English Renaissance theatre is considered to be the period between the years 1562 - 1642, Also known as Elizabethan theatre and is mostly known by plays of writers and directors like; William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, and Ben Jonson. In the early days of theatre in England the practice of theatre was prohibited in London, so all plays took place and were performed outside of the city unlike the London we all know in today's day and age. Almost all of the performances were like a circus in the sense that they were constantly on the move from town to town. Only getting paid after the performance by those who enjoyed it. All of this changed when the first successful theatre opened in London in 1576 “The Theatre” The theatre was very much in likeness to the colosseum in Rome but was way smaller and could only host around 1000 people. The theatre was open and plays were only performed during the day. This forced the actors to be larger than life, meaning that they had to portray and really show what was going on to an unreal extent. For example; If the characters were whispering they had to do so in a very loud manner of fashion, or if they enter a dark room they had to point out the fact that is was dark “OH! It is so dark in here I can’t find you!” even if it was broad daylight and everyone could see everyone. It was the spark that England needed to begin the play and theatre culture that we know today. And sometime around the early 1590’s William Shakespeare started releasing his plays for the public to see and what he did changed theatrical plays forever. He combined Tragedies and comedies into “Tragic-Comedy” This was the start of Theatre as we know it today, multiple elements and conventions that made you feel different emotions and think different thoughts.
The plays were built up in a certain way, there were still certain characters just like almost every play before. There was always a King, A princess of some sort, a Leading male character who searches for love and the clown. The convention in English renaissance theatre I will be focusing on is the ‘clown/fool/jester’ The clown in all of these plays always seems to be the most simple one but is always the most clever, mischievous, evil or helpful. The character could always be a platform to turn the plot around, he was always unpredictable or could make things worse or better for any of the characters to get what he wanted. The clown was almost always on the “Kings” side (take The 12th night by William Shakespeare for example) In that play the clown “Feste” is the voice for the play's most important themes. Yet he could fit in and morph into any group to get what he wanted. The clown was the only character with an unclear goal in almost all of these renaissance place, he could also switch is goals multiple times throughout the course of the play. While the other characters usually followed along with the main plotline. He was always the wisest yet the funniest and the crowd depended on him for entertainment.
