There was more crowd interaction, actors commonly forgot lines, and the play itself would usually have a limited run. Also, the script was considered to be a trade secret, so there were few complete copies kept.
Absolutely! I also like to point people to the father and son who worked on reconstructing the Original Pronunciation.
The Elizabethan/Jacobean drama scene could be crazy (though there were also command performances in noble or royal households which would have filed down a lot of the rough edges), and it was both popular and rowdy. Theatres were always getting shut down for censorship or indecency, tons of drama (LOL) with poaching ideas and even talent, and there was even Renaissance media piracy! I think there are at least four mostly complete extant versions of Hamlet, all a little different, and at least two just simple pirate printings from printing houses sending dudes out with their memory and maybe a pencil and notebook. Then, many of the plays would have been collaborations. Much of Shakespeare’s early and late output is thought to have involved co-writers.
It is also important that the presentation of Shakespeare is radically different than it was in history:
https://youtu.be/2UZ369VYJrY
There was more crowd interaction, actors commonly forgot lines, and the play itself would usually have a limited run. Also, the script was considered to be a trade secret, so there were few complete copies kept.
Absolutely! I also like to point people to the father and son who worked on reconstructing the Original Pronunciation.
The Elizabethan/Jacobean drama scene could be crazy (though there were also command performances in noble or royal households which would have filed down a lot of the rough edges), and it was both popular and rowdy. Theatres were always getting shut down for censorship or indecency, tons of drama (LOL) with poaching ideas and even talent, and there was even Renaissance media piracy! I think there are at least four mostly complete extant versions of Hamlet, all a little different, and at least two just simple pirate printings from printing houses sending dudes out with their memory and maybe a pencil and notebook. Then, many of the plays would have been collaborations. Much of Shakespeare’s early and late output is thought to have involved co-writers.
Then, that’s to say nothing of the theatre people getting salty about everything, not least this rube coming down from Warwickshire, acting like he knows how to write, and upending the audience expectations.