From Stage to Screen 2009

8/2/2019 From Stage to Screen 2009

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FROM STAGE TO SCREEN

FILMIC ADAPTATIONS OF WILLIAM

SHAKESPEARES PLAYS


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Practical Course Topics

An Introduction to Elizabethan Performance Studies: ElizabethanPlayhouses. The Players. Costumes, Scenery and Effects.Performance Techniques

Text in performance. A contrastive approach to Elizabethantheatrical conventions in relation to modern theatrical/ filmperformance conventions.

Introduction to the grammar of film: Camera techniques. Lighting.Narrative Style.

Shakespeare in twentieth and twenty-first century films: Shakespeare and pop culture: Al Pacinos docu-drama

Looking for Richard

A shrew for all times: Franco Zefirellis The Taming of theShrew Screening a dream: HoffmansA Midsummer Nights Dream Gazing on Hamletwith Kenneth Branagh Shakespeare, film and race: Oliver Parkers Othello


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An Introduction to ElizabethanPerformance Studies

The first permanent theatres: old inns which had been used astemporary acting areas when the companies had been touring. E.g.The Cross Keys, The Bull, The Bel Savage, The Bell

The first purpose built theatre building: The Theatre

Categories of playhouses: Public/ outdoor theatres: e.g.The Theatre(1576), The Curtain

(1577), The Rose(1587), The Swan(1595), The Globe(1599).

Private/ indoor theatres: e.g. The Blackfriars; The Cockpit


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Structure and Design of Public/Outdoor Theatres

the pit or yard

the roofed galleries

the Heavens

the Frons Scenae the discovery

space

the stage gallery

the Tiring House

the Hut


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Structure and Design of Public/Outdoor Theatres


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The Players

more parts than actors doubling or trebling ofroles an actor performed during the sameperformance.

only male actors (Boy Actors) intense and demanding rehearsal and

performance schedule (e.g. In a typical season,a theatrical company could perform thirty-eight

different plays.) few formal rehearsals for each play and no

equivalent of the modern director


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Costumes

a strange combination of what was (for the Elizabethans)modern dress, and costumes which - while not beinggenuinely historically or culturally accurate - had ahistorical or foreign flavour.

strict laws about types of clothes and colour codes (e.g.red blood; black gloom, evil; yellow sun; whitepurity; scarlet doctor; gray friar; blue serving men).

extensive make-up for the boys playing female parts andfor actors playing blackamoors or Turks.

mad people (esp. women): loose hair and disorderedclothing.

night scenes signalled by characters wearing nightdresses


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Scenery and Effects

no fixed scenery or painted backdrops (hence the playwrights had toprovide the actors with spoken descriptions of landscape).

yet, a wide variety of furniture and props: simple beds, tables, chairsand thrones to whole trees, grassy banks, prop dragons, anunpleasant looking cave to represent the mouth of hell, etc.

copious quantities of animal blood, fake heads and tables with holesin to stage decapitations; heads, hands, eyes, tongues and limbs cutoff onstage.

other simple special effects: real cannons and pistols (loaded withpowder but no bullet) for ceremonial salutes or battles ; rolling largemetal cannon balls backstage or drumming for thunder; fireworks setoff in the heavens above the stage for the lightning.

no lighting effects (except for the indoor theatres candlelight) torches used to indicate that a scene was taking place at night. fireworks used to imitate lightening or magical effects.


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Performance Techniques

Performance lasting between two and two and a half hours with noact breaks the actors were continually moving forward andbackward into the midst of the surrounding audience through thedoors at the rear of the stage.

Clowns/ Fools: a great deal of improvised repartee and jokes in theperformance, especially responding to hecklers in the audience;dancing or performing a jig (anything from a simple ballad to a quitecomplicated musical play, normally a farce involving adultery andother bawdy topics )

The spectators: The Groundlings standing in the pit, frequentlyshouting up at the actors or hissing the villains and cheering thegood guys.

The Elizabethans did not speak of going to seea play, they went tohearone: the most expensive seats were not the ones with the bestviews, but those in the Lords box or balcony behind the stage -looking at the action from behind - and otherwise the higher theseats the more an audience member had to pay.


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Specific Aspects of ElizabethanPerformances

bear-baiting: three bears in ascending size are set upon by an English

hound in a fight to the death! fencing: less gruesome, this civilized sport also took place before

plays. dumb-shows/processions: parades or spectacles, these formal

groups used all the most ornate costumes they owned, includingcrowns and sceptres, torches and swords. Dumbshows appeared at

the end of each act to summarize the events of the following act. Bythe turn of the century, dumb-shows were considered old-fahsionedand corny. Processions were more solemn as actors movedmannequin-like across the stage.

jigs: at the conclusion of a play, the actors would dance around thestage. Separate from the plays, these were bawdy, knockabout song-

and-dance farces. Frequently resembling popular ballads, jigs wereoften commentaries on politics or religion. masques: masques were plays put on strictly by the royals. These

were celebrations, i.e. royal weddings or winning a battle. Designed asbanquets of the senses, these celebrations spanned several daysduring which each member of the party played a part in the allegoricaltheme of the banquet. Masques were always held in privateplayhouses.

Documents

From Stage to Screen 2009