From Yoda to a starving, the Star Wars saga is brought to life in an Elizabethan drama written by William Shakespeare himself. Not long ago, the Death Star was smashed. An evil Darth Vader has planned a brilliant scheme to catch Luke Skywalker and his companions and bring them back to the galaxy, where they are safe. To escape the Empire’s wrath, our heroes rely on a little green Jedi Master and a braggart named Lando Calrissian. A tauntaun’s teeth aren’t going to teach Lord Vader how difficult raising a Jedi child is. There are Easter eggs placed throughout the play for Star Wars and Shakespeare fans. As well as scenes and characters from the film, the drama contains twenty woodcut-style drawings representing an Elizabethan version of the Star Wars galaxy and images from the film itself.
Shakespeare has been reedited to claim that he developed genres that combined elements of tragedy and comedy. His work merged genres, resulting in unique storytelling and theater experiences. Shakespeare’s plays influenced American theater development. Shakespeare’s works are defined by repeating themes; A few themes still ring true today: love, death, ambition, power, fate, and free will. As a result, Shakespeare’s works are ageless and universal. This also helps to make them more relatable. A multitude of interpretations of Shakespeare’s plays has been produced throughout history.
Shakespeare was a product of his period and culture. Although he existed independently of his time, he was inextricably bound to his day’s theatre company, theatrical methods, acting practices, and social circumstances. Reviewing his activities does not bring current era; instead, it is an attempt to enter a period that is not familiar to make an informed decision. That Shakespeare’s time lacked what current theatre companies deem essential. Modern theatre companies lack authors like Shakespeare who directs the actor’s body, movement, inflection, and the audience’s gaze and text interpretations. In Shakespeare’s days, the onus of providing direction rested on both the text and the actor responsible for it.
It was inevitable that the actor would become a self-directed filmmaker due to the period’s acting styles. The actor spoke four or five words, and each actor had his own “role.” The play’s synopsis of the entrances, exits and other essential actions would be hung in the tiring house behind the stage for examination throughout the performance. Shakespeare invented roughly 1700 phrases still used in ordinary English (Lee et al. 79). He often turned nouns into verbs or adjectives when writing, combining words, or creating new ones. Language is constantly changing, and reading classics fosters the study of recent comments. Students benefit from exposure to Shakespeare because it helps them understand the evolution of familiar language and provides them with more contextual strength.
Shakespeare wrote a total of four history plays in two “series.” It was published between 1589 and 1593. It chronicled the events leading up to the Lancaster dynasty’s demise, from 1422 to 1485. The second series, published in 1595-1599, covers the ascent of the Lancastrians from 1398 to 1420. However, Shakespeare intended his audience to be familiar with the characters. Aspects of English history like family feuds and the monarchy’s rise and fall were intertwined into the nation’s patriotic stories and mythology. However, unlike Shakespeare’s English commoners, most Americans are unaware of the Revolution’s post-war consequences. As a result, Shakespearean history is frequently wrong in its specifics, yet it accurately reflects common notions of history.
The fundamental way Shakespeare entertains his audience in this specific play is by intertwining two plots, one primary and one sub-plot, which are interwoven throughout the space. The topic of bewilderment and mistaken identification runs throughout Twelfth Night, and it is one of the play’s most prominent motifs. In addition, Shakespeare is credited with inventing genres that combined elements of tragedy and comedy. His work merged genres, resulting in unique storytelling and theatrical experiences. American theater owes a lot to Shakespeare’s works. The church is less prominent in today’s plays, although the vast majority of people in Shakespeare’s time were deeply devout in their practices. Throughout history, one religion has been replaced by a plethora of religions, and theaters now strive to accommodate the diverse beliefs of their audiences. Aside from traditional literature and theater, Shakespeare’s impact has spread to contemporary films, western philosophy, and the English language.
Shakespeare, like other authors, was constantly experimenting with and responding to his audiences’ thinking and expectations. This is particularly evident in soliloquies and asides, where actors directly address the audience. A secret joke against the play’s characters, placing them both within and beyond reality, may be seen in their use of painfully evident disguises to the audience but not to the other characters. There were several references to the theatre in the plays, acknowledging its physical dimensions and the presence of an audience and actors. Modern audiences are used to reverent silence during performances, making the fourth wall breaking all the more surprising. Actors now address the audience or even move among them in the yard, involving them in the performance, which was not usual in the early modern period. A relationship with the audience is accessible at the Globe, especially with the pit crowd.
Both 16th-century and contemporary theater are passionate about special effects. The visual and the spectacle were essential to Shakespeare’s audiences, even though the stage was sparsely decorated and featured few objects. Julius Caesar created the first storm in the early modern theater using a rolling cannonball to simulate thunder. Early contemporary performances used cannons and fireworks to portray a supernatural impression and music and lighting effects with candles in interior theaters. A fire-breathing dragon is summoned to fly across the stage during Robert Greene’s Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay, which involves a magician’s battle. Regrettably, we know little about the procedures utilized to achieve these results.
The playhouse was and continues to be the essential prop in the theater, just as it was in Shakespeare’s day. The “heavens” and “hell” are represented by a trapdoor in the Globe’s roof and a trapdoor on the stage floor. Their worldview was based on a vertical hierarchical framework and awareness of imagery and symbolism. Characters frequently refer to the heavenly or infernal in Shakespeare’s plays, referencing both the cultural and religious connotations of the terms “heaven” and “hell” and actual locations in the theater. No matter how far civilization has progressed since Shakespeare’s time, certain cultural connotations shape our perceptions.
The audience, not directors or theatre companies, maybe the factor that impacts how Shakespeare is performed today. We know about Shakespeare’s audience members that their expectations, attitudes, and reactions to the theatre were very different from ours. It seems unlikely that we could duplicate the experience that Shakespeare’s audiences had while seeing his plays, even if we had a way of controlling them. The idea that spectators would attend to “hear a play” has been challenged by the contention that Shakespeare’s theatre embodied a visual and aural culture. Despite the Globe’s authenticity and documentation in the form of tracts on the theatre and audience reports, we still have specific gaps in our knowledge.
The cost of admission into the upper galleries, covered and contained seats, would begin at 6 pence per person. Audiences in Shakespeare’s time behaved differently from audiences today, which we take for granted when we go to the theater. A lot more people got involved in the show back then than they do now. It is an interpretation. As a result of this authenticity, no two productions of the same play will ever be exactly alike. Life, truth, and beauty are all expressed in classic literature. It must be of exceptional aesthetic merit for the period it was written. Although different styles may come and go, a classic can be valued for its construction and literary art.
Conclusively, classic literature remains relevant in the modern period because it can provide readers with specific insights by providing a glimpse into the past and expressing its thoughts on themes that have remained universal and timeless in their application. Western literature was gifted with Shakespeare’s plays, some of the most brilliant works ever written. He authored various plays, some of which had both witty and serious characters, such as those in The Tragedy of Othello. He also wrote several novels: Shakespeare connected poetry, theatre, and verse in a way that hadn’t been done before.
Work Cited
Lee, Bridget Kiger, Patricia Enciso, and Jessica Sharp. “Walking with The Words: Student Motivation Toward Reading and Studying Shakespeare’s Plays Through Rehearsal Room Practices.” Youth Theatre Journal 33.1 (2019): 70-88.