LESSON 24. THE REGULAR DRAMA.--"The first stage of the regular drama begins with the first English comedy, Ralph Roister Doister, written by NICHOLAS UDALL, master of Eton, known to have been acted before 1551, but not published till 1566. It is our earliest picture of London manners; the characters are well drawn; it is divided into regular acts and scenes and is made in rhyme. The first English tragedy is Gorboduc, written by SACKVILLE and NORTON, and represented in 1562. The story was taken from British legend, and the characters are gravely sustained. But the piece was heavy and too solemn for the audience, and RICHARD EDWARDS by mixing tragic and comic elements together in his play, Damon and Pythias, acted about 1564, succeeded better. These two gave the impulse to a number of dramas from classical and modern story, which were acted at the Universities, Inns of Court, and the Court up to 1580, when the drama, having gone through its boyhood, entered on a vigorous manhood. More than fifty-two dramas, so quick was their production, are known to have been acted up to this time. Some were translated from the Greek, as the Jocasta from Euripides, and others from the Italian, as the Supposes from Ariosto, both by the same author, GEORGE GASCOIGNE, already mentioned as a satirist. These were acted in 1566. THE THEATRE.-There was as yet no theatre. A patent was given in 1574 to the Earl of Leicester's servants to act plays in any town in England, and they built in 1576 the Blackfriars Theatre. In the same year two others were set up in the fields about Shoreditch- The Theatre' and 'The Curtain.' The Globe Theatre, built for Shakespeare and his fellows in 1599, may stand as a type of the rest. In the form of a hexagon outside, it was circular within, and open to the weather except above the stage. The play began at three o'clock; the nobles and ladies sat in boxes or in stools on the stage, the people stood in the pit or yard. The stage itself, strewn with rushes, was a naked room with a blanket for a curtain. Wooden imitations of animals, towers, woods, etc., were all the scenery used, and a board, stating the place of action, was hung out from the top when the scene changed. Boys acted the female parts. It was only after the Restoration that movable scenery and actresses were introduced. No 'pencil's aid' supplied the landscape of Shakespeare's plays. The forest of Arden, the castle of Duncan were seen only by the intellectual eye."" "The private theatres were entirely roofed in, while in the others the pit was uncovered, and of course the stage and the gallery were exposed to the external air. A flag was kept flying from the staff on the roof during the performance. The price of admission to the pit, or yard, varied, according to the pretensions of the theatre, from twopence, and even a penny, to sixpence; that to the boxes or rooms, from a shilling to two shillings, and even, on extraordinary occasions, half a crown. The theatre appears to have been always artificially lighted, in the body of the house by cressets, and upon the stage by large, rude chandeliers. The small band of musicians sat, not in an orchestra in front of the stage, but, it would seem, in a balcony projecting from the proscenium. People went early to the theatre, and, while waiting for the play to begin, they read, gamed, smoked, drank, and cracked nuts and jokes together; those who set up for wits and gallants, or critics liked to appear upon the stage itself, which they were allowed to do all through the performance, lying upon the rushes, or sitting upon stools, for which they paid an extra price. Each day's exhibition was closed by a prayer for the Queen, offered by all the actors kneeling."-R. G. White. "This ranges THE SECOND STAGE OF THE REGULAR DRAMA. from 1580 to 1596. It includes the work of Lyly, author of the Euphues, the plays of Peele, Greene, Lodge, Marlowe, Kyd, Munday, Chettle, Nash, and the earliest works of Shakespeare. During this time we know that more than 100 different plays were performed by four out of the eleven companies; so swift and plentiful was their production. They were written in prose and in rhyme, and in blank verse mixed with prose and rhyme. Prose and rhyme prevailed before 1587, when Marlowe, in his play of Tamburlaine, made blank verse the fashion. JOHN LYLY illustrates the three methods, for he wrote seven plays in prose, one in rhyme, and one (after Tamburlaine) in blank verse. Some beautiful little songs scattered through them are the forerunners of the songs with which Shakespeare made his dramas bright, and the witty 'quips and cranks,' repartees, and similes of their fantastic prose dialogue were the school of Shakespeare's prose dialogue. PEELE, GREENE, and MARLOWE are the three important names of the period. They are the first in whose hands the play of human passion and action is expressed with any true dramatic effect. Peele and Greene make their characters act on, and draw out, one another in the several scenes, but they have no power of making a plot, or of working out their plays, scene by scene, to a natural conclusion. They are, in one word, without art, and their characters, even when they talk in good poetry, are neither natural nor simple. CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE, on the other hand, rose by de grees and easily into mastery of his art. The difference between the unequal and violent action and thought of his Doctor Faustus and the quiet and orderly progression to its end of the play of Edward II. is all the more remarkable when we know that he died at thirty. Though less than Shakespeare, he was worthy to precede him. As he may be said to have invented and made the verse of the drama, so he created the English tragic drama. His plays are wrought with art to their end, his characters are sharply and strongly outlined. Each play illustrates one ruling passion in its growth, its power, and its extremes. Tamburlaine paints the desire of universal empire; the Jew of Malta the passions of greed and hatred; Doctor Faustus the struggle and failure of man to possess all knowledge and all pleasure without toil and without law; Edward II. the misery of weakness and the agony of a king's ruin. Marlowe's_verse is mighty,' his poetry strong and weak alike with passionate feeling, and expressed with a turbulent magnificence of words and images, the fault of which is a very great want of temperance. It reflects his life and the lives of those with whom he lived. Marlowe lived and died an irreligious, imaginative, tenderhearted, licentious poet. Peele and Greene lived an even more riotous life and died as miserably, and they are examples of a crowd of other dramatists who passed their lives between the theatre, the wine-shop, and the prison. Their drama, in which we see the better side of the men, had all the marks of a wild youth. It was daring, full of strong but unequal life, romantic, sometimes savage, often tender, always exaggerated in its treatment and expression of the human passions. If i had no moderation, it had no tame dullness. If it was coarse, it was powerful, and it was above all national. It was a time full of strange contrasts, a time of fiery action and of sentimental contemplation; a time of fancy and chivalry, indelicacy and buffoonery; of great national adventure and private brawls; of literary quiet and polemic thought; of faith and infidelity-and the whole of it is painted with truth, but with too glaring colors, in the drama of these men." From Marlowe's Edward II.* Enter Matrevis, Gurney, and soldiers with King Edward. Must I be vexèd like the nightly bird, Whose sight is loathsome to all wingèd fowls? When will the fury of his mind assuage? When will his heart be satisfied with blood? If mine will serve, unbowel straight this breast, It is the chiefest mark they level at. Ed. II., son of Ed. I. and father of Ed. III., was King of England, 1307-27. His character was weak, and his reign disastrous. He was deposed by his nobles. This extract from the play treats of his imprisonment in the dungeon of Kenilworth, his execution, and the feelings and doings of Ed. III. concerning his father's treatment. Gur. Not so, my liege, the queen hath given this chargeTo keep your grace in safety: Your passions make your dolours to increase. K. Edw. This usage makes my misery increase. When all my senses are annoyed with stench? Mat. Why strive you thus? your labor is in vain. K. Edw. The wren may strive against the lion's strength But all in vain: so vainly do I strive To seek for mercy at a tyrant's hand. That wait upon my poor, distressèd soul, Oh, level all your looks upon these daring men That wrong their liege and sovereign, England's king! Enter the younger Mortimer and Lightborn. Y. Mort. Art thou so resolute as thou wast? Y. Mort. Well, do it bravely, and be secret. "Tis not the first time I have kill'd a man: |
