SIMPLIFY ALL THIS TEXT IN A EASY LANGUAGE DO NOT don't skip topics make a single text                                 THE WORLD OF THEATRE 

The permanent playhouse 

James Burbage (ca. 1530-97), a carpenter by trade, built the first permanent theatres, the Theatre (1576) and the Curtain (1577), north of the walls of the City of London. So Elizabethan players had a stable home. They were accustomed to acting on a variety of stages: in the halls of noblemen's houses, in one of the Queen's palaces, or at the Inns of Court, and they acted in public in town halls and inn yards, or in any place where they could erect a stage and gather a crowd. 

The architecture of theatres 

Permanent theatres were circular or octagonal. Within the outer walls there were three tiers of roofed galleries, looking down on the stage and the yard where the poorer spectators, or 'groundlings', stood. 

The internal layout 

The stage itself, technically known as an 'apron stage', jutted out into the yard or 'pit, so that when the theatre was full the players were surrounded on three sides. No more than twelve actors could appear on stage at the same time due to the space restrictions. Over the stage the 'shadow' or thatched roof protected the players from the rain. In the front of the stage there was a trap door' used for devilish apparitions and disappearances, and also for burials. The actors' 'tiring house, that is to say, the place where the actors changeover their attire, was presumably at the rear of the stage. There were two doors for entrances and exits. Behind the stage there was an 'inner stage, concealed by a curtain when not in use, which was clearly demanded for several plays: for Juliet's tomb, for a hiding place for Claudius and Polonius in Hamlet. This inner stage was used not only for discoveries, but also for concealments. One major problem was the staging of the final scene of those tragedies which ended with several corpses on the stage. Only two methods were available: either the body was carried off or else it was concealed within a recess, since the Elizabethan stage had no general stage curtain. There were also an 'upper stage' hidden by a curtain and an upmost area normally used by musicians. When a play was in progress a flag flew above the roof of the theatre with its emblem. 

Elizabethan and modern theatres 

The structure of the stage considerably affected the form of Elizabethan plays. In the modern theatre actors are separated from the audience by a curtain which conceals or reveals the whole stage. Moreover, they act in bright light before spectators hidden in a darkened auditorium. On the apron stage the actor came forward in daylight into the midst of his audience. They were thus fused into a common experience. The device of the soliloquy was not artificial, as on the modern stage, but quite a natural form of communication as a character explained his thoughts and intentions to those immediately before him. As there was no need for him to shout, the greatest subtlety of voice, gesture, and expression was possible.

 The scenery 

Apparently there was no 'scenery' and plays were acted in daylight. The stage relied on conventions using a limited number of 'props': tables, chairs, swords, canvases of the sun and moon. For night scenes a simple candle or torch symbolically transported the audience into the night world. The 'action' was continuous. A scene ended when all the actors had gone off the stage and a new set of characters came on. Usually, the exact locality of the scene was unimportant. When it was necessary, Shakespeare showed it in the dialogue. But for the most part a simple 'property' or garment was sufficient. Chairs or stools showed indoor scenes; a king wearing his armour was on the field of battle; a watchman carrying a lantern indicated the streets of a city at night. 

The actors 

The Elizabethan actor was a busy man, constantly rehearsing new plays. He had little time for long and elaborate preparations; but he belonged to a team and the trained actor was ready in emergency to improvise. In Shakespeare's time there were no women actresses, the parts of young women were acted by boys. The Elizabethan acting company was a permanent 'fellowship of players, and they worked on the basis of a shared system. Since the actors were partners in the concern, the company remained constant.

THE ELISABETHAN SONNETEERS 

During the reign of Henry VIII a new beginning in the literature was marked by the introduction of the Italian sonnet by Sir Thomas Wyatt (1503-42; 3.8). The leading writers of this new kind of poetry were Sir Philip Sidney (1554-86), Edmund Spenser (1552-99) and William Shakespeare (1564-1616). Sidney attended the court of Elizabeth I; he was a patron of the arts and actively encouraged such authors as the young poet Edmund Spenser. Sidney's Astrophel and Stella was begun in 1576, during his courtship with Penelope Devereux. This work, which includes 108 sonnets and 11 songs, is the first in the long line of Elizabethan sonnet cycles. Most of the sonnets are influenced by Petrarchan conventions: the lover laments the coldness of his beloved towards him, even though he is so true of love and her neglect causes him so much anguish. Spenser was born in London and in 1577 he made his first trip to Ireland where he met Sir Philip Sidney to whom he dedicated The Shepherd's Calendar. That same year he began to write his allegorical masterpiece, The Faerie Queene. Later Spenser married Elizabeth Boyle and he recorded the story of this love in his collection of sonnets, Amoretti. Here Spenser expresses his love and admiration for the beauty of sound, colour, mind, and body, for he considers physical beauty the reflection of spiritual beauty. When Sidney and Spenser turned to Italian literary models, their work was not simply a reflection of the response of the court to Reformation and Counter Reformation threats, but part of the active creation of a national literary, moral and religious identity. They tried to integrate Renaissance literary ideals and human values with their Protestant beliefs and the implications of these for their souls and their perception of the self. They borrowed the themes, desires and preoccupations of Italian poetry. According to Sidney and Spenser, poetry offered skills and moral insights important to the monarch, the nation and mankind. The making of a new English poetry would demonstrate that the culture of the new Protestant nation was as sophisticated as the cultures of the old European order. Its language was as beautiful and expressive as Italian. So the role of the poet was not just to imitate the external world, but to emulate God in creatina the world.