Dr. Prinsky

Engl. 4420: Shakespeare

Paper Assignment on Analytically Comparing and Contrasting the Thematic or Expressive Use of the Gallery, Upper Stage, or "the Above" in Several Shakespeare Plays

        Ever since ancient Greek drama, playwrights or dramatists have written for the particular theaters in which their dramas were to be staged. They used meaningfully, significantly, or thematically, the nonverbal "languages" of action, props, setting, and sound effects, in the terminology of Alan Downer's seminal essay "The Life of Our Design: The Function of Imagery in Drama" (Hudson Review 2 [1949]: 242-260; reprinted in Shakespeare: Modern Essays in Criticism, ed. Leonard F. Dean [1957; rpt. New York: Galaxy Books - Oxford UP, 1961, pp. 19-36; revised edition, New York: Galaxy Books - Oxford UP, 1967, pp. 19-36] , and Perspectives on Drama, eds. James Calderwood and Harold Toliver [New York: Oxford UP, 1968, pp. 406-422]). That is, the text of the play was not only a verbal or written literary work or text but also a script, evoking and requiring physical actions or gestures or groupings on stage, actual physical props, particular physical details of the overall set, or sound effects (and, later in the history of drama, from the mid seventeenth century onwards, lighting effects in indoor theaters). For example, the ancient Greek dramatists Aeschylus and Euripides notably use the multi-levels of the ancient Greek stage: (a) an orchestra or ground level area; (b) three steps leading up to the main stage platform; (c) the actual top of the skene or building into which actors could exit, from which actors could enter, and in which actors could change costume, or (d)  in the case of the title character in Euripides' play Medea, from within which utter sorrowful complaints; and (e) from above the skene building, on which an actor could stand, or over which a mechane ("machine") -- a crane -- could extend, from which gods could descend, ascend, or a dragon-drawn chariot could symbolically fly.

        Aeschylus' play Agamemnon, the first part of his trilogy The Oresteia (included in The Norton Anthology of World Masterpieces), begins with a watchman exclaiming (in the Robert Fagles translation) "Dear gods, set me free from all the pain,/ the long watch I keep, one whole year awake . . . / propped on my arms, crouched on the roofs of Atreus/ like a dog" (lines 1-4).  After he sees a signal fire indicating the destruction of Troy and the return of Agamemnon, the watchman alludes to an uneasy situation at home and descends from his perch, the actor having used the top of the skene; that is, the actor portraying the watchman descends from the position of the figure with the spear (on top of the skene) to the orchestra (the bottom of the steps):

This descent of the watchman (actually, the actor playing the watchman) is symbolic, in part, of the fall of Agamemnon, which will take place in the drama. Just as the watchman has started at an elevation, so Agamemnon returns in apparent triumph from the Trojan war, but will fall for a variety of reasons explored in the play.

Likewise,  in Aeschylus' play Agamemnon, the pride of Aegisthus, the lover taken by Agamemnon's wife, Clytaemnestra, is amplified by where he stands when he utters his reply to the recrimination of the Chorus for his adulterous and murderous affair with Clytaemnestra (lines 1647 and following in the Fagles translation): "You say! you slaves at the oars -- / while the master of the benches cracks the whip" (1653-54). He is talking down to the chorus not only in tone and imagery but literally by where he is standing relative to them in the ancient Greek theater (the top step of course, while the Chorus is in the "orchestra" area). The actor portraying Aegisthus stands at the top of the steps, talking down to the Chorus of elders both in language and in the nonverbal "language" of setting. Aegisthus' family has earlier been "put down" in a horrible way by the family line of Agamemnon, the Atreus family (Agamemnon and Menelaos are sometimes referred to as "the Atreides," that is "descendents of Atreus"), and now Aegisthus has achieved a momentary elevation in his revenge -- but indicating a pride or hubris that accompanies his eventual fall in the trilogy of plays.

Euripides in his play Medea (also included in The Norton Anthology of World Masterpieces), a forerunner of the movie Fatal Attraction, makes spectacular and thematic use of the skene and mechane (literally, a "machine": a kind of crane used for special aerial effects, like gods or goddesses ascending or descending, or dragon-drawn chariots ascending or descending). The first several speeches (lines 96-165 in the Fagles translation) in the play by Medea are uttered from inside the skene, out of sight of the audience and the Chorus, amplifying her cries as well as suggesting helplessness (the audience's and Medea's, through being separated and bound up or held captive) and the idea of internalizing (Medea has been and will be secretive and sneaky in what she does). At the end of the play, she talks down to her husband, who has been unfaithful to her and attempted to abandon her (something that could only happen in ancient times and ancient literary works, literature, as all non-English majors knowing, having no relevance or reference to real life), both in her language and her literal physical position onstage: she's in a dragon-drawn chariot (supplied by her grandfather, Helios, the sun god) about to make her escape after committing a couple of murders (okay, four murders) aimed at hurting her persecutors, especially her faithless, opportunistic husband (a character who could only happen in ancient times and ancient literary works . . . ). How the mechane would have functioned is illustrated by the following:

        Shakespeare and other dramatists of the English Renaissance were aware, as medieval playwrights had been in the history of British drama, of the symbolic or thematic possibilities of the staging of the play: the possibilities of the nonverbal "languages" of action, props, setting, or sound effects.  In several plays, Shakespeare utilizes a second story of the playhouse (both private as well as public) variously called the "gallery," "tarras," "upper stage," or just "the above."  In an essay (of five pages or more), analytically compare and contrast the symbolic or thematic use of this second story in Shakespeare's plays: how the gallery is used to help convey symbolism, theme, or aspects of character (or human nature or human psychology or human behavior) in a particular play, as well as in comparison or contrast from one Shakespeare play to another Shakespeare play or other Shakespeare plays.  (Review the discussion above of the thematic or symbolic use of an upper level in the ancient Greek drama; see further discussion of this upper level in your one-volume Shakespeare, as well as diagrams or drawings of the English Renaissance stage in my Notes and Questions on Shakespeare's Hamlet in my online "Humanities 2001 materials" and in my Notes and Questions on Christopher Marlowe's Dr. Faustus in my online "English 3002: English Literature from the Renaissance to Restoration materials.")

        Notable use of the gallery occurs in Two Gentlemen of Verona, The Taming of the Shrew, The Merchant of Venice, Richard II, Romeo and Juliet, Othello, Antony and Cleopatra, and The Tempest.  Coverage of these plays, which are required in the class syllabus, is mandatory. The principal one-volume collected Shakespeares  are in some disagreement about a second use of the gallery or second story in 5.1 of Othello; the Norton Shakespeare (perhaps following one of two pictorial representations in the New Cambridge edition of how Othello's appearance in 5.1 might be staged) has Othello enter from "above," though such entrance is not designated in Bevington, the Riverside, the Complete Pelican (or, for that matter, in the multi-volume series, the Arden [2nd series], or the New Cambridge [despite the pictorial representation in the New Cambridge of how the gallery might be used in 5.1]).  Optionally (perhaps if you find that your paper is running overly short), you might also discuss use of the gallery in Comedy of Errors (the Bevington edition specifies use of the gallery in 3.1, though most other editions don't; the alternative stagings, including their thematic or characterizational expressiveness, could be discussed) and The Merry Wives of Windsor (while the Bevington and Norton editions do not specify use of the gallery in 4.5, this use is specified in the Riverside and Complete Pelican editions -- and other editions as well).  Other notable uses of the gallery, second story, or "above," occur in the following plays, listed alphabetically (along with act and scene in which use of the gallery occurs):  Coriolanus (1.5); Henry V (3.3); Henry VI, Part 1 (1.6, 2.1, 3.2, 4.2, 5.3); Henry VI, Part 2 (1.4, 4.5, 4.9);  Henry VI, Part 3 (4.7, 5.1); Henry VIII (5.2); Julius Caesar (5.3); King John (2.1, 4.3); Timon of Athens (5.4); Titus Andronicus (1.1); Two Noble Kinsmen (2.1-2.2).

   Remember that you are looking for not only meaningful or symbolic use of the gallery within each individual play, but patterns, similarities,  or contrasts in its use among the plays; the emphasis of the paper is to be on analytical comparison and contrast, making connections among the plays in the use of the gallery.