The greatest splendor period of English theater: the Elizabethan Theater
After the 100 -year war, England knows a period of prosperity in the reign of Isabel I and, together with the economy, population growth and the stability of peace, begins the rise of theater. The theater evolves into more realistic ways, moving from a theater of tone, language and representation to one with typical characters of each work with the vice as the main theme, full of satires and written dialogues to cause the laugh of the public. Apart from these factors, English theater is due to Latin comedy, with authors such as Plauto and Terencio, the humanists and poetics of Aristotle. The characteristic figure of this theater appears in "Vit and Folly", and it is the profile of the fool, normally against the wise character. In the work of "The Four P" as in many others, there is no direct criticism but some issues already denounced by Luther are addressed by a character and ends with a sermon, a subgenre of the English theater. With Jhon Bale, an author who supported Enrique VIII after opposing the author’s authority appealing to Rome to break the marriage, since his wife Catalina could not give him male offspring. Thanks to this controversial king, a new genre begins: the historical drama, based on national history itself. This genre reflects the thoughts of the population of that period and acts as propaganda.
The dominant ideology will be the one that conditions the dramaturgy of the S.XVI, since comic elements will be included according to the English taste of the moment. The works deal with issues of social denunciation, papacy, Catholicism and rebel clerics. The issue of Scottish resistance will also be criticized until the reign of María Tudor, since an author will serve the Catholic cause.
During the Elizabethan period, a dozen theaters are built, some facts only made of wood or other wood and brick, being easy prey of fires. They used to be circularly with a patio where the public was and about two or three floors of galleries. These theaters had a shared architecture with that of the inns, where the comedians (Inns), were already accustomed to acting. In the best, there were a thousand spectators. The scenario was where the action was developed and stood at a wall with two doors, which served as entrance and exit of the dressing rooms. On it, there was still one more gallery where the most important spectators could be located when it was not used, since sometimes there were the necessary machinery for the special effects of the work. The boxes were located on the stage, so a great link between the work and the spectator and the traps were created were visible. On the other hand, in private theaters, which were used by children and adolescents in the convents, they did have seats for all spectators, they had characteristic effects thanks to the candles and lamps that lit them. Unlike public theaters, the private ones carried out representations at more extensive schedules and even at night, so the public’s selection and their high prices were so selective. In this theater, each scene had associated a wardrobe, and each character also, so it was easy for the public to follow a conductive thread, although the authors gave more importance to personal development and poetry of each character than everything decorative.
William Shakespeare was the greatest of Elizabethan playwrights, which since 1587 goes to London to compose his first essays and comedies, based on the visual show above textual pleasure. Shakespeare ignored the place and time of the action imposed by the great classics and even sometimes does not make the differences between the acts. His wardrobe was luxurious although there was no correspondence between the time and the act, which surprised foreigners. The tone he uses in his works is both high and typical of ordinary life, present in all his genres, not only in comedy. He does not move too far from Plato’s conception, in which tragedy and comedy are indispensable for man. In these dramatic works, he portrays the behaviors of his great figures of his time, taking them as parables of the present creating a kind of "historical mirror". In addition to this, the poet criticizes the medieval conception of society and the monarch with his power supposedly divine but for Shakespeare the figure of the king is not idealized and criticizes it hard. Not only is the dramas released, but also in the tragedies in which the poet had a more personal touch, making works such as Hamlet, Otelo or Macbeth considered today dramatic myths. But comedies are not far behind, in which the mysterious and greater richness of dialogues, plans and structures are used. Shakespeare’s work is still splendid today, with its convoluted structures within the tradition of English theater and informing the theater that the later years would bring.
After the death of Isabel I, Jacobo I comes to power, placing the king as the main actor and with absolutism as a sign of this theater full of massacred full of visual aspects, with Íñigo Jones as the main organizer. The tragedy and comedy were influenced by the taste of the people and the nobility: the tragedy was filled with violent themes, full of torture and revenge in stories in which the recent history of England is intuited. With the arrival of Carlos I, in 1625, the theater recreates the masqueradas, in which the king and the queen participate, thus creating the stir of the English Puritans. With the reign of Cromwell the boom ends and closes the greatest period of splendor of English theater.
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