Deck 15: The Renaissance

Question 1

Mary Frith was charged by an ecclesiastical authority for acting on stage?what was so unusual about her performance?

A)The audience was all women.
B)She was also a nun.
C)She was Shakespeare's wife.
D)Women were not allowed on stage at that time.
E)She acted the role of Hamlet.

Answer 1

D

Question 2

Which type of theatre only took place at court and was written especially for the monarch and an invited audience?

Answer 2

Masques

Question 3

During the Renaissance,some scholars idolized the Romans and Greeks; they rejected the traditional curriculum of theology and instead studied the classical subjects.These scholars were called...

A)The Students of Humanities
B)The Reformation Student Movement
C)The Eastern Orthodox Church
D)Humanists
E)Autos sacramentales

Answer 3

D

Question 4

The terms "upstage" and "downstage" come from what period and country?

Question 5

Calderon is one of Spain's most popular playwrights.His play,____,is regarded by some as the Hamlet of the Golden Age of Spanish drama.

A)Fuente Ovejuna
B)Life Is a Dream
C)Dog in a Manger
D)Don Quixote

Question 6

Which playwright killed an actor but got out of jail by pleading "benefit of clergy"?

A)William Shakespeare
B)Christopher Marlowe
C)Ben Jonson
D)Thomas Kyd
E)William Prynne

Question 7

During the Renaissance,many people thought ancient Greek plays were entirely sung.This led to what new type of theatre?

A)Commedia dell'arte
B)Musical comedy
C)Ritual tragedy
D)Opera
E)None of these choices

Question 8

In Shakespeare's day,acting companies were often accused of being vagabonds.

Question 9

The 800 or so people who stood during performances at Shakespeare's Globe Theatre were called...

Question 10

During the Renaissance,there was a lack of theatres in Paris,so where were plays often performed?

A)Tennis courts
B)Kitchens
C)Street corners
D)Voting halls
E)The courtyards of inns

Question 11

During the Renaissance,the Italians invented what type of scene painting?

Question 12

Commedia dell'arte,though popular throughout all of Europe,has its roots in...

A)England
B)France
C)Germany
D)Italy
E)Spain

Question 13

____ is the leading man in the commedia dell'arte.

A)Harlequin
B)Pantalone
C)Scapino
D)Ruffiana
E)Innamorato

Question 14

The student thespian group the University Wits produced such famous playwrights as…

A)Ben Jonson
B)James Burbage
C)Lope de Vega
D)William Shakespeare
E)Christopher Marlowe

Question 15

During the Renaissance,the theatre turned to Aristotle for laws regarding dramatic structure.Scholars came up with three unbreakable rules,which they called the Unities?a form of "classical correctness." Which of the following is not one of the unities?

A)The unity of place
B)The unity of action
C)The unity of tragedy
D)The unity of time

Question 16

Which of the following Elizabethan playwrights wrote an infamous play based on the life of Faust?

A)Christopher Marlowe
B)William Shakespeare
C)John Webster
D)Ben Jonson
E)Thomas Kyd

Question 17

The scenery of Elizabethan theatre was minimal and so the actors described the locations using what?

Question 18

During the Renaissance,three broad categories of theatre came to dominate Europe.Which of the following does not belong?

A)Popular
B)Fine art
C)Humanist
D)Liturgical

Question 19

In a commedia dell'arte,_______ is the servant and acrobat who is smarter than his master.

A)Arlecchino
B)Scapino
C)Pantalone
D)Innamorata
E)La Ruffiana

Question 20

After 1574 theatre was banned within the city limits of London because of the protests of which religious group?

Question 21

The first important architect of the Italian Renaissance,credited with inventing perspective painting,is...

Question 22

The French and the English viewed theatrical production in very different ways during the Renaissance.How would you distinguish between the two? What were the audience expectations for the English? What were the audience expectations for the French?

Question 23

Based on your understanding of the transition between the Middle Ages into the Renaissance,what factors do you think most encouraged the incredible quantity and quality of playwrights writing during the time of Elizabeth I and James II?

Question 24

The Puritans constantly attacked the theatre as an institution and as an art form.If you were a lawyer defending their position before the Queen of England,what would be the main objections that they would have with the theatre and how would you defend their position?

Question 25

One of the most popular characters in the commedia dell'arte is the servant to Pantalone whose costume has multicolored lozenges.Who is he?

Question 26

French comic writer __________ is famous for his satires about the medical profession,such as The Imaginary Invalid.

Question 27

____________________ is regarded as the greatest of all Spanish playwrights.He claimed to have written over 2,200 plays with his most popular one being The Sheep Well.

Question 28

The humanists looked to the writings of ____________________ to develop their rules of playwriting.

Question 29

A throwback to the Italian Renaissance ranking system,the area of the stage farthest from the audience is still considered…

Question 30

Drama developed very differently in Spain than it did in England during the Renaissance.How would you characterize the differences? What accounts for this difference in terms of the culture of each country?

Question 31

In order to skirt the anti-theatre laws of the day,James Burbage built his famous indoor theatre in an old Dominican friary called…

Question 32

The Humanist Scholars of the Renaissance advocated for a style of acting that they thought mimicked that of the Greeks.This style of acting,in which lines are delivered directly to the audience in a rhetorical manner,is called...