Costumes and Scripts in the Elizabethan Theaters.Jean MacIntyre's Costumes and Scripts claims, with some justification, to be "virtually pioneer work" (xi) in its field. Where earlier studies have generalized about costume use and management in Renaissance English theater on the basis of selected plays Among the numerous literary works titled Selected Plays are the following:
A revel is a type of celebration or festival, involving dancing, costumes, and general merrymaking. John Langstaff founded the 'Revels Accounts and the Henslowe papers as evidence of costuming practices. Following are chapters on the Admiral's Men Admiral's Men, theatrical company of players, officially designated the Admiral's Men in 1585. They were rivals of the Chamberlain's Men and performed at the theaters of Philip Henslowe. Their leading actor was Edward Alleyn. and Chamberlain's Men Chamberlain's Men, Elizabethan theatrical company for which Shakespeare, a joint owner of the company, wrote his plays and served as actor. Organized in 1594, they performed at the Globe and at the Blackfriars theaters. Under the patronage of James I they became c. in the 1590s, on the boy actors from 1599 and the court masque masque, courtly form of dramatic spectacle, popular in England in the first half of the 17th cent. The masque developed from the early 16th-century disguising, or mummery, in which disguised guests bearing presents would break into a festival and then join with their , and on the Prince's, Queen's and King's Men The King's Men may refer to:
Contrary to the usual procedural assumption, MacIntyre argues, the Henslowe papers are not an accurate guide to the costuming practices of the Lord Chamberlain's Men The Lord Chamberlain's Men was the playing company that William Shakespeare worked for as actor and playwright for most of his career. Formed at the end of a period of flux in the theatrical world of London, it had become, by 1603, one of the two leading companies of the for the period during which Shakespeare wrote his plays for them. While the Lord Admiral's Men pursued a policy of writing plays to take advantage of costumes already in the company wardrobe - particularly their suites of Oriental, Iberian and London plays - plays written for the Lord Chamberlain's Men, primarily by Shakespeare and Jonson, show less reluctance to call for new costumes, while at the same time inventively preserving economy by means of what MacIntyre intriguingly calls "a law of succession" for costumes, according to according to prep. 1. As stated or indicated by; on the authority of: according to historians. 2. In keeping with: according to instructions. 3. which the same garments appear in successive performances of plays which remained in the repertory, gradually making their way down the social scale as they grew shabby. Thus the slops worn by Armado in Love's Labor's Lost, by Bobadilla in Every Man In and by Benedick in Much Ado probably migrated from character to character as their state declined. "Instead of inventing serial plays to use the same sets of costumes, Shakespeare invented serial roles to give individual costumes long service no matter what their condition" (202). Chapter 5, "Theater for Elites," covers the boy companies and the court masque. MacIntyre argues that the latter inherited their costuming practices from those of the Admiral's Men, for whom their principal writers, especially Chapman and Dekker, had previously written. Marston's plays for Paul's Boys represent attempts to make do with a limited wardrobe, while the "little eyases" of Blackfriars appear to have been less restricted in the variety and number of costumes available to them. In the short section on the court masque the approach seems less productive, and the research less thorough, than in the discussion of the commercial theater companies; and, despite the influence of the masque on Jacobean plays, this section might have been omitted. Chapter 6, on the royally-sanctioned companies under James, discusses most of Shakespeare's plays William Shakespeare's plays have the reputation of being among the greatest in the English language and in Western literature. His plays are traditionally divided into the genres of tragedy, history, and comedy. for the King's Men, as well as those by Dekker, Heywood, and others for Prince Henry's and Queen Anne's Men Queen Anne's Men, or the Queen's Men, was a playing company, or troupe of actors, in Jacobean era London. The group was formed on the accession of James I in 1603, and named after its patron, James's wife Anne of Denmark. . These accounts are strongest when MacIntyre is able to show how the script's structure enforces costuming and doubling patterns. Too often, however, in the absence of such constraints, MacIntyre resorts to speculation about what characters probably wore in particular scenes. Non-specialist readers interested in costuming in a particular play may find new insights here, but the discussions are often cursory and inconclusive, and rarely move beyond familiar territory. The unaccountable absence of an index, moreover, will limit the usefulness of Costumes and Scripts to such readers. Even so, and quite apart from its contribution to the revision of the history of costume in the Renaissance theater, MacIntyre's book may prove a valuable resource for theoretical attempts to re-materialize Shakespeare's practice, since it continually invites the reader to think about the relation between Shakespeare's aesthetic motivation and the material - essentially economic - constraints which influenced his costuming choices. Luke Wilson OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY Ohio State University, main campus at Columbus; land-grant and state supported; coeducational; chartered 1870, opened 1873 as Ohio Agricultural and Mechanical College, renamed 1878. There are also campuses at Lima, Mansfield, Marion, and Newark. |
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