aim: how do we review shakespearean staging. do now: review: define iambic pentameter and rhyming...
TRANSCRIPT
Aim: How do we review Shakespearean Staging.
Do Now: Review:
Define Iambic Pentameter
And Rhyming Couples
Activity
I
ambic Pentameter• “You WON’T GO till I NET up a FISH for YOU.”
(unmetered verse)• “you GO not TILL i NET you UP a FISH.” • “Neither a borrower nor a lender be.”
Activity: Create 2 metered lines of iambic
pentameter on your own.
Rhyming Couplets
S
hakespeare uses rhyming couplets to mark the end of major
dramatic points. In Macbeth, a rhyming couplet ends the first
scene: “Fair is foul, and foul is fair. / Hover through the fog
and filthy air.”
A
sk students to locate additional rhyming couplets in Act 1. The
opening scene of Macbeth is replete with rhyming couplets.
STAGING
F
irst of all, the plays took place during the day (electric lights had not
been invented yet!). The theater itself was also a fairly new idea.
T
he stage was constructed on a raised platform in an open field and
surrounded by galleries.
T
hose who could not afford “seats” instead crowded on the floor near
the stage. These people were called “groundlings.” A roof called “The
Heavens” covered the stage itself.
StaGingT
here were very few props used in Shakespeare’s plays, save for a
few tables and chairs. In what we might now call the “wings,” there
were small inner stages with draperies and raised balconies where
actors changed their clothes
.
Their costumes were based on the popular styles of the time—not
on the historical period in which the play was set.
T
he actors: All performances were conducted by three or four
professional troupes. Men played all the parts. Young boys played
young girls.
The Globe THeater