The Globe, Bankside, London
Built from timbers carried across the river Thames from an older Theater, the Globe rose up in 1599 and thrived for 14 years – until "In 1613, during a performance of Henry VIII, wadding from a stage cannon ignited the thatched roof and the theater burned to the ground ‘all in less than two hours, the people having enough to do to save themselves’" (The Shakespeare Globe Trust). A new theater with a tiled roof flourished until 1642, when Oliver Cromwell, Lord Protector of England enacted arch conservative Puritan policies.
"One of the main beliefs of the Puritans was that if you worked hard, you would get to Heaven. Pointless enjoyment was frowned upon. Cromwell shut many inns... Most sports were banned. Boys caught playing football on a Sunday could be whipped as a punishment. Swearing was punished by a fine, though those who kept swearing could be sent to prison. Sunday became a very special day under the Puritans. Most forms of work were banned. Women caught doing unnecessary work on the Holy Day could be put in the stocks. Simply going for a Sunday walk (unless it was to church) could lead to a hefty fine. Cromwell wanted [Christmas] returned to a religious celebration where people thought about the birth of Jesus rather than ate and drank too much. In London, soldiers were ordered to go round the streets and take, by force if necessary, food being cooked for a Christmas celebration. The smell of a goose being cooked could bring trouble. Traditional Christmas decorations like holly were banned. Cromwell believed that women and girls should dress in a proper manner. Make-up was banned. Puritan leaders and soldiers would roam the streets of towns and scrub off any make-up found on unsuspecting women. Too colourful dresses were banned. A Puritan lady wore a long black dress that covered her almost from neck to toes. She wore a white apron and her hair was bunched up behind a white head-dress. Puritan men wore black clothes and short hair" (Scott R. Robinson, Central Washington University).
And Cromwell also banned theater as 'sinful,' the Devil's work, later declaring actors 'rogues,'
"One of the main beliefs of the Puritans was that if you worked hard, you would get to Heaven. Pointless enjoyment was frowned upon. Cromwell shut many inns... Most sports were banned. Boys caught playing football on a Sunday could be whipped as a punishment. Swearing was punished by a fine, though those who kept swearing could be sent to prison. Sunday became a very special day under the Puritans. Most forms of work were banned. Women caught doing unnecessary work on the Holy Day could be put in the stocks. Simply going for a Sunday walk (unless it was to church) could lead to a hefty fine. Cromwell wanted [Christmas] returned to a religious celebration where people thought about the birth of Jesus rather than ate and drank too much. In London, soldiers were ordered to go round the streets and take, by force if necessary, food being cooked for a Christmas celebration. The smell of a goose being cooked could bring trouble. Traditional Christmas decorations like holly were banned. Cromwell believed that women and girls should dress in a proper manner. Make-up was banned. Puritan leaders and soldiers would roam the streets of towns and scrub off any make-up found on unsuspecting women. Too colourful dresses were banned. A Puritan lady wore a long black dress that covered her almost from neck to toes. She wore a white apron and her hair was bunched up behind a white head-dress. Puritan men wore black clothes and short hair" (Scott R. Robinson, Central Washington University).
And Cromwell also banned theater as 'sinful,' the Devil's work, later declaring actors 'rogues,'
The Globe, on the River Thames, Bankside, London.
Inspired by the American actor's Sam Wanamaker's dream, the modern Globe was built on land Wanamaker secured through money fund raised by the Shakespeare Globe Trust, a group he founded in 1970. The modern reconstruction is a result of 23 years of fund raising, research, and excavation of older theater sites. The architect, Theo Cosby, and the construction crews rebuilt the modern Globe using "painstakingly accurate building techniques – ‘green’ oak was cut and fashioned according to 16th-century practice and assembled in two-dimensional bays on the Bankside site; oak laths and staves support lime plaster mixed according to a contemporary recipe; ...walls are covered in a white lime wash; the roof is made of water reed thatch, based on samples found during the excavation." The modern Globe, opened by Queen Elizabeth in 1997, "is as faithful to the original as modern scholarship and traditional craftsmanship can make it" – yet despite the dogged research and painstaking reconstructive efforts – this Globe "is – and is likely to remain – neither more nor less than the ‘best guess’ at Shakespeare’s theatre." (Shakespeare Globe Trust)
The River Avon and the town Stratford, Shakespeare's birthplace.
A brief comedic biography of William Shakespeare performed by Adam Long of the Reduced Shakespeare Company, a three-man comedy troupe whose hilarious approximations of great drama won them a six-part radio series on BBC World Service in 1994. They have been nominated for multiple awards in the last 20 years, including an Olivier Award in London, two Helen Hayes Awards, a Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle Award, and two Podcast Awards. The company won a Shorty Award for Outstanding Use of Twitter by a Cultural Institution in 2009.
Shakespeare's life began near the reflecting, gleaming river Avon, which today flows past Stratford's Church of the Holy Trinity where he lies buried, and past a theatre where his dramas are seen and heard by visitors from all nations. In rare flood times, the river was wild and destructive, sweeping away bridges and much in its path, but normally it was hospitable to truant boys or patient fishermen, and no guttered rocks or congregated sands imperilled any large keel here. The river arises in grassy highland in the east of England near Naseby, and for miles hardly deserves the name Avon, or `river', which has echoes all over Celtic Europe: the Avon or Aven in Brittany, the Avenza in Italy, and the Avona in Spain. This Avon is at first only a runnel and then a willow-bordered stream, but below the old city of Warwick it is slow and stately as it divides Warwickshire and cuts the middle of England.
To the north is the Arden region, where the Forest of Arden was more thinly wooded in Shakespeare's day than in medieval times. Here were irregular fields, meadows, moated farmsteads, and groups of cottages, but few villages. South and west lay the Feldon, with new ornamental parks at Clopton and Goldicote, Ettington and Charlecote. Round about were fields cultivated in narrow strips, as well as tithe barns, villages, and black and white half-timbered cottages.
Stratford-upon-Avon, between Arden and Feldon, was a market town where goods from the two regions could be exchanged.
-- from Shakespeare A Life, Park Honan
Shakespeare's life began near the reflecting, gleaming river Avon, which today flows past Stratford's Church of the Holy Trinity where he lies buried, and past a theatre where his dramas are seen and heard by visitors from all nations. In rare flood times, the river was wild and destructive, sweeping away bridges and much in its path, but normally it was hospitable to truant boys or patient fishermen, and no guttered rocks or congregated sands imperilled any large keel here. The river arises in grassy highland in the east of England near Naseby, and for miles hardly deserves the name Avon, or `river', which has echoes all over Celtic Europe: the Avon or Aven in Brittany, the Avenza in Italy, and the Avona in Spain. This Avon is at first only a runnel and then a willow-bordered stream, but below the old city of Warwick it is slow and stately as it divides Warwickshire and cuts the middle of England.
To the north is the Arden region, where the Forest of Arden was more thinly wooded in Shakespeare's day than in medieval times. Here were irregular fields, meadows, moated farmsteads, and groups of cottages, but few villages. South and west lay the Feldon, with new ornamental parks at Clopton and Goldicote, Ettington and Charlecote. Round about were fields cultivated in narrow strips, as well as tithe barns, villages, and black and white half-timbered cottages.
Stratford-upon-Avon, between Arden and Feldon, was a market town where goods from the two regions could be exchanged.
-- from Shakespeare A Life, Park Honan
The Royal Shakespeare Theater originally opened as the Memorial Theater in 1879 in a red brick building originally designed as a Victorian Gothic cathedral. After a devastating fire left the original building a shell, an abutting building was designed and built in the Art Deco style and the Memorial Theater reopened in 1932 In 1961, the company rechartered itself and renamed the Memorial Theater as the Royal Shakespeare Theater. Created from the shell of the 1879 Memorial Theater, the Swan Theater was rebuilt inside the original brick Gothic core, and opened in 1986. Finally, in 2010, the Swan Theater and the Royal Theater reopened as an integrated complex.
Interviews with actors created by Larry Bridges with The National Endowment for the Arts.
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Actor Ben Crystal and linguist father David Crystal for The Open University on how Shakespeare was pronounced in his time, around 1600, during Early Modern English.
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From The Open University's The History of the English Language in Ten Minutes, Chapter 3, Shakespeare.
Kingsley James Daley, better known is Akala, here demonstrates for The Hip Hop Shakespeare Company and TedxAldeburgh the connections between Hip Hop and Shakespeare's iambic pentameter and the wider cultural debate around language and it's power.
Henry Irving Dagger
Folger Digital Image Collection Folger Shakespeare Library |
Angels are bright still, though the brightest fell.
Though all things foul would wear the brows of grace, Yet Grace must still look so. Act 4, Scene 3, 22-24 |