8-5Costumes&Sets

//Answer Prepared by Robert S.// ** From the website by Linda Alchin she says it wouldn't matter what time period you were in the actors generally wore costumes of their time period. She also says during that during Shakespeare’s life in England their were a set of laws which limited what people could wear and that law was called Sumptuary Laws. That law limited the expenditure of people on clothes, so it was illegal to wear various types of clothes which were a big disaster for actors. “The penalty for not obeying this law could be harsh, you would either get fined, loose property, title and maybe even your life,” says Linda Alchin. There was also a get out clause because the noblemen wanted to see great plays but maintain the law. So actoring troupes could only get a license from the queen otherwise they couldn't wear a costume says Linda Alchin. The color of costumes also played a big role back then says Linda Alchin. During the Elizabethan era almost every color had its own meaning. The meaning of each color was completely understood by each audience member. "The colors of the costumes therefore conveyed an enormous amount of information as soon as the actor walked on to the stage!" says Linda Alchin From the book Will in the World by Stephen Greenblatt it said that actors had to wear their regular uniform outside the play house. There was no exceptions to this says Stephen Greenblatt. He also said the audience expected very elaborate costumes which were very expensive. In the book Shakespearean Studies Simplified by Frederick Warde it says that Shakespeare didn't want to watch his plays performed by other directors. The reason is that the other director would change up the story a little bit and he didn't like that at says Frederick Warde. Shakespeare wanted his plays performed the way he wrote them and he didn't want them changed much at all says Frederick Warde. For a performance there wasn't much besides music, costume, and a few props. When they would do plays they wouldn't use much props and the backgrounds weren't too elaborate. People paid more attention to what the actors were saying then what the background looked like. A reason why there wasn’t much background was because the plays back then were produced in a hurry. Now days they have at least a couple of hours or days before the next play but back then they probably only had five minutes until the next play. As you can see performing a play was not an easy task but as long as you memorized your lines and wore an elaborate costume you were fine. Works Cited: Alchin, Linda. "Elizabethan Costume." __Elizabethan England__ 16 July, 2005 8 Mar 2009 . Greenblatt, Stephen. __Will in the World.__ 1. New York City, New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 2004.
 * WHAT WERE COSTUMES AND SETS LIKE IN SHAKESPEARE’S THEATRE?

Warde, Frederick. Shakespearan Studies Simplified. 2. Fort Worth and Dallas, Texas: Pioneer Publishing Company, 1925.

Royal Shakespeare Company, "Shakespeare sources." Exploring Shakespeare 8 Mar 2009<http://www.rsc.org.uk/explore/muchado/guide_1786