Post by Wraith on Jul 1, 2016 3:54:59 GMT
Titus Andronicus. One of his earliest plays that he may have written with someone else.
And, quite frankly, not his best. Even Shakespeare has some plays that suck.
Or, in the case of Titus Andronicus, bleed massive amounts of unnecessary horror.
The Gallows & Public Executions.
For the Renaissance, it was an extremely popular past time for people to go down and watch a person be disemboweled, hung, drawn and quartered, or whatever gory punishment there was--including the torture that was inflicted upon the condemned before death. It was completely normal and people to some extent got excited about going to see the latest execution and riled up about it. A good comparison would be think how people get right before a sporting event like a Football game at their home stadium, only instead of it being about a game of football, it's about watching someone get their head cut off.
So hooking a crowd to come into the theatre by promising to be even more bloody and gory than a public execution? Why of course--that's only natural competition in a competitive market. Hook them on the cheap blood and gore, and maybe they'll come back for the plays of better quality later on, being the market strategy.
And you want to know something, it worked. Titus Andronicus and Shakespeare's bloody plays of Henry VI Part 2, Part 1, and Part 3 (that was the order they were written in) and Richard III are all extremely violent and bloody, partly to draw the audience in and keep them coming back.
Also the gladiators in the Roman times. People haven't really changed that much.