that tragedy represent the conflict between the individual and society. This is the reason why the tragic hero is a solitary one and speaks with soliloquy. The most famous tragedies are those of Shakespeare and Marlowe.

Christopher Marlowe

Marlowe wrote several works, the most famous is a one-man tragedy, so called because it centres on one main personality who causes a dominant passion. The central theme is the lust for power. Doctor Faustus is a man of the Renaissance, he lives in a society where the old order of things has begun to be subverted by new knowledge and discoveries. He is impatient to reach knowledge and so he turns to magic. He wants the power that derives from it as well. He wants, in fact, to have the power that only God has, so he strikes a pact with Mephistopheles, the devil.

He will sell his soul to devil and Mephistopheles will granted 24 years of freedom and power to act. But, when the time to give his soul to devil, comes, he thinks again about it. The first thing that Doctor Faustus wants to Know is if hell really exists and how it is.

William Shakespeare

Shakespeare is probably the most famous writer in the world but little is known about his life. He was born on 23th April 1564 at Stratford-upon-Avon. His father was a glove maker and his mother came from a prosperous family. He studied at a grammar school. Shakespeare married Anne Hathaway and had a daughter, Susanne, and twins Hamnet and Judith. In 1592 he was already a well-known playwright. When theatre had been closed, instead, he began to write his sonnets. As a poet he wrote 154 sonnets in which he underlines the objectivity of love and two long poems. In his sonnet, in fact, instead of telling his beloved woman qualities, he describes her defects. In a famous sonnet he says that her lips were not red like coral but he loved her even if she wasn't so beautiful. As a playwright he wrote 37 plays. Shakespeare is considered, still today, the biggest dramatist because he never was equalled in his originality and ray of interests and because he wrote about every conceivable aspect of human life. Dealing themes he didn't take as model previous playwright but took only by his own experience of Modern Age man. In his works every character watched himself objectively and judged his actions analyzing his behaviour.

The merchant of Venice

In this play, Bassanio asks his friend Antonio for a big sum of money to marry Portia. Antonio, also short of money, to help his friend borrows the necessary amount from Shylock, a Jewish moneylender. Shylock says that if Antonio didn't return him the sum, he will extract a penalty of one pound of flesh to be cut from Antonio's body.

Bassanio marries Portia while another friend, Graziano, marries Portia's maid, Nerissa.

A close friend of Antonio, Lorenzo, elopes with Jessica, Shylock's daughter, taking a good amount of Shylock's money. When the moneylender knows that Antonio can't pay his debt, claims his penalty. But with her slyness, Portia, is able to persuades Shylock to renounce to penalty.

The figure of Shylock

Shylock, as a Jew, belongs to a culture that has been persecuted by European Christians. He, in fact, justifies his behaviour, reminding the way in which Jews have been treated by Christians. He says that if Jews and Christians are the same, they must have the same rights, including that of taking revenge. Even if Shakespeare isn't so innovative in the description of Shylock, in this play, is the female character who solves the problem.

Hamlet

The Hamlet is the story of an idealist, the young Hamlet who learns from the ghost of his father that his uncle, Claudius, had murdered him in order to take his mother's throne.

His mother, Gertrude, had later married Claudius. The ghost asks Hamlet to revenge his death. Hamlet feigns madness and organizes a play about fratricide, Claudius reacts with rage.

First Hamlet is unable to kill Claudius but then, when Hamlet himself is on the point of death, manages to kill him.

Features of the play

Hamlet is a character of highly intellectual nature and reflective habit and this is the cause of his downfall and death. In this play, there is no yielding to passion.

Humanity is also performing from a distance, in Shakespeare's plays, in fact, every character observes and judges himself. The man became spectator of his actions.