Aim: How do we review Shakespearean Staging.

Do Now: Review:

Define Iambic Pentameter

And Rhyming Couples

Activity

I

ambic Pentameter• “You WON’T GO till I NET up a FISH for YOU.”

(unmetered verse)• “you GO not TILL i NET you UP a FISH.” • “Neither a borrower nor a lender be.”

Activity: Create 2 metered lines of iambic

pentameter on your own.

Rhyming Couplets

S

hakespeare uses rhyming couplets to mark the end of major

dramatic points. In Macbeth, a rhyming couplet ends the first

scene: “Fair is foul, and foul is fair. / Hover through the fog

and filthy air.”

A

sk students to locate additional rhyming couplets in Act 1. The

opening scene of Macbeth is replete with rhyming couplets.

STAGING

F

irst of all, the plays took place during the day (electric lights had not

been invented yet!). The theater itself was also a fairly new idea.

T

he stage was constructed on a raised platform in an open field and

surrounded by galleries.

T

hose who could not afford “seats” instead crowded on the floor near

the stage. These people were called “groundlings.” A roof called “The

Heavens” covered the stage itself.

StaGingT

here were very few props used in Shakespeare’s plays, save for a

few tables and chairs. In what we might now call the “wings,” there

were small inner stages with draperies and raised balconies where

actors changed their clothes

.

Their costumes were based on the popular styles of the time—not

on the historical period in which the play was set.

T

he actors: All performances were conducted by three or four

professional troupes. Men played all the parts. Young boys played

young girls.

The Globe THeater