William Shakespeare Research Paper

Productions William Shakespeare said, “Is it not strange that desire should so many years outlive performance?”(Brainyquote). People have a hard time picturing what a real Shakespearean play would have looked like in the Globe Theatre. There so many things that went into the productions and not everybody knows what those things are. Shakespeare is the reason theater is the way it is. He set the example of productions. The components of Shakespeare’s productions are the plays, costumes, and sets. Shakespeare wrote three types of plays: tragedies, comedies, and histories. His tragedies had a hero and the story was about that hero’s fall (Jamieson, Tragedies). The hero’s in the tragedies usually a flaw that lead to their fall (Jamieson,

Girls costumes needed to be elaborate and change men into women. One way they used costuming to change a young man into a woman was the they used a blond wig to show the age of a young girl (Costumes and Cosmetics 1). The costumes of a woman reflected her social status(Costumes and Cosmetics 1). Boy costumes needed to portray the characters in a fitting way. Men usually owned their costumes, and the costumes were very elaborated and very expensive(Costumes and Cosmetics 1). Some of the male characters and others were young ,so the costumes needed to reflect age. The way they did that was through the use of wigs(Costumes and Cosmetics 1). The actors used makeup to make them look more like the person they were supposed to portray. To make a young man look like a young girl their makeup consisted of a pale face and rosy cheeks (Costumes and Cosmetics 2). In some plays that had fairies, like a Midsummer Night’s Dream, they crushed pearls and mixed it into the makeup to make the face shimmer (Costumes and Cosmetics 2). Costuming and Cosmetics was very important to the production of Shakespeare’s

Sets were not elaborate they were very minimal. Shakespeare decided to set the stage with words rather than props and material items (Anderson 800-801). A material item that they would use to set the stage were tapestries (Anderson 800-801).Tapestries told the audience whether the play was a tragedy or a comedy (Thurber). The tapestry of a tragedy was black and a comedy of blue (Thurber). The Globe Theatre had unique construction. It had and inner and outer stage (Anderson 800-801). The Globe also was and amphitheater so they could use it for natural lighting on the stage (Elizabethan Theaters) (Thurber). There was different seating depending on how much the spectator was willing to pay. The Globe was a three story building and the people with the cheapest tickets had to stand in the pit of the theatre for the entire play (Alchin) (Mabillard, Globe Theater). The richer people would get to sit on the other levels and they got cushions to sit on (Alchin). The sets and seating were a very important part of the production of Shakespeare’s