# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Othello in Shakespearean England
The Globe Theatre
The Globe theatre was a three story, open air ampitheater, constructed in 1599 and located in London.
Exploring Othello
The Role of Women
Tragic Hero
"A great or virtuous character in a dramatic tragedy who is destined for downfall, suffering, or defeat"
The Layout
Traditions of Shakespearean stage craft
Origin
Examples
Size: Approximately 30 meters in height
Capacity: Up to 3000
Construction time: 6 months
Stage: Divided into two parts (Inner and Outer)
Inner used for background action
Outer stage used for main action
Sloped so the whole audience could see it
Had trapdoors in stage floor
INTERESTING FACTS
A flag, which was located high enough for most of London could see it, would signify what type of play was being performed as to what colour the flag was
( red = history, black = tragedy, white = comedy)

There was no heating in the Globe Theatre. Therefore plays were performed in Summer and during the Winter they used indoor playhouses.

Elizabethan theatres weren't only used for plays, but also for bear baiting, gambling and other entertainment purposes

The cheapest tickest cost 1d, the same as a loaf of bread. These belonged to the 'groundlings' who stood for the performance.

The Globe theatre had a bunch of 'speacial effects' such as a canon, fireworks, and 'flying' entrances from the rigging.
TEN FEATURES OF A TRAGIC HERO
1.
MUST BE OF HIGH POSITION (KING, GENERAL, NOBLEMAN)
2.
SHOULD ALWAYS BE A GOOD PERSON (HIGHLY LIKED BY AUDIENCE)
3.
POSSESSES A QUALITY THAT WOULD COMMONLY BE SEEN AS A VIRTURE BUT IN THE CIRCUMSTANCES BECOMES A WEAK POINT OR FLAW.
4.
OFTEN MAKES SERIOUS ERRORS IN JUDGMENT, RESULTING IN THEIR DOWNFALL
5.
MUST CONCLUSIVELY BE RESPONSIBLE FOR THE EVENT OR DEED WHICH CAUSES THEIR DOWNFALL
6.
WILL VERY OFTEN HAVE MIS INTERPRETATION OF REALITY, OR BE BLIND TO IT COMPLETELY
7.
THEY WILL GO THROUGH BOTH PHYSICAL AND EMOTIONAL TRAILS
8.
WILL GENERALLY MAKE THE AUDIENCE FEEL SORRY FOR THEM AND THEIR MISFORTUNE
9.
USUALLY WILL REALISE THEIR MISTAKES AND ERRORS
10.
THEY WILL DIE
OTHELLO
MACBETH
ROMEO
Othello held an important role
Was well respected and admired by others
He loses his wife, his position and his status
Died as a result of his tragic flaw

Othello was valued by other this is demonstrated in the line "Here comes Barbantio and the valiant Moor", (Act I scene 3, 47)
Othello kills himself in Act 5, Scene 2, Line 354 "I kiss'd thee ere I kill'd thee: no way but this, killing myself to die upon a kiss.
Highly respected and honored by many (heroic during war)
Macbeth lets his wife manipulate his ambitious desires
Goes through physical and emotional struggles

Macbeth goes through both physical and emotional challenges as he battles with him self mentally trying to talk himself out of killing the King, and tortures himself with the guilt after he kills Duncan.
Act 1, Scene 7, "...he is here in double trust.
first as i am his kinsman,and his subject.
strong both against the deed.then as his host,
who should against the murtherer shut the door,
not bear the knife myself..."
Act 1, Scene 7
Romeo had high social standing (his father was a Lord)
He is admired, loved and recognised as an innocent character by the audience
Valued and praised by other characters
Looses Juliet
Dies (due to his character's flaws)

We see Capulet praise Romeo's character in the lines:
Content thee, gentle coz, let him alone. He bears [himself] like a portly gentleman, And, to say truth, Verona brags of him
To be a virtuous and well-govern'd youth.
RE BUILDING OF THE GLOBE THEATRE

In 1613 during the production of Henry VIII, the canon they used for special effects misfired a canonball, hit the thatched roof and burned the down the theatre.

After the unfortunate circumstances they reconstructed the theatre in 1614 but was closed 28 years later.

Sam Wanamaker decided to rebuild a modern version of the iconic and well recognised Globe Theatre which opened in 1997 and is still open today for shows, tourists and educational purposes.
Aristotle spoke of the virtuous figure's downfall being caused by "some error of human frailty"; this has come to be called the "tragic flaw." And, again, there can be no doubt that Othello, like King Oedipus and a host of tragic heroes after Oedipus, presents a striking instance of exactly that nature. (Raffel and Bloom, 2005)
Aristotle's definition of "tragedy" is supremely applicable to both Othello and to his wife."The change from prosperity to adversity should not be represented as happening to a virtuous character," Aristotle explained. Nor "should the fall of a very bad man from prosperous to adverse fortune be represented." (Aristotle,1934) In other words, no one who is consistently "virtuous" can be the central figure in a true tragedy, but neither can anyone who is utterly without virtue play such a role.
WOMEN'S RIGHTS
Although at the time new rights and new laws were being passed and important changes were being made, women still had very limited rights.
NOT ALLOWED TO VOTE
COULD NOT PARTICIPATE IN POLITICS
NOT PERMITTED TO GO TO UNIVERSITY
WERE NOT ALLOWED TO BE DOCTORS, LAWYERS, ACTRESSES, JOIN THE ARMY OR NAVY
WERE CONSIDERED MEN'S "PROPERTY"
When we look back at women during the Elizabethan and Jacobean era we see that their role is passive, though not entirely passive. Women are referred to in relation to the men in their lives, as dutiful daughter and wife.

In Othello, Desdemona refers to both Othello and her Father as 'my Lord' , as marriage was considered the passing of guardianship from father to husband (Raffel and Bloom, 2009: 29).

Iago as a male is easily believed over Desdemona as a female.
WOMEN IN THE THEATRE
Women were not allowed to be on the stage, female roles were played by males, mostly in their adolescence. Shakespeare however did have some very strong female characters in his plays going against the conventions of society.
SHAKESPEARE'S WOMEN
Influential, Powerful and did lots of the decision making
Some displayed the ideal women, and others were cunning and dominant
Women such as Desdemona, Lady Macbeth and Juliet are so commonly recognised as these characters were such influential women.
Soliloquy and asides used to clarify the action for the audience.
Star actors were often used for specific roles to clarify character.
Actors had to be quick line learners as many had short notice.
Most Shakespearean actors were gifted at stage fighting as this was a big spectacle that entertained.
Historical Background and Acting Styles

Othello possesses an unusually detailed performance record. The first certainly known performance occurred on 1 November 1604, at Whitehall Palace in London, being mentioned in a Revels account on "Hallamas Day, being the first of Nouembar", 1604, when "the Kings Maiesties Plaiers" performed "A Play in the Banketinge house at Whit Hall Called The Moor of Venis." The play is there attributed to Shaxberd. (Bevington and Kastan, 1988)

Subsequent performances took place on Monday, 30 April 1610 at the Globe Theatre, and at Oxford in September 1610. On 22 November 1629, and on 6 May 1635, it played at the Blackfriars Theatre. (Loomis, 2002)
How were the women in Frantic Assembly's production portrayed?
Acting Style
What was happening when it was first performed?
Whilst the first known performance was 1604 right at the beginning of King James I's reign, it is towards 1610 that Othello is more heavily documented, often appearing at the globe. This places Othello firmly in the Jacobean era.
Originally reigning Scotland as King James VI, King James I of Britain often felt a stranger to Elizabethan courtiers and aristocrats. He avoided crowds and became known as 'the duke of dark corners.' He therefore set about creating his own court circle. (Johnston, 2010)
James appropriated Shakespeare's Globe theater company and made it 'the King's Players'. The court, and its theater increasingly lost touch with the 'common people'. It was more prestigious and more profitable to write for the court and for its aristocratic circle that preferred the indoor Blackfriars Theater to the open, more 'public' Globe. Shakespeare's last plays, from PERICLES to THE TEMPEST were written primarily for the court of James. (ibid)
How did Frantic Assembly communicate Othello's Tragic
Flaw?
How would you describe the acting style?
Key Characteristics
Exaggerated plot
Heightened emotions
Recognisable types of characters, who often had a repeated motif, posture or physical trait for identification purposes.
Exaggerated physicality
Movement and proxemics used to establish location as set was minimal
Asides and audience interaction
Stock gestures may have been used (there is debate amongst scholars)
Were there any examples of these in Frantic Assembly's production?
Modern stock gestures vs Shakespearean gestures
Vocal Technique
Actors required clear:
Projection
Pitch
Pace
Tone
Diction
Bold imagery substituted the need for set, and a declaratory poetic style was presented.
Original Pronunciation
How did Frantic Assembly's delivery of text compare to this?
Task 1: in groups of 6 devise postures, poses and motifs for each of the following characters that make them easily identifiable as they enter the stage :
Othello
Desdemona
Iago
Emilia (Iago's wife, Desdemona's lady)
Montano (The governor of Cyprus before Othello)
Cassio (Othello's lieutenant, who looses his promotion after a drunken brawl)
Task 2: in your groups take it in turns to perform a short sketch to the others which clearly demonstrates a heightened version of an emotion. Once you have finished the other group members should attempt to identify the emotion and make a suggestion of how you could push it further.
Task 3: Using only gesture movement and facial expressions recreate this extract of the final scene Act 5 Scene 2.

Synopsis:
Othello smothers Desdemona
Emilia comes to tell Othello of Roderigo's death and Cassio's injury and comes across her lady Desdemona
Regaining consciousness Desdemona weakly reassures Emilia of her innocence but also refuses to tell Emilia who has done this to her, declaring her love for Othello before dying
Emilia confronts Othello who admits murdering Desdemona however believes it justified due to his information form Iago.
Horrified to learn of her husband's actions Emilia cries murder
Cassio, Montano and soldiers and citizens of Cyprus crowd into the room, along with Iago.
Emilia confronts her husband and asks if he told Othello that Desdemona was cheating on him. Iago admits that he suggested this, but then claims that Othello's own suspicion filled in all the blanks
Argument ensues and Othello insists the handkerchief is evidence of Desdemona's infidelity
Iago's plot is unraveled as a horrified Emilia admits how the handkerchief came to be Iago's possession.
In a moment of blind rage Othello dives for Iago who avoids him and stabs Emilia and flees.
Casio Montano and the soldiers go after Iago leaving a dying Emilia and a weeping Othello.
Task 4: Develop the scene by adding:
character postures, poses and motifs
heightened emotions
exaggerated physicality
asides to the audience that reveal how characters are feeling
Break Time!
References:
Aristotle (1934) Poetics. New York and London: Everyman's Library.

British Library (2004) Players: Shakespeare in Quarto. Available at: http://www.bl.uk/treasures/shakespeare/players.html (Accessed on 10/11/14)

Johnston, Brian (2010) Introduction to Jacobean Theatre. Available at: http://www.coursesindrama.com/index.php/european-drama/medieval-renascence-drama/jacobeancaroline-drama/introduction-jacobean-theater/

Loomis, Catherine ed. (2002). William Shakespeare: A Documentary Volume, Vol. 263, Dictionary of Literary Biography, Detroit: Gale, 200-1.

Padgett, Ken (2007) Blackface Histroy Prior to Minstrel Shows. Available at: http://black-face.com/blackface-history.htm. (Accessed on 10/11/14)

Raffel, Burton and Bloom, Harold (2005) The Annotated Shakespeare: Othello. Yale University Press.

Shakespeare, William. Four Tragedies. Editors David M. Bevington, David Scott Kastan (1988) Bantam Books.
Playing Othello
Centuries before the first American minstrel put on "the burnt cork mask," blackface was a familiar theatrical device in Europe. The most famous blackface performance in the legitimate theater is Shakespeare's Othello, first produced in 1604 and almost always performed by a White actor in blackface until nearly the end of the 20th Century.
As theater historian Robert Hornback explains, Shakespeare did not invent theatrical blackface, but was consciously using a convention with a very long tradition and some very specific implications for his audience. From the folk rituals of pagan Europe through Medieval religious pageants to the theater of Shakespeare's day, a black face and black skin were used to denote both evil and folly. The symbolism was basic: white/light/day equaled good, dark/black/night equaled evil. Europeans simply carried the symbolism over to "light" and "dark" skin. A blackened, sooty or begrimed face was the sign of the scapegoat in pagan rituals.
(Padgett, 2007)
Evidence to support this possible interpretation
Othello is referred to as a "Barbary horse" (1.1.113), a "lascivious Moor" (1.1.127), and "the devil" (1.1.91). In act 3 scene 3 he denounces Desdemona's supposed sin as being "black as mine own face." Desdemona's physical whiteness is otherwise presented in opposition to Othello's dark skin; V.II "that whiter skin of hers than snow." Iago tells Brabantio that "an old black ram / is tupping your white ewe" (1.1.88). In Elizabethan discourse, the word "black" could suggest various concepts that extended beyond the physical colour of skin, including a wide range of negative connotations.
By the mid-1590s Richard Burbage was a leading sharer in the Lord Chamberlain's Men. Burbage played the title-roles in Hamlet, King Lear, and Othello. He may have taken leading roles in all of Shakespeare's plays after the opening of the Globe in 1599
In 1619, Taylor joined the King's Men, succeeding Richard Burbage as the company's principal actor. He played the title-role in Hamlet, in Othello, and perhaps took one of the principal roles in The Two Noble Kinsmen. By 1624 Taylor was a sharer in the King's Men, and became a manager of the company with John Lowin in 1630.
(British Library, 2004)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Othello in Shakespearean England The Globe TheatreThe Globe theatre was a three story, open air ampitheater, constructed in 1599 and located in London.Exploring OthelloThe Role of WomenTragic Hero"A great or virtuous character in a dramatic tragedy who is destined for downfall, suffering, or defeat"The LayoutTraditions of Shakespearean stage craftOriginExamplesSize: Approximately

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
In open outdoor theatres, natural light had to be used and so performances took place in the afternoon.

Whereas in modern theatre lighting states provide visual indicators which suggest location and time of day, Renaissance theatre had to employ a combination of visual and aural indicators to fulfill the same function.
Lighting
Audiences
Just about everyone in London society attended-generally more men than women, but all sorts of people. One visitor, in 1617, described the crowd around the stage as 'a gang of porters and carters'. Others talked of servants and apprentices spending all their spare time there. But wealthier people were in the audience too.
The cheapest price was only 1 penny which bought you a place amongst the 'groundlings'
standing in the 'yard' around the stage. (There were 240 pennies in £1.) For another penny, you could have a bench seat in the lower galleries which surrounded the yard. Or for a penny or so more, you could sit more comfortably on a cushion. The most expensive seats would have been in the 'Lord's Rooms'. Admission to the indoor theatres started at 6 pence. One penny was only the price of a loaf of bread. Compare that to today's prices. The low cost was one reason the theatre was so popular.

Audience Relationships
Watch the following video and think about how you would describe the
actor-audience relationships.
Sound
Sources of sound effects included:

Live musicians who sat in the part of the gallery which overhung the stage.

Materials used to create noises which mimicked natural sounds; something we now call Foley.

Actors themselves mastered animal noises and natural sounds.

Renaissance Staging
Did Frantic Assembly use any of these devices to create a sense of location or did they rely solely on lighting and set?
Verbal indicators made by the actors themselves were the most commonly used devices. These could be in-script such as Montano's conjuring of the battlement seaside in Act 2 Scene 1, or as simple as the actor stating something like 'Here we arrive in the heat of Cyprus!'

The whole of Act 1, Act 2 scene 3 and the whole of act 5 take place by night. Torches, tapers and candles could be used to signify evening or darkness.

Costumes could be used to suggest location: a nightgown would suggest a bed chamber, a cloak would suggest an outdoor location.

Posture could also signify location: a grand event would assume upright proud postures, a time of merriment would assume relaxed postures, a scary location would assume stooped postures. In Act 1 Scene 2, Act 2 Scene 3 and Act 5 Scene 1 there are sudden feelings of danger, in which the actors would have moved about the stage with special caution.

Aural sound effects made by the actors themselves could have been employed, with birdsong representative of morning, loud bangs and cannon fire could have suggested a battlefield
.

Musical accompaniments were popular and often saw audience members dancing and cheering. In fact, in 1612, magistrates banned music at the end of plays at the Fortune, saying the crowd had caused 'tumults and outrages' with their dances.

Instruments such as chimes, trumpets, drums and bells could also be used for sound effects.

Metal sheeting, drums, fireworks and the rolling of cannons were all used to create sound effects of thunder and lighting.

Pistols and the firing of cannons created the sounds of battle.

These 'Foley' like sound effects were created in the hut above the playing space.
Possible sound effects in Othello According to the text:
The streets of Venice
The sounds of the storm
The raging sea
The battle against the Turkish Fleet
The celebration held after conquering the Turkish fleet
The streets of Cyprus
Which sound effects were used in Frantic Assembly's production?
The groundlings were very close to the action on stage. They could buy food and drink during the performance - pippins (apples), oranges, nuts, gingerbread and ale.

Some of the audience went to the theatre to be seen and admired, dressed in their best clothes. But these people were not necessarily well behaved. Most didn't sit and watch in silence like today. They clapped the heroes and booed the villains, and cheered the special effects.

A theater audience, like most of the population of Shakespeare's England, was largely made up of illiterates. Being able to read and write, however, had nothing to do with intelligence or concern with language, narrative, and characterisation.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.entities[].name
Renaissance Staging Did Frantic Assembly

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
In open outdoor theatres, natural light had to be used and so performances took place in the afternoon. Whereas in modern theatre lighting states provide visual indicators which suggest location and time of day, Renaissance theatre had to employ a combination of visual and aural indicators to fulfill the same function.LightingAudiencesJust about everyone in London society attended-generally more men than women, but all sorts of people.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Costume and Design in Jacobean Othello
Set
There was no scenery (backdrops, flats, and so on). Compared to today's elaborate, high-tech productions.
There was no curtain. Actors entered and left via doors in the back of the stage, behind which was the "tiring-room," where actors put on or changed their costumes. (Raffel and Bloom, 2005: XXXVII)

The essential point is not that the stage was bare, but that no attempt at scenic illusion was made; the stage-location was whatever the dramatist made his actors say it was. (Braunmuller and Hattaway, 1999:21)

Shakespeare's Montano conjures the seaside weather for the audience to imagine:

Montano
: What from the cape can you discern at sea?
Gentleman 1
: Nothing at all. It is a high-wrought flood. I cannot, 'twixt the heaven and the main, Descry a sail.
Montano:
Methinks the wind hath spoke aloud at A fuller blast ne'er shook our battlements.
(Act 2: Scene 1, 1-6)
Props
Performers had few on-stage props.These were mostly handheld: a sword or dagger, a torch or candle, a cup or flask. Larger props, such as furniture, were used sparingly. (Raffel and Bloom, 2005: XXXVII)
Essential props required according to the text were always used. Often props were also used for actors who were multi-roling in order to distinguish their characters personalities.
Costume and Makeup
Costumes (some of which were upper-class castoffs, belonging to the individual actors) were elaborate. As in most pre-modern and very hierarchical societies, clothing was the distinctive mark of who and what a person was. (Raffel and Bloom, 2005: XXXVIII)

The company usually owned some costumes and reused them as often as possible. Actors left each other clothes in their wills, some sound as if they were costumes.
Thomas Platter, a Swiss visitor to England in 1599, said that important people often left clothes to servants in their wills. The servants were not allowed to wear expensive
clothes, so they sold them to actors. If the company had to have something made, they went to a tailor. (The Globe Education, 2014)

The meaning of colours worn during the Elizabethan era provided instant information about the person wearing them! A man or women who were purple clothes would be immediately recognised as a member of royalty. Gold, silver, crimson or scarlet, deep indigo blue, violet colours and even deep black and pure white colors were only worn by the highest nobility in the land. The colours of Elizabethan clothes provided information about the status of the man or woman wearing them. This was not just dictated by the wealth of the person, it also reflected their social standing and their morals. (Elizabethan-era.org, 2012)
Theatre Design
The open platform stage of the Elizabethan public theatres did not (indeed could not, lacking a proscenium arch) employ scenery in the usually accepted modern sense. Sometimes a painted backdrop or arras might be used but generally the actors depended on comparatively lavish costuming, most of it bought second- or third-hand, and a probably fairly sparing use of common properties (bed, throne of state, chairs, stools, trestle tables, tree rock, chariot etc). (Blakemore, 1998: 70)
Frantic Assembly set... how does it compare?
How does the Globe compare with the Curve?
Actors could be seen by the audience from all three sides of the main stage. In the wall upstage there were two doors; one on either side, leading to the tiring house in which actors dressed and waited to come on and off stage, providing entrances and exits. Transitions were smooth, as one set of characters exited through one door another group would arrive through the other. (The Globe Education, 2014)

This uninterrupted flow creates juxtaposition between scenes. This contrast of scenes side by side kept the dynamics exciting for the audience.

The upper level of the tiring house wall could be made to serve as various locations. (Braunmuller and Hattaway, 1999:19) We can conjecture that it was probably used in Othello as in the text there are stage directions such as: 'Brabantio appears above at a window.' (Act 1, scene 1, line 83)
Essential Props in Othello
(according to the text)
torches
lights
weapons
handkerchief
a chair
a sword
a bed with bed curtains
a cup of wine
Which props were used in
Frantic Assembly's production?
Frantic Assembly Othello props
pool cues
pool table
bottles of beer
brick
newspaper
car keys
baseball bat
shot glasses
money for the slot machine
handkerchief
knife
shard of mirror
Machinery for lowering people and properties on to the stage could easily have been accommodated at the second building of the Globe which had a cover surmounted by spacious twin-gabled roofs. (Braunmuller and Hattaway, 1999:17)

Part of the gallery appears to have been set aside for the musicians, and the part of the gallery which overhung the stage could have had rods affixed to which hangings were mounted.
These tapestries could be symbolic, decorative or be representative of an appropriate background. (Braunmuller and Hattaway, 1999:19-20)
Lavish Budgets for Costumes
Costumes were the early modern theatre's most valuable asset. In contemporary terms, they were worth more than the theatres in which the plays were staged, and companies often paid more to tailors to dress their actors than they did to playwrights to write their texts. (Richardson, 2011)

Such huge sums make it clear that this was a theatre of spectacle. Whilst it did not use elaborate sets and scenery, the display of sumptuous fabrics, ornate trimmings and diverse designs in clothing was clearly an important part of its appeal to the audience. (ibid)

Henslowe's diary documents popular costumes of the time, apparel in satin, taffeta, and cloth of gold; also cloaks, jerkins, breeches, and doublets of various colours, white, tawny, silver, red. black, green, yellow, orange many of them trimmed with gold or silver lace. (Braunmuller and Hattaway, 1999:19)

Lace in particular was at the height of fashion, and so was often used as a metaphor for characters of cleanliness and wealth. (Braunmuller and Hattaway, 1999 and Richardson, 2011)
Makeup
White makeup used by Elizabethan actors was called Ceruse which combined lead and vinegar and so was highly poisonous. The young male actors that adopted the female roles therefore often suffered from severe skin conditions, skin diseases and lead poisoning resulting in death. As such powdered hog bones and poppy oil were later used. (The Globe Education, 2014)

Young males also wore wigs to simulate their female characters, the style of which reflected their characters age and status. (ibid)

Chalk powder, soot and burnt cork were used to draw lines that accentuated the facial features to enhance characterisation. We also know that it was used by white actors playing Othello to 'black-up'.

Blood was used to special effect as it thrilled audiences,
animal intestines, tongues, bones were all used.
Often animal bladders were filled with animal
blood and concealed underneath the costume
to be popped when wounded by combat or
swordsmanship, and produce gruesome effect
, which audiences relished.

The exact date that Othello was originally performed is unknown however we do know that it was first documented in 1604; the end of the Elizabethan era and the start of the Jacobean era. It was later documented as being performed at the Globe Theatre in April 1610.
Late Jacobean theatre evolved significantly (1620s) and so therefore design features of Elizabethan theatre are more appropriate when considering the original performance conditions of Othello.
How were makeup and special effects used in the production you saw?
Black, sadness, death, humility/lawyers.
Grey, mourning and repentance
Brown, humble/ friar.
Blue, servitude.
Yellow, love, renewal hope, envy, greed.
Scarlet, fire, power, religion/ cardinals and doctors.
Pink, joy and happiness.
Purple, royalty.
Lower classes wore, yellow, browns, orange, green, pale blue and pink.
Lets analyse Frantic Assembly's costume connotations!
TASK!
I
n groups, use the worksheet to draw costume and makeup design for the character you have been given, in both their original contexts and in Frantic Assembly's production. You will then present to the rest of the class justifying the design you have done for the original conditions, and then making comparisons between the two designs in terms of how they function on stage.
Think about:
Colour connotations
.
The Facts that:
Henslowe's diary documents popular costumes of the time, apparel in satin, taffeta, and cloth of gold; also cloaks, jerkins, breeches, and doublets of various colours, white, tawny, silver, red. black, green, yellow, orange many of them trimmed with gold or silver lace. (Braunmuller and Hattaway, 1999:19) Lace in particular was at the height of fashion, and so was often used as a metaphor for characters of cleanliness and wealth. (Braunmuller and Hattaway, 1999 and Richardson, 2011)
Makeup
- accentuating facial features for characterisation, appropriate wigs and hair styles.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Costume and Design in Jacobean Othello SetThere was no scenery (backdrops, flats, and so on). Compared to today's elaborate, high-tech productions. There was no curtain. Actors entered and left via doors in the back of the stage, behind which was the "tiring-room," where actors put on or changed their costumes.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
What do we want the Image to say?
Othello in a contemporary setting like it has never been seen before.

The pool table suggests the location of the play

The pool table features in the physical set.

The pool table is Othello & Desdemonas bed.
Physicality of the Production
Why the floating image?

Desdemona lifts Othello, she is young, feisty and strong.

We wanted a dynamic, muscular Othello.

We wanted to portray the contemporary setting.

We wanted to suggest the inherent physicality of the production.

We wanted the right mix of love, attitude and sexiness.

Set Design
The Pool Table
A Set that Dances

The walls of this set are articulated and can be moved into numerous configurations.

They can even peel completely back to reveal the wall of a car park behind the pub.

We were under strict instructions that they were NOT to be used merely for scene changes.

The Death Scene
Why the Pool Table?

It supports the naturalism of the pub. The sounds and shapes of playing pool help create the context for our world.

The pool table reinvents itself from time to time, for example, to become a bed.

It is were our play end, as the death bed of Desdemona.

The metaphorical potential of the white and black ball.
Othello 2014: Design

Marketing Image
The Pool Table
Why Hybrid?

The epic quality & symphonic element of the music is in direct reference to the use of a classical text.

The breakbeat element is suggestive of a modern, urban landscape - the perfect sonic setting for our pub.

We have created our own hybrid with a show which uses various theatrical methods, driving the feel for a contemporary show.

Othello Soundtrack

Just Today
Gravastar
Just be careful
Falling down
Finished Symphony
Until tomorrow
Evacuating London
Keep it in the family
Heat beat

Cover Image by Perou
Production Images by Manuel Harlan
The Walls
An Interactive Resource
for Students age 14+
Content

Marketing Image

Set Design

Music
Physicality of The Production
Floating Image
Set Design
Its Physicality

Practically the pool table gives us a platform, ledges and all kinds of possibilities for dynamic physicality.

The physicality of men exchanging banter or showing off around a pool table. It gives a focus and direction to their movement.

The pool cues go from being part of a game of pool, to being weapons.
The Music
Who are Hybrid?

Hybrid are a British electronic music DJ Collective originally from Swansea.
Hybrid are: Mike Truman, Chris Healings & Charlotte Truman
The Music
The Music
The Walls & Characters

Are there to tell a much more interesting story than merely define the physical space.

Help us to portray the emotional state of our characters.

They undulate as Cassio gets more and more drunk, showing his confusion and uncertainty.

Slowly closing in around Othello as he begins to lose his grip on reality.

It takes 4 people to operate this complex set backstage.
The Walls
Othello Trailer 2014
Creating a New World

The interior of the pub creates the world our characters inhabit.

The 80s 'fake regency' wall paper denotes the 'tacky aspirational' quality of the estate pub.

This set allows us to also see other areas of the pub such as the car park & pub toilet.

Marketing Image
Marketing Image
Set Design
The Pool Table
The Walls
The Music
Marketing Image
www.hybridsoundsystem.com
@hybridscores
Our Othello Soundtrack Includes
By Hybrid
Just for Today
Formula of Fear
All I want
Evacuating London
Snyper

The Pool Table
The Walls

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
What do we want the Image to say? Othello in a contemporary setting like it has never been seen before. The pool table suggests the location of the play The pool table features in the physical set. The pool table is Othello & Desdemonas bed. Physicality of the Production Why the floating image?

# data[].attributes.body
Answer TWO over Easter (but only once you have created your 1,000 word notes)

# data[].attributes.body
From the lovely Mrs Walker's previous students

# data[].attributes.body
From the lovely Mrs Walker's previous students

# data[].attributes.body
From the lovely Mrs Walker's previous students

# data[].attributes.body
From the lovely Mrs Walker's previous students

# data[].attributes.body
Where Othello was first performed

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Visit this site dedicated to providing information about Whitehall Playhouse Theatre.Fast and accurate facts about Whitehall Playhouse Theatre. Learn about Whitehall Playhouse Theatre.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The first performance of Othello occurred on November 1, 1604, at Whitehall Palace in London.It became very popular and was one of the twenty plays performed by the King's Men during the winter of 1612 in celebration of the wedding of Princess Elizabeth and Frederick V, Elector Palatine. During the Restoration Margaret Hughes, playing Desdemona, was the first woman to appear on a public stage in England. The most famous American production is Margaret Webster's production in 1943 featuring Paul Robeson as Othello and Jose Ferrer as Iago. This production was the first ever in America to feature a black actor playing Othello with an otherwise all-white cast. It ran for 296 performances, almost twice as long as any other Shakespearean play ever produced on Broadway. Robeson went on to perform the role several more times in Britain.

One of the most proclaimed performances of the role of Othello during the twentieth century was Laurence Olivier's at the Royal National Theatre in 1964. The film version still holds the record for the most Oscar nominations for acting ever given to a Shakespeare film. In 1999 Ray Fearon became the first black British actor to take the part, the first black man to play Othello with the RSC since Paul Robeson.

In the twenty-first century there was a performance for which tickets were selling for £2000 on the internet. It was at the Donmar Warehouse in London, directed by Michael Grandage with Chiwetel Ejiofor as Othello and Ewan McGregor as Iago. The latest big hit as Othello is the British Black comedian, Lenny Henry.

Other Manifestations of Othello

There have been many operas and ballets based on Othello. The most notable of those is Verdi's opera, Otello, an Italian Grand Opera in four acts, widely thought to be Verdi's greatest opera. The American actor, William Marshall played Othello in a jazz musical version, Catch My Soul, with Jerry Lee Lewis as Iago, in Los Angeles in 1968. His Othello was captured on record in 1964 withJay Robinson as Iago and on video in 1981 with Ron Moody as Iago.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The first performance of Othello occurred on November 1, 1604, at Whitehall Palace in London. It became very popular and was one of the twenty plays performed by the King's Men during the winter of 1612 in celebration of the wedding of Princess Elizabeth and Frederick V, Elector Palatine.

# data[].attributes.body
http://www.shmoop.com/othello/themes.html

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Be sure to check out this study guide walking through various themes for Othello by William Shakespeare.

# data[].attributes.body
http://www.shakespeare-online.com/plays/othello/stagehistoryothello.html

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The Fascinating Stage History of Othello
According to the Accounts of the Master of the Revels (published in 1842), Othello was performed in 1604. The full entry reads: "By the King's Majesty's Players. Hallowmas Day, being the first of November, a play in the banqueting house at Whitehall called The Moor of Venice." Other evidence supports the fact that Shakespeare wrote the play in or before 1604. As William Rolfe explains in his book A Life of William Shakespeare:
Stokes (Chronological Order of Shakespeare's Plays) shows that it was written before 1606 by the fact that in the quarto of 1622 (i.1.4) we find the oath "S'blood" (God's blood), while this is omitted in the folio. This indicates that the quarto was printed from a copy made before the act of Parliament issued in 1606 against the abuse of the name of God in plays, etc. So "Zounds" and "by the mass" (in ii.3) are found in the quarto but not in the folio (293).
Eighteen years passed before Othello was first put into print in 1622 by Thomas Walkley. Walkley's was a quarto edition, known as Q1, and it was the last Shakespearean edition of a single play before the collected edition, known as the First Folio (printed by Heminge and Condell in 1623). Othello was one of Shakespeare's most popular plays throughout the 17th century. The preface to the first quarto tells us that the play "had beene diverse times acted at the Globe, and at the Blackfriars by his Majesties Servants", and the Allusion Book records that from 1591 to 1700, Hamlet is referred to most often in contemporary literature at 95 times, while Othello is fifth with 56 references (Brooke, 176).

The famous Renaissance actor Richard Burbage was the first Othello, and was amazing in the role according to tributes made to Burbage after his death in 1619. Through the Restoration and Queen Anne periods a number of great actors played the role of Othello, but only one was able to live up to Burbage: Thomas Betterton. Colley Cibber wrote that Betterton was "an actor as Shakespeare was an author, both without competitors, formed for the mutual assistance and illustrations of each other's genius."

We have no record of the first Iago, but Joseph Taylor, an actor with the King's Men from 1619, was acclaimed in the role of the voluble villain, and during the Restoration Michael Mohun's portrayal of Iago was extremely popular.

One performance of Othello, produced in 1660, starred an actress by the name of Margaret Hughes 1 in the role of Desdemona. This production is of particular importance because it marked the first time a woman was accepted on the English stage. Before this, all the characters, whether male or female, were played exclusively by men. 2

Othello remained very popular throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, and many of the most brilliant actors of the time sought the role of the Moor; the most famous being Edmund Kean, the great tragic thespian, who also gave noted performances as Richard III, Macbeth, Lear, and Hamlet. His son, Charles John Kean, was also an actor and theatre manager. The following is a vivid description of Kean's performance as Othello by 19th-century writer Gabriel Harrison:
"He amazed his hearers by its loudness and his wonderful rapidity of enunciation of syllables and words. In his rage of jealousy, fire streamed from his eyes, and the emotions of his body were so great that he shook the spangles from off his silk tunic. His was the intellectual face - a face expressing the deep-cut lines of thought; lines that had been helped to their peculiar formation, perhaps more by the struggle, turmoil and worriment of life than by any of the more soothing and tender passions and sentiment which would form the face of one whose life had been more fortunate. His eyes were polished jets, large and penetrating, and produced an instant effect. There was no expression of love in them. Deceit, anger and revenge was their field of power. Coleridge said that "seeing Kean act was like reading Shakespeare by lightning-flashes, so brilliant and so startling were the sudden illuminations, and so murky the dull intervals" (55).
Tragically, during a performance of Othello at Covent Garden in 1833, Edmund Kean collapsed on stage into the arms of his son who was playing Iago, and died a few weeks later.

Junius Brutus Booth was another noted 19th century Shakespearean actor who brought a strong interpretation of the Moor to America. William C. Macready played Othello and Iago, as well as all of Shakespeare's other great creations. He was the first to pay specific attention to Othello's moorish garb. In the early 20th century the most acclaimed portrayal of Othello was by Paul Robeson, the distinguished actor and civil rights advocate. Robeson won the Donaldson Award for outstanding lead performance in 1944 for Othello, and the American Academy of Arts and Letters medal in 1944, to name but a couple. James Earl Jones, Laurence Olivier and Laurence Fishburne have also made memorable the character of Othello.

Othello has made the transition from stage to film over twenty times this century, and from stage to television at least five times.

________

FYI: William C. Macready's fight with fellow thespian Edwin Forrest caused the worst case of murder and mayhem in the history of theatre: the Astor House Riot.
________

Notes
1. Some historians give her name as Anne Marshall; see Lowe, p. 51 for more on the discrepancy.
2. As Sir Sidney Lee points out, the practice of boys playing female roles on the English stage ended completely in January, 1661 ( Shakespeare and the Modern Stage, p.89).

How to cite this article:
Mabillard, Amanda.The History of Othello Shakespeare Online. 10 Aug. 2008. < http://www.shakespeare-online.com/plays/othello/othellohistory.html >.
Further Reading
Brooke, Tucker. In Othello. New Haven: Yale UP, 1947.
Harrison, Gabriel. Edwin Forrest the actor and the man. Brooklyn, New York: 1889.
Lee, Sidney. The Metre of Macbeth: Blank Verse and Rhymed Lines
Contemporary References to King James I in Macbeth
The Royal Patent that Changed Shakespeare's Life
Aesthetic Examination Questions on Macbeth

Quotes About Shakespeare
Shakespeare Timeline
Edward Alleyn (Actor)
William Kempe (Actor)

Shakespeare's Boss
Shakespeare's Audience
What is Tragic Irony?
Characteristics of Elizabethan Tragedy
Shakespeare and the Modern Stage. London: J. Murray, 1906.
Lowe, Robert."Their Majesties' servants." Annals of the English Stage. Philadelphia, McKay Publishing, 1890.
Shakespeare, William. The Tragedy of Othello. Ed. G. Lyman Kitteridge. Toronto: Blaisdell Publishing, 1966.
Winter, William. Shakespeare on the Stage. New York: Moffat, Yard and Co., 1911.

__________

More Resources

More to Explore
Play Construction and the Suffering of Desdemona
Othello's Jealousy
Othello: Plot Summary
Othello: Q & A

Quotes from Othello
How to Pronounce the Names in Othello
Iago Character Introduction
Othello Character Introduction

Desdemona Character Introduction
Othello: Essay Topics
Shakespeare's Sources for Othello
The Problem of Time in Othello

The Chronology of Shakespeare's Plays
Establishing the Order of the Plays
Settings of Shakespeare's Plays by Location
Historical Settings of Shakespeare's Plays by Date

Why Shakespeare is so Important
Shakespeare in Old English?
Shakespeare's Influence on Other Writers
Daily Life in Shakespeare's London

Life in Stratford (structures and guilds)
Life in Stratford (trades, laws, furniture, hygiene)
Four Periods of Shakespeare's Life
Stratford School Days: What Did Shakespeare Read?

Games in Shakespeare's England [A-L]
Games in Shakespeare's England [M-Z]
An Elizabethan Christmas
Clothing in Elizabethan England

Queen Elizabeth: Shakespeare's Patron
King James I of England: Shakespeare's Patron
The Earl of Southampton: Shakespeare's Patron
Going to a Play in Elizabethan London

Ben Jonson and the Decline of the Drama
Publishing in Elizabethan England
Shakespeare's Audience
Religion in Shakespeare's England

Alchemy and Astrology in Shakespeare's Day
Entertainment in Elizabethan England
London's First Public Playhouse
Shakespeare Hits the Big Time

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
othello junius brutus booth othello actors othello covent garden kean

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The History of William Shakespeare's Othello

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Learn about Othello's troubled past, the first Iago and much more.

# data[].attributes.body
The Othello Rap

by the Reduced Shakespeare Company

Here's the story of a brother by the name of
Othello.

He liked white women and he liked green Jell-O.

And a punk named Iago who made himself a menace

Because he didn't like Othello, the Moor of Venice.

Now Othello got married to a chick named Desdemona.

But he went off to the wars and he left her alona.

It was a mona--

A groana--

He left her alona.

He didn't write a letter and didn't telefona.

Desdemona she was fearful, she was chastity-tight.

She was the daughter of the Duke. Yeah, she was
totally white.

Now Othello loved Desi like Adonis loved Venus.

And Desi loved Othello --

'Cuz he had a big sword.

He said, I'm gonna shaft the Moor.

How're you gonna do it? Tell us.

Well, I know his tragic flaw: He's too damn jealous.

I need a dupe, I need a dope, I need a kind of a
schmo.

So he found himself a chump sucker by the name of
Cassio.

So he plants on him Desdemona's handkerchiefs.

So Othello starts to wondering just maybe if

while he's been out fighting, Commanding an army.

Desi and Cass were playing hide the salami.

Salami, salami, s-s-salami.

So he comes back home and stuck a pillow on her
face.

Kills her and soliloquizes 'bout his disgrace.

But there's Amelia at the door who we met in Act IV.

Who says, "You big dummy. She weren't no
ho."

She was pure, clean, virginal too.

So why'd you have to go and make her face turn blue?

It's true.

It's you.

Now what you gonna do?

And Othello says, Damn, this is getting pretty
scary.

So he pulled out a blade and committed hara-kiri.

Do that funky Moor thing, white boy.

Iago got caught but he probably copped a plea.

Loaded up his bags

And moved to Beverly.

Hills, that is.

We have been the Reduced Shakespeare Company.

# data[].attributes.body
By the Reduced Shakespeare Company

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
RSC - William Shakespeare (Abridged) 05 Othello Rap

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
RSC - William Shakespeare (Abridged) 05 Othello Rap.

# data[].attributes.body
<---------- Maybe a little easier than this  one (as I found the other TOUGHT!

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
© 2018 Shmoop University, Inc. All rights reserved.

# data[].attributes.body
http://www.sparknotes.com/shakespeare/othello/quiz.html

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Othello: Full Book Quiz: Quick Quiz | SparkNotes

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Test your knowledge on all of Othello. Perfect prep for Othello quizzes and tests you might have in school.

# data[].attributes.body
Totes popular Shakespearean Theatre

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Blackfriars Theatre: Shakespeare's Winter Home

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Information about the winter home of Shakespeare's acting troupe, Blackfriars Theatre.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Lighting the Shakespearean Stage, 1567 - 1642

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
In Lighting the Shakespearean Stage, 1567-1642,R. B. Graves examines the lighting of early modern English drama from both historical and aesthetic perspectives. He traces the contrasting traditions of sunlit amphitheaters and candlelit hall playhouses, describes the different lighting techniques, and estimates the effect of these techniques both indoors and outdoors.

# data[].attributes.body
I found a helpful link for Elizabethan costume

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Visit this site dedicated to providing information about Elizabethan Costume.Fast and accurate details and facts about Elizabethan Costume.Learn the facts about Elizabethan Costume.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Motley Collection of Theatre and Costume Design | Digital Collections at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Library

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Motley Collection of Theatre and Costume Design

# data[].attributes.body
This is brilliant!

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The Fascinating Stage History of Othello
According to the Accounts of the Master of the Revels (published in 1842), Othello was performed in 1604. The full entry reads: "By the King's Majesty's Players. Hallowmas Day, being the first of November, a play in the banqueting house at Whitehall called The Moor of Venice." Other evidence supports the fact that Shakespeare wrote the play in or before 1604. As William Rolfe explains in his book A Life of William Shakespeare:
Stokes (Chronological Order of Shakespeare's Plays) shows that it was written before 1606 by the fact that in the quarto of 1622 (i.1.4) we find the oath "S'blood" (God's blood), while this is omitted in the folio. This indicates that the quarto was printed from a copy made before the act of Parliament issued in 1606 against the abuse of the name of God in plays, etc. So "Zounds" and "by the mass" (in ii.3) are found in the quarto but not in the folio (293).
Eighteen years passed before Othello was first put into print in 1622 by Thomas Walkley. Walkley's was a quarto edition, known as Q1, and it was the last Shakespearean edition of a single play before the collected edition, known as the First Folio (printed by Heminge and Condell in 1623). Othello was one of Shakespeare's most popular plays throughout the 17th century. The preface to the first quarto tells us that the play "had beene diverse times acted at the Globe, and at the Blackfriars by his Majesties Servants", and the Allusion Book records that from 1591 to 1700, Hamlet is referred to most often in contemporary literature at 95 times, while Othello is fifth with 56 references (Brooke, 176).

The famous Renaissance actor Richard Burbage was the first Othello, and was amazing in the role according to tributes made to Burbage after his death in 1619. Through the Restoration and Queen Anne periods a number of great actors played the role of Othello, but only one was able to live up to Burbage: Thomas Betterton. Colley Cibber wrote that Betterton was "an actor as Shakespeare was an author, both without competitors, formed for the mutual assistance and illustrations of each other's genius."

We have no record of the first Iago, but Joseph Taylor, an actor with the King's Men from 1619, was acclaimed in the role of the voluble villain, and during the Restoration Michael Mohun's portrayal of Iago was extremely popular.

One performance of Othello, produced in 1660, starred an actress by the name of Margaret Hughes 1 in the role of Desdemona. This production is of particular importance because it marked the first time a woman was accepted on the English stage. Before this, all the characters, whether male or female, were played exclusively by men. 2

Othello remained very popular throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, and many of the most brilliant actors of the time sought the role of the Moor; the most famous being Edmund Kean, the great tragic thespian, who also gave noted performances as Richard III, Macbeth, Lear, and Hamlet. His son, Charles John Kean, was also an actor and theatre manager. The following is a vivid description of Kean's performance as Othello by 19th-century writer Gabriel Harrison:
"He amazed his hearers by its loudness and his wonderful rapidity of enunciation of syllables and words. In his rage of jealousy, fire streamed from his eyes, and the emotions of his body were so great that he shook the spangles from off his silk tunic. His was the intellectual face - a face expressing the deep-cut lines of thought; lines that had been helped to their peculiar formation, perhaps more by the struggle, turmoil and worriment of life than by any of the more soothing and tender passions and sentiment which would form the face of one whose life had been more fortunate. His eyes were polished jets, large and penetrating, and produced an instant effect. There was no expression of love in them. Deceit, anger and revenge was their field of power. Coleridge said that "seeing Kean act was like reading Shakespeare by lightning-flashes, so brilliant and so startling were the sudden illuminations, and so murky the dull intervals" (55).
Tragically, during a performance of Othello at Covent Garden in 1833, Edmund Kean collapsed on stage into the arms of his son who was playing Iago, and died a few weeks later.

Junius Brutus Booth was another noted 19th century Shakespearean actor who brought a strong interpretation of the Moor to America. William C. Macready played Othello and Iago, as well as all of Shakespeare's other great creations. He was the first to pay specific attention to Othello's moorish garb. In the early 20th century the most acclaimed portrayal of Othello was by Paul Robeson, the distinguished actor and civil rights advocate. Robeson won the Donaldson Award for outstanding lead performance in 1944 for Othello, and the American Academy of Arts and Letters medal in 1944, to name but a couple. James Earl Jones, Laurence Olivier and Laurence Fishburne have also made memorable the character of Othello.

Othello has made the transition from stage to film over twenty times this century, and from stage to television at least five times.

________

FYI: William C. Macready's fight with fellow thespian Edwin Forrest caused the worst case of murder and mayhem in the history of theatre: the Astor House Riot.
________

Notes
1. Some historians give her name as Anne Marshall; see Lowe, p. 51 for more on the discrepancy.
2. As Sir Sidney Lee points out, the practice of boys playing female roles on the English stage ended completely in January, 1661 ( Shakespeare and the Modern Stage, p.89).

How to cite this article:
Mabillard, Amanda.The History of Othello Shakespeare Online. 10 Aug. 2008. < http://www.shakespeare-online.com/plays/othello/othellohistory.html >.
Further Reading
Brooke, Tucker. In Othello. New Haven: Yale UP, 1947.
Harrison, Gabriel. Edwin Forrest the actor and the man. Brooklyn, New York: 1889.
Lee, Sidney. The Metre of Macbeth: Blank Verse and Rhymed Lines
Contemporary References to King James I in Macbeth
The Royal Patent that Changed Shakespeare's Life
Aesthetic Examination Questions on Macbeth

Quotes About Shakespeare
Shakespeare Timeline
Edward Alleyn (Actor)
William Kempe (Actor)

Shakespeare's Boss
Shakespeare's Audience
What is Tragic Irony?
Characteristics of Elizabethan Tragedy
Shakespeare and the Modern Stage. London: J. Murray, 1906.
Lowe, Robert."Their Majesties' servants." Annals of the English Stage. Philadelphia, McKay Publishing, 1890.
Shakespeare, William. The Tragedy of Othello. Ed. G. Lyman Kitteridge. Toronto: Blaisdell Publishing, 1966.
Winter, William. Shakespeare on the Stage. New York: Moffat, Yard and Co., 1911.

__________

More Resources

More to Explore
Play Construction and the Suffering of Desdemona
Othello's Jealousy
Othello: Plot Summary
Othello: Q & A

Quotes from Othello
How to Pronounce the Names in Othello
Iago Character Introduction
Othello Character Introduction

Desdemona Character Introduction
Othello: Essay Topics
Shakespeare's Sources for Othello
The Problem of Time in Othello

The Chronology of Shakespeare's Plays
Establishing the Order of the Plays
Settings of Shakespeare's Plays by Location
Historical Settings of Shakespeare's Plays by Date

Why Shakespeare is so Important
Shakespeare in Old English?
Shakespeare's Influence on Other Writers
Daily Life in Shakespeare's London

Life in Stratford (structures and guilds)
Life in Stratford (trades, laws, furniture, hygiene)
Four Periods of Shakespeare's Life
Stratford School Days: What Did Shakespeare Read?

Games in Shakespeare's England [A-L]
Games in Shakespeare's England [M-Z]
An Elizabethan Christmas
Clothing in Elizabethan England

Queen Elizabeth: Shakespeare's Patron
King James I of England: Shakespeare's Patron
The Earl of Southampton: Shakespeare's Patron
Going to a Play in Elizabethan London

Ben Jonson and the Decline of the Drama
Publishing in Elizabethan England
Shakespeare's Audience
Religion in Shakespeare's England

Alchemy and Astrology in Shakespeare's Day
Entertainment in Elizabethan England
London's First Public Playhouse
Shakespeare Hits the Big Time

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
othello junius brutus booth othello actors othello covent garden kean

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The History of William Shakespeare's Othello

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Learn about Othello's troubled past, the first Iago and much more.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Here is a brief plot summary of Othello:

In the opening scene, Iago complains to Roderigo that Othello, his Commander, has passed him over to promote the handsome young Cassio to be his Lieutenant. He vows to get revenge. Iago first asks Roderigo to tell Desdemona's father, Brabantio, that his daughter has left to marry Othello, a marriage Brabantio opposes because Othello is a Moor. Brabantio confronts Othello, and they take their argument to the Duke, who has summoned Othello to ask him to sail to Cyprus to stop a Turkish invasion. Convinced by Othello and Desdemona that they love each other deeply despite their differences, the Duke gives Desdemona permission to travel with Othello. By the time they reach Cyprus the foreign threat has gone.

Iago manipulates Cassio to make him drunk and gets Roderigo to draw him into a street fight. Iago has his revenge on Cassio when Othello strips Cassio of his rank for misbehavior. Then Iago decides to make Othello believe his wife is unfaithful. He encourages Cassio to ask Desdemona to plead with Othello to be reinstated. Iago suggests to Othello that Desdemona is Cassio's lover. Trusting Iago, and mad with jealousy, Othello promotes Iago and asks Iago to help him kill Cassio and Desdemona.

Iago plants Desdemona's handkerchief in Cassio's room. Cassio gives it to his mistress, Bianca. Othello believes Bianca's possession of the handkerchief is proof that Desdemona and Cassio are lovers. He verbally abuses his wife in front of others, who are shocked at the change in the noble and powerful man.

Iago has manipulated Roderigo into trying to kill Cassio. The attempt goes wrong, and Cassio wounds Roderigo; Iago stabs Cassio in the leg. Othello hears Cassio cry out and thinks Iago has killed him. He returns home, ready to kill Desdemona. Meanwhile, Iago "finds" the wounded Cassio and accuses Bianca of causing Cassio's injury. Iago quietly kills Roderigo and sends Emilia (Iago's wife) to Desdemona with news of what has happened.

Othello reaches the sleeping Desdemona first. He kisses her, wakes her, and accuses her again. Over her protests that she loves him and is innocent, he smothers her. Emilia enters and Desdemona revives for a moment, declaring herself guiltless but saying, as she dies, that Othello is innocent of her death. Iago and others enter, and Emilia defends Desdemona's innocence, recognizing that Iago is behind the tragedy.Othello sees the truth and tries to kill Iago. Iago kills Emilia and flees; Othellocondemns himself and commits suicide. Iago is seized and taken away.

See Othello translated to modern English >>

See summaries of Shakespeare's other plays >>

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Plot summary of Shakespeare's Othello: In the opening scene, Iago complains to Roderigo that Othello, his Commander, has passed him over to promote the handsome young Cassio to be his Lieutenant. He vows to get revenge. Iago first asks Roderigo...

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The first performance of Othello occurred on November 1, 1604, at Whitehall Palace in London.It became very popular and was one of the twenty plays performed by the King's Men during the winter of 1612 in celebration of the wedding of Princess Elizabeth and Frederick V, Elector Palatine. During the Restoration Margaret Hughes, playing Desdemona, was the first woman to appear on a public stage in England. The most famous American production is Margaret Webster's production in 1943 featuring Paul Robeson as Othello and Jose Ferrer as Iago. This production was the first ever in America to feature a black actor playing Othello with an otherwise all-white cast. It ran for 296 performances, almost twice as long as any other Shakespearean play ever produced on Broadway. Robeson went on to perform the role several more times in Britain.

One of the most proclaimed performances of the role of Othello during the twentieth century was Laurence Olivier's at the Royal National Theatre in 1964. The film version still holds the record for the most Oscar nominations for acting ever given to a Shakespeare film. In 1999 Ray Fearon became the first black British actor to take the part, the first black man to play Othello with the RSC since Paul Robeson.

In the twenty-first century there was a performance for which tickets were selling for £2000 on the internet. It was at the Donmar Warehouse in London, directed by Michael Grandage with Chiwetel Ejiofor as Othello and Ewan McGregor as Iago. The latest big hit as Othello is the British Black comedian, Lenny Henry.

Other Manifestations of Othello

There have been many operas and ballets based on Othello. The most notable of those is Verdi's opera, Otello, an Italian Grand Opera in four acts, widely thought to be Verdi's greatest opera. The American actor, William Marshall played Othello in a jazz musical version, Catch My Soul, with Jerry Lee Lewis as Iago, in Los Angeles in 1968. His Othello was captured on record in 1964 withJay Robinson as Iago and on video in 1981 with Ron Moody as Iago.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The first performance of Othello occurred on November 1, 1604, at Whitehall Palace in London. It became very popular and was one of the twenty plays performed by the King's Men during the winter of 1612 in celebration of the wedding of Princess Elizabeth and Frederick V, Elector Palatine.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Shakespeare's actors had to compete against the noise of the crowd who shouted, hurled oranges and tried to join in with their performance on the stage.

People from all classes went to the theatre. The general public would pay a penny to stand close to the stage and interact with the actors. The gentry would pay to sit in the galleries, bringing cushions to make themselves more comfortable.

Writers and actors

The writers of the Elizabethan era worked in a very different way than playwrights today. Instead of producing a play independently, they were first required to present a company with their idea for a plot. The leading actors and managers would then decide whether they liked it or not, and offer a down payment for its completion.

This close relationship between the writer and the performers meant that writers created their characters with certain actors in mind. For example, knowing that Richard Burbage was the Chamberlain's leading man, and that he had a good memory for long scripts, Shakespeare created the parts of Richard III and Hamlet for him. And as the actor grew older, Shakespeare made his characters more mature. There was a large gap between the young Desdemona and the ageing Othello.

When Shakespeare finished a play it was not distributed to the actors in books. Instead, each player received his own 'role', which was a long sheet of parchment with his lines written on. This meant that he would not see who else was going to be on the stage until they actually rehearsed the scene. This would seem very strange today - reading a play for the first time, actors were unable to flick through the pages to see who entered when, and what happened next.

Rehearsals were used to sort out the details not specified in the script. Entrances, exits, costumes, and songs were all expected to be filled in by the actors.

There was an area behind the stage called the tiring house which was used for changing costume during the play. The actors prided themselves on the accessories they wore, and the company even bought clothes from Lords and Knights, to wear on the stage. In 1599 a Swiss visitor called Thomas Platter saw the Lord Chamberlain's production of Julius Caesar and reported that 'the actors are most expensively and elaborately costumed'.

The Globe

This production of Julius Caesar, performed on 21 September 1599 may have been the first production shown at the Globe (which had been constructed earlier that year). Constructed out of timber from their previous playhouse 'The Theatre', it could house up to 3,000 spectators and was the most magnificent venue London had ever seen.

The stage was covered in straw and measured approximately 43ft in width by 27ft in depth, with the audience standing on all three sides. The wall at the back of the stage had a door on both sides for entrances and exits, and a central opening that was normally covered with hangings. Above the stage there was a trapdoor and a windlass for lowering performers down to the stage and, on the stage itself, there was a trapdoor for surprise appearances!

A reconstruction of the Globe stands on London's South Bank. For more information, visit the Shakespeare's Globe website.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Performing Shakespeare in the 17th Century | Royal Shakespeare Company

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Shakespeare's actors had to compete against the noise of the crowd who shouted, hurled oranges and tried to join in with their performance on the stage. People from all classes went to the theatre. The general public would pay a penny to stand close to the stage and interact with the actors.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
When Shakespeare arrived in 16th Century London he found a great centre for entertainment.

As well as theatre for all classes, there was sports such as bull and bear-baiting, gambling, dancing and fairs.

Detail from Visscher's View of London, 1616.

The city culture would have been alive with painters, actors and writers. The theatre was becoming an institution popular with all social classes.

Theatre audiences

Playgoing was part of the city's daily life and all levels of society shared the experiences of the theatre.

Aristocrats were familiar with the dramas of the day from acting parts at school, seeing plays at Court and, later, becoming patrons of the stage. Apprentices and merchants also enjoyed the theatre and often took an afternoon off work to go and see a play.

New playhouses and companies of actors

Consequently, when Shakespeare began working in London around 1588 the market was good for new companies and, between 1567 and 1622, nine new outdoor playhouses were built.

Boy companies competed against the adult companies and were actually able to earn more money than their more experienced rivals were. They evolved from a tradition of grammar school performance and choirboy practice and were particularly popular at Court. The three main boy companies were The Children of St. Paul's, The Chapel Children, and The Children of the King's Revels, and they made their biggest impact during the reign of James I.

Shakespeare was part of The Lord Chamberlain's Men. Later called the King's Men, they first worked in The Theatre and then in the Globe. Performing to a potential audience of 3,000 people, they required an interesting and varied stock of repertoire.

Each day the company presented a different play, rehearsing it in the morning before performing it in the afternoon. The quick change in repertoire meant that theatre was produced in a very different way to today.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Elizabethan London | Royal Shakespeare Company

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
When Shakespeare arrived in 16th Century London he found a great centre for entertainment. As well as theatre for all classes, there was sports such as bull and bear-baiting, gambling, dancing and fairs. The city culture would have been alive with painters, actors and writers.

# data[].attributes.body
In-depth research

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Many people are aware of the plays of William Shakespeare along with his famous playhouse, the Globe on London's Bankside. The Shakespearean London Theatres (ShaLT) project can now tell the full story behind the vast theatrical scene that thrilled London for over fifty years during the reigns of Elizabeth I, James I and Charles I. This was an early theatreland that thrived from the 1570s to the closure of all theatres in 1642 when the civil wars began. Without the playhouses of the Shakespearean period, the modern theatreland of London's West End would not have been possible.

This website tells the illustrated story of the playhouses, entrepreneurs, audiences, actors and dramatists that made up this founding theatrical industry. Our downloadable Walking Map gives the locations of all of the London theatres, offering those interested five suggested walks to visit the original London sites, all within two miles' radius of St Paul's.

The ShaLT project also offers further products and activities: a printed version of the map; a smartphone App for use with the map; a series of expert lectures at the V&A Museum from April to August 2013; a series of short filmed documentaries, and a printed, fully-illustrated Guide, available through Amazon.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Many people are aware of the plays of William Shakespeare along with his famous playhouse, the Globe on London's Bankside. The Shakespearean London Theatres (ShaLT) project can now tell the full story behind the vast theatrical scene that thrilled London for over fifty years during the reigns of Elizabeth I, James I and Charles I.

# data[].attributes.body
A little insight on the theme, story and relationships

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Othello 2014 What's On Stage Exclusive: Meet the team

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Othello 2014 was a Frantic Assembly and Theatre Royal Plymouth production Find out more here - http://www.franticassembly.co.uk/prod...

# data[].attributes.body
This is what we're going to see

# data[].attributes.body
Quick summary of the important stuff

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Shakespeare Facts | Shakespeare's Globe | Globe Education / Shakespeare's Globe

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Facts and Fact sheets on William Shakespeare, The Globe theatre and Elizabethan London.

# data[].attributes.body
Their relationship

# data[].attributes.body
Their relationship

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Othello and Iago  | Othello | National Theatre

# data[].attributes.body
With Morpheus from 'The Matrix'!

# data[].attributes.body
Othello at National Theatre

# data[].attributes.body
Follow the hyperlinks in red.

# data[].attributes.body
A comprehensive list

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The Red Lion was an Elizabethan playhouse located in Mile End (part of the modern Borough of Tower Hamlets), just outside the City of London. Built in 1567, by John Brayne, formerly a grocer, this theatre was a short lived attempt to provide a purpose built playhouse for the many Tudor touring theatrical companies.

The Red Lion had been a farm, but a single gallery multi-sided theatre, with a fixed stage 40 feet by 30 feet, standing 5 feet above the audience, was built in the garden of the farmhouse. The stage was equipped with trapdoors, and an attached turret, or fly tower - for aerial stunts and to advertise its presence. The construction cost £20, and while it appears to have been a commercial success, the Red Lion offered little that the prior tradition of playing in inns had not offered, and it was too far from its audiences to be attractive (at the time, the area was open farmland) for visiting in the winter. There is little documentary evidence that it survived beyond the summer season of 1567.

Little is known of the Red Lion, principally, from a lawsuit between Brayne and Edward Stowers, a blacksmith of Averstone, Essex (the modern Alphamstone). Brayne was married to Stowers sister Margaret. The suit concerned six acres of land straddling the Essex-Suffolk border, and alleged that Brayne raised a mortgage on the land, by trickery, in order to build the Red Lion.

The venture was soon replaced by a more successful collaboration between Brayne and another brother-in-law, the actor-manager James Burbage at Shoreditch, known as The Theatre. The Red Lion was a receiving house for touring companies, whereas The Theatre accepted long term engagements, essentially in repertory, with companies being based there. The former was a continuation of the tradition of touring groups, performing at inns and grand houses, the later a radically new form of theatrical engagement.

The Theatre was an Elizabethan playhouse located in Shoreditch (part of the modern Borough of Hackney), just outside the City of London. Built by actor-manager James Burbage, near the family home in Holywell Street, The Theatre is considered the first theatre built in London for the sole purpose of theatrical productions. The Theatre's history includes a number of important acting troupes including the Lord Chamberlain's Men which employed Shakespeare as actor and playwright. After a dispute with the landlord, the theatre was dismantled and the timbers used in the construction of the Globe Theatre on Bankside.

Construction

The Theatre was constructed in 1576 by James Burbage in partnership with his brother-in-law John Brayne on property that had originally been the grounds of the dissolved priory of Halliwell (or Holywell). The location of The Theatre was in Shoreditch, beyond the northern boundary of the City of London and thus outside the jurisdiction of civil authorities who were often opposed to the theatre. This area in the "suburbs of sin" was notorious for licentious behaviour, brothels and gaming houses, and a year later another theatre called The Curtain was built nearby, making the area London's first theatrical and entertainment district.

"This wooden O"

The design of The Theatre was possibly adapted from the inn-yards that had served as playing spaces for actors and/or bear baiting pits. The building was a polygonal wooden building with three galleries that surrounded an open yard. In Shakespeare's Henry V, the chorus' speech describes the theatre as, "This wooden O." From one side of the polygon extended a thrust stage. The Theatre is said to have cost £700 to construct, a considerable sum for the age.

The open yard in front of the stage was cobbled and provided standing room for those paying a penny. For another penny, the audience were allowed into the galleries where they either stood or, for a third penny, could procure a stool. One of the galleries, though sources do not state which, was divided into small compartments that could be used by the wealthy and aristocrats.

History

The Theatre opened in the autumn of 1576, possibly as a venue for Leicester's Men, the acting company of Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester of which James Burbage was a member. In the 1580s the Admiral's Men, of which James Burbage's son, Richard was a member, took up residence. After a disagreement between the company and young Burbage broke out, most of the company left for the Rose Theatre which was under the management of Philip Henslowe.

In 1594, Richard Burbage became the leading actor of the Lord Chamberlain's Men which performed here until 1597. Poet, playwright and actor William Shakespeare was also in the employ of the Company here and some of his his early plays, possibly including an early version of Hamlet (the so-called Ur-Hamlet) were premiered here.

Foundation of the Globe

Towards the end of 1596, problems arose with the property's landlord, one Giles Allen. In consequence, in 1597, the Lord Chamberlain's Men were forced to stop playing at the Theatre and moved to the nearby Curtain. The lease, which had been granted to Richard Burbage and his brother Cuthbert Burbage upon the death of their father, expired the following year. The sight of the deserted Theatre prompted these lines from a minor satirist of the day:

But see yonder,
One like the unfrequented Theatre
Walks in dark silence and vast solitude.

This state of affairs forced the Burbage brothers to take drastic action to save their investment. In defiance of the landlord and with the help of their friend and financial backer William Smith, chief carpenter Peter Street and ten or twelve workman, they dismantled the theatre on the night of the 28th December 1598 and moved the structure piecemeal across the Thames. The pieces of The Theatre were then used in the construction of the Globe Theatre.

No remains of The Theatre survive. Its former site is marked by a plaque at 88-86 Curtain Road, Shoreditch.

The Red Lion

John Brayne, originally a grocer and one of the partners in The Theatre, had built an earlier playhouse in Mile End, called the Red Lion, in 1567. It appears to have been a success, but scant information about it survives.

The Red Lion was a receiving house for touring companies, whereas The Theatre accepted long term engagements, essentially in repertory. The former was considered a continuation of the tradition of playing at inns, the later a radically new form of theatrical engagement.

There is no evidence that the Red Lion continued beyond the summer of 1567, although the law suit, from which we know much of the little we know of it, dragged on until 1578.

The Swan was a theatre in Southwark, London, England, built between 1594 and 1596, during the first half of William Shakespeare's career. It was the fourth in the series of large public playhouses of London, after James Burbage's The Theatre (1576) and Curtain (1577), and Philip Henslowe's Rose (1587-8).

The Swan was located on the west end of the Bankside district of Southwark, across the River Thames from the City of London. It was at the northeast corner of the Paris Garden estate that Francis Langley had purchased in May 1589, east of the manor house, and 150 yards south of the Paris Garden stairs at the river's edge. Langley had the theatre built almost certainy in 1595-6. When it was new, the Swan was the most visually impressive of the existing London theatres. Johannes De Witt, a Dutchman who visited London around 1596, left a description of the Swan in his Observationes Londiniensis. Translated from the Latin, his description identifies the Swan as the "finest and biggest of the London theatres," with a capacity for 3000 spectators. It was built of flint concrete, and its wooden supporting columns were so cleverly painted that "they would deceive the most acute observer into thinking that they were marble," giving the Swan a "Roman" appearance. (De Witt also drew a sketch of the theatre. The original is lost, but a copy by Arendt van Buchell survives, and is the only sketch of an Elizabethan playhouse known to exist. If the Lord Chamberlain's Men acted at the Swan in the summer of 1596-which is possible, though far from certain-they would be the actors shown in the Swan sketch.) When Henslowe built the new Hope Theatre in 1613, he had his carpenter copy the Swan, rather than his own original theatre the Rose, which must have appeared dated and out of style in comparison.

In 1597 the Swan housed the acting company Pembroke's Men, who staged the infamous play The Isle of Dogs, by Thomas Nashe and Ben Jonson, the content of which gave offense for unknown reasons. Jonson was imprisoned, along with Gabriel Spenser (an actor) in the play, and others. Langley, already in trouble with the Privy Council over matters unrelated to theater, may have exacerbated his danger by allowing his company to stage the play after a royal order that all playing stop and all theaters be demolished. This order may have been directed at Langley alone; the other companies, the Lord Chamberlain's Men and the Admiral's Men, had been authorized to return to the stage by October.

Because both court and city were interested in limiting the number of acting troupes in London, and because there was, consequently, a glut of large open-roof venues in the city, the Swan was only intermittently home to drama. Along with The Isle of Dogs, the most famous play to premiere there was Thomas Middleton's A Chaste Maid in Cheapside, performed by the newly-merged Lady Elizabeth's Men and Children of the Queen's Revels (the troupe that had been associated with the Blackfriars Theatre before 1608) in 1613. The theater offered other popular entertainments, such as swashbuckling competitions and bear-baiting, and by 1632 it had been pulled down.

The Rose was an Elizabethan theatre. It was the fourth of the public theatres to be built, after The Theatre (1576), the Curtain (1577), and the theatre at Newington Butts (c. 1580?) - and the first of several playhouses to be situated in Bankside, Southwark, in a liberty outside the jurisdiction of the City of London's civic authorities.

The Rose was built in 1587 by Philip Henslowe and by a grocer named John Cholmley. The theatre was built on a messuage called the "Little Rose," which Henslowe had leased from the parish of St. Mildred in 1585. It contained substantial rose gardens and two buildings; Cholmley used one as a storehouse, while Henslowe appears to have leased the other as a brothel. The building was of timber, with a lath and plaster exterior and thatch roof. It was polygonal in shape, about 21 meters in diameter. City records indicate that it was in use by late 1587; however, it is not mentioned in Henslowe's accounts between its construction and 1592, and it is possible that he leased it to an acting company with which he was not otherwise concerned.

In 1592 Edward Alleyn was acting with a combination of personnel from Lord Strange's Men and the Admiral's Men; this group moved into the Rose in February of 1592. Henslowe enlarged the theatre for the new troupe, moving the stage further back (six feet six inches, or two meters) to make room for perhaps 500 extra spectators. The original Rose was smaller than other theatres, only about two-thirds the size of the original Theatre built eleven years earlier, and its stage was also unusually small; the enlargement addressed both matters. Henslowe paid all the costs himself, indicating that Cholmley was no longer involved - either deceased or bought out. The work was done by the builder John Grigg. The renovation gave the theatre, formerly a regular polygon (with perhaps 14 sides), a distorted egg shape, a "bulging tulip" or "distorted ovoid" floor plan.

The 1592-4 period was difficult for the acting companies of London; a severe outbreak of bubonic plague meant that the London theatres were closed almost continuously from June 1592 to May 1594. The companies were forced to tour to survive, and some, like Pembroke's Men, fell on hard times. By the summer of 1594 the plague had abated, and the companies re-organized themselves, principally into the Lord Chamberlain's Men and the Admiral's Men. The latter troupe, still led by Alleyn, resumed residence at the Rose.

The Rose appears to have differed from other theatres of the era in its ability to stage large scenes on two levels. It is thought that all Elizabethan theatres had a limited capability to stage scenes "aloft," on an upper level at the back of the stage - as with Juliet on her balcony in Romeo and Juliet, II.ii. A minority of Elizabethan plays, however, call for larger assemblies of actors on the higher second level - as with the Roman Senators looking down upon Titus in the opening scene of Titus Andronicus. An unusual concentration of plays with the latter sort of staging requirement can be associated with the Rose, indicating that the Rose had an enhanced capacity for this particularity of stagecraft.

The Rose was home to the Admiral's Men for several years. When the Lord Chamberlain's Men built the Globe Theatre on the Bankside in 1599, however, the Rose was put into a difficult position. Prompted by complaints from city officials, the Privy Council decreed in June 1600 that only two theatres would be allowed for stage plays: the Globe in Bankside, and the Fortune Theatre in Middlesex - specifically, Shoreditch. Henslowe and Alleyn had already built the Fortune, apparently to fill the vacuum created when the Chamberlain's Men left Shoreditch. The Rose was used briefly by Worcester's Men in 1602 and 1603; when the lease ran out on The Rose in 1605 it was abandoned. The playhouse may have been pulled down as early as 1606.

In 1989, the remains of the Rose were threatened with destruction by building development. A campaign to save the site was launched by several well-known theatrical figures, including Peggy Ashcroft and Laurence Olivier. It was eventually decided to build over the top of the theatre's remains, leaving them conserved beneath.

The handling of the Rose Theatre by government, archaeologists and the developer provided impetus for the legitimisation of archaeology in the development process and led the Conservative government of Margaret Thatcher to introduce PPG 16 in an attempt to manage archaeology in the face of development threat.

The foundations of the Rose are covered in a few inches of water to keep the ground from developing major cracks, but it is used for performances with actors performing around the perimeter of the site. When the Museum of London carried out the excavation work, the staff found many objects which are now stored in the museum itself. (Portions of the theatre's foundations were deeply littered with hazelnut shells - apparently, hazel nuts were the popcorn of English Renaissance drama.)

In 1999, the site was re-opened to the public, underneath the controversial new development. Work continues to excavate this historic site further and to secure its future.

The original Globe was an Elizabethan theatre which opened in Autumn 1599 in Southwark, on the south bank of the Thames, in an area now known as Bankside. It was one of several major theatres that were located in the area, the others being the Swan, the Rose and The Hope. The Globe was the principal playhouse of the Lord Chamberlain's Men (who would become the King's Men in 1603). Most of Shakespeare's post-1599 plays were staged at the Globe, including Julius Caesar, Macbeth, Othello, King Lear and Hamlet.

The Globe was owned by many actors, who (except for one) were also shareholders in the Lord Chamberlain's Men. Two of the six Globe shareholders, Richard Burbage and his brother Cuthbert Burbage, owned double shares of the whole, or 25% each; the other four men, Shakespeare, John Heminges, Augustine Phillips, and Thomas Pope, owned a single share, or 12.5%. (Originally William Kempe was intended to be the seventh partner, but he sold out his share to the four minority sharers, leaving them with more than the originally planned 10%). These initial proportions changed over time, as new sharers were added. Shakespeare's share diminished from 1/8 to 1/14, or roughly 7%, over the course of his career.

The Globe was built in 1599 using timber from an earlier theatre, The Theatre, that had been built by Richard Burbage's father, James Burbage, in Shoreditch in 1576. The Burbages originally had a 20-year lease of the site on which the Theatre was built. When the lease ran out, they dismantled The Theatre beam by beam and transported it over the Thames to reconstruct it as The Globe.

On June 29, 1613, the Globe Theatre went up in flames during a performance of Henry the Eighth. 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.

Like all the other theatres in London, the Globe was closed down by the Puritans in 1642. It was destroyed in 1644 to make room for tenements. Its exact location remained unknown until remnants of its foundations were discovered in 1989 beneath the car park of Anchor Terrace on Park Street (the shape of the foundations are replicated in the surface of the car park). There may be further remains beneath Anchor Terrace, but the 18th century terrace is listed and therefore cannot be disturbed by archaeologists.

Layout of the Globe
The Globe's actual dimensions are unknown, but its shape and size can be approximated from scholarly inquiry over the last two centuries. The evidence suggests that it was a three-story, open-air amphitheatre between 97 and 102 feet (29.6 - 31.1M) in diameter that could house up to 3,000 spectators. The Globe is shown as round on Wenceslas Hollar's sketch of the building, later incorporated into his engraved "Long View" of London in 1647. However, in 1997-98, the uncovering of a small part of the Globe's foundation suggested that it was a polygon of 20 (or possibly 18) sides.

At the base of the stage, there was an area called the pit, (or, harking back to the old inn-yards, yard) where, for a penny, people (the "groundlings") would stand to watch the performance. Groundlings would eat hazelnuts during performances - during the excavation of the Globe nutshells were found preserved in the dirt - or oranges. Around the yard were three levels of stadium-style seats, which were more expensive than standing room

A rectangular stage platform, also known as an 'apron stage', thrust out into the middle of the open-air yard. The stage measured approximately 43 feet (13.1m) in width, 27 feet (8.2m) in depth and was raised about 5 feet (1.52m) off the ground. On this stage, there was a trap door for use by performers to enter from the "cellarage" area beneath the stage. There may have been other trap doors around the stage.

Large columns on either side of the stage supported a roof over the rear portion of the stage. The ceiling under this roof was called the "heavens," and may have been painted with clouds and the sky.[citation needed] A trap door in the heavens enabled performers to descend using some form of rope and harness.

The back wall of the stage had two or three doors on the main level, with a curtained inner stage in the center and a balcony above it. The doors entered into the "tiring house" (backstage area) where the actors dressed and awaited their entrances. The balcony housed the musicians and could also be used for scenes requiring an upper space, such as the balcony scene in Romeo and Juliet.

The modern Globe
At the instigation of American actor and director Sam Wanamaker, a new Globe theatre was built according to an Elizabethan plan. The design team comprised Theo Crosby of Pentagram as the architect, Buro Happold as structural and services engineers and Boyden & Co as quantity surveyors. It opened in 1997 under the name "Shakespeare's Globe Theatre" and now stages plays every summer (May to October). Mark Rylance was appointed as the first artistic director of the modern Globe in 1995. In 2006, Dominic Dromgoole took over.

The new theatre on Bankside is approximately 225 yards (205m) from the original site, centre to centre, and was the first thatched roof building permitted in London since the Great Fire of London in 1666.

As in the original Globe, the theatre is open to the sky and has a thrust stage that projects into a large circular yard surrounded by three tiers of steeply raked seating. 700 tickets to stand (and you must stand, no sitting allowed) in the yard are available for every performance at 5 pounds each. The only covered parts of the amphitheatre are the stage and the (more expensive) seated areas. Plays are put on during the summer, usually between May and the first week of October. In the winter the theatre is used for educational purposes. Tours are available all year round.

The reconstruction was carefully researched so that the new building would be as faithful a replica as possible. This was aided by the discovery as final plans were being made of the site of the original Globe itself. Modernisations include the addition of sprinklers on the roof to protect against fire, and the fact that the theatre is partly joined onto a modern lobby, visitors centre and additional backstage support areas. Due to modern Health and Safety regulations 1,300 people can be housed during a show, under half the estimated 3,000 of Shakespeare's time.

Replicas

Globe-Theater, Schwäbisch Hall, Baden-Württemberg, Germany
A number of conjectural replicas or free interpretations of the Globe have been built around the world:
U.S.A.
OSF Elizabethan Theatre, Ashland, Oregon, built in 1935, rebuilt 1947 and 1959
San Diego, Old Globe Theatre, built in 1935[16]
Cedar City, Utah, Adams Shakespearean Theatre
Chicago, Illinois, Chicago Shakespeare Theatre on Navy Pier, built 1999[17]
Dallas, Texas, Old Globe Theatre, built 1936[18]
Odessa, Texas, The Globe Theatre Of The Great Southwest
Williamsburg, Virginia, Globe Theatre, built 1975 in the Banbury Cross section of Busch Gardens Europe [3]
Germany
Neuss am Rhein, Globe Neuss, built 1991
Rust, Baden, Germany (in German), Europa-Park (in German), built 2000
Schwäbisch Hall, Baden-Württemberg
Italy
Rome,[19], built 2003
Czech Republic
Prague, built 1999, burned down in 2005[20]
Japan
Tokyo, Isozakia Arata's Panasonic Globe Theatre in Tokyo, built 1988
Replica of similar Elizabethan theatre:
Waseda University Tsubouchi Shoyo Memorial Library Theatre (a replica of The Fortune Theatre), built early 1900s

The Fortune Playhouse is the name of an historic theatre in London. It was located between Whitecross Street and the modern Golden Lane, just outside the City of London. It was founded about 1600, and suppressed by the Puritan Parliament in 1642.

History

Origins
The Fortune Theatre was contemporary with Shakespeare's Globe, the Swan theatre and others; it stood in the parish of St Giles-without-Cripplegate, to the west of the Shoreditch locations of The Theatre and the Curtain Theatre, between Whitecross Street and Golding Lane just outside the City of London. Between 1600 and 1642, it was among the chief venues for drama in London.

The Fortune was erected as the second half of a substantial realignment of London's chief acting companies. In 1597, the Lord Chamberlain's Men had left, or rather been ejected, from The Theatre; they abandoned Shoreditch and in 1599 constructed a new theatre, the Globe, in Southwark. The Admiral's Men, then playing in the nearby and aging Rose Theatre, suddenly faced stiff competition for Bankside audiences.

At this point, the Admiral's manager Philip Henslowe and his stepson-in-law, the leading actor Edward Alleyn, made plans to move to Shoreditch; Alleyn appears to have funded the new theatre, later selling half-interest to his father-in-law. They paid £240 for a thirty-year lease on a plot of land between tenements on Golding and Whitecross Lane. They hired Peter Street, who had just finished building the Globe, to make them a playhouse. Street was paid £440 for the construction job; with another £80 spent for painting and incidental expenses, the cost of the physical building was £520. The total expenses for the project, including the securing of property rights and clearances of previous leases, came to £1,320. Maintaining the theatre cost about £120 per year in the first decade of its existence.

Because the contract for the construction was preserved among Alleyn's papers, a good deal more is known about the Fortune than about the other outdoor theatres. The document also casts some light on the features of the Globe, since Henslowe and Alleyn planned their theatre with an eye on their rival's venue; many of the details in the contract are for sizes equal to or bigger than the Globe's equivalent.

Design
The plot of land on which the theatre sat was approximately square, 127 feet across and 129 feet deep. The theatre was built on a foundation of lime and brick; square-shaped (uniquely among the period's amphitheatres), each wall measured eighty feet outside and fifty-five within. The building was three stories tall; the first-floor galleries were twelve feet high, those on the second floor eleven; those on the third, nine. Each row of galleries was twelve feet deep. Henslowe and Alleyn specified that the Fortune outdo the Globe "in every point for scantlings"; they also provided, in accordance with common practice, for two-penny rooms and gentlemen's rooms. The building was constructed of lath and plaster, with wood floors in the galleries.
The stage, and tiring-house, were thrust forward into the middle of the square. The tiring-house had glazed windows; the manner of its attachment to the stage is unknown but presumably similar to that of the Swan. The stage was forty-three feet across; it was covered with tile.

First theatre
Henslowe and Alleyn's plans met with considerable opposition from the neighbourhood and city officials. With the aid of their patron, Charles Howard, the Lord Admiral, they secured permission from the Privy Council for the venture. Henslowe seems also to have soothed his neighbors' worries by pledging substantial amounts to charity in the parish.

The theatre housed the Admiral's Men by late 1600, as revealed by correspondence of the Venetian ambassador in London. This troupe remained as tenants for more than two decades, surviving the deaths of both Henslowe and Alleyn, and remaining fairly stable under the successive patronage of Prince Henry and Lord Palsgrave. Upon Henslowe's death, Alleyn assumed full control of the property.

Originally described as the "fairest play-house in the town," the Fortune suffered a slow decline in reputation over the decades. In 1605, notorious roisterer Mary Frith may have appeared on the boards, singing and playing a lute; it is not clear from the consistory court records in which this event is described if the players were a party to her antics. In 1612, the theatre was mentioned by name in a city order suppressing the post-performance jigs, which authorities believed led to fist-fights and thefts. That this belief had some merit is suggested by a case the next year, in which a country farmer stabbed a city gentleman. In 1614, Thomas Tomkiss's academic play Albumazar linked the Fortune and the Red Bull Theatre as raucous places to see old-fashioned fare such as The Spanish Tragedy. The aspersion stuck, as did the conjunction of north-side theatres.

Yet the conventional view should not be exaggerated; on one and perhaps two occasions, ambassadors visited the theatre. On the first and less certain occasion, a member of the Venetian delegation, Orazio Busino, describes a visit in December 1617 to a theatre that may have been the Fortune. On the second, the notorious Gondomar certainly visited Alleyn and the others there in 1621; after the performance the players held a banquet in his honour.

Second theatre
On 9 December 1621, the Fortune burned to the ground, taking with it the company's stock of plays and properties. To meet the £1000 cost of rebuilding, Alleyn formed a partnership of twelve sharers, each paying an initial amount of £83 6s. 8d. By then aged and busy with Dulwich College, he took only one share for himself, and leased the property to the company's sharers for £128 per year. (The shareholders paid Alleyn £10 13s. 10d. each annually, and in return split the profits of the theatre, and the expenses of running it, twelve ways.) The theatre re-opened in March 1623. When Alleyn died in 1626, the College assumed control of the lease; the actor Richard Gunnell became its manager. Yet this change does not appear to have changed operations at the theatre. The new theatre appears to have been made of brick, with a lead and tile roof as fire-proofing measure. It also seems to have been round, abandoning its unconventional square shape.

The reputation of the theatre did not improve after its reconstruction. In 1626, it was the scene of a riot involving sailors, in the course of which a constable was assaulted. In 1628, a protege of Buckingham was assaulted by a mob after leaving a performance there.

In 1631, Palsgrave's Men moved to the playhouse at Salisbury Court; they were replaced at the Fortune by the actors of the King's Revels. The only play definitely associated with this period is a comedy, now lost, by William Heminges, son of John Heminges. In 1635, a company that had been at the Red Bull Theatre occupied the theatre, only to meet a notable run of bad fortune: plague closed the theatres for more than a year, from May 1636 to October 1637. Since they had no income from the theatre, the twelve shareholders in the theatre fell seriously arrears in their payments to Dulwich College, by more than £165.

In 1639, the actors were fined £1000 for depicting a religious ceremony on stage-this depiction was taken as anti-Catholic, but in the late 1630s, almost any reference to religion was risky. This group returned to the Red Bull at Easter 1640, and the remnants of Palsgrave's company, now under the patronage of the young Prince Charles and therefore called Prince Charles's Men, returned to the Fortune.

When Parliament ordered all theatres closed in 1642, the Fortune entered a slow but irreversible decline. The actors at least occasionally violated the order, for they were raided and their property seized during a performance almost a year after the closure; between the expiration of the original order and the enactment of new, more stringent orders in 1649, the players returned to the theatre. In 1649, soldiers pulled down the stage and the gallery seats. By the the Restoration, it had partially collapsed, and the masters of Dulwich sold what remained as scrap.
[edit]Replica theatres

The 1599 contract for building the Fortune Theatre was found in the papers of theatrical manager Philip Henslowe at Dulwich College. The contract gives some overall dimensions of the Fortune but there are no plans or elevations.

The Elizabethan Stage at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, designed by Richard L. Hay, uses the dimensions from the contract but the stage's appearance and arrangements are speculation, as the original plans have never been found.

A further replica is located at the University of Western Australia.

The Curtain Theatre was an Elizabethan playhouse located in Curtain Close, Shoreditch (part of the modern Borough of Hackney), just outside the City of London. It opened in 1577, and continued staging plays until 1622.

The Curtain was built some 200 yards south of London's first playhouse, The Theatre, which had opened a year before, in 1576. (It was called the "Curtain" because it was located near a plot of land called Curtain Close, not because it had the sort of front curtain associated with modern theatres. Elizabethan theatres had small curtained enclosures at the back of their stages; but the large front-curtained Proscenium stage did not appear in England till after the Restoration.)

Little is known of the plays performed at the Curtain or of the playing companies that performed there. Its proprietor seems to have been one Henry Lanman, who is described as a "gentleman." In 1585 Lanman made an agreement with the proprietor of the Theatre, James Burbage, to use the Curtain as a supplementary house, or "easer," to the more prestigious older playhouse.

From 1597 to 1599 it became the premiere venue of Shakespeare's Company, the Lord Chamberlain's Men, who had been forced to leave their former playing space at The Theatre after the latter closed in 1596. It was the venue of several of Shakespeare's plays, including Romeo and Juliet (which gained "Curtain plaudits") and Henry V. In this latter play the somewhat undistinguished Curtain gains immortal fame by being described by Shakespeare as "this wooden O." The Lord Chamberlain's Men also performed Ben Jonson's Every Man in His Humour here in 1598, with Shakespeare in the cast. Later that same year Jonson gained a certain notoriety by killing actor Gabriel Spencer in a duel in nearby Hoxton Fields. The Lord Chamberlain's Men departed the Curtain when the Globe, which they built to replace the Theatre, was ready for use (1599).

As far as is known, Lanman ran the Curtain as a private concern for the first phase of its existence; yet at some point the theatre was re-organized into a shareholders' enterprise. Thomas Pope, one of the Lord Chamberlain's Men, owned a share in the Curtain and left it to his heirs in his last will and testament in 1603. King's Men member John Underwood did the same in 1624. The fact that both of these shareholders belonged to Shakespeare's company may indicate that the re-organization of the Curtain occurred when the Lord Chamberlain's Men were acting there.

In 1603 the Curtain became the playhouse of Queen Anne's Men (formerly known as Worcester's Men, and formerly at the Rose Theatre, where they'd played Heywood's A Woman Kill'd With Kindness in February of that year). In 1607 The Travels of the Three English Brothers, by Rowley, Day, and Wilkins, was performed at the Curtain.

The ultimate fate of the Curtain is obscure. There is no record of it after 1627.

A modern plaque marks its site today, in Hewett Street off Curtain Road.

Blackfriars Theatre was the name of two separate theatres in the Blackfriars district of the City of London during the Renaissance. Both theatres began as venues for child actors associated with the Queen's chapel choirs; in this function, the theatres hosted some of the most innovative drama of Elizabeth and James's reigns, from the euphuism of John Lyly to the stinging satire of Ben Jonson, George Chapman, and John Marston. The second theatre eventually passed into the control of the King's Men, who used it as their winter playhouse until the theatres were closed in 1642.

First Theatre
The Blackfriars Theatres were built on the grounds of the former Dominican monastery; the black robes worn by members of this order lent the neighbourhood, and theatres, their name. In the pre-Reformation Tudor years, the site was used not only for religious but also for political functions--perhaps most notably, the divorce trial of Catherine and Henry VIII which would, more than a century later, be reenacted in the same room by Shakespeare's company. After Henry's expropriation of monastic property, the monastery became the property of the crown; control of the property was granted to Thomas Cawarden, Master of the Revels. Cawarden used part of the monastery as Revels offices; other parts he sold or leased to the neighbourhood's wealthy residents, including Lord Cobham and John Cheke. After Cawarden's death, the property passed to Sir William More. In 1576, Richard Farrant, then Master of Windsor Chapel leased part of the former buttery from More in order to stage plays. As often in the theatrical practice of the time, this commercial enterprise was justified by the convenient fiction of royal necessity; Farrant claimed to need the space for his child choristers to practice plays for the Queen, but he also staged plays for paying audiences. The theatre was small, perhaps 46 feet long and 25 feet wide (14 by 8 metres), and admission, compared to public theatres, expensive (apparently fourpence); both these factors limited attendance at the theatre to a fairly select group of well-to-do gentry and nobles.

For his playing company, Farrant combined his Windsor children with the Children of the Chapel Royal, then directed by William Hunnis. Relatively little is known of their repertoire, except that it presumably included works by Farrant and perhaps Hunnis. The landlord More appears to have remained patient with this use of his property until shortly before Farrant's death in 1580, when More attempted to prove that his tenant had broken the lease. This attempt came to nothing; supported by a letter from Robert Dudley, the widow Ann Farrant was allowed to lease the theater to Hunnis. Hunnis continued to produce plays at the site until 1583, when he sold his lease to Henry Evans. There followed a confused period of legal actions involving Hunnis, Ann Farrant, Evans, and More. The result, apparently orchestrated by Edward de Vere, the Earl of Oxford, placed the theater under the control of Hunnis and de Vere's secretary, playwright John Lyly. Lyly's plays and others were, for a year or two, performed at the theatre before production at court. In 1585, however, More obtained a legal judgement voiding the original lease. The theatre was shut down after this judgement for more than a decade.

Second Theatre
The second Blackfriars was an indoor theatre built elsewhere on the property at the instigation of James Burbage, father of Richard Burbage, and impresario of the Lord Chamberlain's Men. In 1596, Burbage purchased, for £600, the frater of the former priory and rooms below. This large space, perhaps 100 feet long and 50 wide (30 by 15 metres), with high ceilings allowed Burbage to construct two galleries, substantially increasing potential attendance. As Burbage built, however, a petition from the residents of the wealthy neighbourhood persuaded the Privy Council to forbid playing there; the letter was signed even by Lord Hunsdon, patron of Burbage's company. The company was absolutely forbidden to perform there.
Three years later, Richard Burbage was able to lease the property to Henry Evans, the lawyer who had been among those ejected more fifteen years earlier. Evans entered a partnership with Nathaniel Giles, Hunnis's successor at the Chapel Royal. They used the theatre for a commercial enterprise with a group called the Children of the Chapel, which combined the choristers of the chapel with other boys, many taken up from local grammar schools under colour of Giles's warrant to provide entertainment for the Queen. The dubious legality of these dramatic impressments led to a challenge from a father in 1600; however, this method brought the company some of its most famous actors, including Nathaniel Field and Salmon Pavy. The residents did not protest this use, probably because of perceived social differences between the adult and child companies.

While it housed this company, Blackfriars was the site of an explosion of innovative drama and staging. Together with its competitor, Paul's Children, the Blackfriars company produced plays by a number of the most talented young dramatists of Jacobean literature, among them Thomas Middleton, Ben Jonson, George Chapman, and John Marston. Chapman and Jonson wrote almost exclusively for Blackfriars in this period, while Marston began with Paul's but switched to Blackfriars, in which he appears to have been a sharer, by around 1605. In the latter half of the decade, the company at Blackfriars premiered plays by Francis Beaumont (The Knight of the Burning Pestle) and John Fletcher (The Faithful Shepherdess) that, although failures in their first production, marked the first significant appearance of these two dramatists, whose work would profoundly affect early Stuart drama. The new plays of all these playwrights deliberately pushed the accepted boundaries of personal and social satire, of violence on stage, and of sexual frankness. These plays appear to have attracted members of a higher social class than was the norm at the Bankside and Shoreditch theatres, and the admission price (sixpence for a cheap seat) probably excluded the poorer patrons of the amphitheatres. Prefaces and internal references speak of gallants and Inns of Court men, who came not only to see a play but also, of course, to be seen; the private theatres sold seats on the stage itself.

The Blackfriars playhouse was also the source of other innovations which would profoundly change the nature of English commercial staging: it was among the first commercial theatrical enterprises to rely on artificial lighting, and it featured music between acts, a practice which the induction to Marston's The Malcontent (1604) indicates was not common in the public theatres at that time.

In the years around the turn of the century, the children's companies were something of a phenomenon; a reference in Hamlet to "little eyasses" suggests that even the adult companies felt threatened by them. By the later half of that decade, the fashion had changed somewhat. In 1608, Burbage's company (by this time, the King's Men) took possession of the theatre, which they still owned, this time without objections from the neighbourhood. There were originally seven sharers in the reorganised theatre: Richard Burbage, William Shakespeare, Henry Condell, John Heminges, and William Sly, all members of the King's Men, plus Cuthbert Burbage and Thomas Evans, agent for the theatre manager Henry Evans. Sly, however, died soon after the arrangement was made, and his share was divided among the other six.

After renovations, the King's Men began using the theatre for performances in 1609. Thereafter the King's Men played in Blackfriars for the seven months in winter, and at the Globe during the summer. Blackfriars appears to have brought in a little over twice the revenue of the Globe; the shareholders could earn as much as £13 from a single performance, apart from what went to the actors.

In the reign of Charles I, even Queen Henrietta Maria was in the Blackfriars audience. On May 13, 1634 she and her attendants saw a play by Philip Massinger; in late 1635 or early 1636 they saw Lodowick Carlell's Arviragus and Philicia, part 2; and they attended a third performance in May of 1636.

The theatre closed at the onset of the English Civil War, and was demolished on August 6, 1655.

Structure of the second theatre
The nature of Burbage's modifications to his purchase is not clear, and the many contemporary references to the theatre do not offer a precise picture of its design. Once fitted for playing, the space may have been about 66 feet long and 46 feet wide (20 by 14 metres), including tiring areas. There were at least two and possibly three galleries, and perhaps a number of stage boxes adjacent to the stage. Estimates of its capacity have varied from below 600 to almost 1000, depending on the number of galleries and boxes. Perhaps as many as ten spectators would have encumbered the stage.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Details of the Elizabethan Theatres in London during Shakespeare's time.