Origin Of Drama And The Theatres And The Stages

 The Origin 

The drama came from Greek word, drama meaning action or to act or to do. Drama is a literary composition, drama is the form of composition design for performance in the theatre, in which the actors take role for certain characters, perform certain action and utter certain dialogues, on the stage before audience and Story became drama. No production of drama in the old English literature( the writers, all poet usually wrote poetry).

The great deeds of a people are treasured in its literature and later generations represent in play, a story put into action by living performers, who imagine themselves to be the old heroes. In England, drama had a distinctly religious origin from the church as the part of services. The motives of the church began to use dramatics , it was certain that the purpose was didactic, to give deep understanding about the truth of religion to the believer.

The bible in latin lauguage, Common people could not understand the meaning of the Bible, some common people were unlettered. for this purpose , the clergy tried to find out some new methods of teaching , wherein the stories of the Gospel were explained through the living pictures, the story simply taken from the scripture, gospel would be acted on the stage. Other impressive scenes from the gospel followed, then the old testament ( the first part of the Christian Bible ) was called upon, until a complete cycle of plays from the creation of the final judgment was established. This drama called liturgical drama. The earlier play were given inside the church, the story were written by the clergy and performed by the clergy. 

Common people were educated through dramas, in order to make the public aware of the Biblical stories, stories from the Bible were used in dramas called mystery plays. The stories taken from the lives of the saints were called Miracle plays. The first English plays were written and performed in the 14th century. Plays were told religious stories . The technic of the theatre used by the Clergy. Significant role of the miracle and mystery in theaters. the famous play every man Still perform.

There were Three periods of drama, first religious period, second moral period as morality and artistic period. Religious period was the first perspective to growth drama, all about religious. there were Two types of drama in religious period( liturgical plays ). the first was Miracle play and second mystery play. Religious elements behind the birth of the English drama.

After the Miracle play move outside the church, or churchyard these plays were exhibited at the marketplaces or at the open places of the town. In mystery and morality plays, there were serious kinds of subjects. Miracle plays became more popular than mystery plays because of their new and fresh subjects.

The secular organization or town guilds began to take responsibility in its production. Few changes were made during this period. By the fourteenth and fifteenth century, The actors were no longer clergy but the amateur actors, profesional guilds, which trained and selected carefully. The plays were given in the series of mansion in the town square.

The Theatre 

Plays performed in inn yards. the best inn yard places were the bull Inn, the bell savage inn, the bell inn. The Audience capacity was 500 people. 

In the following two centuries, under the influence of the Renaissance, the topics and performance of plays changed. Renaissance plays no longer with religious subjects. In London, The Rose and The Theatre, were built. the Globe Theatre, which opened in 1599. And then the red bull theatre. These theatre were amphitheater, unroofed courtyards but roofed galleries, no artificial lights and play performed during the afternoon and lower class were paid a penny. The first indoor or roofed theatre was the black fairs theatre in 1596, also performed during the night. The Elizabethan theatre was a public place open to people of all social classes, because everybody could afford the price for standing room. Consequently, the play had to meet the expectations of all classes.

The players in the movable theaters, perform in the town in the squares and open places. Each of these theaters consisted of a two-story platform, set on wheels. The lower story was a dressing room for the actors, the upper story was the stage proper, and was reached by a trapdoor from below. When the play was over the platform was dragged away, and the next play in the cycle took its place. So in a single square several plays would be presented in rapid sequence to the same audience.

The stages 

The stage were divide into three parts, hell, earth and heaven. Hell in the left side, earth in the centre and heaven in the right side. Usually the stages were identified by certain props. For instance, the head of dragon with red jaws or monstrous mouth with fire breathing represent hell where the devil characters will be dragged to the hell.

By shakespeare's day, first at University plays, and then in the regular theaters. In all first plays female parts were taken by boy actors, who evidently were more distressing than the crude scenery, for contemporary literature has many satirical references to their acting. The stage was deemed unfit for women, and actresses were unknown in England until after the restoration. In all these theaters, probably, the stage consisted of a bare platform, with a curtain or traverse .