The development of dramma

The first comedies were performed at the beginning of the fifth century BC in ancient Greece.
Tragedy deals with tragic events and has an unhappy ending. It is characterized by the concept of
"purification", in which the audience experiences strong emotions because they identify with the
characters. The style is solemn and the language elevated. Heroes are kings, princes and warriors.
They are not free but are dominated by destiny. The hero has a flaw - ambition, weakness, jealousy -
which leads him to suffering, madness or suicide (tragic hero). There is often a villain who is guilty
of some deed that he must atone for in death. Comedy also began in ancient Greece, it is a play of a
comic or satirical tone. It depicts funny people, these are ordinary characters set in everyday
situations. The language is witty or humorous. The plot often revolves around love. The story begins
with misfortunes, but often ends with marriage, not the death of the protagonist. The purpose is
to mock the vices and follies of the society to which it belongs.

The Elizabean Theatre

Elizabethan drama derives both from the moral comedies of medieval theater and from classical
models. Medieval theater influences included: a play full of allegory, scenes of realistic comedy, a mix
of comedy and tragedy, man in an ordered universe, the instability of fortune is the violation of the
'three unity' of action , place and time of Aristotle. This was combined with the interest in the
classical works of the Renaissance and Humanism, therefore the Elizabethan theater was also
inspired by: the Italian commedia dell'arte, the comedies of Niccolò Machiavelli, the Greek theater in
the celebration of English history and Seneca in the division of the drama into five acts: Act I
(introduction), Act II (development), Act III: (crisis or turning point), Act IV (complications), Act V
(epilogue) with the insistence on tragic events and in the use rhetoric about conflicting emotions
and passions. Theater became the major art form, with variety of interest and language.
Entertainment was part of city life and was presented to a mixed audience. London was the city of
entertainment, where public entertainment was illegal and therefore theaters were built in
Southwark on the South Bank. Theaters became commercial enterprises.

The Elizabean playhouse

James Burbage built the first permanent theater 'The Theatre' in North London. It was followed by
The Curtain, The Swan and the Globe Theatre. Permanent theaters were open-air structures that
had a circular or octagonal shape and could hold up to 3,000 people. The stage was rectangular and
12 m wide, it did not have a curtain, and was supported by two pillars and a roof. Behind it was an
internal stage. Then there was an upper stage and an upper area used by the musicians. At the front
was a trap door for appearances and disappearances. The poorest spectators were in the pit, and
paid a penny to watch the show. The wealthier spectators were in covered galleries, with chairs on
either side of the stage. The shows took place in the afternoon with natural lighting, for the night
scenes there was a simple candle. Props were limited. The action was continuous, without
interruptions. The actor was a busy man, also used to improvise. In Shakespeare's time there were
no actresses, in fact the women's parts were performed by boys. The Elizabethan acting troupe was
a permanent "company of actors". The actors made money from the profit of the plays.

All about Shakespee’s plays

BATES
Only half of Shakespeare's works were printed in his lifetime. Are the works have been dated
by combining three types of evidence.
•External - a reference to a particular play and shows that it was written before a certain
date.
• Internal: when the show includes a reference to an event.
• Stylistic: The changes in Shakespeare's style are so evident that a work can be placed in a
specific period.
STAGE DIRECTIONS
Most of the stage directions were added by editors, previously the text itself provided
information about the mood of a scene and how characters entered and exited the stage. It is up
to the reader to bring the show to life.
PROGRESSION
In a work the themes are defined gradually, and even if they may seem unimportant at the
beginning, they could prove to be decisive. There are scenes with many or few characters, in public
or private spaces, reflective or action-packed scenes. Shakespeare leaves unanswered questions
to get the audience thinking about the play after it's over.
STYLE
Shakespeare uses a mix of verse and prose in his works, the lower class characters spoke in prose,
while the noble characters used iambic pentameter, which was extremely popular at the time.
Shakespeare liked to play with rhythm, to make his characters' speeches more effective.
CHARACTERS
Shakespeare did not draw his characters from just one social class, hierarchy forms the
background of any play. We find king, duke, nurses, peasants and servants. Family ties are strong:
parents and children, brothers and sisters. These relationships occur in a contrasting form, with
conflicts. There are often symmetries: three gentlemen and three ladies, two families, two lovers,
two brothers.
DESCRIPTIVELANGUAGE
Comedies were performed in daylight with little or no stagecraft, so Shakespeare had to conjure
mythical islands, the streets of Verona, or a cold Scottish castle through language alone. There was
a wide variety of figures of speech, such as similes, metaphors and groups of words. Some plays
have characteristic imagery, for example light and dark in Romeo and Juliet or blood in Macbeth.
These contribute to the development of their themes and set their tone.
STRUCTURE
All Shakespeare plays are made up of dice acts: Act I (introduction), Act II(development), Act III
(crisis/turning point), Act IV (complications), Act V (denouement/resolution). Most of the time,
Shakespeare disregarded the Aristotelian unities of action, place and time.

Romeo and Juliet

PLOT

A prologue introduces the feud between the Montague and Capulet Families in Verona

ACT I
the first act covers an entire day. Romeo discovers that Rosaline, the girl he is in love with, even if
she is not reciprocated, will be at a party with the Capulets, so his friends convince him to
participate in disguise. That evening Romeo meets Juliet, and they will fall in love immediately, even if
Romeo is a Montague, therefore his enemy.
ACT I
the second act takes place the next morning, when romeo climbs into juliet's garden and declares his
love for her. they decide to marry secretly, thanks to Friar Laurence, hoping for peace between the
families.

ACT Il
the third act includes Monday and Tuesday mornings. Mercutio, Romeo's best friend, is killed by
Juliet's cousin, Tybalt, during a fight, who is in turn killed in revenge by Romeo. it ends with the
wedding night of Romeo and Juliet.
 ACT I
starts from Tuesday afternoon to Wednesday morning. Juliet, to avoid her arranged marriage to
Count Paris by her father, decides to take a potion that friar Laurence gave to her, which makes
her appear dead for forty-two hours. Romeo, was to be informed by a messenger, but first learns
that Juliet is dead, so he returns to Verona.
ACT
romeo finds Juliet's sleeping body, but believing her dead, kisses her for the last time, then drinks the
poison and kills himself. Juliet wakes up to find Romeo dead, and she decides to kill herself with a
dagger. As a consequence, the two families make peace with each other on Thursday morning.
SETING
Shakespeare chooses Verona because, for an Elizabethan audience, Italy was a place of
mysterious murderous feuds and passionate love affairs, fashionable and sophisticated for
important artistic and intellectual achievements, even if the manners and attitudes are typical of
the Elizabethan England.
COMEDY OR
TRAGEDY
It begins like a comedy, with the instant attraction of the lovers and the masked ball. It is also a
tragedy because of the tragic role of chance. In the last scene, for example, a minute's hesitation
would have saved Romeo and Juliet's lives and so their deaths seem due to chance.
CHARACTERS
Romeo Montague in the first act is represented as a man belonging to the 'courtly love convention',
who respects and loves a woman with whom it is impossible to be. Giulietta Capulet is a determined
woman who shows maturity and independence in her declarations of love to Romeo, she shows
courage in difficult situations, as demonstrated by her suicide with the dagger.
THE MES
The prologue gives the outcome of the play and the main themes:
• Love, fate and death: their love will end tragically as the result of a sequence of missed chances
and characters relying on incomplete knowledge.
• Age and youth: the fight between the families causes confusion and mistakes throughout the
show. Shakespeare exaggerates the age of the parents, and makes the lovers younger. secret
marriage may seem romantic, but it goes against the wishes of the parents.
1 MAGERT
Romeo in the first act compares Juliet, in the balcony scene, to the light of day, the sun, the angels,
a typical image of courtly love. From the second onwards there is a progression towards
darkness, which becomes one of the central images.
DENY THY FATHER
We are in the second scene of the second act of Romeo and Juliet: Romeo, after having left the
party at the Capulet house during which the two young men met and fell in love, returns to the
palace to see Juliet alone. So he secretly enters the garden, they climb over the wall and see Giulietta
with the open window, looking out onto the balcony. The balcony scene is undoubtedly the most
famous in the tragedy, and perhaps in the entire modern theatre. In fact, it opens with a particular
soliloquy by Romeo, who speaks to Juliet despite knowing that she does not hear him, and which will be
interrupted by another soliloquy, that of Juliet, who instead speaks to herself believing she is not
being heard. The two soliloquies, in blank verse (blank verse to be exact, i.e. unrhymed iambic
pentameter) intertwine almost to form a dialogue, until Romeo decides to really answer Juliet, thus
transforming the poetic language (soliloquy in verse ) in theatrical language (prose dialogue). Their
respective characters emerge from the dialogue between the two lovers: the more mature and
conscientious Juliet, who immediately sees the dangers associated with their love, and the more
dreamy and thoughtless Romeo, who lives almost detached from reality in a purely poetic dimension.
MARRIAGEIn ElizabethaN ENGLAND
Arranged marriages were the norm in Elizabethan England. Many couples met for the very first time
on their wedding day. The marriages were usually arranged so that both families would benefit.
Disobedience was seen as a crime against their religion and as shameful to their families.

Penting styles
In the teen years, everything parents have done right or wrong comes into sharp focus. Teens will
begin to experiment with more independence, but to do this successfully, they still need to rely on
those solid relationships at home. Scientists now claim that most parents fit into a few categories:
• Authoritative parents: It is a highly involved style, where parents establish rules and set high
standards for their kids, but they also give them help to achieve those standards and support
them as they work through obstacles and mistakes, with combination of expectation and
support that helps children of these parents develop autonomous skills, such as self-control and
self-regulation.
• Authoritarian parents: authoritarian parents have high expectations, but they do not offer any
guidance and do not explain the reasoning behind their rules. They simply expect children to obey
without questioning. These parents are often described as domineering and dictatorial.
• Permissive parents: They rarely discipline their children, because they see themselves as their
children's friend and not an authority figure. Children with overly permissive parents can often
lack the skills they need to make good decisions.
• Helicopter parenting: It is applied to parents who are over-focused on their children and do
tasks their kids are capable of doing alone, they discourage their children’s indipendence. They
are often obsessed with a desire to create a perfect world for their kids.