Theatre in London

The lecture on theatre in London and the subsequent trip to the globe theatre provided a fascinating look not only in how theatre has evolved in London and world wide but in how it really worked at certain times when it was needed to do certain things. Russell’s lecture covered the origins of how theatre and basic entertainment started and then went through its evolution through time to where it is now and how it is existing now. There was also a great deal of talk in how theatre was used throughout times in a political or religious way. Mostly I recall times that the monarch would close down the theatres out of fear that the shows would cause an upheaval against the authority or how theatres were only allowed on the south side of the River Thames because there was a fear of disorder in any place where there were large amounts of people. There was also the example of when the Romans were in London and were holding their gladiator matches. These matches were an extreme form of entertainment where essentially anything was allowed to happen in the ring but the only thing that was not was that there was not allowed to be any religious proceedings. This seemed interesting because of how these shows would at times allow rapes to partake along with murders and extreme fights but they held the line at religion existing there and I was curious why this is was. In my department there is always a question put in of whether or not religions at the time mattered to this work and how they could have directly or indirectly influenced them. The examination at the Globe also had an interesting look into how theatre work happened at the times of Shakespeare. The aspect of how the business aspect came into play became much more obvious in this lecture and it was interesting to see a new examination of Shakespeare’s style.