Analysis Of 'The Shakespearian Stage 1574-1642'

The study of the theatrical past can be quite complex without having a clear understanding of what one might be researching for. Each of the researchers I will discuss all were able to pin-point exact ideas to focus their research on in a given time period of either certain centuries or decades within a century. They also were clear with the implications of how the ideas they were researching had evidence to prove through primary source material, literary material, or visually in staged theatrical productions. The researchers were able to convey how their research and knowledge of the importance of their beliefs shaped the conventions of these theatrical cultures of the past.
Author Denise Walen uses both fictional and nonfictional literary …show more content…
He examines the audience in one chapter of his book as a modern football crowd rather than as modern theatre audiences today. He suggests that crowd psychology should be analyzed in Shakespearian audiences and uses material gathered from performances, evidence found in books, and documentation of these events from Sam Wanamaker books to come to the conclusion that audiences appeared at Shakespearian plays mainly for social recognition. He uses many descriptive and vivid details to help the reading understanding what the theatrical setting was like for audience members during these years. The audience gave the players energy and inspiration through the crowd’s visible and audible participation in the experience. (Gurr 259) Gurr describes the psychology of crowds as apparent to today’s audience that watches TV in living rooms watching football. They would both be impatient, obnoxious, and quite rude and wild. But this was mainly what the people of poorer class were like. The rich and wealthy were mainly appearing at the show for social status as players would recognize them during moments of the production based upon their rank and seat they’re in. In the same comparison, the people who sit in the VIP lounge of a football game …show more content…
Using accurate numbers in books read, Gurr knows the seat structure of the theatre and what the people were like in the theatre. This allows him to understand the behavior and psychology behind the ways the crowd functioned during a live production of a Shakespeare play. Gur differs from both Walen and Shimazaki as he is focused on the elements of the audience rather than the production itself. He, therefore, has to research more than just literary references to the show but must look at the behavioral patterns of Shakespearian audiences too. Since Walen and Shimazaki are working to discover how certain ideologies were expressed in plays of a certain time period, they are able to analyze textual evidence in plays and religious elements observed both before and after the implications of their new conventions became apparent historically. Walen received backlash from her research as what she was exposing went against both legal and religious conventions during the time period. This exposure of homoerotic behavior explained how playwrights could hide homosexual behaviors while being cross dressed in Elizabethan plays of the time period. Each researcher analyzed different elements not known in the theatrical past before. Gurr was able to compile multiple primary sources to create a descriptive way of understanding the history behind theatrical audiences and stages of Elizabethan era