Though there are those who create and perform for the love of it, because it is a hobby, or because they are in an environment where professional theatre is not developed, theatre around the world today is big business. Players might be called upon to perform for certain occasions without financial reward, but usually professionals are paid and most of them do theatre for a living.
Players are formally trained at universities and various institutions, and there are thriving theatre communities such as the London West End, Broadway in New York, and huge opera houses and theatres in Beijing, Sydney, and other large cities. In the Caribbean, there is a lucrative industry in Kingston, Jamaica. Even in Guyana where performance as a profession is still hardly developed, it has become recognised that a dramatist is worthy of his hire and one does not generally work without payment.
Of course there are many other reasons why theatre is performed which might not have to do with money or payment. Throughout history and in the present in different societies there have been various functions for theatrical performance. These include religion/religious purposes, basic human survival, social/anthropological functions like rites of passage, celebrations, mourning, for purposes of education, to effect social control in communities, by royal command, and plain simple entertainment.
Theatre originated in spiritual beliefs, in religious ritual and ceremony, both in the primordial societies of pre-historic man, and in the earliest of western theatre – among the ancient Greeks in classical times, or among the ancient Egyptians. In the early history there was little thought of entertainment, it was a matter of the survival of the species, and theatrical practices of this sort have continued in many traditional societies.
But theatre as entertainment, theatre for money, or as a profession has a very long history. While amateur theatre was present throughout the many centuries, the professional existed even in the earliest years of performance before an audience on the western stage.
The earliest origins of theatre were among primitive societies, but western drama began in the Athenian society of Greece in the 5th century BC. As early as that time, financial reward for drama developed. In ancient Greece after theatre evolved in the ritualistic worship of the god Dionysus, drama advanced with the recital of epic poetry and the first writing of plays. The playwrights competed against each other and prizes were awarded annually in the Festival of Dionysus. Actors, playwrights, and directors were paid for performing. What is even more interesting is that the state took responsibility for those payments.
The great advantage of these plays, the tragedies in particular, was that they told stories of the gods and the consequences of man’s disobedience to them. These tragedies advanced Greek religious education while paying homage to Dionysus (or Bacchus), and for those reasons the state paid. Additionally, funding also came from wealthy Athenian citizens with the approval and collaboration of the state. At that time, professional theatre served both religion and education.
The latter half of the classical period was dominated by the Romans, who appropriated Greek drama, often drawing on mythology, and telling stories involving gods and heroes. But there was no religious purpose in Roman theatre, entertainment was foremost. This saw the rise of a particularly violent and bloody genre of drama, characterised by argument and declamatory. This was the creation of Roman playwright Seneca. Actors earned money for their work, and it became a profession for men who were regarded as quite low in the social hierarchy, including slaves, who could gain income or win their freedom.
Theatre dissipated along with the decline of the Roman empire after the 5th Century AD and became lost in the dark ages of the early Mediaeval era. It was the Roman Catholic Church which resurrected drama in the Middle Ages in Europe. But this was amateur theatre even though it was, like Greek drama, performed for religious education. The priests wanted to educate a largely illiterate population about the Christian religion and the Bible and set about doing it through drama. They were thus responsible for a great volume of theatre that followed even long after performance of plays outgrew the church and was taken up in the townships by guilds and tradesmen. Several types of plays were performed without payment.
But this shaped the re-emergence of professional theatre. In the late Middle Ages minor performing companies developed among men who travelled from place to place performing on street corners and at marketplaces. Their travelling stage was the Pageant Wagon, but makeshift temporary stages were also set up. Entertain-ment took over as the main purpose of performance, even though for a very long time, through the 14th, 15th, and 16th centuries plays with religious (Christian) themes persisted. But entertainment took over and commercial interests developed. Not surprisingly, this is what gave rise to the advance of farce and slapstick in theatre, as these were added delights for the new paying audience.
Apart from England, travelling professional theatre developed in Italy particularly, but also in Spain and France. By the time of the Renaissance in the 14th century, the Age of Chivalry had left its deep impact on Europe and performers emerged travelling in groups to perform stories of the tradition of courtly love in music and drama. But the strongest European form to develop was the Commedia dell’arte originating in Italy and creating a form of pantomime which was performed professionally. This was the theatre from which the great French dramatist Molière drew for his famous play The Miser.
Western professional theatre, however, was to have perhaps its greatest advancement and period of development in the Elizabethan Era in England. There were several contributing factors to this. Some came directly from Elizabeth Regina I herself, who ruled from 1558 to 1603. Conscious of the volatile nature of the rift between the Catholics and the Church of England created by her father King Henry VIII when he split from the Pope, she forestalled what could have built up to civil wars by prohibiting religious drama, which were still popular but then potentially dangerous.
This forced playwrights to seek other subjects, with sensational results. They adopted tragedy and comedy and widened the scope of plays and performance, benefiting from Greek and Roman drama and mythology.
Queen Elizabeth, like Henry VIII, admired and supported the theatre and became a patron of it. In those days, in what was a kind of reincarnation of the wealthy sponsors in the Greek theatre, aristocrats and royals sponsored theatre companies and became official patrons. This financial assistance made companies viable and helped to expand the theatre industry, but the lending of their names also helped the prestige and stature of the companies and made them more popular. This contributed to the rise of professional companies in a very robust fashion not seen before and helped to make them a very important part of the development of the stage.
Next, for the first time since the breakdown of the Classical Age, permanent theatre structures were built. After 1,000 years of temporary, makeshift, or moveable stages, entire buildings were being constructed with permanent stages; the first known theatre was just outside of London, England, the Red Lion, built in 1567. This was a boost with increased audiences and companies having permanent homes – a considerable fillip to professional theatre.
There was also the rise of many of the greatest known playwrights, who could work in an atmosphere that aided theatre practice and increased paying audiences. These included one of the most talented, Christopher Marlowe, and the greatest playwright the world has known, William Shakespeare.
The next outstanding period in the march of professional theatre was the Restoration. Two things happened to put a halt to theatre after the great gains of the Elizabethans. The political rise of the Puritans in the English Parliament led to the banning of public theatre and all public performances in 1642 because the Puritan Christians saw it as sinful. Then they prevailed in a civil war, assassinated King Charles I and established the Commonwealth which ruled England under Oliver Cromwell in 1649. Among the big stories of the time were those of actors being put out of work, unable to earn a living on stage.
The Restoration came in 1660 when the Puritans were overthrown, and King Charles II ascended the throne. Charles immediately rescinded the ban on public theatre and the industry was rekindled with very significant strides forward. One was the appearance on stage of actresses for the first time. Professional theatre resumed its growth and was followed by the building of the first totally enclosed theatres and the proscenium arch stage.
The Augustan or Neo-Classical Age in the early 18th Century was the next important period for the professional theatre. It was also the Age of Satire when a number of satirical dramatic types developed, such as High Burlesque, Low Burlesque, and the Opera. The greatest dramatist to arise in that period was John Gay, responsible for such classics as The Beggar’s Opera (1728). Operas were to remain popular in professional theatre for a whole century after.
By the time we get to the nineteenth century, we see the development of Victorian theatre. The significant elements and factors of the professional theatre then are too numerous to summarise here. It was much like the Elizabethan Era in richness. The developments include some of the legendary houses of London such as the Old Vic, Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, and some of the world’s great playwrights from Norway and Europe.
Where the Caribbean and the USA are concerned, there were important links. Professional theatre in America, of course flourished in previous centuries and several professional companies visited Jamaica to perform. The American Company of Comedians is one of the best known, its history and visits are well documented by Richardson Wright and Errol Hill. There was quite a long run of visits from companies from Britain as well. And there was a distinction between the professionals and the gentlemen amateurs who shared the stage as local residents. That was the nature of the professional stage in the Caribbean until the region’s own development in the early twentieth century.