
Millions of performances of
William Shakespeare's plays have been staged since the end of the 16th century. While Shakespeare was alive, many of his greatest plays were performed by the
Lord Chamberlain's Men
The Lord Chamberlain's Men was an English company of actors, or a "playing company" (as it then would likely have been described), for which William Shakespeare wrote during most of his career. Richard Burbage played most of the lead roles, includ ...
and
King's Men acting companies at the
Globe
A globe is a spherical Earth, spherical Model#Physical model, model of Earth, of some other astronomical object, celestial body, or of the celestial sphere. Globes serve purposes similar to maps, but, unlike maps, they do not distort the surface ...
and
Blackfriars Theatre
Blackfriars Theatre was the name given to two separate theatres located in the former Blackfriars Dominican priory in the City of London during the Renaissance. The first theatre began as a venue for the Children of the Chapel Royal, child ...
s. Among the actors of these original performances were
Richard Burbage
Richard Burbage (6 January 1567 – 13 March 1619) was an English stage actor, widely considered to have been one of the most famous actors of the Globe Theatre and of his time. In addition to being a stage actor, he was also a theatre owne ...
(who played the title role in the first performances of ''
Hamlet
''The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark'', often shortened to ''Hamlet'' (), is a Shakespearean tragedy, tragedy written by William Shakespeare sometime between 1599 and 1601. It is Shakespeare's longest play. Set in Denmark, the play (the ...
'', ''
Othello
''The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice'', often shortened to ''Othello'' (), is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare around 1603. Set in Venice and Cyprus, the play depicts the Moorish military commander Othello as he is manipulat ...
'', ''
Richard III
Richard III (2 October 1452 – 22 August 1485) was King of England from 26 June 1483 until his death in 1485. He was the last king of the Plantagenet dynasty and its cadet branch the House of York. His defeat and death at the Battle of Boswor ...
'' and ''
King Lear
''The Tragedy of King Lear'', often shortened to ''King Lear'', is a Shakespearean tragedy, tragedy written by William Shakespeare. It is loosely based on the mythological Leir of Britain. King Lear, in preparation for his old age, divides his ...
''),
Richard Cowley, and
William Kempe. Some of the roles in Shakespeare's plays were likely played by Shakespeare himself.
Shakespeare's plays continued to be staged after his death until the
Interregnum
An interregnum (plural interregna or interregnums) is a period of revolutionary breach of legal continuity, discontinuity or "gap" in a government, organization, or social order. Archetypally, it was the period of time between the reign of one m ...
(1642–1660), when most public stage performances were banned by the
Puritan
The Puritans were English Protestants in the 16th and 17th centuries who sought to rid the Church of England of what they considered to be Roman Catholic practices, maintaining that the Church of England had not been fully reformed and should b ...
rulers. After the
English Restoration
The Stuart Restoration was the reinstatement in May 1660 of the Stuart monarchy in Kingdom of England, England, Kingdom of Scotland, Scotland, and Kingdom of Ireland, Ireland. It replaced the Commonwealth of England, established in January 164 ...
, Shakespeare's plays were performed in playhouses, with elaborate scenery, and staged with music, dancing, thunder, lightning, wave machines, and
fireworks
Fireworks are Explosive, low explosive Pyrotechnics, pyrotechnic devices used for aesthetic and entertainment purposes. They are most commonly used in fireworks displays (also called a fireworks show or pyrotechnics), combining a large numbe ...
. During this time the texts were "reformed" and "improved" for the stage, an undertaking which has seemed shockingly disrespectful to posterity.
Victorian productions of Shakespeare often sought pictorial effects in "authentic" historical costumes and sets. The staging of the reported sea fights and barge scene in ''
Antony and Cleopatra
''Antony and Cleopatra'' is a tragedy by William Shakespeare. The play was first performed around 1607, by the King's Men at either the Blackfriars Theatre or the Globe Theatre. Its first appearance in print was in the First Folio published ...
'' was one spectacular example.
[Halpern (1997). ''Shakespeare Among the Moderns''. New York: Cornell University Press, 64. .] Such elaborate scenery for the frequently changing locations in Shakespeare's plays often led to a loss of pace. Towards the end of the 19th century,
William Poel led a reaction against this heavy style. In a series of "Elizabethan" productions on a
thrust stage
In theatre, a thrust stage (a platform stage or open stage) is one that extends into the audience on three sides and is connected to the backstage area by its upstage end. A thrust has the benefit of greater intimacy between performers and the ...
, he paid fresh attention to the structure of the drama. In the early 20th century,
Harley Granville-Barker directed quarto and folio texts with few cuts,
[Griffiths, Trevor R (ed.) (1996). ''A Midsummer Night's Dream''. William Shakespeare. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; Introduction, 2, 38–39. .]
• Halpern, 64. while
Edward Gordon Craig
Edward Henry Gordon CraigSome sources give "Henry Edward Gordon Craig". (born Edward Godwin; 16 January 1872 – 29 July 1966), sometimes known as Gordon Craig, was an English modernist theatre practitioner; he worked as an actor, director an ...
and others called for abstract staging. Both approaches have influenced the variety of Shakespearean production styles seen today.
[Bristol, Michael, and Kathleen McLuskie (eds.). ''Shakespeare and Modern Theatre: The Performance of Modernity.'' London; New York: Routledge; Introduction, 5–6. .]
Performances during Shakespeare's lifetime
The troupe for which Shakespeare wrote his earliest plays is not known with certainty; the title page of the 1594 edition of ''Titus Andronicus'' reveals that it had been acted by three different companies. After the plagues of 1592–93, Shakespeare's plays were performed by the Lord Chamberlain's Men, a new company of which Shakespeare was a founding member, at
The Theatre
The Theatre was an Elizabethan playhouse in Shoreditch (in Curtain Road, part of the modern London Borough of Hackney), just outside the City of London. Built in 1576, after the Red Lion, it was the first permanent theatre built exclusiv ...
and the
Curtain
A curtain is a piece of cloth or other material intended to block or obscure light, air drafts, or (in the case of a shower curtain) water.
Curtains are often hung on the inside of a building's windows to block the passage of light. For instan ...
in
Shoreditch
Shoreditch is an area in London, England and is located in the London Borough of Hackney alongside neighbouring parts of Tower Hamlets, which are also perceived as part of the area due to historic ecclesiastical links. Shoreditch lies just north ...
, north of the Thames. Londoners flocked there to see the first part of ''Henry IV'',
Leonard Digges recalling, "Let but Falstaff come, Hal, Poins, the rest ... and you scarce shall have a room". When the landlord of the Theatre announced that he would not renew the company's lease, they pulled the playhouse down and used the timbers to construct the
Globe Theatre
The Globe Theatre was a Theater (structure), theatre in London associated with William Shakespeare. It was built in 1599 at Southwark, close to the south bank of the Thames, by Shakespeare's playing company, the Lord Chamberlain's Men. It was ...
, the first London playhouse built by actors for actors, on the south bank of the Thames at
Southwark
Southwark ( ) is a district of Central London situated on the south bank of the River Thames, forming the north-western part of the wider modern London Borough of Southwark. The district, which is the oldest part of South London, developed ...
. The Globe opened in autumn 1599, with ''Julius Caesar'' one of the first plays staged. Most of Shakespeare's greatest post-1599 plays were written for the Globe, including ''Hamlet'', ''Othello'' and ''King Lear''.
The Globe, like London's other open-roofed public theatres, employed a thrust-stage, covered by a cloth canopy. A two-storey facade at the rear of the stage hid the
tiring house and, through windows near the top of the facade, opportunities for balcony scenes such as the one in ''Romeo and Juliet''. Doors at the bottom of the facade may have been used for discovery scenes like that at the end of ''
The Tempest
''The Tempest'' is a Shakespeare's plays, play by William Shakespeare, probably written in 1610–1611, and thought to be one of the last plays that he wrote alone. After the first scene, which takes place on a ship at sea during a tempest, th ...
''. A trap door in the stage itself could be used for stage business, like some of that involving the ghost in ''Hamlet''. This trapdoor area was called "hell", as the canopy above was called "heaven"
Less is known about other features of staging and production. Stage props seem to have been minimal, although costuming was as elaborate as was feasible. The "two hours' traffic" mentioned in the prologue to ''Romeo and Juliet'' was not fanciful; the city government's hostility meant that performances were officially limited to that length of time. Though it is not known how seriously companies took such injunctions, it seems likely either that plays were performed at near-breakneck speed or that the play-texts now extant were cut for performance, or both.
The other main theatre where Shakespeare's original plays were performed was the second
Blackfriars Theatre
Blackfriars Theatre was the name given to two separate theatres located in the former Blackfriars Dominican priory in the City of London during the Renaissance. The first theatre began as a venue for the Children of the Chapel Royal, child ...
, an indoor theatre built by
James Burbage
James Burbage ( 1531 – 2 February 1597) was an English actor, theatre impresario, joiner, and theatre builder in the English Renaissance theatre. He built The Theatre, the first permanent dedicated theatre built in England since Roman times.
...
, father of
Richard Burbage
Richard Burbage (6 January 1567 – 13 March 1619) was an English stage actor, widely considered to have been one of the most famous actors of the Globe Theatre and of his time. In addition to being a stage actor, he was also a theatre owne ...
, and
impresario
An impresario (from Italian ''impresa'', 'an enterprise or undertaking') is a person who organizes and often finances concerts, Play (theatre), plays, or operas, performing a role in stage arts that is similar to that of a film producer, film or ...
of the Lord Chamberlain's Men. However, neighborhood protests kept Burbage from using the theater for the Lord Chamberlain's Men performances for a number of years. After the Lord Chamberlain's Men were renamed the
King's Men in 1603, they entered a special relationship with the new court of
King James. Performance records are patchy, but it is known that the King's Men performed seven of Shakespeare's plays at court between 1 November 1604 and 31 October 1605, including two performances of ''The Merchant of Venice''. In
1608
Events
January–March
*January 2 – The first of the Jamestown supply missions returns to the Colony of Virginia with Christopher Newport commanding the ''John and Francis'' and the ''Phoenix'' bringing about 100 new settlers to ...
the King's Men (as the company was then known) took possession of the
Blackfriars Theatre
Blackfriars Theatre was the name given to two separate theatres located in the former Blackfriars Dominican priory in the City of London during the Renaissance. The first theatre began as a venue for the Children of the Chapel Royal, child ...
. After 1608, the troupe performed at the indoor
Blackfriars Theatre
Blackfriars Theatre was the name given to two separate theatres located in the former Blackfriars Dominican priory in the City of London during the Renaissance. The first theatre began as a venue for the Children of the Chapel Royal, child ...
during the winter and the Globe during the summer. The indoor setting, combined with the Jacobean vogue for lavishly staged
masques, created new conditions for performance which enabled Shakespeare to introduce more elaborate stage devices. In ''Cymbeline'', for example, Jupiter descends "in thunder and lightning, sitting upon an eagle: he throws a thunderbolt. The ghosts fall on their knees." Plays produced at the indoor theater presumably also made greater use of sound effects and music.
A fragment of the naval captain
William Keeling's diary survives, in which he details his crew's shipboard performances of ''
Hamlet
''The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark'', often shortened to ''Hamlet'' (), is a Shakespearean tragedy, tragedy written by William Shakespeare sometime between 1599 and 1601. It is Shakespeare's longest play. Set in Denmark, the play (the ...
'' (off the coast of
Sierra Leone
Sierra Leone, officially the Republic of Sierra Leone, is a country on the southwest coast of West Africa. It is bordered to the southeast by Liberia and by Guinea to the north. Sierra Leone's land area is . It has a tropical climate and envi ...
, 5 September 1607, and at
Socotra
Socotra, locally known as Saqatri, is a Yemeni island in the Indian Ocean. Situated between the Guardafui Channel and the Arabian Sea, it lies near major shipping routes. Socotra is the largest of the six islands in the Socotra archipelago as ...
, 31 March 1608),
[Alan & Veronica Palmer, ''Who's Who in Shakespeare's England'']
Retrieved 29 May 2015 and ''
Richard II
Richard II (6 January 1367 – ), also known as Richard of Bordeaux, was King of England from 1377 until he was deposed in 1399. He was the son of Edward, Prince of Wales (later known as the Black Prince), and Joan, Countess of Kent. R ...
'' (Sierra Leone, 30 September 1607).
[ For a time after its discovery, the fragment was suspected of being a forgery, but is now generally accepted as genuine. These are the first recorded amateur performances of any Shakespeare plays.][
On 29 June 1613, the Globe Theatre went up in flames during a performance of ''Henry VIII''. A theatrical cannon, set off during the performance, misfired, igniting the wooden beams and thatching. According to one of the few surviving documents of the event, no one was hurt except a man who put out his burning breeches with a bottle of ale. The event pinpoints the date of a Shakespeare play with rare precision. Sir ]Henry Wotton
Sir Henry Wotton (; 30 March 1568 – December 1639) was an English author, diplomat and politician who sat in the House of Commons of England, House of Commons in 1614 and 1625. When on a mission to Augsburg in 1604, he famously said "An amba ...
recorded that the play "was set forth with many extraordinary circumstances of pomp and ceremony". The theatre was rebuilt but, like all the other theatres in London, the Globe was closed down by the Puritan
The Puritans were English Protestants in the 16th and 17th centuries who sought to rid the Church of England of what they considered to be Roman Catholic practices, maintaining that the Church of England had not been fully reformed and should b ...
s in 1642.
The actors in Shakespeare's company included Richard Burbage
Richard Burbage (6 January 1567 – 13 March 1619) was an English stage actor, widely considered to have been one of the most famous actors of the Globe Theatre and of his time. In addition to being a stage actor, he was also a theatre owne ...
, Will Kempe, Henry Condell
Henry Condell ( bapt. 5 September 1576 – December 1627) was a British actor in the King's Men, the playing company for which William Shakespeare wrote. With John Heminges, he was instrumental in preparing and editing the First Folio, the c ...
and John Heminges
John Heminges (bapt. 25 November 1566 – 10 October 1630) was an English actor in the King's Men, the playing company for which William Shakespeare wrote. Along with Henry Condell, he was an editor of the First Folio, the collected plays of Sha ...
. Burbage played the leading role in the first performances of many of Shakespeare's plays, including ''Richard III'', ''Hamlet'', ''Othello'', and ''King Lear''. The popular comic actor Will Kempe played Peter in ''Romeo and Juliet'' and Dogberry in ''Much Ado About Nothing'', among other parts. He was replaced around the turn of the 16th century by Robert Armin
Robert Armin (c. 1568 – 1615) was an English actor, and member of the Lord Chamberlain's Men. He became the leading comedy actor with the troupe associated with William Shakespeare following the departure of Will Kempe around 1600. Also a p ...
, who played roles such as Touchstone in ''As You Like It'' and the fool in ''King Lear''. Little is certainly known about acting styles. Critics praised the best actors for their naturalness. Scorn was heaped on ranters and on those who "tore a passion to tatters", as Hamlet has it. Also with Hamlet, playwrights complain of clowns who improvise on stage (modern critics often blame Kemp in particular in this regard). In the older tradition of comedy which reached its apex with Richard Tarlton, clowns, often the main draw of a troupe, were responsible for creating comic by-play. By the Jacobean era, that type of humour had been supplanted by verbal wit.
Interregnum and Restoration performances
Shakespeare's plays continued to be staged after his death until the Interregnum
An interregnum (plural interregna or interregnums) is a period of revolutionary breach of legal continuity, discontinuity or "gap" in a government, organization, or social order. Archetypally, it was the period of time between the reign of one m ...
(1642–1660), when most public stage performances were banned by the Puritan
The Puritans were English Protestants in the 16th and 17th centuries who sought to rid the Church of England of what they considered to be Roman Catholic practices, maintaining that the Church of England had not been fully reformed and should b ...
rulers. While denied the use of the stage, costumes and scenery, actors still managed to ply their trade by performing " drolls" or short pieces of larger plays that usually ended with some type of jig. Shakespeare was among the many playwrights whose works were plundered for these scenes. Among the drolls taken from Shakespeare were ''Bottom the Weaver'' ( Bottom's scenes from ''A Midsummer Night's Dream
''A Midsummer Night's Dream'' is a Comedy (drama), comedy play written by William Shakespeare in about 1595 or 1596. The play is set in Athens, and consists of several subplots that revolve around the marriage of Theseus and Hippolyta. One s ...
'') and ''The Grave-makers'' (the gravedigger's scene from ''Hamlet
''The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark'', often shortened to ''Hamlet'' (), is a Shakespearean tragedy, tragedy written by William Shakespeare sometime between 1599 and 1601. It is Shakespeare's longest play. Set in Denmark, the play (the ...
'').
At the Restoration in 1660, Shakespeare's plays were divided between the two newly licensed companies: the King's Company
The King's Company was one of two enterprises granted the rights to mount theatrical productions in London, after the London theatre closure 1642, London theatre closure had been lifted at the start of the English Restoration. It existed from 166 ...
of Thomas Killigrew and the Duke
Duke is a male title either of a monarch ruling over a duchy, or of a member of Royal family, royalty, or nobility. As rulers, dukes are ranked below emperors, kings, grand princes, grand dukes, and above sovereign princes. As royalty or nobi ...
's Men of William Davenant
Sir William Davenant (baptised 3 March 1606 – 7 April 1668), also spelled D'Avenant, was an English poet and playwright. Along with Thomas Killigrew, Davenant was one of the rare figures in English Renaissance theatre whose career spanned bo ...
. The licensing system prevailed for two centuries; from 1660 to 1843, only two main companies regularly presented Shakespeare in London. Davenant, who had known early-Stuart actors such as John Lowin and Joseph Taylor, was the main figure establishing some continuity with earlier traditions; his advice to his actors is thus of interest as possible reflections of original practices.
On the whole, though, innovation was the order of the day for Restoration companies. John Downes reports that the King's Men initially included some Caroline actors; however, the forced break of the Interregnum divided both companies from the past. Restoration actors performed on proscenium
A proscenium (, ) is the virtual vertical plane of space in a theatre, usually surrounded on the top and sides by a physical proscenium arch (whether or not truly "arched") and on the bottom by the stage floor itself, which serves as the frame ...
stages, often in the evening, between six and nine. Set-design and props became more elaborate and variable. Perhaps most noticeably, boy player
A boy player was a male child or teenager who performed in Medieval theatre, Medieval and English Renaissance theatre, English Renaissance playing companies. Some boy players worked for adult companies and performed the female roles, since women ...
s were replaced by actresses. The audiences of comparatively expensive indoor theaters were richer, better educated, and more homogeneous than the diverse, often unruly crowds at the Globe. Davenant's company began at the Salisbury Court Theatre, then moved to the theater at Lincoln's Inn Fields
Lincoln's Inn Fields is located in Holborn and is the List of city squares by size, largest public square in London. It was laid out in the 1630s under the initiative of the speculative builder and contractor William Newton, "the first in a ...
, and finally settled in the Dorset Garden Theatre
The Dorset Garden Theatre in London, built in 1671, was in its early years also known as the Duke of York's Theatre, or the Duke's Theatre. In 1685, King Charles II died and his brother, the Duke of York, was crowned as James II. When the Du ...
. Killigrew began at Gibbon's Tennis Court before settling into Christopher Wren
Sir Christopher Wren FRS (; – ) was an English architect, astronomer, mathematician and physicist who was one of the most highly acclaimed architects in the history of England. Known for his work in the English Baroque style, he was ac ...
's new theatre in Drury Lane
Drury Lane is a street on the boundary between the Covent Garden and Holborn areas of London, running between Aldwych and High Holborn. The northern part is in the borough of London Borough of Camden, Camden and the southern part in the City o ...
. Patrons of both companies expected fare quite different from what had pleased Elizabethans. For tragedy, their tastes ran to heroic drama
Heroic drama is a type of Play (theatre), play popular during the English Restoration, Restoration era in England, distinguished by both its verse structure and its subject matter. The subgenre of heroic drama evolved through several works of the ...
; for comedy, to the comedy of manners
In English literature, the term comedy of manners (also anti-sentimental comedy) describes a genre of realistic, satirical comedy that questions and comments upon the manners and social conventions of a greatly sophisticated, artificial society. ...
. Though they liked Shakespeare, they seem to have wished his plays to conform to these preferences.
Restoration writers obliged them by adapting Shakespeare's plays freely. Writers such as William Davenant
Sir William Davenant (baptised 3 March 1606 – 7 April 1668), also spelled D'Avenant, was an English poet and playwright. Along with Thomas Killigrew, Davenant was one of the rare figures in English Renaissance theatre whose career spanned bo ...
and Nahum Tate
Nahum Tate ( ; 1652 – 30 July 1715) was an Anglo-Irish poet, hymnist, and lyricist, who became Poet Laureate in 1692. Tate is best known for '' The History of King Lear'', his 1681 adaptation of Shakespeare's ''King Lear'', and for his libr ...
rewrote some of Shakespeare's plays to suit the tastes of the day, which favoured the courtly comedy of Beaumont and Fletcher and the neo-classical rules of drama. In 1681, Tate provided '' The History of King Lear'', a modified version of Shakespeare's original tragedy with a happy ending. According to Stanley Wells, Tate's version "supplanted Shakespeare's play in every performance given from 1681 to 1838," when William Charles Macready played Lear from a shortened and rearranged version of Shakespeare's text. "Twas my good fortune", Tate said, "to light on one expedient to rectify what was wanting in the regularity and probability of the tale, which was to run through the whole a love betwixt Edgar and Cordelia that never changed words with each other in the original".
Tate's ''Lear'' remains famous as an example of an ill-conceived adaptation arising from insensitivity to Shakespeare's tragic vision. Tate's genius was not in language – many of his interpolated lines don't even scan – but in structure; his Lear begins brilliantly with the Edmund the Bastard's first attention-grabbing speech, and ends with Lear's heroic saving of Cordelia in the prison and a restoration of justice to the throne. Tate's worldview, and that of the theatrical world that embraced (and demanded) his "happy ending" versions of the Bard's tragic works (such as ''King Lear'' and ''Romeo and Juliet'') for over a century, arose from a profoundly different sense of morality in society and of the role that theatre and art should play within that society. Tate's versions of Shakespeare see the responsibility of theatre as a transformative agent for positive change by holding a moral mirror up to our baser instincts. Tate's versions of what we now consider some of the Bard's greatest works dominated the stage throughout the 18th century precisely because the Ages of Enlightenment and Reason found Shakespeare's "tragic vision" immoral, and his tragic works unstageable. Tate is seldom performed today, though in 1985, the Riverside Shakespeare Company mounted a successful production of '' The History of King Lear'' at The Shakespeare Center, heralded by some as a "Lear for the Age of Ronald Reagan."
Perhaps a more typical example of the purpose of Restoration revisions is Davenant's ''The Law Against Lovers'', a 1662 comedy combining the main plot of ''Measure for Measure
''Measure for Measure'' is a play by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in 1603 or 1604 and first performed in 1604. It was published in the First Folio of 1623.
The play centers on the despotic and puritan Angelo (Measure for ...
'' with subplot of ''Much Ado About Nothing
''Much Ado About Nothing'' is a Shakespearean comedy, comedy by William Shakespeare thought to have been written in 1598 and 1599.See textual notes to ''Much Ado About Nothing'' in ''The Norton Shakespeare'' (W. W. Norton & Company, 1997 ) p. ...
''. The result is a snapshot of Restoration comic tastes. Beatrice and Benedick are brought in to parallel Claudio and Hero; the emphasis throughout is on witty conversation, and Shakespeare's thematic focus on lust is steadily downplayed. The play ends with three marriages: Benedick's to Beatrice, Claudio's to Hero, and Isabella's to an Angelo whose attempt on Isabella's virtue was a ploy. Davenant wrote many of the bridging scenes and recast much of Shakespeare's verse as heroic couplet
A heroic couplet is a traditional form for English poetry, commonly used in epic and narrative poetry, and consisting of a rhyming pair of lines in iambic pentameter. Use of the heroic couplet was pioneered by Geoffrey Chaucer in the '' Legen ...
s.
A final feature of Restoration stagecraft impacted productions of Shakespeare. The taste for opera
Opera is a form of History of theatre#European theatre, Western theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by Singing, singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera") is typically ...
that the exiles had developed in France made its mark on Shakespeare as well. Davenant and John Dryden
John Dryden (; – ) was an English poet, literary critic, translator, and playwright who in 1668 was appointed England's first Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom, Poet Laureate.
He is seen as dominating the literary life of Restoration (En ...
worked ''The Tempest'' into an opera, '' The Tempest, or The Enchanted Island''; their work featured a sister for Miranda, a man, Hippolito, who has never seen a woman, and another paired marriage at the end. It also featured many songs, a spectacular shipwreck scene, and a masque of flying cupids. Other of Shakespeare's works given operatic treatment included ''A Midsummer Night's Dream
''A Midsummer Night's Dream'' is a Comedy (drama), comedy play written by William Shakespeare in about 1595 or 1596. The play is set in Athens, and consists of several subplots that revolve around the marriage of Theseus and Hippolyta. One s ...
'' (as ''The Fairy-Queen
''The Fairy-Queen'' (1692; Purcell catalogue number Z.629) is a semi-opera by Henry Purcell; a "Restoration spectacular". The libretto is an anonymous adaptation of William Shakespeare's comedy ''A Midsummer Night's Dream''. First performed in ...
'' in 1692) and Charles Gildon's ''Measure for Measure
''Measure for Measure'' is a play by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in 1603 or 1604 and first performed in 1604. It was published in the First Folio of 1623.
The play centers on the despotic and puritan Angelo (Measure for ...
'' (by way of an elaborate masque.)
However ill-guided such revisions may seem now, they made sense to the period's dramatists and audiences. The dramatists approached Shakespeare not as bardolators, but as theater professionals. Unlike Beaumont and Fletcher, whose "plays are now the most pleasant and frequent entertainments of the stage", according to Dryden in 1668, "two of theirs being acted through the year for one of Shakespeare's or Jonson's", Shakespeare appeared to them to have become dated. Yet almost universally, they saw him as worth updating. Though most of these revised pieces failed on stage, many remained current on stage for decades; Thomas Otway
Thomas Otway (3 March 165214 April 1685) was an English dramatist of the Restoration period, best known for '' Venice Preserv'd'', or ''A Plot Discover'd'' (1682).
Life
Otway was born at Trotton near Midhurst, the parish of which his father ...
's Roman adaptation of ''Romeo and Juliet'', for example, seems to have driven Shakespeare's original from the stage between 1680 and 1744. It was in large part the revised Shakespeare that took the lead place in the repertory in the early 18th century, while Beaumont and Fletcher
Beaumont and Fletcher were the English dramatist
A playwright or dramatist is a person who writes plays, which are a form of drama that primarily consists of dialogue between characters and is intended for theatrical performance rather t ...
's share steadily declined.
18th century
The 18th century witnessed three major changes in the production of Shakespeare's plays. In England, the development of the star system transformed both acting and production; at the end of the century, the Romantic revolution touched acting as it touched all the arts. At the same time, actors and producers began to return to Shakespeare's texts, slowly weeding out the Restoration revisions. Finally, by the end of the century Shakespeare's plays had been established as part of the repertory outside of Great Britain: not only in the United States but in many European countries.
Britain
In the 18th century, Shakespeare dominated the London stage, while Shakespeare productions turned increasingly into the creation of star turns for star actors. After the Licensing Act 1737
The Licensing Act 1737 ( 10 Geo. 2. c. 28) or the Theatrical Licensing Act 1737 was an act in the Kingdom of Great Britain, and a pivotal moment in British theatrical history. Its purpose was to control and censor what was being said about the ...
, one fourth of the plays performed were by Shakespeare, and on at least two occasions rival London playhouses staged the very same Shakespeare play at the same time (''Romeo and Juliet
''The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet'', often shortened to ''Romeo and Juliet'', is a Shakespearean tragedy, tragedy written by William Shakespeare about the romance between two young Italians from feuding families. It was among Shakespeare's ...
'' in 1755 and ''King Lear
''The Tragedy of King Lear'', often shortened to ''King Lear'', is a Shakespearean tragedy, tragedy written by William Shakespeare. It is loosely based on the mythological Leir of Britain. King Lear, in preparation for his old age, divides his ...
'' the next year) and still commanded audiences. This occasion was a striking example of the growing prominence of Shakespeare stars in the theatrical culture, the big attraction being the competition and rivalry between the male leads at Covent Garden and Drury Lane, Spranger Barry and David Garrick
David Garrick (19 February 1716 – 20 January 1779) was an English actor, playwright, Actor-manager, theatre manager and producer who influenced nearly all aspects of European theatrical practice throughout the 18th century, and was a pupil a ...
. In the 1740s, Charles Macklin, in roles such as Malvolio and Shylock
Shylock () is a fictional character in William Shakespeare's play '' The Merchant of Venice'' ( 1600). A Venetian Jewish moneylender, Shylock is the play's principal villain. His defeat and forced conversion to Christianity form the climax ...
, and David Garrick
David Garrick (19 February 1716 – 20 January 1779) was an English actor, playwright, Actor-manager, theatre manager and producer who influenced nearly all aspects of European theatrical practice throughout the 18th century, and was a pupil a ...
, who won fame as Richard III in 1741, helped make Shakespeare truly popular. Garrick went on to produce 26 of the plays at Drury Lane Theatre between 1747 and 1776, and he held a great Shakespeare Jubilee at Stratford in 1769. He freely adapted Shakespeare's work, however, saying of ''Hamlet'': "I had sworn I would not leave the stage till I had rescued that noble play from all the rubbish of the fifth act. I have brought it forth without the grave-digger's trick, Osrick, & the fencing match." Apparently no incongruity was perceived in having Barry and Garrick, in their late thirties, play adolescent Romeo one season and geriatric King Lear the next. 18th century notions of verisimilitude did not usually require an actor to be physically appropriate for a role, a fact epitomized by a 1744 production of ''Romeo and Juliet'' in which Theophilus Cibber
Theophilus Cibber (25 or 26 November 1703 – October 1758) was an English actor, playwright, author, and son of the actor-manager Colley Cibber.
He began acting at an early age, and followed his father into theatrical management. In 1727, Alex ...
, then forty, played Romeo to the Juliet of his teenaged daughter Jennie.
Elsewhere in Europe
Some of Shakespeare's work was performed in continental Europe even during his lifetime; Ludwig Tieck
Johann Ludwig Tieck (; ; 31 May 177328 April 1853) was a German poet, fiction writer, translator, and critic. He was one of the founding fathers of the Romanticism, Romantic movement in the late 18th and early 19th centuries.
Early life
Tieck w ...
pointed out German versions of ''Hamlet'' and other plays, of uncertain provenance, but certainly quite old. But it was not until after the middle of the next century that Shakespeare appeared regularly on German stages. In Germany Lessing compared Shakespeare to German folk literature. Goethe
Johann Wolfgang (von) Goethe (28 August 1749 – 22 March 1832) was a German polymath who is widely regarded as the most influential writer in the German language. His work has had a wide-ranging influence on Western literature, literary, Polit ...
organised a Shakespeare jubilee in Frankfurt in 1771, stating that the dramatist had shown that the Aristotelian unities were "as oppressive as a prison" and were "burdensome fetters on our imagination". Herder
A herder is a pastoralism, pastoral worker responsible for the care and management of a herd or flock of domestic animals, usually on extensive management, open pasture. It is particularly associated with nomadic pastoralism, nomadic or transhuma ...
likewise proclaimed that reading Shakespeare's work opens "leaves from the book of events, of providence, of the world, blowing in the sands of time". This claim that Shakespeare's work breaks through all creative boundaries to reveal a chaotic, teeming, contradictory world became characteristic of Romantic criticism, later being expressed by Victor Hugo
Victor-Marie Hugo, vicomte Hugo (; 26 February 1802 – 22 May 1885) was a French Romanticism, Romantic author, poet, essayist, playwright, journalist, human rights activist and politician.
His most famous works are the novels ''The Hunchbac ...
in the preface to his play ''Cromwell'', in which he lauded Shakespeare as an artist of the grotesque
Since at least the 18th century (in French and German, as well as English), grotesque has come to be used as a general adjective for the strange, mysterious, magnificent, fantastic, hideous, ugly, incongruous, unpleasant, or disgusting, and thus ...
, a genre in which the tragic, absurd, trivial and serious were inseparably intertwined.
19th century
Theatres and theatrical scenery became ever more elaborate in the 19th century, and the acting editions used were progressively cut and restructured to emphasize more and more the soliloquies and the stars, at the expense of pace and action. Performances were further slowed by the need for frequent pauses to change the scenery, creating a perceived need for even more cuts in order to keep performance length within tolerable limits; it became a generally accepted maxim that Shakespeare's plays were too long to be performed without substantial cuts. The platform, or apron, stage, on which actors of the 17th century would come forward for audience contact, was gone, and the actors stayed permanently behind the fourth wall
The fourth wall is a performance dramatic convention, convention in which an invisible, imaginary wall separates actors from the audience. While the audience can see through this "wall", the convention assumes the actors act as if they cannot. ...
or proscenium arch, further separated from the audience by the orchestra
An orchestra (; ) is a large instrumental ensemble typical of classical music, which combines instruments from different families. There are typically four main sections of instruments:
* String instruments, such as the violin, viola, cello, ...
(see image at right).
Victorian productions of Shakespeare often sought pictorial effects in "authentic" historical costumes and sets. The staging of the reported sea fights and barge scene in '' Antony and Cleopatra
''Antony and Cleopatra'' is a tragedy by William Shakespeare. The play was first performed around 1607, by the King's Men at either the Blackfriars Theatre or the Globe Theatre. Its first appearance in print was in the First Folio published ...
'' was one spectacular example. Too often, the result was a loss of pace. Towards the end of the century, William Poel led a reaction against this heavy style. In a series of "Elizabethan" productions on a thrust stage
In theatre, a thrust stage (a platform stage or open stage) is one that extends into the audience on three sides and is connected to the backstage area by its upstage end. A thrust has the benefit of greater intimacy between performers and the ...
, he paid fresh attention to the structure of the drama.
Through the 19th century, a roll call of legendary actors' names all but drown out the plays in which they appear: Sarah Siddons
Sarah Siddons (''née'' Kemble; 5 July 1755 – 8 June 1831) was a Welsh actress, the best-known Tragedy, tragedienne of the 18th century. Contemporaneous critic William Hazlitt dubbed Siddons as "tragedy personified".
She was the elder siste ...
(1755–1831), John Philip Kemble (1757–1823), Henry Irving
Sir Henry Irving (6 February 1838 – 13 October 1905), christened John Henry Brodribb, sometimes known as J. H. Irving, was an English stage actor in the Victorian era, known as an actor-manager because he took complete responsibility ( ...
(1838–1905), and Ellen Terry
Dame Alice Ellen Terry (27 February 184721 July 1928) was a leading English actress of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Born into a family of actors, Terry began performing as a child, acting in Shakespeare plays in London, and toured ...
(1847–1928). To be a star of the legitimate drama came to mean being first and foremost a "great Shakespeare actor", with a famous interpretation of, for men, Hamlet, and for women, Lady Macbeth, and especially with a striking delivery of the great soliloquies. The acme of spectacle, star, and soliloquy of Shakespeare performance came with the reign of actor-manager Henry Irving and his co-star Ellen Terry in their elaborately staged productions, often with orchestral incidental music
Incidental music is music in a play, television program, radio program, video game, or some other presentation form that is not primarily musical. The term is less frequently applied to film music, with such music being referred to instead as th ...
, at the Lyceum Theatre, London
The Lyceum Theatre ( ) is a West End theatre located in the City of Westminster, on Wellington Street, just off the Strand in central London. It has a seating capacity of 2,100. The origins of the theatre date to 1765. Managed by Samuel Arno ...
from 1878 to 1902. At the same time, a revolutionary return to the roots of Shakespeare's original texts, and to the platform stage, absence of scenery, and fluid scene changes of the Elizabethan theatre, was being effected by William Poel's Elizabethan Stage Society.
20th century
In the early 20th century, Harley Granville-Barker directed quarto and folio texts with few cuts, while Edward Gordon Craig
Edward Henry Gordon CraigSome sources give "Henry Edward Gordon Craig". (born Edward Godwin; 16 January 1872 – 29 July 1966), sometimes known as Gordon Craig, was an English modernist theatre practitioner; he worked as an actor, director an ...
and others called for abstract staging. Both approaches have influenced the variety of Shakespearean production styles seen today.
The 20th century also saw a multiplicity of visual interpretations of Shakespeare
William Shakespeare ( 23 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's natio ...
's plays.
Gordon Craig's design for ''Hamlet
''The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark'', often shortened to ''Hamlet'' (), is a Shakespearean tragedy, tragedy written by William Shakespeare sometime between 1599 and 1601. It is Shakespeare's longest play. Set in Denmark, the play (the ...
'' in 1911 was groundbreaking in its Cubist
Cubism is an early-20th-century avant-garde art movement which began in Paris. It revolutionized painting and the visual arts, and sparked artistic innovations in music, ballet, literature, and architecture.
Cubist subjects are analyzed, broke ...
influence. Craig defined space with simple flats: monochrome canvases stretched on wooden frames, which were hinged together to be self-supporting. Though the construction of these flats was not original, its application to Shakespeare was completely new. The flats could be aligned in many configurations and provided a technique of simulating architectural or abstract lithic structures out of supplies and methods common to any theater in Europe or the Americas.
The second major shift of 20th-century scenography of Shakespeare was in Barry Vincent Jackson's 1923 production of ''Cymbeline
''Cymbeline'' (), also known as ''The Tragedie of Cymbeline'' or ''Cymbeline, King of Britain'', is a play by William Shakespeare set in British Iron Age, Ancient Britain () and based on legends that formed part of the Matter of Britain concer ...
'' at the Birmingham Rep. This production was groundbreaking because it reintroduced the idea of modern dress back into Shakespeare. It was not the first modern-dress production since there were a few minor examples before World War I
World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...
, but ''Cymbeline'' was the first to call attention to the device in a blatant way. Iachimo was costumed in evening dress for the wager, the court was in military uniforms, and the disguised Imogen in knickerbockers and cap. It was for this production that critics invented the catch phrase "Shakespeare in plus-fours". The experiment was moderately successful, and the director, H.K. Ayliff, two years later staged ''Hamlet
''The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark'', often shortened to ''Hamlet'' (), is a Shakespearean tragedy, tragedy written by William Shakespeare sometime between 1599 and 1601. It is Shakespeare's longest play. Set in Denmark, the play (the ...
'' in modern dress. These productions paved the way for the modern-dress Shakespearean productions that we are familiar with today.
In 1936, Orson Welles
George Orson Welles (May 6, 1915 – October 10, 1985) was an American director, actor, writer, producer, and magician who is remembered for his innovative work in film, radio, and theatre. He is among the greatest and most influential film ...
was hired by the Federal Theatre Project
The Federal Theatre Project (FTP; 1935–1939) was a theatre program established during the Great Depression as part of the New Deal to fund live artistic performances and entertainment programs in the United States. It was one of five Federal ...
to direct a groundbreaking production of ''Macbeth
''The Tragedy of Macbeth'', often shortened to ''Macbeth'' (), is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, estimated to have been first performed in 1606. It dramatises the physically violent and damaging psychological effects of political ambiti ...
'' in Harlem
Harlem is a neighborhood in Upper Manhattan, New York City. It is bounded roughly by the Hudson River on the west; the Harlem River and 155th Street on the north; Fifth Avenue on the east; and Central Park North on the south. The greater ...
with an all African American
African Americans, also known as Black Americans and formerly also called Afro-Americans, are an Race and ethnicity in the United States, American racial and ethnic group that consists of Americans who have total or partial ancestry from an ...
cast. The production became known as the Voodoo Macbeth, as Welles changed the setting to a 19th-century Haiti
Haiti, officially the Republic of Haiti, is a country on the island of Hispaniola in the Caribbean Sea, east of Cuba and Jamaica, and south of the Bahamas. It occupies the western three-eighths of the island, which it shares with the Dominican ...
run by an evil king thoroughly controlled by African magic. Initially hostile, the black community took to the production thoroughly, ensuring full houses for ten weeks at the Lafayette Theatre and prompting a small Broadway success and a national tour.
Other notable productions of the 20th century that follow this trend of relocating Shakespeare's plays are H.K. Ayliff's ''Macbeth
''The Tragedy of Macbeth'', often shortened to ''Macbeth'' (), is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, estimated to have been first performed in 1606. It dramatises the physically violent and damaging psychological effects of political ambiti ...
'' of 1928 set on the battlefields of World War I
World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...
, Welles' ''Julius Caesar
Gaius Julius Caesar (12 or 13 July 100 BC – 15 March 44 BC) was a Roman general and statesman. A member of the First Triumvirate, Caesar led the Roman armies in the Gallic Wars before defeating his political rival Pompey in Caesar's civil wa ...
'' of 1937 based on the Nazi
Nazism (), formally named National Socialism (NS; , ), is the far-right politics, far-right Totalitarianism, totalitarian socio-political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Germany. During H ...
rallies at Nuremberg
Nuremberg (, ; ; in the local East Franconian dialect: ''Nämberch'' ) is the Franconia#Towns and cities, largest city in Franconia, the List of cities in Bavaria by population, second-largest city in the States of Germany, German state of Bav ...
, and Thacker's ''Coriolanus
''Coriolanus'' ( or ) is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1605 and 1608. The play is based on the life of the legendary Roman leader Gnaeus Marcius Coriolanus. Shakespeare worked on it during the same ...
'' of 1994 costumed in the manner of the French Revolution.
In 1978, a deconstructive version of ''The Taming of the Shrew
''The Taming of the Shrew'' is a comedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1590 and 1592. The play begins with a framing device, often referred to as the induction, in which a mischievous nobleman tricks a drunke ...
'' was performed at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre
The Royal Shakespeare Theatre (RST) (originally called the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre) is a Grade II* listed 1,040+ seat thrust stage theatre owned by the Royal Shakespeare Company dedicated to the English playwright and poet William Shakespea ...
.[''Looking at Shakespeare: A Visual History of Twentieth-Century Performance'' by Dennis Kennedy, Cambridge University Press, 2001, pp. 1–3.] The main character walked through the audience toward the stage, acting drunk and shouting sexist
Sexism is prejudice or discrimination based on one's sex or gender. Sexism can affect anyone, but primarily affects women and girls. It has been linked to gender roles and stereotypes, and may include the belief that one sex or gender is int ...
comments before he proceeded to tear down (i.e., deconstruct) the scenery. Even after press coverage, some audience members still fled from the performance, thinking they were witnessing a real assault.
21st century
The Royal Shakespeare Company
The Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) is a major British theatre company, based in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England. The company employs over 1,000 staff and opens around 20 productions a year. The RSC plays regularly in London, Stratf ...
in the UK has produced two major Shakespeare festivals in the twenty-first century. The first was the Complete Works (RSC festival) in 2006–2007, which staged productions of all of Shakespeare's plays and poems. The second is the World Shakespeare Festival in 2012, which is part of the London 2012 Cultural Olympiad
Cultural programmes of the Olympic Games have taken various forms over the years. From 1912 until shortly after the Second World War in 1948, art competitions were held to accompany the Summer Olympics. Since 1952 a series of cultural events has ...
, and features nearly 70 productions involving thousands of performers from across the world. More than half of these productions are part of the Globe to Globe Festival. Each of the productions in this festival has been reviewed by Shakespeare academics, theatre practitioners, and bloggers in a project calle
Year of Shakespeare
In May 2009, ''Hamlet
''The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark'', often shortened to ''Hamlet'' (), is a Shakespearean tragedy, tragedy written by William Shakespeare sometime between 1599 and 1601. It is Shakespeare's longest play. Set in Denmark, the play (the ...
'' opened with Jude Law
David Jude Heyworth Law (born 29 December 1972) is an English actor. He began his career in theatre before landing small roles in various British television productions and feature films. Law gained international recognition for his role in An ...
in the title role at the Donmar Warehouse
The Donmar Warehouse is a 251-seat, not-for-profit Off-West End theatre in Covent Garden, London, England. It first opened on 18 July 1977.
Sam Mendes, Michael Grandage, Josie Rourke and Michael Longhurst have all served as artistic direc ...
West End season at Wyndham's. He was joined by Ron Cook, Peter Eyre, Gwilym Lee
Gwilym Lee (born 24 November 1983) is a British actor. He is best known for his roles in ''Midsomer Murders'' (2013–2016), '' A Song for Jenny'' (2015), '' Jamestown'' (2017), '' Top End Wedding'' (2019), '' The Great'' (2020–2023), and for ...
, John MacMillan, Kevin R McNally, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Matt Ryan, Alex Waldmann and Penelope Wilton. The production officially opened on 3 June and ran through 22 August 2009.[Mark Shenton]
"Jude Law to Star in Donmar's Hamlet."
''The Stage''. 10 September 2007. Retrieved 19 November 2007. The production was also mounted at Elsinore Castle in Denmark
Denmark is a Nordic countries, Nordic country in Northern Europe. It is the metropole and most populous constituent of the Kingdom of Denmark,, . also known as the Danish Realm, a constitutionally unitary state that includes the Autonomous a ...
from 25 to 30 August 2009 and on Broadway at the Broadhurst Theatre
The Broadhurst Theatre is a Broadway theatre, Broadway theater at 235 West 44th Street (Manhattan), 44th Street in the Theater District, Manhattan, Theater District of Midtown Manhattan in New York City, New York, U.S. Opened in 1917, the thea ...
in New York
New York most commonly refers to:
* New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States
* New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York
New York may also refer to:
Places United Kingdom
* ...
.
The Propeller
A propeller (often called a screw if on a ship or an airscrew if on an aircraft) is a device with a rotating hub and radiating blades that are set at a pitch to form a helical spiral which, when rotated, exerts linear thrust upon a working flu ...
company have taken all-male cast productions around the world. Phyllida Lloyd has continually staged all-female cast versions of Shakespeare in London.
Shakespeare on screen
More than 420 feature-length film versions of Shakespeare's plays have been produced since the early 20th century, making Shakespeare the most filmed author ever.[Young, Mark (ed.). ''The Guinness Book of Records 1999'', Bantam Books, 358; Voigts-Virchow, Eckart (2004), ''Janespotting and Beyond: British Heritage Retrovisions Since the Mid-1990s'', Gunter Narr Verlag, 92.] Some of the film adaptations, especially Hollywood
Hollywood usually refers to:
* Hollywood, Los Angeles, a neighborhood in California
* Hollywood, a metonym for the cinema of the United States
Hollywood may also refer to:
Places United States
* Hollywood District (disambiguation)
* Hollywood ...
movies marketed to teenage audiences, use his plots rather than his dialogue, while others are simply filmed versions of his plays.
Dress and design
For centuries there had been an accepted style of how Shakespeare was to be performed which was erroneously labelled "Elizabethan" but actually reflected a trend of design
A design is the concept or proposal for an object, process, or system. The word ''design'' refers to something that is or has been intentionally created by a thinking agent, and is sometimes used to refer to the inherent nature of something ...
from a period shortly after Shakespeare's death. Shakespeare's performances were originally performed in contemporary dress. Actors were costumed in clothes that they might wear off the stage. This continued into the 18th century, the Georgian period, where costumes were the current fashionable dress. It was not until centuries after his death, primarily the 19th Century, that productions started looking back and tried to be "authentic" to a Shakespearean style. The Victorian era had a fascination with historical accuracy and this was adapted to the stage in order to appeal to the educated middle class. Charles Kean was particularly interested in historical context and spent many hours researching historical dress and setting for his productions. This faux-Shakespearean style was fixed until the 20th century. As of the twenty-first century, there are very few productions of Shakespeare, both on stage and on film, which are still performed in "authentic" period dress, while as late as 1990, virtually every true film version of a Shakespeare play was performed in correct period costume.
See also
* Elizabethan era
The Elizabethan era is the epoch in the Tudor period of the history of England during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I (1558–1603). Historians often depict it as the golden age in English history. The Roman symbol of Britannia (a female ...
* Globe Theatre
The Globe Theatre was a Theater (structure), theatre in London associated with William Shakespeare. It was built in 1599 at Southwark, close to the south bank of the Thames, by Shakespeare's playing company, the Lord Chamberlain's Men. It was ...
Notes
Bibliography
* Arrowsmith, William Robson. ''Shakespeare's Editors and Commentators''. London: J. Russell Smith, 1865.
* Cappon, Edward. ''Victor Hugo: A Memoir and a Study''. Edinburgh: Blackwood, 1885.
* Dryden, John. ''The Critical and Miscellaneous Prose Works of John Dryden''. Edmond Malone, editor. London: Baldwin, 1800.
* Düntzer, J.H.J., ''Life of Goethe''. Thomas Lyster, translator. New York: Macmillan, 1884.
* Glick, Claris. "William Poel: His Theories and Influence." ''Shakespeare Quarterly'' 15 (1964).
* Hill, Erroll. ''Shakespeare in Sable''. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press
The University of Massachusetts Press is a university press that is part of the University of Massachusetts Amherst. The press was founded in 1963, publishing scholarly books and non-fiction. The press imprint is overseen by an interdisciplinar ...
, 1984.
* Houseman, John. ''Run-through: A Memoir''. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1972.
* Jackson, Russell. "Shakespeare at Stratford-upon-Avon, 1994–5." ''Shakespeare Quarterly'' 46 (1995).
* Nettleton, George Henry. ''English Drama of the Restoration and Eighteenth Century (1642–1780)''. London: Macmillan, 1914.
* Pfister, Manfred. "Shakespeare and the European Canon." ''Shifting the Scene: Shakespeare in European Culture''. Balz Engler and Ledina Lambert, eds. Newark, DE: University of Delaware Press, 2004.
* Sprague, A.C. ''Beaumont and Fletcher on the Restoration Stage''. New York: Benjamin Blom, 1954.
* Tieck, Ludwig. ''Alt-englisches Theater oder Supplemente zum Shakspear''. Berlin, 1811.
External links
''Shakespeare at the National Theatre'', 1967–2012
compiled by Daniel Rosenthal, on Google Arts & Culture
{{DEFAULTSORT:Shakespeare in Performance
Articles containing video clips