INTRODUCTION OF DRAMA TO ENGLAND

Most early theatre in England evolved out of

church services of the 10th and 11th
centuries. It became a truly popular form
around 1350 when religious leaders
encouraged the staging of mystery cycles
(stories from the Bible) and miracle plays
(stories of the lives of saints).

Each play was staged on pageant wagons

that processed through the streets and
stopped to perform at pre-arranged sites. By
the end of medieval times, many towns had
specific spaces dedicated to public theatre.

The origin of English drama seems vague.

There is no certain evidence proving its
origin. However, it can be traced back from
century of succeeding Norman Conquest to
England on 1066. Many historians believe that drama came to England along with them. There was
information that when the Roman where in England, they established vast amphitheatre for production
some plays, but when they left, the theatre gone with them

The rise of secular drama

Following the Reformation in the

16th century – a movement that
opposed the authority of the Roman
Catholic Church – all religious drama
in England was suppressed. Licenses
were issued to theatre companies
allowing them to rehearse and
perform in public, providing they had
the approval and patronage of a
nobleman.
Britain's first playhouse 'The Theatre' was built in Finsbury Fields, London in 1576. It was constructed
by Leicester's Men – an acting company formed in 1559 from members of the Earl of Leicester's
household. Over the next 16 years, 17 new open-air, public theatres were constructed

MORALITY PLAYS

Morality plays were popular in 15th- and 16th-century

Europe. They used allegorical stories to teach a moral
message, underpinned by Christian teachings. The characters
personified abstract qualities of goodness and evil, virtue and
vice, which engaged in a battle to win the soul of the 'mankind'
figure.

THE ELIZABETHAN AGE

The simple definition of

Elizabethan theatre and drama is
that it is drama written during the
reign of Elizabeth I, but that is
absurdly simplistic: Elizabethan
drama is much more than that.

Queen Elizabeth I of England and

Ireland reigned from 1558 to
1603, during the time when
Europeans were starting to break
out of the cultural constraints
imposed by the medieval Church.
Great thinkers across Europe were courageously directing their eyes away from the face of God and
turning them towards the mind, the form and the ideas of human beings in a huge humanistic
movement.

This led to a blossoming of new perceptions in every area of human endeavour – art, music,
architecture, religion, science, philosophy, theatre and literature. Artists, composers, scientists and
writers looked back beyond the darkness of fourteen centuries and took their inspiration from the
humanist qualities in Greco-Roman culture.

The Renaissance flowered right across Europe but had different emphases in the different European
cultures – it was religion and philosophy in Germany, for example; art, architecture and sculpture in
Italy. And in England, it was Elizabethan theatre drama. All through the Middle Ages English drama had
been religious and didactic. When Elizabeth came to the throne most of the plays on offer to the public
were Miracle Plays, presenting in crude dialogue stories from the Bible and lives of the saints, and the
Moralities, which taught lessons for the guidance of life through the means of allegorical action. They
were primarily dramas about God, not about people.

By the time Elizabeth’s reign ended there were over twenty theatres in London, all turning over several
plays a week – plays that were secular in their nature, and about people. That represented a complete
revolution in theatre, and makes Elizabethan theatre distinct. What changed at that time was that the
theatre became a place where people went to see, not dramatised lectures on good behaviour, but a
reflection of their own spirit and day-to-day interests. They wanted to laugh and to cry – to be moved,
not by divine reflection, but by human beings doing good and bad things just as they did – loving and
murdering, stealing, cheating, acting sacrificially, getting into trouble and behaving nobly: in short, being
human like themselves.

FAMOUS PLAYWRIGHTS

BEN JONSON (c. 11 June 1572 – c. 16 August 1637)

He is generally regarded as the second most important English dramatist, after William Shakespeare,
during the reign of James I.

Among his major plays are the comedies:

Every Man in His Humour (1598), Volpone (1605), Epicoene; or, The Silent Woman (1609), The Alchemist
(1610), and Bartholomew Fair (1614).

Christopher Marlowe 1564–93