The clowns and fools that appear in many of Shakespeare’s plays are one of his most intriguing archetypes. Deceptively simple at first, the role of foolish characters reveals a wide variety of insight, wisdom, and ideas, which make the audience think outside the perspective of the rest of the play. These ideas are paired with low comedy to keep the same audience entertained. Thus, this archetype holds some of Shakespeare’s most perceptive writing, wrapped in some of his most comical characters. This combination stays in the minds of audiences long after the play is over.

First, a distinction: contrary to modern usage, there is quite a difference between a clown and a fool in Shakespeare’s day. A clown character is an uneducated, rustic character, who brings comedy through his ignorance and sheds a different light on the stories of nobles with his upbringing and perspective. He is not usually intentionally funny, but is relatable and sympathetic to the groundlings in the audience. Much of the humor in a clown draws from his ignorance (including frequent malapropisms), frequent physical and slapstick humor, bawdy or otherwise risqué jokes, and occasionally a grandiose personality. All this makes clowns universally appealing; they appeal to the less-educated groundlings by being relatable and having their sense of humor, while the trope pokes fun at the lower classes for the nobles, and provides perspective and food for thought to all. Clown-like characters include Bottom in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, whose physical comedy, grandiose personality, and malapropisms cover up some deep insights on love (“Reason and love keep little company together nowadays”). The constable and his men from Much Ado About Nothing are grossly incompetent clowns, whose sheer incompetence brings comedy, and yet they somehow manage to convict the correct criminal through the subtle, hidden insight of clowns. The gravediggers in Hamlet joke about heaven and hell, a noblewoman’s suicide, and numerous other unacceptable topics. This provides perspective and commentary, as well as very physical comedy in their digging.

A fool, on the other hand, was raised in the court and educated to be witty, and was permitted to criticize nobility openly. Both being entertaining and pointing out the flaws of the court were in the fool’s job description back then. Touchstone from As You Like It is a clever fool who criticizes nobility, but he authentically provides a foil to the noble way of doing things with his desire to live like a rural clown. Feste in Twelfth Night is a wise fool who performs several functions integral to the plot. He is a voice for the most important messages of the play, and speaks truth directly to the audience without worrying about noble loyalty. This is the way real nobles hoped the role of the fool in society would function.

Shakespeare’s clowns and fools fill a variety of roles, and express central themes that are anything but foolish. It seems as if these tropes have fallen away today. Would they be useful in contemporary fiction?

You’ll remember that, in a previous post, I mentioned that the Globe Theatre had trapdoors in the floor of the elevated stage, allowing for creative entrances and exits. Actors could also use different-colored smoke to set the scene by burning various salts and alcohol in the space beneath the stage. Actors and set pieces could also be raised and lowered through a fixture in the ceiling, a feature still common to theaters today. This Halloween, let’s dive deeper into the other special effects used in the Elizabethan era. Shakespeare’s plays are full of magic, battles, and death, but how was all of it pulled off onstage?

Firstly, the blood. There is so much of it in Elizabethan drama. Where could it all possibly come from? As it turned out, the blood of pigs, sheep, or bulls was a popular choice for replacing human blood onstage. This blood would be placed in an animal bladder beneath a layer of clothing, only to burst when stabbed, hit, or otherwise pierced. Animal parts were also used when bones or other body parts were necessary.

What about live animals? Many of Shakespeare’s stage directions call for live animals to enter and exit the stage. (Most notable is A Winter’s Tale’s “Exeunt, pursued by a bear”.) It is unclear to this day whether real animals or costumes were used for the parts of bears, dogs, and the like. Animal-fight-based entertainments, including cockfighting, bear-baiting, and dog fights, were extremely popular at that time, and were held right next to the Globe in the packed London entertainment districts. It’s certainly possible that live animals were brought in for some scenes (rather than spending an exorbitant amount on more costumes).

The sound effects of Elizabethan drama were also surprisingly competent. A real cannon was often used to announce important entrances, mimicking the real fanfare for important people. (As you might remember, this particular effect led to the accidental burning of the first Globe Theatre during a production of Henry VIII.) Rolling a cannonball around or shaking a metal sheet created the sound of thunder, and fireworks imitated battle noise. There was music, too. Shakespeare commissioned musicians to write music and perform it. There’s plenty of music explicitly described in stage directions and dialogue, but it’s likely that incidental music played a role in many scenes as well.

In conclusion, I would say the Elizabethan theater’s special effects were really engaging, multi-sensory, and competent for the time period. In fact, they were much more engaging than most we have today (and also much more dangerous). Would you pay to hear actual cannons and smell the blood of pigs?

Remember when the Purge franchise first came out, and suddenly all your friends were talking about all the crimes they would commit if everything was legal for 24 hours?

If you said yes, setting aside the fact that you might need to find new friends, you understand the concept of the Elizabethan Season of Revels. Unlike the Purge, the Season of Revels lasted several weeks in the winter, though the dates varied region by region. Violent crimes were, thankfully, still punishable, but many social rules regarding public behavior were relaxed, and general disorder descended on the streets. For a few weeks at the end of every year, cities and towns in Elizabethan England engaged in a period of misrule. Often organized and celebrated most enthusiastically by students and apprentices, the revels on the streets included riots, attacks on local establishments, and public speeches criticizing local government figures. The revelers destroyed several businesses, most notably the Cockpit Theatre in 1917. The public chose a “Christmas Lord” or “Lord of Misrule” to lead the activities of the season.

The upper classes of Elizabethan society also had yearly revels, although these were more of an extensive holiday celebration than a yearly public outburst. Queen Elizabeth developed these traditions into a set yearly festival, with a full program of approved music, theatre, and dancing. She began this season on November 17th to honor her coronation, and there was an entire office dedicated to planning the revels. The Master of Revels was nothing like the Lord of Misrule- he was an upper government official intent on managing a smooth, entertaining festival season while keeping the royal family safe and un-offended. As such, the office became a powerhouse of censorship, carefully choosing plays and other entertainments that wouldn’t upset the royal family. Theatrical groups had to pay fees to submit their plays (sound familiar?) to the office of the revels, and plays that were not accepted could not be performed during the season.

The censorship worked! One example of this was Richard II. All the versions of the play available during Elizabeth’s reign mysteriously fail to include the scene where Richard abdicates his throne. Whether cutting the scene was Shakespeare’s choice or that of an agent of the throne, as discussed previously on this blog, censorship limitations abound beneath the surface of Shakespeare’s dramas. However, crafty metaphors kept the bard our of trouble. His historical stories reflected issues people wanted to discuss under Elizabeth, and his tragedies poetically expressed the ugly side of humanity.

The clever writing kept the plays on the stage and in our hands, but it’s also the nature of performance art to evade censorship. No matter how many scenes are taken out beforehand, the actions, expressions, and speech of an actor add so much more to the experience. A serious speech praising a monarch can easily become a sarcastic obloquy in the hands of a skilled actor.

Do you prefer the ways the royalty or the common people celebrated this season? Do you think we should bring it back?

I mentioned in a previous blog post that the Puritans destroyed the original Globe Theatre in 1644. (Well, by original, I mean the second one in Shakespeare’s lifetime; the first one was burned down by accident when a cannon stunt went wrong in a production of Henry VIII.) But what exactly did the theater look like on the inside? Were the seats good? And how much did the whole experience cost?

The Globe Theatre was actually built as an open air theater, with just enough roof around the edges to cover the seats, sort of like the slanted roofs around some large baseball fields. This, of course, was a necessity before electric light, when actors relied on natural light. Because of this, plays were performed during the day, not during the evenings as is common today. These sorts of amphitheaters were common entertainment spaces due to the need for light, and they often emulated the styles of ancient Roman architecture. A tarp spread on poles was used on the stage during rain to protect expensive costumes. The stage held trapdoors into the appropriately 5-foot crawlspace actors used for various entrances and exits. There was seating on three sides of the stage, meaning plays were performed almost on the round. This must have provided extra challenges in blocking to ensure plays were engaging from all angles. Shakespeare paid for a significant portion of the theater out of pocket, and then he and some actors bought shares in the theater company, earning more money as the theater grew.

The Globe could seat about 1,500 spectators in its 3 stories of seating. This doesn’t include the people crowded outside or those in the pit- the 1600s version of a General Admission concert ticket. Groundlings, as they were called, could pay a penny to stand and watch the play from right by the stage. It’s unclear whether they loved the arrangement as much as many modern concertgoers do. Allegedly, they misbehaved and threw food at the stage, but there is no evidence to support this. The word ‘groundlings’ was used in Hamlet to refer to an audience, and had meant a type of gaping fish. That’s probably what they looked like! But how much was a penny worth? It’s near-impossible to know an exact conversion rate to money before the 1800s, but, based on what it could buy (a loaf of bread or a decent serving of beer), it was probably worth about $2-$5 USD.

According to Thomas Platter’s 1599 diary, theater seats generally cost 2 pennies, with the best, mody cushioned seats at 3 pennies. Still not bad by today’s standards! But theaters held a whole host of hazards and activities modern theaters would never allow.

That’s a topic for another time…

In the age of fast fashion, stage costumes are relatively easy to procure. What is and isn’t acceptable costuming for a modern Shakespeare production is extremely flexible, with each production trying to find a unique new setting or angle for plays that are hundreds of years old. When my Shakespeare company (the Youth Shakespeare Society of Pittsburgh!) produced a Midsummer Night’s Dream last summer, costumes cost us next to nothing. People brought what they had and built from inexpensive basics. There was no accurate period clothing.

In the time when Shakespeare originally staged his play, however, there was an obvious dress code for actors (and non-actors) in a society that signaled class by clothing. Genuine, convincing clothing to represent each class was expected- none of that “modern interpretation” stuff that puts people in any old thing as long as the families are color-coordinated. Clothing back then was made by hand of quality materials, so even the clothes of the lower classes (wool, linen, and sheepskin) weren’t cheap to acquire. The clothing of nobility added an additional layer of cost, with its elaborate design, expensive materials, and precise tailoring. Besides, where were non-nobles supposed to buy such garments? It’s possible that one surprising supplier of noble costumes may have been servants. Nobles often left faithful servants some piece of expensive clothing (or perhaps an accessory or a wig) in their wills, but the servants were unable to wear these out in public due to the strict dress code stratifying the social classes. (Elizabeth I even banned anyone except the royal family from wearing purple!) With no other use for these garments, it’s possible that servants sold them off to theater companies.

What about makeup? The ingredients were ghastly, but makeup was essential, especially with an all-male cast playing women as well as men. Beauty standards of the day indicated unnaturally-white skin, bright red lips, and light hair as the ideal. Recipes for pale face powder range from harmlessly gross to downright deadly, with one citing hogs’ bones and poppy oil, and a far more popular mixture, known as ceruse, utilizing white lead and vinegar. Using lead for both white and red makeup proved far more common than using benign natural ingredients. Indeed, lead and mercury were the primary ingredients in most white and red makeup products for centuries to come. These ingredient eventually caused hair loss, skin discoloration, tooth decay, and death- the very thing the nobles were trying to avoid!

In any case, makeup and costumes were essential to presenting an acceptable, proper play in Shakespeare’s day, and they weren’t always safe or easy to find. Plays with fantasy or historical settings presented an additional challenge. My question is: would you rather use bones and oil or white lead to achieve that desirable has-never-seen-the-sun look?

Most Americans’ cultural idea of a Puritan is vague. Someone in a hat with a buckle on it yelling about the sin of cosmetics, probably. But who were the actual Puritans, why were they so strict, and what did they think of Shakespeare’s plays?

Puritanism is, in fact, a very vague word to describe the 1500s-1600s movement of people who believed the Anglican Church’s overhaul of tradition was incomplete. When Henry VIII and his daughter Elizabeth established the rule of the Protestant Anglican Church in previously Catholic England, they added even more factions to a religiously unsettled island. Now there were Catholics, miscellaneous Protestants, law-abiding Anglicans, and a new faction that believed the monarchs hadn’t gone far enough when it came to taking all the bells and whistles off of English Christianity.

The Puritans believed that the Scriptures ought to be synonymous with law, with strict legal punishments for any infringement of Scriptural orders. completely merging the already state-owned Church into the government. They believed in an Old-Testament God who saved a few hard workers and damned everyone else to Hell. They wanted to eliminate all ceremonies not rooted in the Bible, including, among other things, Christmas. They also tended to despise all the excesses of the Globe Theater, whose entertainment options included not only drama, but also bear-baiting, gambling, and excessive drinking.

Besides spiritual objections to excess and make-believe, the Puritans may have been driven by envy, as Church attendance stayed low and people flocked to entertainment, and plays were printed on finer paper than Bibles.

In Shakespeare’s time, however, the Puritans weren’t the most difficult adversary. They protested, of course, but their political power was limited. The greatest difficulties came from the Aldermen of London, as well as the Privy Council. These groups complained that the theaters were distracting workers, and suppressed all London stage plays in 1597. Shakespeare and other playwrights had to rely entirely on royal patronage after this point. This partly explains the way he obsequiously obeys the monarchs’ whims, including supporting James’ rage against witches and bringing Falstaff back from the dead because Elizabeth wanted to see him in love.

Before the Puritans’ political uprising, one popular tactic to suppress plays was to fine merchants for hosting them on their property, or even to pay the actors not to perform, as the King’s Men were reportedly payed by 1622.

In the end, Oliver Cromwell’s Puritan interregnum government squashed Elizabethan drama. From banning all public plays in 1642 to destroying the Globe Theater in 1644 to the ordering of the destruction of all playhouses and the whipping of all actors in 1947, Elizabethan plays were completely suppressed until the 1660s.

The three sisters in Macbeth are some of the most timeless witches ever portrayed. Ghosts appear indirectly or indirectly in at least eight plays. Fairies abound in Midsummer, and references to them are sprinkled throughout other plays. A handful invoked ancient Roman deities, that sometimes appeared onstage directly. Prophetic visions and various other supernatural happenings frequently inform characters’ decisions.

Shakespeare obviously had a thing for the supernatural. But did he truly believe in it?

In the Elizabethan era, witch trials were still happening, and were grounded in law. Henry VIII and Elizabeth I both passed witchcraft laws, which attempted to control the narrative of the Reformation by asserting that the Anglican Church was ready to destroy the existential terror of the day. These laws, however, seem to be crafted around public opinion rather than genuine panic. The legal fight against witches really took off when James I took the throne. Years before becoming king, he wrote a book about witches called Daemonologie, which he used as evidence to support his witchcraft laws as soon as he became king in 1604. Though James I also used witchcraft to control the public through fear, his escalation of the issue suggests a genuine belief in witches. Thus, throughout Shakespeare’s lifetime, a number of witch trials happened in the country, pamphlets and books about witchcraft were common, and the belief was not limited to the uneducated lower classes.

The ghost question was debated frequently among Shakespeare’s contemporaries. In the Elizabethan view, the question was not “Do ghosts exist?” but, rather, “Are ghosts a genuine spirit of a person, or a trick of the Devil?” Hamlet asks himself similar questions about the ghost of his father, and seems to decide the spirit is genuine. Placing ghosts in dreams (Richard III), visions only visible to some (Macbeth), or other shadowy settings helped Shakespeare use ghosts while avoiding the technical questions of their authenticity.

The supernatural definitely made for convenient plot points, was emotionally powerful in the minds of audiences, and pandered to a superstitious royal family. Witch anxiety fanned by the royals flared during Shakespeare’s life. Though it is assumed he was a conforming Anglican, there is no way to discern Shakespeare’s true beliefs regarding witches. A firm divide between realistic and fantastical fiction had not yet been cultivated during his time, and to renounce the supernatural would have been an insult to the royal family. One has to accept that Shakespeare’s plays fed supernatural fanaticism at the time, whether as a choice of genuine belief or one of loyalty or writer’s block.

It seems as if one can’t have a conversation about the life of William Shakespeare without bringing up the theories that he was not one man from Stratford-upon-Avon, but someone else entirely. Somehow, it always comes around to the idea that Shakespeare is a pseudonym for a large group of people or one of his poetic contemporaries (most frequently, Christopher Marlowe, Francis Bacon, William Stanley, Edward de Vere, and, occasionally, Emilia Bassano). It’s viewed as a fringe theory by most, but the prevalence of these conspiracy theories over the years begs one question: why do we refuse to believe that one man from a non-noble background could create such brilliant work? And why, when these theories are nothing but speculation, have we been talking about it for four hundred years?

The one thing that separates Shakespeare from these contemporaries is his upbringing. He grew up in a commoner household, with possibly illiterate parents, and was probably educated in the King’s New School, a new system of free public education up to age 13. His life is well-documented for the period: the man Shakespeare seems to have existed. The only problem is a lack of surviving evidence (beyond his signature) that he wrote anything.

The reasons given for the supposed authors to invent an entire persona for their work vary from candidate to candidate. One might argue nobles could not release their work in print without political scrutiny. It seems that specific evidence for each theory is limited to a few bits of analysis or anagrams of Shakespeare’s lines. I would argue there is no outstanding candidate based on current evidence, but, because of William Shakespeare’s lack of documented writing or higher education, the question will remain open until more evidence is found. The ultimate question is this: do we believe in brilliance, and accept that some historical facts are lost to time, or do we seek a definitive explanation?

One might say our cultural inability to entirely accept Shakespeare’s identity is born not out of evidence, but out of a lack of understanding of genius itself. The noblemen poets are never questioned in their brilliance, but Shakespeare’s common upbringing continues to make people question his true abilities. The idea of a secret identity is irresistible to us in the face of how little we know about his life. However, the simple lack of evidence in either direction will likely leave the question open forever.

Unless anything else is discovered, my answer to the question of “Was Shakespeare Shakespeare” will always be “Does it matter?” Someone wrote dazzling work and chose to sign it as William Shakespeare. Isn’t that enough?

Here are two ideas for my passion blog in the upcoming weeks:

1. I might attend a meeting for a different club on campus every week in order to try new things and expose other people to new experiences. Although I am starting to get involved in several activities of my own initiative, I’m scared to attempt many others. I’m interested in improv and comedy, for example, and I have some background in theater, but the vulnerability of these activities is frightening. Similarly, a friend invited me to attend her K-pop dance group, and I’m intimidated because I don’t know the first thing about K-pop dance. On the other hand, several clubs I’ve joined aren’t at all what they seem on the surface, and I know people would absolutely love them if more people tried them (for example, Swing Dancing Club and Student Farm Club). Perhaps I might explore a subgenre of club each week, rather than spending the spotlight entirely on one club- for example, a sampling of different dance groups, performance groups, activism-related groups, etc. I hope to expand my own horizons by trying everything once (or at least a handful of things once) and doing things that scare me, while also providing exposure for the quirkier groups on campus, interviewing students and giving an honest review of the experience so students know what to expect before they go.

2. I’m an avid reader, and I try to read as broadly as possible. I use the book tracking site Goodreads regularly to rate and review books and keep track of what I have read. So far I’ve read 154 books in 2019, and, looking back, I see a wide range of topics, genres, and time periods represented, but one thing is blatantly, entirely missing: graphic novels. An arbitrary snobbishness has kept me from reading a single graphic novel over the course of my otherwise well-read childhood. I might attempt to fix my graphic novel and general superhero illiteracy by absorbing a different superhero’s main comics each week, from the perspective of someone who has never read comics before. By the end of the semester, I hope I will learn to appreciate the art form, will increase my cultural literacy, and will have written some honest, insightful reviews of a type of writing I’ve been neglecting. Since I’ll be working with what I can find locally, in the library, or online, perhaps I’ll unearth some lesser-read gems of the genre as well.