Prospero’s Speech: The Art of Theater Essay

Shakespeare is commonly known as a great writer but we cannot lose sight of the fact that he is e genuinely inch a man of playing area, very much like Henrik Ibsen of the nineteenth century. His career in theater began as an actor. Working closely with the manager and the actors gave him a great sense of theater which is evident in all his major plays. In The tempest Prosperos speech (4.1.148-158) about the farewell to his magic is regarded as Shakespeares farewell to his dramatic writings symbolized by the breaking of Prosperos magic wand. here Shakespeare shows himself a master of language which is lucid and direct.In As You Like It the Senior Dukes remark This wide and universal theatre/ presents more miserable pageants.. triggers Jaques reflection on the resemblance between human life and an actors performance on the stage only the world is a stage,/ All men and women merely fakes/ they have their exits and entrances/ And one man plays in his time plays many parts,/ His acts being seven ages. ( 2.7.137-143 )This speech shows how deeply Shakespeares mind was twisting with the theater. In his famous speech following the report of Lady Macbeths death, Macbeth compares his frustrated life after the crime to an unimpressive actor ..Out, out, brief wick/ Lifes but a walking shadow, a poor player/ That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,/ And then is heard nor more (5.5.17)It would not be an imitation to say that Shakespeares greatest gift was theatrical transforming well-known stories from Plutarchs Lives, Seneca, Ovid, Lodge, Greene and many old plays into tragedies like Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth, King Lear, and Julius Caesar, and into comedies like As You Like It and twelfth part Night.Early he joined Lord Chamberlains company of players which became Kings company till Globe Theatre was built in 1599. fit to A.L.Rowse he used to take charges of horses at the playhouse before he became an actor (Rowse.97) and later became a partner in the Globe Th eatre. His entry into theater was attacked by Greenes well-known caustic remark Yea, trust him not. for there is an upstart crow, beautified with our feathers, that with his Tigers heart wrapped in a players hide, supposes he is well able to bombast out a livid verse as the best of you, and being an absolute Johannes Factotum, is in his own conceit the only Shakes-scene in a country.Having tasted popularity with his histories and comedies, Shakespeare had his tragedies performed at Globe under his supervision and fully exploited the talents of tragic actor like Richard Burbage and suspicious actor like William Kempe . As female roles were acted by boys in his time, it was his sense of theater that prompted him to disguise his heroines like Portia, Rosalind and Viola in male attire and thereby help the boy actors look natural. The Elizabethan stage had no painted scenery and the play was acted in day settle, he used his superb blank verse speeches to make the audience forget their surrounding and concentrate on the play.Besides poetry, he also skillfully used costume, gestures, group of talented actors, music, procession and dancing for the highest dramatic effect. The inadequacy of the bare Elizabethan stage had to be compensated with good expositions. Shakespeare conveyed the necessary information about the setting and the major characters and the fleck to the spectators in the opening scenes of As You Like It, Twelfth Night, Antony and Cleopatra and other plays through natural dialogue. In Julius Caesar he makes it clear to the audience that there is sufficient light at night before Brutus reads the letter thrown in by one of the conspirators.His first hand knowledge helped him cater to the taste of the smoking gallants and natty ladies, the attentive audience who were generous with applause but also ready to hiss and mew at bad performance and also the ill-smelling groundlings who paid a penny to be entertained with comic scenes like Porter scene and the grave diggers scene. His plays are definitely for all ages and all times, but they are very much geared to Elizabethan theater.ReferencesGreenblatt, Stephen. (1997) The Norton Shakespeare. N.York. W.W.Norton & Co.Rowse, A.L. (1963) William Shakespeare. London. Macmillan. 1963