This term we have begun our Film and TV unit studying camera technique and how being on stage and screen can be so different not just in technique but also in the acting itself. We began with talking about which films showed our favourite actors and what we liked especially about each of their performances, this then gave us an idea as to how things would work in the situations shown.
The first week (I really was there as I had been at a drama school audition) we looked at filming short scenes that we ourselves had chosen. The brief was to choose a dramatic scene from a film or TV show of our choice with our partner, so naturally Zach and I chose to do a Phoebe and Joey scene from FRIENDS. This did not go particularly well. We had chosen a scene that was comedic although sort of dramatic at the same time, in our minds, and it turned out that the weirdness of being on camera got to us and we didn't try to make it our own or try something a bit more normal, we tried to imitate Phoebe and Joey which did not turn out very well. When we watched the other groups who had chosen some much better scenes we also got to see some better ways that you can act on the screen. I learnt a lot more about camera angles as well and how you have to stay so still when the camera is behind you filming the person in front of you and that every shot is precisely lined up to your head and the other actor in the shot. Learning how the camera works is also in a way learning how you work because you need to act as though you are the same person because the camera needs to be your friend even though you can seriously fight!
So it's been quite interesting so far and we've really just been learning the basics to do with filming, it's a lot harder than I thought it was going to be. The technicalities are much more complex that I originally thought, so although it's a learning curve and there's still much more to go I am enjoying learning about how things work and finding a different side to my acting and how to morph yourself to act on the camera.
Thursday, 5 February 2015
Wednesday, 7 January 2015
Shakespeare - Blog
The play we have been studying is
Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare, it tells the story of a man
called Julius Caesar and how he came to power and was assassinated by
his most trusted advisors because they felt that he had too much
power for one man. The scene that my group were involved in was where
Caesar is persuaded by his wife Calphurnia to stay at home after she
had a dream that he would die if he went to work, Decius whom I play
is sent to fetch Caesar to the senate house only to arrive and find
Caesar refusing to go to work and needing him to go so that the
assassination can happen Decius works his magic and convinces Caesar
that the dream Calphurnia had was actually a dream of good fortune
for Caesar's fortune which in turn convinces him to go to work and
complete Decius' part in the assassination plot.
During the first week we mostly spent
our time trying to connect with our characters, to embody them. This
included jumping into their shoes thinking how they would think and
finding their stature, how they walk, talk, eat and how their facial
expressions are displayed. This caused some tensions within my group
(as we were all separated into different scenes that would then be
compiled to create a birds eye view of the play) because we were all
quite on edge with finding the character and trying out their
emotions which can sometimes be difficult for an actor and as we only
had two weeks to learn, block and perform these scenes it was
somewhat harder and easier at the same time.
The challenges we faced in the first
week were mostly down to the lack of lines learnt and that made it
very hard to be able to animate a scene, as holding a script occupies
your hands and your face as you are reading the lines. We managed to
conquer this by learning a few lines at a time and then putting it
all together and having only one of us as a prompt so that we didn't
feel too much pressure over the lines and that made it all the more
comfortable to just be free and easy with the scene. We also started
to block scenes so that we could begin to associate certain movements
with particular lines.
In week two we were a lot more panicked
as it was all coming at us fast and we still had a lot to do, luckily
we had all learnt our lines and so now were working on our facial
expressions and our hand movements and figuring out how our character
would react to the other characters lines and looking at the
characters have to haves, what they need out of a scene. It was also
a time for looking at costume and seeing what they would wear,
because of the difference in status and the time period it meant we
could do a lot. I wore all blacks and then a leather jacket to give
the impression of an army style jacket, Joe wore a make-shift toga to
give off the typical Caesar vibe and Alicia as Calphurnia wore all
blacks to show how she is almost the mediator in the relationship and
situation between Decius and Caesar.
In the final few days of putting these
scenes together it was more or less just rehearsing and re-rehearsing
the scenes to make sure that the scene was in order. When the day of
the showcase came around we were all a little on edge which is fairly
normal, and were both excited and nervous creating a brilliant
atmosphere. The show was going well and then it was our turn and it
started off well, then one of the group forgot their lines and
skipped a big chunk of the scene, this was not a problem as we were
prepared and just went onto the next bit and it went un noticed by
the audience and turned out to be a good performance. I felt that my
specific performance went a lot better than I thought it would and
and was pleased with the outcome, I felt that I managed to convey the
jealousy of Decius and the intent of the assassination without having
that shown to Caesar and kept my agenda hidden. I wanted to work on
how you could look at Decius and see the good friend of Caesar and
then look at my eyes and see the dark plan behind the facade. Overall
I was very pleased with my performance and enjoyed working on Julius
Caesar with my group and learned a lot more about Shakespeare and the
history of the play as well.
Tuesday, 6 January 2015
Decius - Character Study
Decius Brutus
A minor character in the play Julius Caesar Written by William Shakespeare and based on the real life events of Dictator Julius Caesar. Decius is an instigator to Julius Caesar's assassination and a Roman politician. He was also Caesar's cousin and was heir in the second degree to caesar in his will.
Decius plays a key role in the assasination of Julius Caesar as he is the one who persuades Caesar to come to the senate house after he had said he would not go due to his wifes worry over a dream she had of his death. Decius is one of the men who all join together to kill Caesar after Caska attacks him first and they eventually kill him and become his murderers.
Decuis is a very cunning character who knows just how to persuade people to go agains their own decisions to get his own way, the way he persuades Caesar to come to the senate after his wife calphurnia has begged on her knees that he stay home is a fairly good example of how he can make others trust him, even over those who are far closer to the subject that he is trying to seduce.
Decius seems to in a way distrust Caesar, even though he is his cousin. Decius treats Ceasar almost like a child recognising how in his own mind Caesar was not fit to be the Dictator of Rome and took it into his own hands, this could also be seen as jealousy from Decuis, himself thinking that he is the lowly cousin and wanting to have the power that Caesar has.
In Conclusion I think that Decius is a very messed up character he has had to live in the shadow of his cousin and feels so strongly about this that he even conspires and ends up killing his cousin Caesar. We also note that Decius is a very deceptive person and incredibly talented at persuading people to do what he requires them to do, or to gain information from them. This overall makes Decius a very intersting character even though his part is limited without his persuasive talents Ceasar would never have been assasinated and so in turn the entire outcome of the play is due to Decuis' cunning persuasive gift.
Friday, 5 December 2014
Audition Speeches - Cymbeline "I see a man's life as a tedious one"
My second classical piece is from the Shakespeare play Cymbeline, it tells the story of Princess Imogen and her lover Posthumous and how Imogen and Posthumous are separated after her father the king of England exiles Posthumous after she and Posthumous wed without his permission and because she is the only living heir her husband will become the next king. This shows the pressure put on Imogen and through the play we get to see how she copes with all the trials the come her way.
Beginning characterisation for Imogen I began by reading the play through several times and making notes on how I thought she would act in certain situations and how she would be feeling in the different stages of the play as a woman of that time and in that situation. I wanted to push the idea that she is still deciding how to lead her life even though a lot of it has been decided for her, that her thoughts are quite deep and unlike a woman of the time the play was written. We see Imogen being bold cross dressing even in her circumstances, I find this bold for a woman of her position and love the fact that she is going by her own mind, her first line in this monologue is " I see a man's life as a tedious one" and to me this line just says it all. The line states how she feels about what a man's life is like having lived like one for just a few days, she realises that not everything is how she originally imagined and I wanted to show this in the speech her indecisiveness in how things are and how so many things are rushing through her mind that she has to say them all at once and how she looks at things from both sides not just one. I wanted to show that she thinks very differently to a lot of the people around her and defy's their expectations of how she should be, I find that very appealing in a character and that was also one of the reasons I chose the speech because it shows more than you think.
I thought that the audition went relatively well compared to how I thought it would be, I was worried as to how my character would come across as I wasn't totally prepared with her actions and feelings. Baring this in mind the actual audition went how I wanted it to, I allowed myself to let her take over and show how she is indecisive and her attitude to life is very indecisive too with how she acts to her current situation.
Imogen
Name: Imogen
Age: Unknown
Family: Posthumous (Husband) Cymbeline (Father) Guiderius (Brother) Arviarargus (Brother)
Imogen is the daughter of the king of England, Cymbeline she is also the wife of Posthumous who is currently in exile because he and Imogen secretly married without Cymbeline's permission, this upset Cymbeline because Imogen is his only living heir and so whoever she marries will become the new king. This then sparks off the events of the play leading to cross dressing finding long lost family members and the reuniting of love.
Beginning characterisation for Imogen I began by reading the play through several times and making notes on how I thought she would act in certain situations and how she would be feeling in the different stages of the play as a woman of that time and in that situation. I wanted to push the idea that she is still deciding how to lead her life even though a lot of it has been decided for her, that her thoughts are quite deep and unlike a woman of the time the play was written. We see Imogen being bold cross dressing even in her circumstances, I find this bold for a woman of her position and love the fact that she is going by her own mind, her first line in this monologue is " I see a man's life as a tedious one" and to me this line just says it all. The line states how she feels about what a man's life is like having lived like one for just a few days, she realises that not everything is how she originally imagined and I wanted to show this in the speech her indecisiveness in how things are and how so many things are rushing through her mind that she has to say them all at once and how she looks at things from both sides not just one. I wanted to show that she thinks very differently to a lot of the people around her and defy's their expectations of how she should be, I find that very appealing in a character and that was also one of the reasons I chose the speech because it shows more than you think.
I thought that the audition went relatively well compared to how I thought it would be, I was worried as to how my character would come across as I wasn't totally prepared with her actions and feelings. Baring this in mind the actual audition went how I wanted it to, I allowed myself to let her take over and show how she is indecisive and her attitude to life is very indecisive too with how she acts to her current situation.
Imogen
Name: Imogen
Age: Unknown
Family: Posthumous (Husband) Cymbeline (Father) Guiderius (Brother) Arviarargus (Brother)
Imogen is the daughter of the king of England, Cymbeline she is also the wife of Posthumous who is currently in exile because he and Imogen secretly married without Cymbeline's permission, this upset Cymbeline because Imogen is his only living heir and so whoever she marries will become the new king. This then sparks off the events of the play leading to cross dressing finding long lost family members and the reuniting of love.
Monday, 10 November 2014
Audition Speeches - Bronte "Do you ever wonder what our lives would have been like"
My contemporary piece is from the play Bronte by Polly Teale it was written in 2005 and follows the lives of the Bronte sisters and how they felt about their own situation and lives as women in the 19th Century. I chose this speech because I found that what Anne Bronte questions is exactly what she needs to question as a writer and as a woman in a society that disagree's with a woman thinking this way. I loved the way that she is passionate about the smallest of things and takes note of the insignificant things and turns them into something that means a lot to her and to how she sees life.
I began characterisation with looking at reading some of the Bronte's novels such as Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights and finding how the characters within the stories are possibly related to either how the sisters themselves felt or how they saw other women and men of the time. I also used materiel from the history books and historical clothing to see how the clothing of the time would affect how they would have walked, sat and stood. Finding that a corset would of course restrict a lot of their movement and how they would have spoken as well, the corset causing constriction of the chest and only allowing a small amount of movement. To practice how I would stage this monologue I began with the research above and then practiced my own movement and how I could adapt my own self to embody Anne Bronte and how her movement would also reflect how she was feeling and how those feelings would come out on her body. I also read up on Anne and watched documentaries about her life and how it would have been, what her daily life consisted of and what events had happened in her life to shape how she is in this monologue and her ideas on how we as human beings act and what in life we refuse to acknowledge and try our best to prove wrong.
In the performance I undertook in the mock audition I felt quite connected to Anne as a character and as a person I could almost feel her influence rubbing off on me as I was delivering the lines. I also felt that I managed to keep the movement to a minimum as would be expected of Anne with the restriction of the clothing of the time and yet still portray the emotions and ideas that are running through Anne's head and that she has to confess to her sister Charlotte. Overall I felt that the performance itself gave over what I wanted it to but could still be added to by a little more variation in movement.
Anne
Name: Anne Bronte
Age: 28
Family: Charlotte Bronte (Sister) Emily Bronte (Sister) Branwell Bronte (Brother) Patrick Bronte (Father) Maria Bronte (Mother) Elizabeth Bronte (Sister) Maria Bronte (Sister)
Anne was born into a large family as the youngest of seven siblings the two oldest having died very early and her mother passing away when anne was only one. She and her siblings were then brought up by their father Patrick Bronte who kept them all close to home in the parsonage of the church where he was the curate, from there Anne and her siblings all began to write their own stories to escape from the lack of interaction of other children their age they had, this was due to the lack of hygiene of the area and a lot of the children carrying disease and after Patrick Bronte had lost two children to disease before he was unwilling to loose another. The Bronte sisters also wrote under pseudonyms to get their work published as it was uncommon to have a woman's novel published in that era, not just because it was written by a woman but also because it wasn't seen as decent for a woman to be writing stories as it could put ideas into their heads.
I began characterisation with looking at reading some of the Bronte's novels such as Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights and finding how the characters within the stories are possibly related to either how the sisters themselves felt or how they saw other women and men of the time. I also used materiel from the history books and historical clothing to see how the clothing of the time would affect how they would have walked, sat and stood. Finding that a corset would of course restrict a lot of their movement and how they would have spoken as well, the corset causing constriction of the chest and only allowing a small amount of movement. To practice how I would stage this monologue I began with the research above and then practiced my own movement and how I could adapt my own self to embody Anne Bronte and how her movement would also reflect how she was feeling and how those feelings would come out on her body. I also read up on Anne and watched documentaries about her life and how it would have been, what her daily life consisted of and what events had happened in her life to shape how she is in this monologue and her ideas on how we as human beings act and what in life we refuse to acknowledge and try our best to prove wrong.
In the performance I undertook in the mock audition I felt quite connected to Anne as a character and as a person I could almost feel her influence rubbing off on me as I was delivering the lines. I also felt that I managed to keep the movement to a minimum as would be expected of Anne with the restriction of the clothing of the time and yet still portray the emotions and ideas that are running through Anne's head and that she has to confess to her sister Charlotte. Overall I felt that the performance itself gave over what I wanted it to but could still be added to by a little more variation in movement.
Anne
Name: Anne Bronte
Age: 28
Family: Charlotte Bronte (Sister) Emily Bronte (Sister) Branwell Bronte (Brother) Patrick Bronte (Father) Maria Bronte (Mother) Elizabeth Bronte (Sister) Maria Bronte (Sister)
Anne was born into a large family as the youngest of seven siblings the two oldest having died very early and her mother passing away when anne was only one. She and her siblings were then brought up by their father Patrick Bronte who kept them all close to home in the parsonage of the church where he was the curate, from there Anne and her siblings all began to write their own stories to escape from the lack of interaction of other children their age they had, this was due to the lack of hygiene of the area and a lot of the children carrying disease and after Patrick Bronte had lost two children to disease before he was unwilling to loose another. The Bronte sisters also wrote under pseudonyms to get their work published as it was uncommon to have a woman's novel published in that era, not just because it was written by a woman but also because it wasn't seen as decent for a woman to be writing stories as it could put ideas into their heads.
Audition Speeches - Romeo & Juliet "The clock struck nine"
My classical piece is from the Shakespeare play Romeo and Juliet written between 1591 and 1595 It tells the story of Romeo and Juliet as the title suggests. In this play we witness the romance that blossoms between these two lovers and how it brings across their demise, the speech from the play I have chosen is spoken by Juliet, she is remarking and moping about how her nurse has not come back from seeing her Romeo in the time she said she would be.
To begin characterisation for Juliet I read the play over and also watched some of the film versions of the plays to gain an idea of how other actors have portrayed Juliet in the past. I then compiled mental markers as to the mannerisms that they used to evolve Juliet, also being 17 I know what it's like to be 14 and impatient. So from compiling information from books, performances and personal experience I created my own version of Juliet. I found my version to be a little more down played than some of the versions I had seen on screen, I deliberately down played the character because I felt that in a lot of instances the character is overplayed with the stereotypical "I'm a teenager and the world revolves around me". I wanted to change her to become a more understandable person for an audience to see and relate to, to find that the impatience is a universal thing not just for a teenage girl waiting for her boyfriend. To rehearse this character I played with the vocal tone of her, seeing as she's meant to be a young teenage girl I knew the voice needed to be a lot more high pitched and whiny in a way as a lot of younger voices are before they mature. I also looked at how she might move having been brought up in a high ranking family and being subjected to act and talk like a lady of the time, this led me to become very aware of how she carries out her actions.
I felt that my mock audition went very well, I liked how I felt within the character and how I delivered my lines. In the audition I felt that I managed to convey the downplayed Juliet and how her feelings are universal feelings, I also felt that I used the stage appropriately to the situation of the monologue I was Performing. I felt that I managed to explain through the monologue who Juliet is to the audience and that there is more to her than her stereotype suggests.
Juliet
Name: Juliet Capulet
Age: 14
Family: Lord Capulet (Father) Lady Capulet (Mother) Tybalt Capulet (Cousin) Rosaline Capulet (Cousin) Nurse (Surrogate Mother)
Spouse: Romeo Montague
Juliet is a fourteen year old girl who lives in Verona, Italy her father is a Lord and so she and her family hold a high position in the society of Verona. Her family have been feuding with another high status family in Verona called the Montague's, during this play she falls in love with the son of Lord and Lady Montague which becomes a catalyst to their demise.
To begin characterisation for Juliet I read the play over and also watched some of the film versions of the plays to gain an idea of how other actors have portrayed Juliet in the past. I then compiled mental markers as to the mannerisms that they used to evolve Juliet, also being 17 I know what it's like to be 14 and impatient. So from compiling information from books, performances and personal experience I created my own version of Juliet. I found my version to be a little more down played than some of the versions I had seen on screen, I deliberately down played the character because I felt that in a lot of instances the character is overplayed with the stereotypical "I'm a teenager and the world revolves around me". I wanted to change her to become a more understandable person for an audience to see and relate to, to find that the impatience is a universal thing not just for a teenage girl waiting for her boyfriend. To rehearse this character I played with the vocal tone of her, seeing as she's meant to be a young teenage girl I knew the voice needed to be a lot more high pitched and whiny in a way as a lot of younger voices are before they mature. I also looked at how she might move having been brought up in a high ranking family and being subjected to act and talk like a lady of the time, this led me to become very aware of how she carries out her actions.
I felt that my mock audition went very well, I liked how I felt within the character and how I delivered my lines. In the audition I felt that I managed to convey the downplayed Juliet and how her feelings are universal feelings, I also felt that I used the stage appropriately to the situation of the monologue I was Performing. I felt that I managed to explain through the monologue who Juliet is to the audience and that there is more to her than her stereotype suggests.
Juliet
Name: Juliet Capulet
Age: 14
Family: Lord Capulet (Father) Lady Capulet (Mother) Tybalt Capulet (Cousin) Rosaline Capulet (Cousin) Nurse (Surrogate Mother)
Spouse: Romeo Montague
Juliet is a fourteen year old girl who lives in Verona, Italy her father is a Lord and so she and her family hold a high position in the society of Verona. Her family have been feuding with another high status family in Verona called the Montague's, during this play she falls in love with the son of Lord and Lady Montague which becomes a catalyst to their demise.
Thursday, 9 October 2014
Shakespeare - Julius Caesar
Julius Caesar is a play written by William Shakespeare and tells the story of the conspiracy to kill Julius Caesar, it also tells the repercussions of what happens when such an act is committed. The play was first performed in 1599 and is thought to be the first production to be performed at the Globe since it's opening in the same year. The theatre didn't last too long as during a production of Henry VIII on the 29th of June 1613, the cannon that went off to announce the start of the show set fire to the thatched roof causing the building to be burnt to the ground.
The production of Julius Caesar gives a lot of ideas for staging as it has various parts throughout the play where levels and audience interaction can be used(The picture to the left is of how the stage was set up for the current production). Not too much is known about the original staging or the production because of the lack of documentation in that era, luckily a passing tourist and diarist made an entry about seeing the production and remarking upon it. From the trip with my class to the globe to go and see the production there I know that in a more modern representation they used Mark Anthony's podium as a very court like box, they included the audience at the beginning by bringing large boxes and yelling about Caesar in support of him. Before the show we were given a small talk about the Globe and how the original production might have been staged, there is the thought that for the speeches to the people of Rome that are spoken by both Mark Anthony and Caesar might have been performed from the balcony on the stage being a very ideal place to address not only the actors playing the people of Rome but also the audience and the way the stage is set out it would also allow their voice to be carried throughout the theatre. The play is based upon the original Julius Caesar and how he ran Rome and his assassination after his friends and advisors felt he as one man held too much power, Shakespeare found his information initially about Caesar, Brutus and Anthony from Plutarch's Lives in North's English translation. Shakespeare also used books like the bible for inspiration and using his own experiences from having been on stage himself as well as writing created a play that was not only visually pleasing for the audience but gave the actors so many strong emotions to play on and use to enhance the play.
The play was important because what had happened with Julius Caesar was still very prevalent to the Elizabethan public it was a common tale and to have that brought to them and shown as a production would have been talked about. The fact that there wouldn't have been any set for the play was quite interesting considering a lot of the public would have had preconceived ideas about how it would have looked, the point of no set meant that it would be a lot easier for the average person to interpret it how they liked and make the show what they wanted to. Props such as swords and letters would have been used to bring the violent element of the play to light when Caesar gets assassinated and using the Mark Anthony speech when he is talking about the will to draw the audience to a focus point. Costumes would have been used to show the different levels of status in the play between the characters and illustrate the personality of a character too giving the audience a clear idea of where each character sat within the hierarchy of the play. The political themes of the play lie in that it was better for Rome when they had a monarch, it was a way for Shakespeare to suck up to Queen Elizabeth and gain her approval for his work. It also meant that the audience would be thinking that it was a good thing that they had a monarch, and weren't letting history repeat itself. The politics involved in this play were purely to get a lot of favour from the people who held the power of it's day, it would also ensure that William Shakespeare had free clearance to keep putting his plays out there.
The theatre in Elizabethan times was a real social thing it was available to all levels of society, the levels were stills shown within the theatre not only as to where people sat but also in the prices of the tickets. The different levels of seating were divided as such, the yard is for the standing public who would come on the day, the lower upper and middle galleries and the Lord's rooms. The yard would have had the everyday men and women, the galleries would have housed those who could afford the seating and were higher up in the class system, the Lord's rooms were for the Lord's of the courts to be seen in their extravagant outfits, they were situated to the sides of the stage to allow the public to see their finery and show off their status. Shakespeare was alive and working during the reign of two monarch's, Elizabeth I and James VI and I. The religious differences between these two times changed dramatically, the country went from Elizabeth I's time where most nobles were still Catholic and so in turn were a lot of the commoners, even though the protestant's were beginning to gain more support and so the Queen showed her dislike for them. When James VI and I took the throne in 1603 the puritans began show their want for reform in the country's religion, in 1604 James VI and I called a conference at Hampton Court to allow the Court to hear what Puritan leaders had to say about their religion and so began their climb in the world of religion.
Theatre has changed in many ways since the days of Shakespeare, it has evolved to allow almost anything to be performed without having the writer beheaded for a treasonus theme in the play. In the Elizebethan era only men were allowed on stage because it was not respectable for a woman to be on the stage, now we have not only women on the stage but women playing the male roles, I recently saw a production of Henry IV that was an all female cast and set in a prison of modern times. The price of a seat in a theatre now costs a lot more than it used to and most wanted seats have gone from being behind the stage to be seen and admired in all your finery, to the front row of the upper circle to gain the full view of the stage. Ticket prices used to range from 1d to 5d which would now translate to roughly £0.52 to £2.61 which really wasn't much whereas now we would pay between £30 and £100 for a good west end theatre ticket. Plays in the late 1500's and early 1600's would only play for at most a few days and then a new one was expected of the public, now we have plays that will run for several months at a time and even musicals that have been running for decades. There are more things for the public to do now rather than just going to the pub and the theatre, the theatres now also are indoors whereas the shakesperian theatres were outdoors and because of lighting were only performed during the day (candles were dangerous with thatched rooves and wooden structures) and sometimes due to weather conditions they would postpone shows as with no roof a lot of their audience would have been uninterested in being drenched at what is supposed to be a fun event.
The production of Julius Caesar gives a lot of ideas for staging as it has various parts throughout the play where levels and audience interaction can be used(The picture to the left is of how the stage was set up for the current production). Not too much is known about the original staging or the production because of the lack of documentation in that era, luckily a passing tourist and diarist made an entry about seeing the production and remarking upon it. From the trip with my class to the globe to go and see the production there I know that in a more modern representation they used Mark Anthony's podium as a very court like box, they included the audience at the beginning by bringing large boxes and yelling about Caesar in support of him. Before the show we were given a small talk about the Globe and how the original production might have been staged, there is the thought that for the speeches to the people of Rome that are spoken by both Mark Anthony and Caesar might have been performed from the balcony on the stage being a very ideal place to address not only the actors playing the people of Rome but also the audience and the way the stage is set out it would also allow their voice to be carried throughout the theatre. The play is based upon the original Julius Caesar and how he ran Rome and his assassination after his friends and advisors felt he as one man held too much power, Shakespeare found his information initially about Caesar, Brutus and Anthony from Plutarch's Lives in North's English translation. Shakespeare also used books like the bible for inspiration and using his own experiences from having been on stage himself as well as writing created a play that was not only visually pleasing for the audience but gave the actors so many strong emotions to play on and use to enhance the play.The play was important because what had happened with Julius Caesar was still very prevalent to the Elizabethan public it was a common tale and to have that brought to them and shown as a production would have been talked about. The fact that there wouldn't have been any set for the play was quite interesting considering a lot of the public would have had preconceived ideas about how it would have looked, the point of no set meant that it would be a lot easier for the average person to interpret it how they liked and make the show what they wanted to. Props such as swords and letters would have been used to bring the violent element of the play to light when Caesar gets assassinated and using the Mark Anthony speech when he is talking about the will to draw the audience to a focus point. Costumes would have been used to show the different levels of status in the play between the characters and illustrate the personality of a character too giving the audience a clear idea of where each character sat within the hierarchy of the play. The political themes of the play lie in that it was better for Rome when they had a monarch, it was a way for Shakespeare to suck up to Queen Elizabeth and gain her approval for his work. It also meant that the audience would be thinking that it was a good thing that they had a monarch, and weren't letting history repeat itself. The politics involved in this play were purely to get a lot of favour from the people who held the power of it's day, it would also ensure that William Shakespeare had free clearance to keep putting his plays out there.
The theatre in Elizabethan times was a real social thing it was available to all levels of society, the levels were stills shown within the theatre not only as to where people sat but also in the prices of the tickets. The different levels of seating were divided as such, the yard is for the standing public who would come on the day, the lower upper and middle galleries and the Lord's rooms. The yard would have had the everyday men and women, the galleries would have housed those who could afford the seating and were higher up in the class system, the Lord's rooms were for the Lord's of the courts to be seen in their extravagant outfits, they were situated to the sides of the stage to allow the public to see their finery and show off their status. Shakespeare was alive and working during the reign of two monarch's, Elizabeth I and James VI and I. The religious differences between these two times changed dramatically, the country went from Elizabeth I's time where most nobles were still Catholic and so in turn were a lot of the commoners, even though the protestant's were beginning to gain more support and so the Queen showed her dislike for them. When James VI and I took the throne in 1603 the puritans began show their want for reform in the country's religion, in 1604 James VI and I called a conference at Hampton Court to allow the Court to hear what Puritan leaders had to say about their religion and so began their climb in the world of religion.
Theatre has changed in many ways since the days of Shakespeare, it has evolved to allow almost anything to be performed without having the writer beheaded for a treasonus theme in the play. In the Elizebethan era only men were allowed on stage because it was not respectable for a woman to be on the stage, now we have not only women on the stage but women playing the male roles, I recently saw a production of Henry IV that was an all female cast and set in a prison of modern times. The price of a seat in a theatre now costs a lot more than it used to and most wanted seats have gone from being behind the stage to be seen and admired in all your finery, to the front row of the upper circle to gain the full view of the stage. Ticket prices used to range from 1d to 5d which would now translate to roughly £0.52 to £2.61 which really wasn't much whereas now we would pay between £30 and £100 for a good west end theatre ticket. Plays in the late 1500's and early 1600's would only play for at most a few days and then a new one was expected of the public, now we have plays that will run for several months at a time and even musicals that have been running for decades. There are more things for the public to do now rather than just going to the pub and the theatre, the theatres now also are indoors whereas the shakesperian theatres were outdoors and because of lighting were only performed during the day (candles were dangerous with thatched rooves and wooden structures) and sometimes due to weather conditions they would postpone shows as with no roof a lot of their audience would have been uninterested in being drenched at what is supposed to be a fun event.
This is a link to a Youtube video that explains the outline of the play.
The link to the RSC website
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