William Shakespeare- Working Stiff.

[poliphilo]

Most of what gets written about Shakespeare ignores his working life.

The Elzabethan playhouses were like Hollywood studios in the golden age; they were entertainment factories, turning out plays on a production line.

There were lots of writers servicing the Elizabethan stage. Lots of competition. Lots of friendly (and not so friendly) rivalry.

Theatre was a collaborative art (just like the movies.) A good number of the plays in the Shakespeare canon were collaborative works. Many were rewrites (remakes) of earlier hits.

Our text of Macbeth is almost certainly not Shakespeare's orginal but a (respectful) rewrite by Thomas Middleton.

Shakespeare wasn't writing at leisure; he was feeding a machine. If some of the plays feel as if they were thrown together it's because they were.

I'm not sure how many plays the Kings Men got through in a year, but it was a prodigious number. There was only a small audience (consider the size of Elizabethan London) and it had to be wooed back by new product. Plays only ran for a handful of performances. It was like the turnover of movies in a neighbourhood movie house (before the advent of the blockbuster.)

I'm in awe of those actors- having to memorise those huge texts at the rate of about one a week. How on earth did they do it?

That's one of the reasons why Shakespeare wrote in verse. Verse with a regular beat is easier to memorize than prose.

And Shakespeare wasn't only writing the stuff; he was acting and producing and helping run the playhouse. No wonder he retired in his 40s.

Like many of the greatest artists he was also a hack. He served the system. He worked under pressure. He was subject to market forces.

The 20th century artist he most resembles is Howard Hawks: able to turn his hand to anything- to any genre- and make a good fist of it.

Comments

[bodhibird.livejournal.com]

The closest analogy I can think of is the daytime serial. Those people turn out product for five airings a week, fifty-two weeks a year--no reruns. They play the same characters for years and memorize huge chunks of stuff, or they run off to another show and another actor takes over their role, rather like the Doctor.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

It's a good analogy.

We are liable to forget that Shakespeare was a popular artist working in a popular medium.

[bodhibird.livejournal.com]

I rarely forget that. *g* I often think we should return to the Elizabethan estimation of actors and theatre folk as low and vulgar clowns, instead of worshipping them on tv and magazine covers and etc.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

But it was changing even in Shakespeare's day.

Shakespeare became very respectable.

And Edward Alleyn- the top actor of the previous generation- founded Dulwich college, which is now one of our most prestigious private schools