The document provides an overview of Renaissance theater in Europe between the 14th and 17th centuries. It discusses the rise of theater during this period in Italy, England, Spain, and France. In Italy, commedia dell'arte emerged as a popular improvised comedy form, and the rules of neoclassical drama were developed. In England, playwrights like Christopher Marlowe and William Shakespeare advanced dramatic writing, performing plays in new public theaters in London. Theater flourished but was outlawed in 1642, marking the end of the English Renaissance period.

1. Chapter 12

2. “Renaissance” means rebirth – refers to an
awakening of the arts and learning in the
western world which occurred roughly from
the late 14th century until the early 17th
century.
During Renaissance theater blossomed in
Italy, England, Spain and France.
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3.  Background:
The Renaissance Era
 Italy was the center of activity
 As wealth increased,
leisure time did too
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4.  Background:
The Renaissance Era
continued
 Art treated subjects as human beings rather
than religious subjects
 A period of exploration
and invention
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5.  Italian
Theatre: Commedia dell’Arte
 Intermezzi
▪ Short pieces depicting mythological tales
▪ Presented between the acts of full-length plays
▪ Often required spectacular scenic effects
 Pastoral
▪ Short, ribald comic pieces (but not overly sexual)
▪ Subject matter is romance
▪ Characters are shepherds and mythological
creatures
▪ The action is serious but the endings were happy
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6.  Italian
Theatre: Commedia dell’Arte
continued
 Opera
▪ Invented by people who thought they were
re-creating the Greek tragic style
▪ The only Italian Renaissance theatrical form that
has survived
▪ Drama set entirely to music
▪ Every part is sung
▪ Began in Florence, around 1600
▪ Always been considered part of music, not theatre
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7.  Italian
Theatre: Commedia dell’Arte
continued
 Commedia dell’arte
▪ “Comedy of professional artists”
▪ Flourished from 1550 to 1750
▪ No set text: invented words and actions as they
went along
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8.  Italian
Theatre: Commedia dell’Arte
continued
 Commedia dell’arte
▪ Scenarios: short plot outlines without dialogue
▪ Troupes usually consisted of 10 performers (7 men,
3 women) and travelled
▪ Performers played the same stock characters
throughout most of their careers
▪ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_0TAXWt8hY
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9. 
Italian Theatre: Commedia dell’Arte
continued
 Most popular characters included zanni – comedic
and foolish male servants. Most popular one was
Harlequin.
 Harlequin had a slapstick – wooden sword used in
comic fight scenes; today a type of comedy that
relies on exaggerated or ludicrous physical activity
 All Commedia dell’arte characters used Lazzi –
comic pieces of business usually repeated by
characters; usually physical and sometimes sexual
or obscene
 Masks covered part of their faces but Young Lovers
did not wear masks.
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10.  Italian
Dramatic Rules:
The Neoclassical Ideals
 Italian critics formulated dramatic rules:
neoclassical ideals – Rules developed
during the Renaissance, supposedly based on
the writings of Aristotle.
 Dominated dramatic theatre for nearly 200
years
 Verisimilitude: drama should be “true to life”
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11.  Italian
Dramatic Rules:
The Neoclassical Ideals continued
 Three unities:
1. Unity of time – dramatic action in a play should not
exceed 24 hours
2. Unity of place – restricted the action in the play to
one locale
3. Unity of action – there should only be one central
story, involving a small number of characters; no
subplots
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12. 
Italian Dramatic Rules: Neoclassical Ideals cont’d






Tragedy and Comedy shouldn’t mix. Tragedy should
deal with royalty, comedy with common people(like
Horace).
All drama should teach a moral lesson
Onstage violence was forbidden
Chorus and supernatural characters were banished
Opposed to the soliloquy – a monologue where a
character reveals their inner thoughts by saying
them aloud while alone onstage
Highly prescriptive – telling authors how to write
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12

13.  Theatre
Production in Italy
 Italian Renaissance architects revolutionized
theatre construction
▪ Teatro Olimpico in Vicenza: oldest surviving
theatre built during the Italian Renaissance –
designed as a miniature Roman theater.
▪ Teatro Farnese in Parma – most renowned
building and revolutionary because had a
proscenium-arch (a rectangular frame that allowed
the ability to create more realistic scenery which
helped with theatrical realism)
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14. Completed in 1584, the Teatro Olimpico in Vicenza, Italy, is the oldest surviving theater from the
Renaissance. Stage attempted to duplicate the façade of the Roman scene house and had five alleyways
leading off it. Down each alleyway, small models of buildings were created to give the illusion of
disappearing perspective. This photo shows the ornate façade, a holdover from Roman theahers, with the
five alleyways, two one each side of the central alleyways.
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15. Completed in 1618, the Teatro Farnese was the first theatre with a proscenium arch – the opening
behind which scenery and stage machinery are concealed. The auditorium is horseshoe-shaped and
the orhestra is a semicircle placed between the audience and the stage
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16.  Theatre
Production in Italy
continued
 Public opera houses in Venice
▪ Designed with “pit, boxes, and galleries”
▪ Pit: where the audience members stood – raucous area
where audience could eat, talk and walk around
▪ Boxes: seating for upper class
▪ Galleries: upper tiers with open bench seating – cheapest
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17. 
Theatre Production in Italy continued
 Public opera houses in Venice
▪ Perspective drawing – creates an illusion of depth
and first introduced in set design during Italian
Renaissaince
▪ Groove system: method of scene shifting – system
in which tracks on the stage floor and above the
stage allowed for the smooth movement of flat
wings onto and off the stage; usually there were a
series of grooves at each stage position
▪ Pole-and-chariot: newer, innovative scenechanging system – Giacomo Torelli’s mechanized
means of changing sets made up of flat wings
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18. GROOVE SYSTEM OF
SCENE CHANGES
During the Italian
Renaissance, the groove
method of shifting scenery
was perfected.
Along the sides of the stage,
in parallel lines, scenery
was set in sections. At the
back, two shutters met in
the middle. Together, these
pieces formed a complete
stage picture. When one set
of side wings and back
shutters was pulled aside, a
different stage picture was
revealed.
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Companies, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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19. POLE AND CHARIOT
SYSTEM
This method of changing
wings and back shutters
was developed by Torelli.
When a series of wheels
and pulleys below the level
of the stage – attached on
frameworks to the scenery
above – were shifted, the
scene changed
automatically. Because the
mechanisms were
interconnected, scene shifts
could be smooth and
simultaneous.
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Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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20. King Henry VIII ( rules 1509-1547)
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Queen Elizabeth I ( rules 1558-1603)
20

21.  Background:
Elizabethan England
 English Renaissance is often called the
Elizabethan period
 Its major political figure was Elizabeth I
 The English were intrigued by language
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22.  Elizabethan
Drama
 Christopher Marlowe and the “Mighty Line”
▪ Advanced the art of dramatic structure
▪ Contributed a gallery of interesting characters
▪ Perfected dramatic poetry
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23.  Elizabethan
Drama continued
 Christopher Marlowe and the “Mighty Line”
▪ Marlowe’s “Mighty Line”: the power of
his dramatic verse
▪ Plays include:
▪ Doctor Faustus
▪ Tamburlaine
▪ Edward II
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24.  Elizabethan
Drama continued
 William Shakespeare:
A Playwright for the Ages
▪ Worked with established dramatic elements
▪
▪
▪
▪
Senecan dramatic devices
Platform stage
Powerful dramatic verse – iambic pantameter
http://www.howcast.com/videos/297008-How-to-Write-aPoem-in-Iambic-Pentameter
▪ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ArrR66OSa0Q
▪ Source material from English history, Roman history and
drama, and Italian literature
▪ Episodic plot structure with roots in medieval theatre
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25.  Plays
of William Shakespeare include:
Tragedies:
 Romeo and Juliet
 Julius Caesar
 Hamlet
 Othello
 Macbeth
 King Lear



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTGWNHa1wIQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gjxHdNxvySU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2LOfgaSvKz8
Comedies:
The Comedy of Errors
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
As You Like It
Twelfth Night
Histories:
Richard III
Henry IV
Henry V
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26. AN ELIZABETHEAN PLAYHOUSE
This drawing shows the kind of stage on which the plays of Shakespeare and his contemporaries were first
presented. A platform stage juts into an open courtyard, with spectators standing on three sides. Three
levels of enclosed seats rise above the courtyard. There are doors at the rear of the stage for entrances and
exits and an upper level for balcony scenes.
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27.  Elizabethan
Theatre Production
continued
 Marlowe, Shakespeare and their contemporaries were
performed primarily in public theaters – outdoor
theaters in Elizabethan England
 Between 1560-1642 at least 9 open-air public theaters
built just outside of London (to avoid govn’t
restrictions)
 All levels of society attended these theaters
 Most famous public theater – The Globe Theater –
because home of Shakespeare’s plays
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28.  Elizabethan
Theatre Production
continued
 Stage of public theater was a raised platform
surrounded on three side by the audience – closer to
contemporary thrust stage than proscenium
 Neutral playing area that could become many different
places in quick succession
 In stage floor there were trap doors
 Behind raised platform was the stage house, known
as a tiring house – Elizabethan stage house – three
story building for changing costumes, storing props
and set pieces, and served as the basic scenic piece
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29. Yard – pit, or standing
area on the ground
floor, in front of and on
the sides of the stage,
in Elizabethan public
theaters
Lower-class audience
members who stood in
the yard were known as
“groundlings.”
GROUND PLAN OF THE FORTUNE THEATER
The only English Renaissance theatre for which we have a number of specific dimensions is the
Fortune. From the builder’s contract we know the size of the stage, the standing pit, the audience
seating area, and the theater building itself. The building was square, the backstage are ran along one
side, the stage rectangular and the audience, both standing and sitting, was on three sides.
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30.  Elizabethan
Theatre Production
continued
 Private Theatres
▪ Indoor spaces, lit by candles and high windows
▪ Open to general public but smaller, and therefore
more expensive
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31. Al Pacino playing Shylock from “The Merchant of Venice” in a Broadway production of the play
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32.  Elizabethan
Theatre Production
continued
 Scenery and Costumes in Elizabethan
Theatres
▪
▪
▪
▪
Did not use painted scenery
The stage space did not represent a specific locale
Required rapid scene changes
Most costumes were simply contemporary clothing,
reflective of the social classes being depicted
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33.  Elizabethan
Theatre Production
continued
 English Actors and Acting Companies
 Number of acting companies restricted by law
 No female actors. Women’s roles played by boys
 Doubling of roles was common
 Style of acting debated, but most likely not “realistic”
 Rarely perform same play on 2 consecutive days so
used sides – script containing only a single
performer’s lines and cues. Elizabethan actors
learned their lines from sides.
 They had the play’s plot posted backstage to refresh
actors memories
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34.  Elizabethan
Theatre Production
continued
 Each company had about 25 members and was
organized on a sharing plan of 3 categories of
personnel:
▪ Shareholders: elite members of the company;
received a percentage of the troupe’s profits as
payment
▪ Hirelings: actors contracted for a specific period of
time and salary
▪ Apprentices: young performers training for the
profession; were assigned to shareholders
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35. POPULAR ARTS IN SHAKESPEARE’S TIME
Bearbaiting was a popular entertainment during Shakespeare’s lifetime and plays had to compete with
Bearbaiting and Cockfighting. Arenas were constructed for this form of entertainment, in which bears were
attacked by trained dogs. Remarkably, bearbaiting continued to attract audiences in the early nineteenth
century. Shown here is an illustrating of bearbating in Westminster, London in the 1820s
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36.  Theatre
after Elizabeth’s Reign
 Known as the Jacobean period
 New forms evolved
▪ English drama
▪ Mix of serious and comic elements
▪ Many plays had the quality of tragedy but ended happily
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37.  Theatre
after Elizabeth’s Reign
continued
 New forms evolved
▪ Masques – lavish, spectacular, court entertainment,
primarily during the English Renaissance.
▪ Featured at the court and not found in public or private
theatres
▪ Ornate, professionally staged mythological allegories
intended to praise the monarch
▪ Puritans outlawed all theatrical activity in 1642.
English Renaissance ended in 1642.
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37

38.  Background:
The Spanish Golden Age
 The period from about 1550 to 1650
 Both religious and secular forms of theatre
flourished during the Inquisition
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39.  Spanish
Drama
 Adopted the techniques of medieval religious
drama and continued to produce religious
dramas throughout their golden age and
beyond
 Secular drama developed side by side with
religious drama and was created by the same
artists
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40.  Spanish
Drama continued
 Comedias: full-length secular plays that
usually dealt with love and honor
 Written in there acts and, like English Renaissance
plays, structured in episodic form.
 Mixed serious with comic and similar to modern
melodrama, like television soap operas.
 Major playwrights included:
▪ Lope de Vega – said to have written 1500 plays
(probably more like 800). 470 of them survive.
▪ Calderón de la Barca
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41.  Theatre
Production in Spain
 The Corrales –
▪ Where nonreligious plays by writers like Lope de
Vega and Calderón were staged
▪ Constructed in existing courtyards of adjoining
buildings
▪ Open-air spaces with galleries and boxes
protected by a roof
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42.  Theatre
Production in Spain
 The Corrales – cont’d
▪ Patio – in the theater of the Spanish Golden Age,
the pit area for the audience
▪ Cazuela – Gallery above the tavern in the back wall
of the theatres of the Spanish Golden Age; the area
where unescorted women sat.
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43. A SPANISH CORRAL
This illustration is based on John J. Allen’s research on the corral del Principe in Madrid. Note the various elements of
the corral: the yard (patio), the seating areas (boxe and galleries), and the platform stage with the tiring house behind it.
Note also that in front of the yard there were benches or stool and that seats are set up at the side of the stage. In
addition, notice how similar the face of the building behind the stage was to the façade of the Elizabethan tiring house
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43

44.  Theatre
Production in Spain
continued
 Spanish Acting Companies
▪ Acting troupes consisted of 16 to 20 performers
▪ Included women (although the church did not
support this)
▪ Most Spanish acting troupes were compañías de
parte—sharing companies, like those of Elizabethan
England
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44

45.  Background:
France in the Seventeenth Century
 Renaissance theatre didn’t peak until the
17th century
 Partly due to a religious civil war taking place
in France between Catholics and Protestants
 Flourished under Louis XIV
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45

46.  French
Drama: The Neoclassical Era
 Most important 17th-century French
dramatists were
▪ Molière, noted for his comedies
▪ Tartuffe, The Misanthrope and The Miser some of his most
famous plays
▪ Influenced by Italian commedia dell’arte
▪ Master of slapstick and subtler forms of comedy
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46

47.  French
Drama: The Neoclassical Era
 Most important 17th-century French
dramatists were
▪ Pierre Corneille and Jean Racine,
both known for tragedy
▪ Corneille – wrote The Cid, which did not follow
neoclassical rules and caused great controversy.
Stopped writing for four years then followed rules
▪ Racine – followed neoclassical rules from start.
Most famous play, Phaedra
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48. 
Theatre Production in France
 French probably the first Europeans after the
Romans to construct permanent theatre buildings
▪ Hôtel de Bourgogne, completed in 1548 – built by
Confraternity of the Passion – a religious order that
had monopoly on religious drama in Paris
▪ Salle des Machines (Hall of Machines) – largest
playhouse in Europe constructed for ballets
▪ Comédie Française (1689) – The French national
theatre company housed here for 81 years.
Horseshoe seating for improved sight lines
▪ Upperclass often seated onstage near end of 17th
century
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49. GROUND PLAN FOR THE COMEDIE FRANCAISE
The French national theater company performed in this playhouse for 81 years, beginning in 1689. The theater
had a proscenium-arch stage with machinery for scene shifts, and a horse-shoe shaped auditorium for improved
sight lines. The parterre was where audience members stood. The amphitheater contained bleacherlike seating.
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49

50.  Theatre
Production in France
continued
 Acting companies were organized under a
sharing plan and had women members who
could become shareholders
 Rehearsals supervised by playwrights or lead
actors or both, but had little rehearsal time
 Troupe expected to be able to revive a play at
a moment’s notice and theaters showed a
different play each day
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