the two actions takes place in Act III, scene iv. Meanwhile, the
Antonio-Sebastian thread was introduced into the story in Act II,
scene i, and in Act III, scene iii, and partly integrated with the
main action in Act III, scene iv. In the fourth act the development
of the two main threads remains suspended, Viola disappearing
from the stage to enable the Sebastian element to be more fully
integrated with the Olivia-Orsino-Viola triangle. Finally, in
the fifth act, every element is brought together, including the
Malvolio sequence, even though this necessitates the unprepared
revelation that Viola’s womanly garments are in the hands of a
captain who “upon some action/Is now in durance, at Malvolio’s
suit” (V, i, 282-283).
Although this form is not as prevalent as either the episodic or
the “mirror,” it can be found in a number of Globe plays, for
example, _The Merry Wives of Windsor_, _The Revenger’s Tragedy_,
and partly in _All’s Well_. _Twelfth Night_ remains, however, its
model.
Last of the three dominant forms and the most popular one is the
“mirror” pattern. Usually it consists of two stories, almost
equal in emphasis. Both are introduced independently and maintain
a large degree of independence throughout the play, sometimes
never fully coming into plot relation with each other. Their
fundamental connection derives from a similarity of theme and
story development. Through sharp comparison or contrast one story
casts reflections upon the other as though one were the image in
the mirror and one the reality. The distinctness of each story is
sometimes obscured by the fact that the same individual may appear
in both stories and yet maintain independence of action in each
case, at least early in the play. For example, through the first
two acts Gloucester functions independently in each of the two
stories in _Lear_.
_Fair Maid of Bristow_, among the works of the Globe repertory,
is an excellent example of this pattern. In fact, here we have
striking evidence of the structural care with which a minor play
could be organized, despite Bradbrook’s assertion that structure
is possible only through “literary means.” This play follows the
mirror pattern almost slavishly. In the first scene Challener shows
his beloved Anabell to Vallenger who falls in love with her. The
two men come to blows over the girl. Challener wounds Vallenger and
then flees while Vallenger is taken into Anabell’s house by her
father. In the second scene Harbart tries to persuade Sentloe not
to remain with the courtesan, Florence. But Sentloe, blind to her
fickleness and confident of her devotion, rejects Harbart. Harbart
vows to follow Sentloe in disguise. In the third scene Vallenger
gains the promise of Anabell’s hand. In the fourth scene Challener,
learning of the impending marriage, returns to Bristow in the
disguise of an Italian doctor. In the fifth scene Sentloe engages
Blunt alias Harbart as a servingman, and Sentloe and Florence are
invited to Anabell’s wedding. At this point in the play we can
identify two parallel centers of action. Each contains a “loving”
couple, and a friend in disguise. In one Challener hates Vallenger
and loves Anabell; in the other Harbart hates Florence and loves
Sentloe.
Scene vi (nearly the middle of the play, since there are fourteen
scenes in all) dramatizes the first blending of the two actions.
Immediately after his marriage, Vallenger falls in love with
Florence and suborns the doctor to poison Sentloe and Anabell.
Later, in scene vii, Florence seduces Blunt to slay Sentloe. In
each case the sworn protector is asked to commit the murder. In
scene vii we have a typical “digression,” a comic courting scene
of two servants. The theme, however, is faithfulness. Douse, the
maid, asks whether Frog, after their marriage, “will ... not prove
unkind?” Frog, in comic doggerel, vows, among other things, that
only “when Lawiers have no tongues at all” will he prove unkind.
The idea contrasts with the succeeding scenes in which Vallenger
proves unkind to Anabell, only to have Florence subsequently
prove unkind to him. The two stories are more tightly joined
when Blunt contrives to have Vallenger arrested for the “death”
of Sentloe. The rest of the play proceeds by contrasting action.
Anabell seeks to save the life of Vallenger and Blunt seeks to
have Florence held responsible for her part in Sentloe’s “death.”
The finale is brought about when King Richard, the judge-figure,
permits a champion to appear for the condemned Vallenger. The final
contrast comes when Anabell assumes a disguise to free Vallenger,
and Challener throws off his disguise for the same purpose. Only
when Florence is moved to contrition by the nobility of Anabell
and Challener, does Blunt unveil the still-living Sentloe, thus
assuring a happy conclusion. Throughout, one line of development
balances the other, and though the symmetry is not perfect, as it
is rarely perfect in any Elizabethan play, the basic situations
contrast with one another. Obviously the author had taken some care
in organizing the plot. The disguises are well worked out, as are
the balancing and interweaving of the two stories. Further evidence
of the care in plotting can be seen in the foreshadowing of King
Richard’s appearance in the plot when Harbart, in scene ii, urges
Sentloe to abandon Florence and join Richard in the Holy Land.
Richard’s first words are a blessing for being permitted by God to
return home. Both in the larger construction and in smaller details
the anonymous poet formed his work with care. What the play lacks
is not organization of the story but strength of characterization,
richness of poetic texture, and fresh outlook upon the prodigal son
theme.
Among Shakespeare’s plays of the Globe period this pattern
frequently appears. _As You Like It_, _Troilus and Cressida_, _King
Lear_, and, in some respects, _Antony and Cleopatra_ reveal such a
form. In _As You Like It_, _Lear_, and _Troilus and Cressida_, it
is particularly well defined. Although this type of organization
is best adapted to plays with double plots, it is only a little
less effective in other plots. _As You Like It_, while it possesses
rudimentary double plots in the Orlando-Oliver story and the Duke
Frederick-Rosalind story, relies principally upon the balance of
love relationships that grow in the Forest of Arden. _Lear_, on
the other hand, contains a full double plot. The parallel of the
two stories with the balance of cruelty of father-to-daughter
and son-to-father is too well known to need repetition here. It
is sufficient to point out that in situation after situation one
story highlights and reflects the other. The stories join in the
storm scenes, separate, join again when blind Gloucester meets mad
Lear, separate, and join again when Edgar’s defeat of Edmund leads
to the disclosure of the plot against Lear and Cordelia. If the
form does not appear to be as mechanical as I have described it
and if much of the cross-reflection is implicit in the poetry and
characterization, this is attributable to Shakespeare’s genius, not
to the absence of structural underpinning.
V. SCENE STRUCTURE IN SHAKESPEARE
In an earlier part of this chapter I emphasized the importance of
the separate scenes as distinct units. At this point I should like
to draw attention to certain characteristics of the scenes. Usually
a portion of one action or story is not followed by an advance or
counteraction, but by a new line of development, often containing
completely different characters. This we take for granted in
Elizabethan drama. The absence of liaison is emphasized by the way
in which scenes are arranged. Some scenes, such as the one which
Hamlet brings to a close with the cry
The play’s the thing
Wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the King.
[II, ii, 632-633]
conclude with a strong emotional lift at the same time as they
thrust the interest forward. Some scenes, which I shall call
“leading” scenes, produce a forceful dramatic or theatrical
pointing. The brief scene in which Artimedorus prepares to give
Caesar a petition warning him of the conspirators is such a scene;
so is the one in which Duke Frederick thrusts Oliver out of doors
until he can produce Celia. These “leading” scenes are usually
brief and drive the story forward with great energy. But most
scenes in Shakespeare contain an anticlimactic conclusion: they
are rounded off, relaxed, brought to a subdued end. Here we must
distinguish between dramatic force and story development. It is the
dramatic force that is softened at the same time that the story
line is brought to the fore. Upon Viola’s first visit Olivia falls
in love with the “youth” (I, v). She sends a ring after “him”
through Malvolio, then closes the scene with four lines:
I do I know not what, and fear to find
Mine eye too great a flatterer for my mind.
Fate, show thy force! Ourselves we do not owe.
What is decreed must be--and be this so!
[327-330]
Yet compare this with her feeling before she sends Malvolio off:
How now?
Even so quickly may one catch the plague?
Methinks I feel this youth’s perfections
With an invisible and subtle stealth
To creep in at mine eyes.
[313-317]
Clearly there is a diminution of intensity toward the end. The same
thing occurs in the center of the play (III, iv). Viola denies
knowing Antonio, but after his arrest she realizes that he has
confused her with Sebastian. The scene does not end on that uplift
of discovery. Viola goes off in delight; Toby sends Andrew after to
beat the page. Fabian and Toby remain for a moment:
FABIAN. Come, let’s see the event.
TOBY. I dare lay any money ’twill be nothing yet.
[III, iv, 430-431]
The final remark is almost desultory. By gradual stages the
emotional pitch of the scene is lowered. Shakespeare could easily
have given Toby a final line that would have carried the play
forward with more vigor. But this was not the way of Shakespeare
or, for that matter, of his colleagues.
The falling off of intensity toward the end of a scene is even
more marked in the tragedies. In sequence the arrangement of the
subdued and pointed endings of scenes helps determine the rhythm
of the play. For example, the “plateau” in _Hamlet_ is unified by
the way in which the endings of the play-within-the-play scene and
the prayer scene point forward, not only in story but in emotional
level, each one concluding with Hamlet passionately wrought.
Another variation, vital to the rhythm of performance, occurs in
the “climactic plateau” of _Lear_. The first storm scene (III, ii)
with Lear ends subdued. It is followed by a “leading” scene of only
twenty-six lines in which Edmund decides to betray his father. The
next storm scene (III, iv) also ends subdued after Lear’s meeting
with poor Tom. Another leading scene, again of twenty-six lines,
drives forward with Edmund’s betrayal of Gloucester to Cornwall
who orders him to “seek out” his father. The last storm scene
(III, vi) concludes with Edgar’s realization of the similarity of
his plight to that of Lear. Though the end is keyed low, the note
struck is ominous. The very next scene rises to a pitch of frenzy
in the blinding of Gloucester. In the Folio it concludes abruptly
with Cornwall’s order to drive out Gloucester, but the Quarto has
a dialogue between two servants which, serving to round out the
action, seems more typical of Shakespeare.
Within the framework of an Elizabethan scene, perhaps the most
marked characteristic is the placement of emphasis not on the
growth of action but on the character’s response to crisis. This,
as we noted before, was a distinguishing feature of the climactic
plateau. Anticipation means little to the Elizabethan dramatist.
This is no more clearly seen than in the handling of the individual
scenes. Even where suspense is inevitable, it is muted. _The
Revenger’s Tragedy_ contains a scene (III, v) in which Vindice, at
long last, plans to take revenge upon the lascivious old Duke who
murdered his beloved. The trap is set, the Duke is near. Vindice
strains forward,
So, so; now nine years’ vengeance crowd into a minute.
[III, v, 124]
The Duke dismisses his train; the trap in the guise of a “lady,”
actually a poisoned manikin, is sprung; the Duke kisses “her” and
falls. All this occupies twenty-five lines. In this it reminds us
of the closet scene. Once the Duke is poisoned, Vindice and his
brother, Hippolito, triumph over the dying man; they reveal the
trap and then Vindice unmasks himself. To top these horrors Vindice
discloses to the Duke that his bastard son “rides a-hunting in
[his] brow,” and moreover that the son and the Duchess are about to
hold a rendezvous at the very spot:
[Your] eyes shall see the incest of their lips.
[III, v, 192]
They arrive. The father-husband watches their love-making, hears
their mockery of him, and, immediately after their departure, dies.
All this takes eighty-three lines. In the structure of the scene,
intensification comes from double response: the horror and pain
of the Duke and the diabolical delight of the revengers as they
witness his pain.
Elizabethan scenes are not unique merely because they give more
time to response to a situation rather than to its development.
Their uniqueness comes from the fact that the full intensity and
implication of the theme is realized not in the accomplishment
of the event but in the effects it produces. After Caesar is
assassinated, Antony comes to terms with the conspirators. Dramatic
though his meeting with them is, the most intense moments are not
where Antony composes his differences with Brutus and Cassius, but
where he views the body of Caesar. The most compelling section of
the scene is Antony’s soliloquy where he envisions the ravages
of war which will plague the earth as revenge for the foul deed.
A glance at the proportion of lines devoted to the various parts
of the scene indicates where Shakespeare placed his emphasis.
Seventy-seven lines are devoted to all the tension leading to the
assassination, 220 to the reactions and realignments that are its
results. Ultimately we find Shakespeare dispensing completely
with showing the act of murder and concentrating wholly on the
psychological and philosophical responses, as in _Macbeth_.
VI. DRAMATIC UNITY IN THE GLOBE PLAYS
The repetition of dramatic forms in the Globe plays shows that
there is a structural foundation for the concept of multiple
unity, that unity can be found not in compression of action but
in its extension. The story line links the experiences but is not
identical with them. Rather the events frequently are extensions
of the implications of the story exactly as the shattering of
glass may be the effect of an explosion. Consequently, as the
scenes seek to reach beyond the limits of the subject, it becomes
requisite that means be discovered to set limits to the extension
of story and theme. The Elizabethans were well aware that the
dimensions of the plays threatened to overwhelm the audience. This
is the essence of serious charges by Sir Philip Sidney and Ben
Jonson against the popular drama. In this they may well have been
following Aristotle who introduced into his definition of tragedy
the concept of “magnitude.” A work of art must be able to be
perceived as a totality by the audience. Here, of course, we have
the true determinant of unity. Training in witnessing the extended
sequences of miracle plays or in listening to Sunday sermons must
have contributed to a broadness of perception. Nevertheless, a
major problem of the Elizabethan playwright was to observe a
proper magnitude, to keep within the bounds that his plays always
threatened to break. To aid him in maintaining proper magnitude he
had several means at his disposal.
One of these means is the story itself; it is always brought to a
conclusion. Another means, and one I have not discussed, was the
concentration on character. The fact that the story is happening to
Hamlet or Vindice or Sejanus is in itself a unifying factor. But I
shall discuss the relevance of character to the play in the chapter
on Elizabethan acting. Three other means contributed to keeping the
play within perceptible bounds.
The first of these, unity through poetic diction, has been amply
treated by present-day critics. Both Stoll and G. Wilson Knight
have written of Shakespeare’s plays as metaphorical forms.[25]
Bradbrook sees the only unity as a poetic unity. Yet verbal
expression is but one element of structural multiple unity. There
is a close link between the dramatic form of the climactic plateau
and the poetic expression, for the second requires the first.
Where the playwright fails as a poet, the climactic extensions
result in rant and sentimentality. But it is this form that enables
the poetry to range freely, or perhaps we may consider that the
same compulsion which drove the Elizabethans to copious, lyrical
expression caused them to develop this particular dramatic form.
The second means relevant to multiple unity has been the subject
of this chapter, precisely the arrangement of scenes about the
story line. Some of the scenes that a playwright chooses to
dramatize are those primarily concerned with propelling the play,
such as the play-within-the-play scene in _Hamlet_. Some scenes
develop traits of a character, as in the scene of Portia’s plea
to Brutus for confidence. But a central, repeating element within
the rhythmic pattern of extension-contraction is the arrangement
of scenes or incidents in a combination of contrasting and
comparable circumstances. Whether the scenes used are central or
peripheral to the story, they repeatedly gain illumination through
mirroring similar situations. Hamlet unable to avenge his father
is contrasted with Laertes too ready to avenge his father, Hamlet
mad is contrasted with Ophelia mad, Rosalind’s mocking love-play
is heightened by comparison with Phebe and Silvius as well as with
the earthy affection of Touchstone and Audrey, while Touchstone’s
professional mockery of the pastoral life casts light upon Jaques’
melancholy. One could go on endlessly pointing out the contrast of
situation with situation. Frequently we encounter scenes whose only
relationship to the story is to provide dramatic contrast. I have
cited the scene in _Fair Maid of Bristow_ in which the servants
woo each other. The Porter’s scene in _Macbeth_, about which there
has been “much throwing about of brains,” is an example. Another
is the scene where Ventidius refuses to outshine Antony, another
the lynching of Cinna the poet or the valor of Lucilius (_Julius
Caesar_, V, iv). Great events produce many ripples. These ripples,
which found expression in the Greek choral odes, the Elizabethans
sought to dramatize.
Contrast in the Globe plays, it is essential to note, is a contrast
of situations, not a contrast of characters. It is true that Hamlet
is contrasted with Laertes as well as Fortinbras, but the character
contrast is effected by the participation of each in distinct
though related incidents. In _Fair Maid of Bristow_ Challener’s
conflict with Vallenger is contrasted with Harbart’s relationship
to Sentloe. Vallenger’s asking the disguised Challener to murder
Sentloe and Anabell parallels Florence’s attempt to seduce Blunt
alias Harbart to murder Sentloe. Modern drama like classic drama,
however, contrasts characters caught within a single situation.
Antigone and Ismene face the same dramatic circumstance; so do
Electra and Chrysothemis. Character contrast is achieved through
the different ways in which each person reacts to the same crisis.
Lövborg and Tesman are sharply differentiated: in their reactions
to the same appointment, their manner of loving, the kinds of
books they write. The same holds true for Stanley and Mitch in _A
Streetcar Named Desire_, or even for Stella and Blanche. But in
Shakespearean drama not only is light thrown on the comparison
of situations, but at times the characters are aware of this
inter-reflection. At the end of the last storm scene in _Lear_, Act
III, scene vi, Edgar has a speech which appears only in the Quarto.
After witnessing the sorrow of Lear, he soliloquizes:
When we our betters see bearing our woes,
We scarcely think our miseries our foes.
* * * * *
How light and portable my pain seems now,
When that which makes me bend makes the King bow,
He childed as I fathered!
[108-116]
Certainly the Elizabethans felt that one event mirrored another,
and probably that together they mirrored the common meaning of both
events. This interconnection of reflected incidents contributed
metaphorically to a unified impression.
The final means of achieving unity is the most difficult to
define, the method of handling theme. For that reason let us turn
to a play where the theme is clearly expounded. _A Larum for
London_ has a simple, obvious point to make: the English people
will be destroyed by external enemies (the Spanish) and internal
treachery unless they become aware of their dangers, forego their
desire for personal profit at the expense of the defense of the
commonwealth, and rally the faithful honest citizens and soldiers
to their support. The point is made through dramatizing the siege
of Antwerp. The scenes that are introduced arise from the initial
force that propels the story: the determination of the Spanish to
take advantage of the improvidence of the citizens of Antwerp.
Individual scenes, however, are not causally linked. Rather they
are chosen because they reflect and illustrate the basic theme. A
burgher, formerly unkind to the hero, is rescued by him. This is
the only scene in which the burgher appears. The play is episodic
in structure but unified in theme. But the unity is a multiple one.
Instead of employing the story of one family and one incident to
illustrate the ravages of war, as Gorki did in _Yegor Bulichev and
Others_, this play uses a multiple reflection of its theme in a
number of independent scenes, each having equal emphasis. Thus the
single theme is given multiple dramatization.
The weaker plays of the Globe reveal obvious ways of treating a
theme. Dramas of the prodigal son reiterate their morality _ad
infinitum_, providing multiple reflections of fall and redemption.
The otherwise haphazardly constructed play, _The Devil’s Charter_,
is bound together by the theme of Man’s soul sold to the devil
and the final retribution that befalls him. Jonson’s predilection
for purging mankind with a pill of satire imposes thematic unity
on disparate incidents in _Every Man Out of His Humour_. But in
his other plays as well as in the plays of Shakespeare there is
a more subtle interweaving of structure and theme. At the core
of each play there seems to be a point of reference of which the
individual scenes are reflections. Though a play moves temporally
toward a conclusion, each scene may like a glass be turned toward
a central referent. G. Wilson Knight has expressed fundamentally
the same idea.[26] Unfortunately, he divorces this concept from the
dramatic organism, with the result that his projected productions
of Shakespeare’s plays seem like academic and sophomoric, if not
fantastic, exercises. But Shakespeare seems to have avoided, at
least in his later plays, so schematic an illustration of theme
as in _Richard III_. Instead, he allows the theme to permeate the
characters, situations, and poetry. He concentrates on the dramatic
situations and on the characters, allowing the theme to be struck
off indirectly like spark from flint. That is perhaps the reason
that it is so difficult to reduce the theme of any Shakespearean
play to a concise statement. _Macbeth_ certainly deals with the
theme of the source and effects of evil, yet no single statement
of this idea is sufficient, because Shakespeare dramatizes various
aspects of this subject. Since, to the Elizabethan, the world was
a manifold manifestation of a God whom he was unable to compress
into one idea or image, in a similar way the Shakespearean play
was a manifold reflection of a theme irreducible and unseen. Yet
every element in a great Shakespearean play--character, structure,
speech--individually and collectively, is brought into an artistic
unity through a structural and poetic expression of an unseen
referent at its center.
Chapter Three
THE STAGE
Two boards and a passion! Perhaps these words sum up all that was
essential to the Shakespearean theater. Heightening of passion
coincided with the “climax,” and as for the Elizabethan stage, it
was, as G. F. Reynolds remarked, a platform “upon which the story
of the play was acted.”[1] And so it was, a flat expanse of boards,
somewhat exposed to the weather, roughly eleven hundred square feet.
The story that was acted may be best described as romantic, not
because it dealt with romance, although it often did, but because
it was centrifugal in impulse, ever threatening to veer from
its path. Whatever direct progression narrative possessed in
the medieval drama, whether moving from Adam’s sin to Christ’s
judgment or from Everyman’s ignorance to his salvation, such
progression no longer existed in the Elizabethan age. Instead,
the unfolding of the drama took place in a world half of man, and
therefore unpredictable, half of God, and therefore moral, and was
composed half of history, half of legend; half remote fantasy,
half immediate reality. Such a world was wide indeed, and the
poet-playwright, its creator, was shackled by neither time nor
place. What he demanded of a stage was space for the unimpeded
flow of scene after scene, for the instantaneous creation of any
place in this world or the next. Even when a ghost in mufti made
his way out the stage door in broad daylight, the poet insisted he
vanished--yes, even into thin air.
Between the poet’s insistence and the stage’s realization lies the
entire secret of Elizabethan staging. About the stage’s realization
there is some evidence and little knowledge. Stage directions,
a much-debated sketch of a playhouse, a tantalizing incomplete
building contract, other assorted fragments, invite the scholar to
tilt at theory. About the poet’s insistence there can be little
question. Texts of play after play document the demands that the
writers made upon the “unworthy scaffold.” Prudence suggests,
therefore, that we proceed from play to stage, discovering first
what those demands were and then, if we can, how they were
satisfied. To understand what the demands were in respect to the
environment of an action, it is necessary to consider the following
questions: how exactly was a scene located, how consistently was
the location maintained, and how relevant was the location to the
dramatic impact of the scene?
I. LOCALIZATION IN SHAKESPEARE’S GLOBE PLAYS
In Shakespeare’s Globe plays many scenes are given an exact
setting. By exact I wish to convey the notion that the action
is supposed to occur in or at a particular place, such as a
room, hall, gateway, garden, bridge, and that this place remains
consistent throughout the scene. For example, in the scene where
Martius, yet to win his name of Coriolanus, assaults the gates
of Corioles (I, iv), the location is specific, consistent, and
dramatically relevant. At one point in the same play Coriolanus
prepares to enter the house of his enemy, Aufidius. The scene (IV,
iv) takes place before Aufidius’ door. Here exactness of location
intensifies dramatic suspense because, as we watch Coriolanus pass
through the doorway, we know he is putting himself at the mercy of
his greatest antagonist. Many examples of such types of placement
come to mind: Brutus’ orchard, Gertrude’s closet, Timon’s cave,
etc. Such scenes have come to be called “localized.”
Usually the opposite of the “localized” setting is the
“unlocalized.” In this type of setting no impression of place is
projected. Location is irrelevant to the progression of the scenes.
Clear-cut instances of this occur in _Macbeth_, II, iv, and III,
vi. In the first of these scenes Ross and an old man comment on
the unnatural state of the world, then Macduff brings them news
of Duncan’s burial and Macbeth’s election to the throne. In the
second scene, Lennox and a gentleman comment upon the web of
tyranny and the hope that lies in England with Malcolm. Aside from
the section containing Macduff’s news, neither of these scenes
contributes to the flow of the narrative. Rather they are comments
upon the action and essentially perform a choral function.
That these two types of scenes are present in Elizabethan plays
has long been recognized. Some scholars, such as V. E. Albright,
E. K. Chambers, and J. C. Adams, have tended to divide all scenes
of a play into one or the other type, the localized, usually
interior and more or less realistic, the unlocalized, exterior,
neutral, and somewhat less realistic. This division, according to
Albright, derives from the _sedes_ and _platea_ of the medieval
stage.[2] What had been physically separate areas earlier became
united on one stage in the Tudor period. But, the argument runs,
the Elizabethan dramatists continued to juxtapose the two types of
scenes, stringing them in a more or less alternating order along
the thread of narrative.
To what extent can this dichotomy be supported by the evidence
from the Globe? Naturally there is no sharp distinction between
these two types of localization. The differentiation depends upon
the sequence a scene assumes in the narrative. Consequently, there
are scenes which clearly fit into one or the other category. But
even if all the localized and unlocalized scenes are counted,
the total amounts to only 136. Since there are 345 scenes in my
enumeration of the fifteen Shakespearean Globe plays, 209 remain to
be accounted for.[3]
Is it true, as William Archer, Harley Granville-Barker, and George
F. Reynolds have pointed out, that much localization was vague,
that place faded elusively like a mirage before a traveler, and
that often the Elizabethans treated the stage as stage? “Scene
after scene,” asserts Granville-Barker, “might pass with the actors
moving to all intents merely in the ambit of the play’s story and
of their own emotions: unless, the spell broken, they were suddenly
and incongruously seen to be upon a stage.”[4] Many a scene gives
just such an impression, and yet, in almost every scene that is not
unlocalized, the characters do not actually act in a dislocated
void but are known to be in some more or less specific region.
Even when attention is directly called to the stage-as-stage,
stage-as-fictional-world still remains. In such moments the
audience experiences a double image.
It is a commonplace that the public stages of the Elizabethan
period contained “Asia of the one side, and Affricke of the other.”
Though contemptuous in intent, in effect this phrase of Sidney’s
isolates one of the characteristics of Elizabethan scene setting.
Perhaps, as some scholars have thought, the Elizabethans utilized
place cards to inform the audience of the general location of a
scene. But whether they did or not, they were in the habit of
specifying a place at large but not a particular section of it.
In such cases the stage stands for rather than represents the
fictional locale, the confines of which cannot be reasonably
encompassed within the limits of the stage. In this type of locale,
placement is general rather than precise--for example, the city of
Troy in _Troilus and Cressida_, not a particular part of it. Rome
as a whole rather than some portion of it is often the setting in
_Coriolanus_ (I, i; IV, ii; IV, vi). Free movement within such a
locale occurs readily as in _Julius Caesar_ (III, i), where action
takes place first in the street and then in the Capitol. Sequences
of action which would be incongruous in a localized setting
assume dramatic power in a generalized setting. In the very same
place, Othello’s castle, occur the private conflict of Othello
and Desdemona and the public encounter of Cassio and Bianca (III,
iv). Actually, in this type of setting, dramatic impact proceeds
from the general rather than the specific nature of the locale.
Without a doubt we know when the scene is Rome and when Egypt in
_Antony and Cleopatra_. Dramatically that is all we need to know.
To endeavor to isolate the whereabouts of Octavius’ meeting with
Antony (II, ii) would reduce the stature of that meeting. All of
Rome is their stage just as in medieval practice all of paradise
might be the setting for Adam and Eve. Among the 345 scenes of
Shakespeare’s Globe plays, 142 are clearly of this sort and 67 tend
toward this sort, accounting together for fully 60 per cent of the
scenes.
A. H. Thorndike described three types of localization too:
the definitely localized, the vaguely localized, and the
unlocalized.[5] At first my analysis may seem to repeat his.
However, there is a fundamental difference. The generalized locale
is not vague; it is extensive, it is symbolic, and dramatically it
is concrete. The audience is not expected to identify the stage
with a particular location but to understand that it functions
as a token of Troy or the Danish palace or the Forest of Arden.
Regularly editors have been reducing the generalized location to
a localized setting congruent with realistic dimensions. This
practice merely betrays the scope of Elizabethan drama. The real
distinction between scene _loci_ was not, as others have assumed, a
separation of interior from exterior or realistic from conventional
but a gradation from the unlocalized through the generalized to the
localized setting.
Before investigating whether or not the Globe stage utilized stage
decor to set these scenes, it is advisable to consider to what
degree and by what methods location was conveyed by the playwright
himself. It might be well to state at the outset that in extremely
few cases is place projected through properties or other decor. Of
all the scenes in Shakespeare’s Globe plays I count only seventeen
in which this occurs, a mere 5 per cent. The most frequently
recurring methods used by Shakespeare to indicate location are
by announcement: a character tells us where he is (“This is the
forest of Arden,” _As You Like It_, II, iv); by foreshadowing a
location: a character in one scene tells us where he or others
will be next (“To the Monument,” _Antony and Cleopatra_, IV, xiv);
and by identifying a character with a place (early in _All’s
Well_, the Countess becomes identified with Rossillion; whenever
she appears thereafter, the scene, we know, is Rossillion). Some
of these methods are used in combination. For example, we learn
in the second scene of _Othello_ that the Duke is in council, to
whose presence Othello, Brabantio, and others are summoned. This is
foreshadowing. In the next scene when we see a meeting in progress
between the Duke and Senators, we can guess we are at the council,
and when Othello and Brabantio enter shortly, we are sure of it.
Of course, there are other methods employed to indicate place, but
these three are the principal ones. Announcements help to locate
129 of the scenes (37.3 per cent), presence of characters, 128 of
the scenes (37.1 per cent), and foreshadowing, 61 of the scenes
(17.7 per cent).
Though the chorus is used only occasionally to indicate place,
it tells us most about Elizabethan playwrights’ attitudes toward
setting the scenes. Fortunately, the Globe plays include two
examples of this technique, one from the beginning and one from
the end of the decade. In _Every Man Out of His Humour_ Ben Jonson
introduces three choral figures, Asper, Mitis, and Cordatus. At the
end of the induction Asper leaves the stage to assume the role of
Macilente; Mitis and Cordatus remain to comment upon the action.
Cordatus, who knows the play, is able to inform Mitis where the
action takes place. For some scenes he indicates a generalized
locale. “The Scene is the country still,” he remarks to Mitis
(Chorus to II, i) or “Onely transferre your thoughts to the city,
with the Scene; where, suppose they speake” (Chorus to II, iv).
Sometimes he is more specific. Upon the entrance of Cavaliere Shift
(III, i), Mitis asks,
What new _Mute_ is this, that walkes so suspiciously?
CORD. O, mary this is one, for whose better illustration;
we must desire you to presuppose the stage, the
middle isle in Paules; and that, the west end of it.
At one time, where the presence of characters identifies the
location, Cordatus queries Mitis, “You understand where the Scene
is?” (Chorus to IV, i). Jonson, desirous of specifying particular
London sites despite the fiction of Italian-named characters, is
experimenting along the lines of Shakespeare who shortly before
tried a similar method in _Henry V_. Shakespeare returned to this
device in _Pericles_. Gower, the chorus, relates portions of
Pericles’ adventures directly and in accompaniment to several dumb
shows. In passing he often sets the locale. The first scene, he
tells us, is “this Antioch ... this city” (17-18). Preparatory to
the commencement of III, i, Gower asks the audience,
In your imagination hold
This stage the ship, upon whose deck
The sea-tost Pericles appears to speak
Imagine! Suppose! Both Jonson and Shakespeare call upon the
audience to visualize the place of action. Clearly neither
conventional nor realistic setting is introduced. Only words, in
these instances delivered directly, in most instances conveyed
in the midst of dramatic action, are the means for informing the
audience where the scene takes place.
II. THE PARTS OF THE STAGE
What the Choruses make evident is that the stage was not altered
for individual scenes. As a consequence, the stage structure
itself, not scenery, served as the frame for the action. What this
structure was and how it was used has been debated for years,
and yet despite the lively and continuous debate, there actually
exists a broad band of agreement About the size of the stage, for
instance, there is little dispute. It is deduced from the Fortune
contract. Without a doubt the platform, one side of which was
attached to the stage wall or façade, was large, probably about
25 by 45 feet, and bare. Whether or not the supporting trestles
were seen by the audience, as Hodges claims, matters little in a
consideration of the use of the stage. What is important is that
the stage extended to the middle of the yard, that consequently a
large portion of the audience stood or sat on either side of the
actors, and that the actors had to master the techniques of playing
on this open stage. Some disagreement exists concerning the shape
of the stage which, according to John C. Adams, was not rectangular
but tapered inward toward the front. However, the weight of the
evidence is against this theory, and most scholars are inclined to
accept the rectangular shape.
Upon what other points is there general agreement? For one, that
there were two pillars, located halfway between the stage wall and
the front edge of the platform, which supported a shadow or cover
over part of the stage. For another, that at platform level the
stage wall contained two doors at least and probably a third entry
or enclosed space and on an upper level, some sort of acting area.
Where there are disputes, they arise over three matters: (1) what
details complete this generally accepted scheme, (2) how the parts
of the stage were employed, and (3) what temporary structures, if
any, supplemented the basic façade. To examine these issues, it
will be necessary to review each part of the stage in the light of
the Globe repertory.
The Globe plays confirm the presence of at least two entrance
doors at some distance from each other. On several occasions
there is need for two characters to enter simultaneously from
separate entrances and after some conversation come together.
For the existence of a third entry the Globe plays offer no
conclusive proof. No stage direction specifying an entry from a
middle door, such as can be found in non-Globe plays, appears.
However, certain scenes do suggest the use of a third entrance. In
_Macbeth_ (V, vii) Malcolm, who has presumably come through one
door (_A_), is invited into the castle of Dunsinane by Siward. At
his exit (through _B_ presumably) Macbeth enters. Either he can
come from the door (_A_) through which Malcolm entered, which is
dramatically unconvincing, or from the door (_B_) of Dunsinane,
which is awkward, or from a third entrance, evidence for which is
not conclusive. Still, another sort of evidence does occur, which
supports the idea of a third entry. In all cases, save one, where
simultaneous entrances take place, the stage direction either reads
“Enter _A_ at one door, and enter _B_ at another” or “at another
door” or “Enter _A_ and _B_ severally,” or “at several doors.” In
all the Globe plays, Shakespearean and non-Shakespearean, there
are twenty-two instances of such stage directions.[6] The only
exception is _Pericles_ (IV, iv), “Enter Pericles at one doore,
with all his trayne, Cleon and Dioniza at _the_ other. Cleon shewes
Pericles the tombe, whereat, Pericles makes lamentatton [_sic_].”
The explanation for the article, “the” other door, if a third
did exist, may be that the third entry was used to display the
tomb. The presence of a word such as “another” in all other stage
directions implies that when one door was used, more than one other
entrance remained, and that, therefore, a third mode of entry was
regularly employed on the Globe stage.
Regarding the position of the main entrance doors on either side
of the stage, the Globe plays are equally unhelpful. Authority
for oblique doors partly facing each other rests on three items
of evidence that have been set forth. (1) The phrase “Enter
_A_ and _B_ at opposite doors,” which appears in some of the
Jacobean plays, proves, according to W. J. Lawrence, that the
doors faced each other.[7] (2) Certain plays need facing doors in
the action.[8] (3) The historical development of the playhouses
explains the genesis of the oblique doors.[9] Concerning the first
item, I need only point out that in no stage direction in the
Globe plays does the phrase “at opposite doors” appear. Nor does
it appear in any pre-Globe Shakespearean play. The second item
invites subjective judgment. Lawrence insists that the last scene
of _The Merry Devil of Edmonton_, a Globe play, could not be played
unless the doors were oblique. However, cross-observation in that
scene concerns the exchange of signs over the doors to two inns in
Waltham.
SIR ARTHUR. Mine host, mine host, we lay all night at
the George in Waltham, but whether the
George be your fee-simple or no, tis a doubtfull
question, looke upon your signe.
HOST. Body of Saint George, this is mine overthwart
neighbour hath done this to seduce
my blind customers.
[Sig. F2^r]
Signs extending over a door would be readily seen from the opposite
end of the stage whether or not the doors were oblique. What this
interpretation comes down to is that insistence on opposite doors
reveals a realistic conception of staging. Out of oblique doors
characters emerge already facing each other or the action. They
can respond “naturally” and “realistically.” But, if the doors are
flush with the façade, an “unnatural” formal entrance results.
The last argument for oblique doors is historical. Lawrence
claims that they were introduced into the Globe from the second
Blackfriars theater (1598-1600). Adams argues that they were
developed when the Theatre’s frame was adapted for the Globe.
Neither offers sufficiently convincing proof to counter-balance
the evidence of the Swan drawing which clearly shows flush doors.
Therefore, though either oblique or flush doors could accommodate
the Globe plays, flush doors were more likely to have been employed.
We can also dismiss the notion occasionally put forth that
the doors consistently represented entrances from particular
places, such as Olivia’s house in _Twelfth Night_ or Page’s and
Ford’s houses in _The Merry Wives of Windsor_. The difficulty of
maintaining a continuing identification of one place with one
entrance is obvious in the latter play. The comedy opens with the
entrance of Justice Shallow, Sir Hugh Evans, and Slender. Their
point of entry (marked _A_ for identification) is unspecified
and therefore might be in the center. Having been insulted by
Falstaff, whom he expects to find at Page’s house, Shallow calls
upon the Windsor worthy who emerges from his house (entry _B_).
The remaining entrances and exits in scene i and in the brief
scene ii maintain these associations. Scene iii occurs at the
Garter. It is possible to confine all in-goings and out-goings to
one door (entry _C_). But with scene iv all previous associations
are shattered. The place is Dr. Caius’ house. Entry _A_, _B_,
or _C_ must represent Caius’ house. The neutral entry A can be
selected. But in the course of the scene Simple is forced to hide
from Caius. He cannot exit at _A_, for Caius is about to enter at
that point. Thus he must choose _B_ (Page’s house) or _C_ (the
Garter). A continuation of this analysis would only confirm how
hopeless it is to expect any correlation between an entry and
a specific locality for more than one scene. Further evidence
exists in _Twelfth Night_ that the doors did not have locational
significance. At the conclusion of Act I, scene v, Olivia sends
Malvolio after Cesario to tell “him” that she’ll have none of “his”
ring. After an intervening scene, Malvolio encounters Cesario. His
first line is, “Were not you ev’n now with the Countess Olivia?”
Simple realism would demand that Malvolio, endeavoring to catch
Cesario, would follow “him” on stage. That is how the scene is
frequently staged. However, the stage direction specifies, “Enter
Viola and Malvolio at several doors” (II, ii). Professor Reynolds
has reconstructed the staging of _Troilus and Cressida_ so that one
stage door represents Troy, the other the Grecian camp.[10] An
enclosed recess, with the curtain drawn, becomes Cressida’s home
and with the curtain closed, Achilles’ tent. But, as Irwin Smith
has reminded me privately, this arrangement is “proved wrong by the
stage direction to Act IV, scene i, which specifies entrance at two
doors,” although the location of the scene is wholly within Troy.
The fact is that every other Globe play lacks that neat division
of place which enables us to assign one location to one door and
another to the other door. Too often there is a major shift in
location during the course of a play, such as, from the court to
the forest in _As You Like It_, from Venice to Cyprus in _Othello_,
from the castle to the field in _Lear_. Such a shift prevents the
localizing of the stage door for any appreciable period.
As good evidence as that of Reynolds can be offered for a theory
that actors almost always obeyed the convention of entering at one
door and leaving at the other, regardless of location. In _Hamlet_,
for instance, there are only three instances when such a convention
would be violated: when Polonius is sent for the ambassadors and
players in II, ii, and when the Prologue leaves to usher in the
players in III, ii. I offer this suggestion not as a theory but as
a warning against such reconstructed staging as Reynolds proposes.
The critical part of any study of an Elizabethan playhouse concerns
the “third entry,” “the place in the middle,” “the booth,” “the
inner stage,” “the discovery-space.” The abundance of terms
testifies to the uncertainty concerning this area. Every aspect of
it is open to controversy: function, dimensions in all directions,
the presence of curtains, and location. But that there is some
space between the stage doors, capable of being enclosed or
secluded, is granted by all scholars. Objection has been raised to
calling this area an “inner stage,” first because the term never
appeared in Elizabethan texts, and secondly because it suggests
a purpose that it did not have, namely, to house entire scenes.
Increasingly the term “discovery-space” has been utilized, notably
by Richard Hosley, but this has the disadvantage of suggesting too
limited a function for the space. Since the area we are concerned
with, whether recessed or not, had to be enclosed, almost
certainly by curtains, I have chosen to refer to the “enclosure” of
the Globe stage.
Any investigation of the enclosure is obliged to include an
investigation of Elizabethan stage properties. For a long time
it was suggested that a principal purpose of the enclosure was
to mask the placement of furniture and other properties. While
it is becoming increasingly evident that we must regard such a
presumption with skepticism, nevertheless, the presence of a
property has so often been cited as evidence for the use of an
enclosure that it is necessary to review the handling of stage
properties at the Globe before considering the enclosure directly.
Aside from their connection with the problem of the enclosure,
furthermore, stage properties deserve attention, for their
appearance in a play can be more readily ascertained than any other
element of production and as a result can provide clues to the
methods of staging.
Anyone who has had occasion to produce a Shakespearean play
realizes how few properties are needed for any single play. Yet
even when we are cautious, we tend to overproperty a play. Even
properties clearly alluded to may not exist on stage. Several
times in _Julius Caesar_ characters speak of Caesar having been
struck down at the base of Pompey’s statue (III, i, 115; III, ii,
193), even in the very scene where the action takes place. Yet the
description is merely a paraphrase of Plutarch.[11] The Romans
are beaten back to their trenches in their first assault against
Corioles (I, iv). Once more the trenches are not on-stage but in
Plutarch.
Consequently, in examining the Globe plays, I have tried to guard
against seeing a stage property where none exists. Only when
use is clearly demonstrable in action or stage direction can we
assume that a property was introduced. Some instances exist where
smaller properties were added to give verisimilitude to a scene, as
Fabell’s necromantic instruments in _The Merry Devil of Edmonton_,
prologue, and Horace’s papers in _Satiromastix_ (I, iii), but
larger properties which require placement or setting were charily
employed. It is to these set properties that I shall refer.
In the fifteen Globe plays written by Shakespeare I count
sixty-five uses of properties, in the twelve non-Shakespearean
plays, sixty-eight.[12] In the former plays the presence of fifteen
of these “props” is difficult to verify. Such a property would be
the “hedge-corner” around which the soldiers hide before pouncing
on Parolles (_All’s Well_, IV, i) or the “tree” upon which Orlando
hangs his verses (_As You Like It_, III, ii). Since the hedge and
the tree might very well be represented by the stage posts, I
must omit consideration of them. In the twelve non-Shakespearean
plays there are seventeen such properties. Consequently, in one
category we are left with fifty properties and in the other with
fifty-one, or one hundred and one altogether, an average of
almost four properties a play. That this is not a slim list for
a ten-year period is supported by the few properties inventoried
by Henslowe in 1598. The heading of the inventory claims that
_all_ the properties are listed. Of set properties there are only
twenty-one.[13] To these we may add chairs and tables which are
not included. Nor are curtains mentioned unless “the cloth of the
Sone & Mone” is a hanging of some sort rather than rudimentary
scenery, as Malone suggested. In any case the list substantiates
the conclusion that Elizabethan stage production employed few
properties and reinforces the warning that we should not insist
upon finding others where they do not appear.
How were the properties introduced onto the stage? Some were
discovered. When Lychorida bids Pericles look upon his dead bride,
she probably draws a curtain to reveal Thaisa on the bitter
“child-bed” of which Pericles speaks (III, i). Other properties
were brought on. For the fencing match between Hamlet and Laertes,
though the 1604 Quarto stage direction notes, “A table prepared
...,” the Folio specifies that following the King, Queen, and
others, there enter “other Attendants with Foyles, and Gauntlets,
a Table and Flagons of wine on it” (V, ii). But many instances are
not so clear, instances where at most we can assume that a property
was _probably_ brought on stage or _probably_ discovered. Another
small category exists. There are several instances where properties
are taken off stage, although there is no evidence to indicate
how they came to be on stage. Caesar, at the finale of _Antony
and Cleopatra_, commands his soldiers to “Take up [Cleopatra’s]
bed,/and bear her women from the monument” (V, ii, 359-360). To my
mind this suggests that the prop had been previously brought on.
I have carefully examined the one hundred and one properties for
evidence of method of introduction. The chart below summarizes my
analysis.
_How Props_ | _In_ | _In Non-_ |
_Are_ | _Shakespearean_ | _Shakespearean_ | _Total_
_Introduced_ | _Plays_ | _Plays_ |
--------------+-----------------+-----------------+-----------------
| _No._ | % | _No._ | % | _No._ | %
+--------+--------+--------+--------+--------+--------
Brought on | 12 | 24. | 18 | 35.3 | 30 | 29.7
Probably | | | | | |
brought on | 11 | 22. | 8 | 15.7 | 19 | 18.8
Taken off | 2 | 4. | 2 | 3.9 | 4 | 4.
+--------+--------+--------+--------+--------+--------
_Total_ | 25 | 50. | 28 | 54.9 | 53 | 52.5
+--------+--------+--------+--------+--------+--------
Discovered | 2 | 4. | 8 | 15.7 | 10 | 9.9
Probably | | | | | |
discovered | 7 | 14. | 1 | 1.9 | 8 | 7.9
+--------+--------+--------+--------+--------+--------
_Total_ | 9 | 18. | 9 | 17.6 | 18 | 17.8
Undetermined | 16 | 32. | 14 | 27.5 | 30 | 29.7
--------------+--------+--------+--------+--------+--------+--------
_Grand Total_| 50 | | 51 | | 101 |
In both Shakespearean and non-Shakespearean plays the percentages
are about the same. Clearly the number of properties brought on
greatly outnumber those which are discovered. Yet enough properties
are discovered to make the presence of an enclosure certain.
Tables are usually brought out. In all the Globe plays tables are
used seventeen times. Ten of these are banquet tables, seven of
which are specifically directed to be brought out.[14] Of the rest
two are probably brought out, and one may or may not have been
brought out.[15] Since it was customary in Elizabethan life for
banquet tables to be portable, it has been objected that the use
of an enclosure is not disproved by such evidence. Instead we are
asked to regard the practice as a bit of realistic business. This
objection, however, does not explain why, as in _Macbeth_, III, iv,
a banquet is sometimes prepared in front of the audience before
the arrival of the principal characters. In any case the evidence
concerning the table as stage property shows that the introduction
of banquet tables does not depend upon an enclosure.
Of the other seven tables, four are definitely brought out, one
is probably brought out, the introduction of one is undetermined,
and one seems to have been discovered.[16] This last property is
referred to in the stage direction in _Othello_, I, iii, “Enter
Duke and Senators, set at a Table with lights and Attendants.” The
Quarto (1622) for this play is late, so that the discovery may
depict a later method. In contrast to all other cases in the Globe
plays, this is the sole instance where a table is discovered.
Tracing the introduction of seats is more difficult. There
are infrequent references to chairs in stage directions. Only
occasionally is a chair, or more usually a stool, named in the
dialogue. More often there is the invitation of one character to
another to sit down. Twenty-two instances of seating occur in
Shakespeare’s Globe plays, twenty-one in the non-Shakespearean
plays. One type of seat is always brought in, that is the chair
for an invalid. Two such chairs are definitely introduced by
Shakespeare, one for Lear, the other for Cassio when wounded. A
third might be intended for the King of France when he calls, “Give
me some help here, ho!” (_All’s Well_, II, i). One such chair
containing the Wife, is brought in in _A Yorkshire Tragedy_; a
similar type, a sedan chair apparently, is introduced in _Volpone_
(V, ii).
An entire category of seats is represented by the simple
joint-stool. It appears for Goneril in Lear’s arraignment of his
daughters (III, vi), it serves for Volumnia and Virgilia as they
sew (_Coriolanus_, I, iii), and it holds the Ghost of Banquo
(_Macbeth_, III, iv). These stools are elusive though. Seldom
are they specifically directed to be brought on. An illuminating
instance occurs in _The Devil’s Charter_. Lucretia Borgia is
plotting the death of her husband, Gismond. The stage direction at
the beginning of Act I, scene v, reads, “Enter Lucretia alone in
her nightgowne untired bringing in a chaire, which she planteth
upon the Stage.” She prepares the trap-chair for her husband, and
when he arrives “Gismond sitteth downe in a Chaire, Lucretia on a
stoole beside him.” But where did the “stoole” come from? If an
attendant had accompanied her, why did Lucretia have to carry the
chair? Obviously she must have entered alone. Therefore, unless one
suggests that she also carried on a stool, hitherto unmentioned,
the only possibility left is to suppose that the stool was already
on the stage. Once one grants that stools may have been left on
the stage, many scenes and directions become clear. When banquets
are brought on stage, no mention is made of accompanying seats.
Furthermore, when the type of seat at banquets is named, it turns
out to be a stool. In various plays the actors sit in places that
in reality would be devoid of seats, for example, on the watch in
_Hamlet_ (I, i), at the city gates in _Measure for Measure_ (V, i),
Antony somewhere after a defeat (_Antony and Cleopatra_, III, x).
It is not too far a leap to assume that it was regular practice at
the Globe playhouse to have stools distributed about the stage for
the use of the actors.
Two other types of seats appear in the Shakespearean plays: the
“chair” and the state. The chair is only mentioned once. It is the
one to which Gloucester is bound before he is blinded. There is no
indication whether it is brought on or discovered, one’s decision
in the matter being determined by where one places the scene on the
stage. The state too is mentioned specifically only once. After
the banquet is brought out, Macbeth tells the assembled guests,
“Our hostesse keeps her state, but in best time/ We will require
her welcome.” (III, iv). This implies that Lady Macbeth sits apart
from the company, perhaps in the enclosure. The state may have
been placed there when the banquet was prepared or it may have
been discovered. Significantly no action takes place at the state.
Several other scenes would permit the use of a state. In each case
there is evidence that the scenes proper take place on the stage
platform. Though a curtain could be utilized to reveal the state in
these cases, I incline to the theory that the state was brought or
thrust out.
Of all properties beds are most frequently discovered. There are
eleven instances in the Globe plays where beds or cushions for
sleeping are introduced. In three the bed is definitely and in
three others probably discovered, but in only two of these scenes
is action sustained around the beds. The other scenes merely
contain references to them or display someone reclining. Three
other instances afford insufficient evidence to judge whether the
beds are discovered or not and the remaining two provide curious
evidence. _The Devil’s Charter_ and _Antony and Cleopatra_ were
written about the same time. In both plays people die from the bite
of an asp; in the former play they are murdered (IV, v), in the
latter they commit suicide (V, ii), but in both cases the scenes
conclude with the order to take up the beds and bear in the bodies.
Extended action takes place about the beds, perhaps offering the
explanation for the beds being forward on the platform.[17]
The question of whether or not heavy properties were discovered is
answered by a type of property which keeps recurring in the Globe
plays. This may very well be the counterpart of “a payre of stayres
for Fayeton” in Henslowe’s inventory. In a well reasoned article
Warren Smith has demonstrated the likelihood that scaffolding of
some sort was introduced as a property on the Globe stage.[18]
Not the upper level of the stage façade, but such a scaffold, he
contends, was the pulpit in _Julius Caesar_ (III, ii), a place to
see the warriors in _Troilus and Cressida_ (I, ii), the monument
in _Antony and Cleopatra_ (IV, xvi), the platform in _Hamlet_ (I,
i). Though his argument does not fit _Hamlet_ or completely explain
_Antony and Cleopatra_, its basic premise is verified by two
non-Shakespearean Globe plays.
In the last scene of _Fair Maid of Bristow_, Vallenger, the
prodigal, is about to be executed for the supposed murder of
Sentloe. By this point in the play Vallenger has been spiritually
redeemed from sin. About to die, he delivers a brief speech,
Ere I ascend this stage where I must act,
The latest period of this life of mine,
First let me do my deuty to my prince.
Next unto you, to much by me offended,
Now step, by step, as I ascend this place,
Mount thou my soule into the throwne of grace.
[Sig. E4^r]
Presumably he reaches the top, as do his alleged accomplices, for
shortly thereafter the King calls, “Dispatch them executioner:
dispatch.” Clearly some scaffold has been revealed or brought
out for this scene. It is one which the actors can mount before
an audience. It also had to be large enough to accommodate four
people. From other evidence Smith suggests a platform of this sort
would be three or four steps high. Despite its size a subsequent
line indicates that it was moved about in front of the audience.
Before the execution can take place, Sentloe reveals that he is not
really dead, but has pretended to be in order to subject Vallenger
to a rigorous trial of soul and thus force him to purge his
offenses. Amidst the joyful reunion of Vallenger and his wife, the
King commands,
Away with that same tradgike monument.
[Sig. F2^v]
Presumably the scaffold is withdrawn from the stage. In all
likelihood a scaffold large enough to hold four people was too
large to fit through a doorway. Therefore, we must assume that it
was removed through the enclosure.
The forward placement of the scaffold is attested by another Globe
play. Enamored of Corvino’s wife, Volpone disguised as a mountebank
mounts his bank under the window where he might glimpse the lady
(II, ii). Dramatically and physically his bank could only be placed
on the platform. That he has actually gone up on some structure
which, however, is lower than window height, is proved, first,
when “Celia at the windo’ throwes downe her handkerchiefe,” and
secondly, when Corvino, the jealous husband, rushes out of his
door and shouts to Volpone to “Come downe” (II, iii). Here too
there is no stage direction for the setting up and taking down
of a scaffold, but the reiteration of Corvino’s “will you downe,
sir? downe?” establishes its existence. Perhaps, in this case too,
actors or attendants erected or thrust out some frame. Once it is
established that such a scaffold was brought out upon the Globe
stage, it becomes clear that it appears in some of the scenes cited
by Smith. How its use affected staging is properly reserved for a
later chapter.
Out of the total properties of one hundred and one, I have already
accounted for seventy-six. The remaining twenty-five are divided
amongst miscellaneous properties such as tombs, tents, greenery
of some sort, and others. Only two scenes require tombs, a dumb
show in _Pericles_ (IV, iv) and the discovery of Timon’s body
(V, iii). How the tombs were revealed to the audience is not
readily determined so that this subject had best be deferred to a
consideration of the enclosure.
Tents are even more difficult to treat. Even when the action calls
for a tent, it is uncertain whether a property or merely the
enclosure is being employed. Frequent allusions to tents can be
found in _Troilus and Cressida_, but there is no scene where more
than one tent must be used. But how was that represented? When
Ulysses says of Achilles, “We saw him at the opening of his tent”
(II, iii), did the audience see a property tent or the flap of the
enclosure curtain turned back? No interior is required in any of
these scenes so that we are not dealing with a discovery proper.
Some evidence for a property tent can be found in _The Devil’s
Charter_. Caesar Borgia leads an army against the town of Furly
whose defense is led by the Countess Katherine (IV, iv). Unless
she surrenders, Caesar will slay her two young boys, whom he has
captured; when she refuses, he orders the children to execution.
Then, after having scaled the walls and taken Katherine prisoner,
Caesar “discovereth his Tent where her two sonnes were at Cardes,”
and says, “Behold thy children living in my Tent.” But where is the
tent? In the enclosure? A difficulty arises, if we suppose so, for
it places the tent under the very walls which Caesar attempted and
finally overran. Moreover, since the dumb show which opens the play
requires two property tents, it is likely that Caesar’s tent was
brought in by his soldiers and set up on stage.
Similarly, it is difficult to distinguish when prop trees are
used and when stage posts. Although property trees were regularly
employed on the Elizabethan stage, no tree definitely appears
on the Globe stage. In _A Warning for Fair Women_, a Lord
Chamberlain’s play published in 1599, a tree springs up in the
midst of the stage (Sig. E3^v). But whether or not this was the
normal method for introducing the tree prop is uncertain. The
rest of the properties must be considered individually. Some are
discovered, most brought on. But the study of any one of these
properties, if necessary, can be more profitably undertaken in
connection with staging methods.
Two inferences can be drawn from this survey of properties on the
Globe stage. One is that more often than not properties, even heavy
ones, were carried onto the stage. As a consequence, it was not
one of the functions of the enclosure to permit the setting of
furniture or other properties.[19] The other is that the same class
of properties is often introduced in the same way. Beds are likely
to be discovered. Tables, scaffolds, and invalid chairs are brought
out. These habits may have stemmed from solid theatrical necessity.
On the other hand it is possible that they may have embodied a
symbolic significance.
Therefore, since the presence of stage properties cannot guide us
in deciding when the enclosure was used, some other means must be
discovered. References to an interior setting, Richard Hosley has
shown, are not reliable. Fortunately, however, several Globe plays
contain scenes in which stage directions or incontestable stage
business establishes the use of an enclosure. One of these, _The
Devil’s Charter_, supplies unusually valuable evidence.
Barnabe Barnes prepared his text of _The Devil’s Charter_ for the
printer with much care. He supplied full stage directions, which
show theatrical, not literary marks, and seems to have described an
actual production, for the epilogue directly addresses spectators,
albeit not of the public playhouse (Sig. M3^v). The enclosure, or
study, as he terms the area, is employed three times in his play.
It will pay to examine these scenes minutely. In two scenes a stage
direction opens the scene with the words, “Alexander in his study
(or studie) ...,” “with bookes, coffers, his triple Crown upon a
cushion before him” (I, iv); “beholding a Magicall glasse with
other observations” (IV, i). Alexander speaks a long soliloquy in
the first scene, then his two sons enter, later a servant. At the
most there are four characters in the scene. Whether Alexander
remains in the study throughout the first scene is not indicated.
In the second scene Alexander also delivers an extended soliloquy,
but here a direction specifies after his sixth line, “Alexander
commeth upon the Stage out of his study with a booke in his hand.”
He conjures forth a devil in order to discover who killed his son
Candie. He is shown a symbol of the murder: his other son, Caesar,
pursuing the ghost of Candie. The specters enter at one door
and “vanish in at another doore” (G2^r 19). On the heels of the
apparition of Caesar, Caesar himself arrives, outfaces his father,
and parts reconciled to him. The last direction is, “Exit Alexander
into the studie.” Clearly the study supplied a novel scene opening
and provided access to the platform or stage, but was not utilized
for extended presentation.
The third study scene, in this instance containing two disclosures,
occurs at the end of the play. Alexander is about to face the
consequences of his charter with the devil. The scene commences,
“Alexander unbraced betwixt two Cardinalls in his study looking
upon a booke, whilst a groome draweth the Curtaine” (V, vi).
Alexander speaks eight lines, then “They [the two Cardinals] place
him in a chayre upon the stage, a groome setteth a Table before
him.” After chastising himself, “Alexander draweth the Curtaine of
his studie [the one which the groom opened and presumably closed]
where hee discovereth the divill sitting in his pontificals.” He
disputes with the devil, and later “They sit together,” where is
not indicated, and finally Alexander’s soul is carried down. In two
of the scenes there is incontestable evidence that the action is
brought out of the enclosure early in the scene. Furthermore, these
three are the only study scenes in a play of twenty-two scenes.
Yet the study is mentioned at one other time. At one point
Alexander plots the death of two young men, with one of whom he has
had a homosexual affair. The murder scene (IV, v) begins with the
direction, “Enter Alexander out of his studie.” After he has his
servant Bernardo prepare a soporific for the young men, he departs
with the injunction that when the intended victims are asleep,
Bernardo give him notice “at [his] study doore.” The young men come
in from tennis, have a rubdown by barbers, call for refreshment.
The soporific takes effect, and they lie down to nap both upon one
bed. Bernardo “knocketh at the study,” at which Alexander comes
forth “upon the stage” with his asp to slay his paramour. After the
act is completed and the murderer has departed, Bernardo summons
two Cardinals to see the dead youths who, he asserts, expired from
drinking too much when overexerted. Bemoaning the fate of these two
hopes of “Phaenza,” the Cardinals bid Bernardo “Beare them in.”
Several characteristics should be noted. First, the enclosure or
study, when it is actually used, is revealed by the drawing of a
curtain. But if a curtain hangs before the enclosure, upon what
does Bernardo knock? Either upon the side wall, and then Alexander
enters from behind the curtain, or upon a door, and a new area
is presumed to represent the study. Hosley has suggested that
one of the two side doorways, with the doors fully opened, might
have served as the enclosure. This possibility must be excluded,
however, for Act IV, scene i requires two doors for the passage of
the specters of Caesar and Candie at a time when the enclosure or
study is in use.[20]
Second, the direction that Alexander “commeth upon the Stage out
of his study” indicates that the enclosure is recessed. With this
conclusion most of the scenes utilizing the enclosure would agree.
One complication is raised by _Volpone_, V, ii. Here Volpone must
be behind a curtain, yet be able to “peepe over.” There may be any
one of three explanations. Perhaps the curtains did not reach the
top of the recess. Richard Southern refers to such an arrangement
at a booth theater in Brussels in 1660.[21] Another possibility
is that the enclosure projected from the stage façade. Lastly,
the curtain, called a “traverse” in the Folio, may have been
hung especially for this scene and thus may not be the enclosure
curtain. Of all the choices the last seems to accord best with the
evidence.
Altogether thirteen or fourteen instances of discovery can be
found in the non-Shakespearean Globe plays. To what degree do they
substantiate Hosley’s contention that the enclosure was used to
disclose “a player or object invested with some special interest
or significance”?[22] So many persons and things of interest, not
so disclosed, appear in the Globe plays, that it is impossible
to use such a yardstick. True, of the total thirteen or fourteen
discoveries, six involve the sudden display of a figure or figures
or, in one instance, of a striking object, Volpone’s wealth. But
among the other discoveries are mundane representations of a person
reading, casting accounts, lying asleep. Yet, a certain pattern
becomes apparent. For the moment let us consider twelve instances,
excluding the two that occur in Jonson’s plays. In the twelve
instances of discovery, six reveal a person writing or studying or
reading; in four scenes the person is alone; in two, a subordinate
or two attends upon the central figure.[23] Three of the remaining
discoveries reveal a person or persons sleeping.[24] Two
discoveries reveal dead bodies.[25] There remains one discovery to
be accounted for, that already described in _The Devil’s Charter_,
where Alexander draws the curtain to find the devil sitting “in his
pontificals.” Just before revealing the devil, Alexander cries,
Once more I will with powrefull exorcismes,
Invoke those Angells of eternall darkenesse
To shew me now the manner of death.
[Sig. L3^v 18-20]
If one of the conventional uses of the enclosure was to discover
corpses, then the Globe audiences would have well appreciated the
irony of Alexander’s last line, for when he draws the curtain,
he does discover “the manner of death.” Thus, in all preceding
examples discovery reveals persons studying, sleeping, or dead. To
what extent does Shakespeare follow the same practice?
In determining which scenes in Shakespeare’s Globe plays employed
the enclosure, it is necessary to allow reasonable latitude. At
least three instances are fairly certain, _Pericles_, III, i; V, i,
and _Othello_, V, ii. I am inclined to believe that there may be
four others: _Pericles_, I, i; _Timon of Athens_, V, iii; _Lear_,
III, vi; _Othello_, I, iii. Let us examine the definite instances
of discovery.
The two which occur in _Pericles_ are similar in character. In the
first (III, i), Pericles is on a storm-tossed ship’s deck. His
newborn babe has just been placed in his arms. The sailors insist
that the body of his queen, who has but now died in child-birth, be
cast overboard. Pericles answers,
As you thinke meet; for she must over board straight:
Most wretched Queene.
LYCHORIDA. Heere she lyes sir.
PERICLES. A terrible Child-bed hast thou had my deare,
... nor have I time ... but straight,
Must cast thee scarcly Coffind.
[III, i, 54-61. Quarto copy]
At the end of the scene, Pericles sends one of the sailors out to
prepare the “caulkt and bittumed” chest for the body, which we do
not see removed, for the scene ends when Pericles says, “I’le bring
the body presently.”
In the second scene, again on the deck of a ship, Lysimachus is
told of Pericles’ trance out of which no one can stir him.
HELICANUS. hee will not speake to any
LYSIMACHUS. yet let me obtaine my wish [to see Pericles]
HELICANUS. Behold him, this was a goodly person.
[V, i, 34-36. Q.]
Presumably a curtain is drawn to reveal Pericles on a couch.
Subsequently, Marina is brought to rouse him, and little by little
the two discover they are father and daughter. The lines indicate
some shifting in and out of the enclosure during this scene.
Because of the stage direction in the Folio, “Enter Othello, and
Desdemona in her bed,” this last scene of _Othello_ probably
employs the enclosure. If it is continued in the enclosure
throughout, it is the only illustration that we have of extended
action in this space. Only one other instance occurs in the Globe
plays where “enter” precedes the discovery of a sleeping person
(_A Yorkshire Tragedy_, scene v). As yet no one has explained
convincingly the appearance of “enter” in such a context. In
contemporary diction and common usage “enter” is not a synonym
for “discover.” Yet such stage directions clearly intend “enter”
to bear a special significance. Therefore, until further light
can be thrown upon such usage, it is best for us to accept stage
directions reading “Enter _A_ in a bed” or “Enter _B_ asleep” as
evidence of discovery.
A similarity between the three Shakespearean scenes and the
non-Shakespearean scenes will be seen immediately. Two of the
Shakespearean scenes involve the display of sleepers, one of a
seeming corpse. When we return to the remaining possible uses
of the enclosure, we find that they include the discovery of a
conference (_Othello_, I, iii: “Enter Duke and Senators set at
a Table with lights and Attendants.” Q. 1622. The Folio s.d. is
“Enter Duke, Senators, and Officers”); concealment of a sleeper
(_Lear_, III, vi: “draw the curtains”); and the discovery of
dead bodies (_Timon_, V, iii: a soldier finds Timon’s body, and
_Pericles_, I, i). In _Pericles_, I, i, Antiochus seeks to dissuade
Pericles from endeavoring to win the hand of Antiochus’ daughter by
answering a fateful riddle. He points to the bodies of “sometimes
famous Princes” who failed to answer the riddle and were put to
death. These bodies may be discovered.
Once one puts all the evidence together, the degree of uniformity
is amazing. Considering all these discoveries, in Shakespearean
and non-Shakespearean plays, we find twenty-one examples, six of
which involve sleepers, seven of which involve study or conference,
five of which involve corpses. One, the devil as pope, is a slight
variant of the last category. The final two variants appear in
Jonson’s plays. In _Volpone_ gold is displayed, the only time an
object is the center of revelation. It is possible that a chest
rather than the enclosure contains the wealth. In _Every Man Out
of His Humour_, the evidence for the use of the enclosure is
slight.[26]
This theory, that the enclosure was reserved for certain kinds of
display, augments the present theory that the enclosure was used
infrequently and briefly. Both theories lead inevitably to the
question: was the enclosure a permanent part of the stage, and
if it was, why was it not used more frequently? Though I tend to
believe that the enclosure was permanent, it could very well have
been temporary, provided there were hidden access to it. To the
second half of the question, the answer is that the enclosure _was_
used more frequently, not to effect discovery, however, but to
permit concealment. Lear, as I suggested, may have utilized the
enclosure for that purpose, the enclosure which often served as a
study. In Q. 1603 of _Hamlet_, Corambis advises the King:
The Princes walke is here in the galery,
There let Ofelia, walke untill hee comes:
Your selfe and I will stand close in the study.
[Sig. D4^v]
At the corresponding point in the Folio version, Polonius says, “Be
you and I behinde an Arras then.” Naturally Corambis would think of
the place behind the arras as the study. It was the enclosure to
which he referred, the enclosure which served the double purpose,
to reveal and to conceal. Of the fifteen Shakespearean Globe plays
seven contain scenes of concealment and ten contain scenes of
discovery or concealment or both. If, in addition, the enclosure
was employed as the front of a tent in those instances where the
interior was not revealed, then twelve of the fifteen Shakespearean
plays made some use of the enclosure for other purposes than
entry.[27]
One word about chronology remains to be said. The plays in
which discovery takes place, _Pericles_, _The Devil’s Charter_,
_Othello_, tend to come late in the Globe period. The use of the
enclosure for concealment, however, occurs throughout the period.
Recognizing that discovery scenes can be found throughout the
Elizabethan period, I should still like to suggest that the use
of the enclosure for discovery was an extension of its use for
entrance, concealment, and possibly introduction of properties. In
popular plays of the pre-Globe period occur scenes where properties
are brought forth from what must be the enclosure. Although none of
the Globe plays contains evidence of similar practice, it is not
unlikely that scaffolds, states, and pulpits were introduced from
the enclosure.[28] If the origin of the Elizabethan stage truly
lies in the booth theater erected in an inn yard, then the hangings
of the booth first had to conceal the actors dressing, then permit
entrance of actors and properties, and lastly, when the stage
façade became permanent, allow discovery.
Among the parts of the Globe there was, all scholars concede,
an upper level attached to the stage façade. Variously termed a
“chamber” by Adams and a “gallery” by Hosley, it is referred to as
a “window,” “walls,” or “above,” in the Globe texts. To avoid any
preconceptions about its nature, we might best refer to the upper
level as it is usually called, “the above.”
The nature of evidence for the above is of two sorts. First and
surest is the category where a stage direction reads “Enter above”
or the action involves two levels. The second is where characters
refer to being above without actually performing actions which show
them to be above, for example, when Bardolph informs Falstaff that
“there’s a woman below” (_The Merry Wives of Windsor_, III, v).
Both categories of evidence occur in the Globe plays. The first
involves scenes where the above is related to the platform below;
the second involves scenes, if the lines can be taken literally,
which would continue at length independent of the lower stage.
To begin with the second kind of evidence first. Eight scenes
in the Globe plays contain references to people or action below
without directly relating to any action below.[29] Three of these
occur in one play, _A Yorkshire Tragedy_. All the other five take
place in taverns, and supposedly the characters are in upper rooms.
Since the scenes in _A Yorkshire Tragedy_ cast an interesting
light on these references, I shall examine them first. In scene
iii a servant announces to the Husband that “a gentleman from the
University staies below to speake with you.” For the moment, we
can imagine the scene is above. At the news the Husband leaves his
wife to greet the visitor. The wife remains alone to deliver a
soliloquy. In scene iv, after conversing with the gentleman, the
Master of the College, the Husband suggests that the guest “spend
but a fewe minuts in a walke/about my grounds below, my man heere
shall attend you.” Presumably the scene is still above. After the
departure of the guest, the Husband kills one of his children and,
crying that he will kill the other, he exits with the bloody child.
Scene v commences with the direction, already referred to, “Enter a
maide with a child in her armes, the mother by her a sleepe.” The
Husband rushes in and endeavors to snatch the babe from the maid’s
arms. When she resists, he assaults her.
Are you gossiping, prating sturdy queane, Ile breake
your clamor with your neck down staires:
Tumble, tumble, headlong.
Throws her down.
[Sig. C3^r]
Thus, three consecutive scenes purport to be upstairs though
certainly scenes iv and v must be in different parts of the
“house.” Adams places scene v in the “chamber.”[30] What then
becomes of the previous scene which, according to the dialogue,
also took place upstairs? Somewhere an allusion to “below” does
not reflect physical facts. Or is it that all the scenes fail to
reflect physical facts and merely reflect the convention that most
domestic and tavern rooms were situated in an upper story? None of
the other scenes mentioned demands the actual use of an above, and
in the tavern scene of _Miseries of Enforced Marriage_ the scene
concludes with one of the characters calling on all his friends
to follow him to another room in the tavern, an unnecessary exit
if a curtain in the above could close upon them. One is forced to
conclude, therefore, that though a scene may contain references to
being above, it was played below unless the action proves otherwise.
Of scenes upon the walls there are five.[31] Here the stage
directions are straightforward. Action takes place between those on
the walls and those below, in two cases involving sizable groups
and much interchange. In _The Devil’s Charter_ (IV, iv) a sustained
assault upon the walls, involving ladders, takes place.
All window scenes--there are four[32]--contain a reference to
“window” or “casement” in a stage direction. All of them involve
interchanges by one person with characters below. However, the
shape of the window, whether bay or otherwise, is not disclosed.
Only one scene, scene x in _Miseries of Enforced Marriage_, is
continued for an extended time above. Complicated though the scene
is, the demands that it makes on the stage are somewhat uncommon
and well worth detailed consideration. Preceding the scene in
question, three sharpers, Ilford, Bartley, and Wentloe, have bilked
Butler’s master, Scarborrow. Consequently, Butler has devised a
way in which to turn the tables on them, in particular, Ilford. He
pretends, separately to Ilford and then to the other two, that he
has access to a rich heiress, and promises each of them to arrange
a match. In reality the “heiress” is the impoverished sister of
Scarborrow. Having appointed a place to meet the sharpers, he sends
them off. At that point, two of Scarborrow’s brothers, privy to the
plot, enter. Without a change of scene, the action shifts to the
“place appointed” previously. After being assured that the brothers
know how to handle their task, Butler exits. The brothers commend
him for his devotion. Then occurs a curious stage direction,
“Betwixt this Butler leads Ilford in.” The brothers finish their
eulogy when another direction is inserted, “Enter Butler and Ilford
above.” Butler pretends that the heiress’ uncles have arrived,
and he urges Ilford to overhear their conversation while he goes
below to the girl. It is interesting to note that Butler says,
“stay you heere in this upper chamber” to listen to the uncles,
not at the window. Butler leaves. Ilford listens to the brothers
who, pretending to be concerned about finding a suitable husband
for their niece, describe the vast wealth of the “heiress.” Butler
returns to an exultant Ilford. Light-headed with visions of playing
the courtier, Ilford swears to love and be true to the girl. She
comes in. Butler leaves them alone to swear their mutual faith. At
this point
Enter Wentloe, and Bartley beneath.
BART. Here about is the house sure.
WENTLOE. We cannot mistake it, for heres the signe of the
Wolfe and the Bay-window.
Enter Butler above.
BUT. [to the lovers] What so close? Tis well, I ha shifted
away your Vncles Mistris, but see the spight Sir
Francis, if yon same couple of Smel-smockes, Wentloe
and Bartley, ha not sented after us.
[Sig. G4]
Under the stimulus of competition, Ilford is willing to rush into
marriage without seeing the dowry of his wife-to-be. After sending
the couple “below,” Butler calls to Bartley and Wentloe to arrange
to meet them below, timing matters so that they will arrive after
the marriage ceremony is completed.
Location is here treated very loosely. In the course of the scene,
action shifts from one place to another. Sometimes the characters
seem to be at a window, sometimes in an upper chamber, but there
is no exact indication where they are at any one time. Indeed this
is a generalized setting, for we know that we are at Scarborrow’s
house. The scene clearly shows that an extended action could be
played above, but only when related to action below.
Altogether there are twelve scenes in ten Globe plays that utilize
the above. Ten have been cited. The other two, the monument scene
in _Antony and Cleopatra_ (IV, xiv) and the observation scene in
_Julius Caesar_ (V, iii) where Pindarus witnesses the distant
battle, are discussed in Appendix B, chart iii. To sum up the
evidence for the above, the limited study of the Globe plays
substantiates Richard Hosley’s broader studies of the plays of
Shakespeare, Kyd, Marlowe, and others as well as of the Red Bull
plays.[33] He shows that 46 per cent of all the plays examined do
not employ a raised production area. At the Globe 66 per cent do
not employ such an area. Wherever, in the remaining 34 per cent of
the plays, action is set above, invariably it is related to action
below, either through actual communication or through persons on
one level observing persons on the other.
Several stage facilities remain to be considered: the traps,
the heavens, and the pillars. Upon these subjects there is less
disagreement amongst scholars. Both J. C. Adams and George
Reynolds, opponents in many matters of Elizabethan staging, agree
that Elizabethan stages contained more than one trap.[34] In the
Globe plays traps are used seven times. From this list I exclude
the use of a trap for the Ghost in the first act in _Hamlet_.[35]
Of the seven instances four occur in one play, _The Devil’s
Charter_. Three of these can be definitely placed at a trap near
the front of the platform (prologue; IV, i; V, vi), for preceding
each use of the trap a stage direction specifies movement forward.
The other scene in _The Devil’s Charter_ (III, v) is similar to one
in _A Larum for London_ (sc. xii). In each case a figure peering
into a river or a vault respectively is pushed down into the void.
The two remaining instances of trap use occur in _Macbeth_ (the
cauldron scene, IV, i) and _Hamlet_ (the gravediggers scene, V,
i). In light of the character of the enclosure, these too must
have been played forward. Confirmation of this assumption can be
found in _Hamlet_. Stage productions often begin the gravediggers
scene with one or both of the diggers already in a half-dug grave.
However, a close reading of the first part of the text rules out
such a beginning. Early in the Folio text, the second gravedigger
advises the first to make the grave straight. But a little later
the first calls to the other, “Come, my Spade.” If he has been
digging all along, this remark is unnecessary. Only after the two
clowns come in, chat, and then the one calls to the other, “Come,
my Spade,” does the digging begin. This action occurs forward on
the platform. To summarize, it is certain that the Globe plays
require a trap, a trap of sufficient size to raise and lower a
cauldron or a man on a property dragon (_The Devil’s Charter_, IV,
i), but at no time do they demand more than one trap located on the
platform.
About the machinery in the heavens the Globe plays offer no
evidence whatsoever. No hint exists from which one can surmise that
either actors or properties were dropped from above. Nor is there
any evidence for such action from the pre-Globe plays of the Lord
Chamberlain’s company. This may be coincidental. Plays containing
flying scenes may have perished. But a suggestion that this finding
for the Globe may have a more general application comes from two
sources. Jonson’s contempt for the “creaking thrones” which come
down “the boys to please” is expressed in the prologue to the
Folio version of _Every Man In His Humour_ (1616). Although the
prologue does not appear in the Quarto of 1601, scholars have
assumed that the scornful attack refers to stage devices of that
period. But Jonson revised _Every Man In His Humour_ thoroughly,
recasting the entire setting of the play. The addition of the
prologue is certain, for it is in keeping with the Anglicized
setting. Furthermore, the first use of flying in the King’s men’s
repertory is recorded in the dream sequence in _Cymbeline_ (V,
iv), immediately after the company began to play at Blackfriars.
It is pertinent that a dream scene, very similar to the one in
_Cymbeline_, occurs in _Pericles_ (V, i), one of the last plays to
be produced before the King’s men took over Blackfriars. Instead
of Jupiter, Diana appears but does not descend. Nor did the god
Hymen in the last scene of _As You Like It_. Could it have been
that the company lacked means for flying actors until it moved to
Blackfriars? Actually the history of flying apparatuses in the
Elizabethan theater needs further study. For the Globe, at least so
far as the plays demonstrate, no machinery for flying existed.
It is generally conceded that the posts supporting the heavens
not only did exist, but were introduced into the action. Against
the evidence of the Fortune and Hope contracts and the DeWitt
drawing, there is no effective argument. Assuming, therefore, the
presence of the two pillars, a number of scenes do exist where one
was probably employed in the story, either as a post or a tree.
However, to suppose that a pillar is used, let us say, for the
tree upon which Orlando hangs his verse, reduces the likelihood
that property trees were placed on stage for incidental action.
Our old friend, the ubiquitous Butler, climbs a tree in _Miseries
of Enforced Marriage_. J. C. Adams suggests that what he climbed
was a stage pillar. Hodges doubts that an actor could climb a main
pillar, but he suggests that a decorative pillar might have been
used. So far as staging practice is concerned, it matters little
which pillar serves as a tree. The principle is the same. When the
actors could use a ready-to-hand stage post instead of a prop, they
did so. Inconclusive but provocative is a hint we have that prop
trees were introduced when they had symbolic meaning. The tree that
arises in _A Warning for Fair Women_ represents the life of Sanders
which has been hewn down. And the titles of the trees in Henslowe’s
inventory, such as “j tree of gowlden apelles,” and “Tantelouse
tre,” support this possibility.
Although we have covered all those structural parts of the stage
which are required by the Globe plays, we must deal with the theory
that in addition to or in place of the enclosure, mansions, that
is, free-standing wooden frames, curtained on one or more sides,
usually removable, were employed to suggest specific locations in
Elizabethan plays. Except for the tents in _The Devil’s Charter_,
no evidence exists for such units on the Globe stage. Even the
tents are in a special class, for they may be similar to a property
such as a scaffold rather than to stage scenery. Reynolds has found
instances for removable structures on the Red Bull stage and Hotson
would place mansions on all stages, but there is no warrant for
supposing that they were used at the Globe. Henslowe, who claims to
include _all_ the properties belonging to the Lord Admiral’s men
in his inventory of 1598, lists nothing that can be construed as
a mansion, and though evidence for the Lord Admiral’s men is not
necessarily evidence for the Lord Chamberlain’s men, nevertheless,
it indicates that one playhouse at least seems not to have used
temporary structures. For the Globe company not only the absence
of evidence but also the system of localization rules out such a
method of staging.
A unique theory combining the presence of mansions with the
rearrangement of the spectators has been devised by Leslie
Hotson. Not content to modify current thinking about Elizabethan
staging, he reveals, messiah-like, that after two hundred years
of bafflement, the world will be able “now for the first time to
understand and visualize the stage of the Globe” because of his
discoveries.[36] Citing a compote of evidence from the English
and Spanish theaters, he asserts that the essential relationship
between actor and audience maintained at Court, playhouse, and
college, was one in which the actor performed between two masses
of audience, with the privileged audience sitting on one side. In
the Globe this privileged audience sat in the gallery over the
stage and on the stage between the stage doors. The tiring house,
contrary to accepted thought, was below the stage. At either end of
the stage two-tiered wooden frames with transparent curtains served
as mansions. Actors entered through trap doors into these mansions
and from thence onto the stage. Masked attendants drew the curtains
as the action required.
By the extravagance of his assertions and the evangelical tone
of his arguments, Hotson has made a cause of what is a matter for
scholarly examination. His daring views and the insights they
afford usually deserve careful consideration. Here, however, it is
only necessary to evaluate those theories which directly affect
staging at the Globe.
Hotson’s early attempts to prove the existence of “Shakespeare’s
Arena Stage” at Whitehall Palace, contrary to what he chooses to
believe, have not met with general approbation. Alois Nagler,
for example, has shown that Hotson’s reading of _atorno atorno_,
a phrase which appears in a description of a Court performance
written by Virginio Orsino, Duke of Bracciano, does not mean, as
Hotson contends, “completely around on every side,” but on three
sides.[37] Nevertheless, extending his interpretation to the public
playhouse, Hotson announces that persons of quality “customarily
graced” the Globe’s stage. In fact, it was the outstanding
characteristic of Elizabethan staging to locate the best seats on
the stage and in the gallery over the stage. In establishing his
proof, Hotson unfortunately neglects to mention the Induction to
_The Malcontent_. This play, it will be remembered, was presented
by the Globe company presumably in retaliation for the theft of
one of their plays, _Jeronimo_, by the Children at Blackfriars. No
other piece of evidence so surely reflects conditions at the Globe
as this Induction, written by John Webster especially to justify
the appearance of Marston’s satire at this public playhouse. To
give the justification indisputable authority, Webster introduces
the leading actors of the company, Dick Burbage, Henry Condell, and
John Lowin, in their own persons, to explain the matter.
The Induction commences.
Enter W. Sly, a Tire-man following him with a stool.
TIRE-MAN. Sir, the gentlemen will be angry if you sit here.
SLY. [as a gallant]. Why, we may sit upon the stage at the
private house.
Immediately it is apparent that, contrary to Hotson’s fancy,
sitting on the stage was not the custom and its introduction was
not happily countenanced by the “gentlemen.” Since the tire-man
still holds the stool as he refers to the “gentlemen,” the word
“here” must mean the stage as a whole and therefore the “gentlemen”
are the actors. The one time Sly refers to any spectators, he
does it in such terms that he clearly intends the groundlings.
Otherwise, no mention is made of other spectators on the stage.
Toward the end of the Induction, Lowin succeeds in ushering Sly out
by offering to lead him to a “private room.”
Thomas Platter, who supposedly attended one of the opening
performances at the Globe, in his enumeration of possible seats
for the audience, makes no mention of seats on the stage. Dekker,
in the widely known passage from _The Gull’s Hornbook_, does
refer to sitting on the stage at the public playhouse, but Hotson
takes seriously what is patently a satiric description of a fool
intruding where he does not belong. Throughout the passage the
stage sitter is referred to in the most derogatory terms, and what
sharply contradicts Hotson’s contention is the injunction to the
gallant that “though the Scar-scrows in the yard, hoot at you,
hisse at you, spit at you, yea throw durt even in your teeth: tis
most Gentlemanlike patience to endure all this.”[38] Were all those
gentlemen who “customarily graced” the Globe stage treated in this
fashion? Obviously the thrust of Dekker’s wit, coming as it did
in 1609, was a vain endeavor to resist the press of gallants who
sought to impose upon the public playhouse the privileges they
enjoyed at the private.
Hotson also claims that the gentlemen sat “over the stage, i’ the
lords roome.” For this claim he enjoys considerably more support.
In and out of plays references to sitting “over the stage” suggest
the employment in some way of the area I have called the above. But
“over the stage” is not specific. Does “over” mean directly over,
or to one side? Does it include the entire length of the stage
wall, as Hosley asserts, so that actors in order to play their
scenes above were obliged to thrust themselves into the midst of
the auditors?[39]
However, the case for sitters in a gallery which runs the length of
the stage wall depends not merely upon words, but more effectively
upon graphic representation. Four interior views of Elizabethan
and Jacobean theaters are extant: the Swan drawing (1596), the
engraving on the _Roxana_ title page (1632), the drawing on the
_Messalina_ title page (1640), and the frontispiece to _The Wits_
(1672). Only one, the first and most important, is Elizabethan.
Three of the representations, the Swan, the _Roxana_, and _The
Wits_, depict figures in the gallery above the stage.
In each drawing the figures appear to be looking at the action
on the stage below, particularly in the _Roxana_ print. The
frontispiece to _The Wits_, obviously depicting an interior,
shows solemn-faced puritans in the gallery. Dressed as they are
like the figures grouped around the platform, they certainly seem
to be members of the audience. Less certain but of a similar
character is the evidence from the _Roxana_ title page. Both of
these representations come late, it is true. But because they
seem to echo the same conditions as those in the Swan playhouse
of 1596, they have been cited as authority. About the figures
in the Swan drawing it is difficult to tell. They appear to be
drawn in positions that connote listening and seeing a play. But
they are small and indistinct. Two or possibly three persons are
wearing hats. Quite clearly all are related in some way to the
action taking place below them. To a certain extent all these
representations verify the theory that spectators sat overlooking
the playing area.
The investigation is complicated as soon as we inquire about the
numbers and disposition of the spectators. Examining these prints
again, all four of them this time, we discover some significant
disparities. The Swan drawing shows a long gallery divided by
five posts into six sections. Each section is wide enough for two
people. No architectural treatment of the gallery is delineated.
The frontispiece of _The Wits_ has some things in common with the
Swan drawing. A gallery divided into six sections runs across the
back of the stage. Four of the sections apparently are cut in half,
but from the appearance of the other two, each section seems to be
able to accommodate two persons side by side. One difference does
exist. In the center of the upper level, there hangs a striped
curtain, somewhat like an awning. The flap is parted so that two
balusters may be seen, indicating some architectural structure
behind the curtain. It is possible, but not certain, that the
structure is cantilevered and thus protrudes. Some lines behind
the balusters may have been intended to represent an actor waiting
for his cue. The _Roxana_ title page shows an upper level divided
into two sections by a column. The framing about each section
conveys the impression of two windows. Two figures occupy each
section. Finally the _Messalina_ title page, showing a bare stage,
depicts a curtained window placed high in a brick wall. Thus, each
of the views presents a different physical arrangement. Aside
from the Swan drawing there is no support for a long, unadorned,
uncurtained gallery in theaters of this period.
Since its discovery in 1888, repeated attempts have been made
to prove that a particular occasion is represented by the Swan
drawing. Nagler, among the latest to repeat the attempt, believes
“that a rehearsal was in progress. DeWitt seems to have visited the
theater in the morning and sketched the interior while the actors
were rehearsing a scene.”[40] He asserts that the persons in the
gallery were actors or “at any rate, theater personnel.” Without
quarreling with the last comment, I believe that we must discount
the theory that a rehearsal was in progress or, in actuality,
that any specific moment is recorded in the sketch. One internal
contradiction has been noted often. Why are there people in the
gallery, but not in the auditorium? Because a rehearsal is in
progress, says Nagler. Because DeWitt did not trouble to sketch all
the details, says Hosley. But another contradiction exists in the
drawing. At the head of the sketch, flying from a staff at the top
of the huts, is the ensign of the playhouse, a flag emblazoned with
a Swan. The flag was a sign that a performance was in progress.
Below the flag is a figure who is blowing a trumpet. Either he is
summoning the audience or he is announcing the commencement of
the play. Customarily the play began after the third sounding of
the trumpet. But, in the sketch, a scene is already under way.
Consequently, if a rehearsal was in progress, why is the flag
flying, the trumpeter calling the audience? If a performance was in
progress, why at the beginning are we in the midst of the action?
Could it be that the sketch reflects no particular instance but a
composite impression of the Swan and that the rendition of such
an impression was likely to have been made after DeWitt had left
the playhouse? The text which accompanies the sketch, starting
with a general discussion of London playhouses and proceeding to a
description of the Swan, indicates that DeWitt set down a summary
of experiences either after he had visited various theaters or
after he had had them described to him.
It may be well at this time to consider the reliability of the
Swan drawing in other respects. Currently it is the fashion to
adhere to the sketch closely. However, one fact must be faced,
insofar as the Globe is concerned. Granted that the original
drawing, as well as Arend van Buchell’s copy that has come down
to the present, were both trustworthy, nevertheless we are still
forced to amend the sketch in order to have it accord with other,
indisputable evidence. All sorts of ingenious explanations, that
the hangings were not in place or that a stage-width curtain was
added for performance, have been offered, but the fact remains: the
Swan, as it is depicted in the drawing, unaltered, could not have
accommodated the Globe plays. However plausible the suggestions for
additions may be, they cannot still the doubt with which one is
obliged to regard the sketch, and though DeWitt’s testimony cannot
be ignored, it cannot be accepted without corroboration.
From the preceding material two conclusions emerge. First, there
was no single form for the above. Therefore, in developing an
image of the Globe, we cannot rely on the Swan drawing. Yet
even if we do, we discover that such an unrelieved gallery as
it shows is simply not characteristic of the Renaissance design
which presumably DeWitt sought to catch. A glance at prints of
various continental stages will illustrate this point.[41] What is
suggested by the later views and what accords with the needs of
the Globe playhouse is an above which, regardless of the presence
of auditors, could be differentiated structurally from the rest of
the gallery. Architecturally this might have been accomplished by
separating and emphasizing a central, probably uncurtained, section
in the balcony, reserved for the actors. On either side of this
area, auditors might have overlooked the stage.
Second, all the views agree that the maximum number of spectators
in each section was two. Keeping literally to the evidence, we
must conclude that twelve persons could be accommodated in the
Swan gallery. We could, of course, indulge in the fascinating game
of using the dimensions of the Fortune to calculate the capacity
of the Swan. But this is unnecessary. DeWitt tells us the Swan
could hold three thousand people. Whether twelve or twenty or a
few more could sit above, their proportion to the total would be
small. Could the actors have directed their performance to such a
minority? It is certain that they did not, for in one other respect
the extant views are in complete agreement. Where performers are
shown in action on stage, they play, not toward the “spectators” in
the gallery, but toward the auditors listening “round about.” In
short, they turn their backs to the stage wall and play front.
III. THE DESIGN OF THE STAGE
Until now the discussion of the Globe playhouse has proceeded
from dramatic function to theatrical realization. But inevitably
the reader is bound to wonder, if only inwardly, what the Globe
looked like. No one knows. Startling as it may seem, no one really
can reconstruct the design of the Globe playhouse. The reader may
remonstrate: what about the various reconstructions of Walter
Godfrey, John C. Adams, C. Walter Hodges, Richard Southern? What
about their sketches and models? All hypotheses, some reasonable,
some farfetched. Each scholar, selecting for his palette certain
scraps of evidence, has painted a hypothetical image of the
Elizabethan playhouse. Each realizes, of course, that his image
is conjectural. The damage occurs when the image is realized in
drawings and the drawings are reproduced with such frequency that
what was conjecture comes to be regarded as historical fact by the
general reader. Acknowledging that “the hard facts available [for
the reconstruction of Elizabethan playhouses] are insufficient
in themselves,” Hodges admits that each scholar interprets the
evidence according to “influences of taste” of which he may not
even be aware.[42] The result has been that equally reputable
scholars have produced widely divergent images of the Globe
playhouse. In recent times the once prevailing Tudor image has
yielded to Renaissance design.
The leading advocate of Tudor style is John Cranford Adams. He
affirms that it was a “tendency of [Elizabethan] stage design to
imitate contemporary London houses,” and therefore, that “the
façade of the tiring-house differed from its model, a short row
of London houses, mainly in having upper and lower curtains
suspended in the middle.” Each reference to a contemporary urban
structural feature of the stage is considered to be a description
of a realistic detail. “It was the habit of Elizabethan dramatists
to accept the equipment of their stage rather literally and to
refer to that equipment in dialogue.”[43] He cites construction
methods of the period for support. The building contract for the
Fortune calls for wooden frames “sufficiently enclosed withoute
[outside] with lathe, lyme & Haire.” This specification suggests
a half-timbered-and-plaster building of Tudor design, a type of
construction which continued to appear through the early part
of the seventeenth century. In contrast, buildings in the newer
Renaissance style were largely built of stone or brick.[44] Since
its completion in 1950, Adams’ model of the Globe, now at the
Folger Library, has impressed itself upon the imagination of lovers
of Shakespeare, particularly in America.
In 1953 C. Walter Hodges presented an opposing image of the
Globe.[45] Adhering closely to the Swan drawing, which Adams
rejects, and deriving the Elizabethan stage from market place
booth stages and _tableaux vivants_, Hodges developed a series of
sketches in Renaissance style. Doors and galleries in the stage
façade are flanked by columns of one of the three regular orders;
obelisks and statuary appear above the cornices of the Fortune
sketch; and in his drawing of the Hope, carved busts support the
gallery ends of the heavens. To avoid contradicting the Swan
drawing, which shows no enclosure, he devised one to project from
the stage façade.
The contribution of the _tableaux vivants_ to the design of the
Elizabethan stage was first explored by George Kernodle. His thesis
is that “The greatest problem of the Renaissance stage was the
organization of a number of divergent scenic elements into some
principle of spatial unity.” Medieval art bequeathed three forms to
the theater: the side arches leaving the center clear, the center
arch or pavilion with subordinate side accents, the flat arcade
screen. While the Italian theater, later to be imitated by Inigo
Jones in England, utilized the form of side arches in combination
with central perspective to create illusion, the northern theaters
of England and Flanders developed the central pavilion into a
theater of architectural symbolism. The immediate predecessors
of these stages were the _tableaux vivants_, or street pageants,
erected to signalize the entry of a royal or civic personage into
a city. It was “from the _tableaux vivants_ (whose conventions
they took over)” that the Flemish and English stages derived “the
power to suggest, by decoration and remembered associations, the
places they symbolized.” The conventions of medieval art, which
persisted throughout the early Renaissance, were passed on to
the street theaters where they were interwoven with Renaissance
forms. Prints of the Flemish stages illustrate the conventional
architecture which resulted from these influences. In parallel
fashion, the English theater was subject to the same influences.
“Most of the new buildings erected in England in the latter half of
the sixteenth century were of the newer Renaissance architecture.”
Yearly the Londoner could witness the pageants in the Lord Mayor’s
Show. “A comparison [of street shows and stage drama] will make
clear,” Kernodle believes, “not only that many particular scenes
of Elizabethan drama were derived from the _tableaux vivants_
but that they provided the basic pattern of the English stage
façade.”[46] This basic pattern involved a central arch which
conventionally represented an interior, and side arches or doors
which conventionally represented an exterior. Architectural symbols
as throne, arbor, arras, by general recognition could transform the
façade into the symbols of palace, garden, room.
For the design of the English stage, Kernodle’s theory is
provocative rather than proved. There is no clear flow of Flemish
theatrical influence into Elizabethan England, and even in art,
though we know many Flemish craftsmen were in London, there is
no certain influence.[47] Furthermore, the medieval tradition in
art, which Kernodle has shown to have persisted on the continent,
was abruptly terminated in England. “The year 1531, in which the
convocation of Canterbury recognized Henry VIII as the Supreme Head
of the Church of England, can be conveniently taken to mark the
close of the medieval period of art in England [and the severance
of] what had been the most fruitful field of subject-matter for
artists in Europe for a thousand years.”[48] What followed was a
court art of portraiture which does not readily yield demonstration
of Kernodle’s thesis. Even in the popular forms of art, which he
recommends for study, the formal medieval elements are absent. For
example, the woodcuts of Wynken de Worde show no consistent use of
conventional devices.
As for the street pageants, continental experience cannot be
readily applied to Tudor practice. For the last half of the
sixteenth century the royal entries were virtually abandoned by
Elizabeth, and it was not until the coronation of James that the
magnificence of the royal entry returned to London. When it did,
it had all the characteristics of the flamboyant Renaissance style
described by Kernodle. Until then, from 1558 to 1603, the Londoner
could witness the Lord Mayor’s Show, an annual event to honor the
installation of the new Lord Mayor. The central device was a single
pageant supplied by the Company of which the Lord Mayor was a
member.[49] Featuring child orators, it was usually carried along
in the procession by porters, though from time to time we hear of
frames being built to support the pageants.[50] It appears that the
pageant was stored in the company hall from which it was removed
when needed, with or without redecoration, though occasionally
a new pageant would be ordered.[51] The fact that the pageant
remained on permanent view in the company halls suggests that it
may have been similar to the figures of saints carried even today
in religious processions.
Allegorical in nature, the pageant depicted a theme apt for the
new Lord Mayor and his company. In 1561, for example, five ancient
harpers, David, Orpheus, Amphion, Arion, and Iopas, were displayed
in a pageant to honor the new Lord Mayor, Sir William Harper.
Often the themes of the pageants represented the trade rather than
the man, the Ship, for instance, being deemed appropriate for
the Merchant Tailors Company.[52] At an appropriate point in the
procession, the figures in the pageant would speak commendatory
verses to the Lord Mayor. From the extant texts, it is quite clear
that the presentations were brief and rhetorical; they did not
involve dramatic action. In fact, the very people being honored
were those who most assiduously sought to destroy the public
playhouses.[53]
No sketch of a sixteenth century pageant exists. The presence of
mythical figures encourages the notion that Renaissance design
characterized these pageants, but there is no graphic or thoroughly
descriptive evidence for assuming so. Nor do the symbols which
Kernodle enumerates appear prominently in these pageants. Instead
the companies relied on those trade-or-personal symbols which held
special significance for them. For one company the lion appears in
pageant because a lion is part of the company’s coat of arms;[54]
for another, a Moor rides on a lynx, which animal is deemed
appropriate for the Skinners’ company.[55]
What is substantiated by these pageants and reinforced by the royal
entries of the seventeenth century is the mode of presentation.
Perhaps the particular symbols which Kernodle emphasizes did not
have significance for the Londoner of the 1590’s, but he was
familiar with presenting and interpreting theatrical forms in a
symbolic manner, and I believe that to this extent the pageants may
have influenced the design of the public playhouse.
In conclusion, then, one cannot verify whether the Elizabethan
playhouse reflected the outgoing Tudor or the incoming Renaissance
style. Roughed up by a master carpenter, such as James Burbage,
Peter Streete, or Gilbert Katherens, the structure could have
retained the traditions of design familiar to these men or it could
have responded to the new fashions. These new fashions, however,
were principally decorative; classical forms were applied to
Tudor-Gothic foundations.[56] I tend to think that the pragmatic
attitude of Elizabethan builders led them to erect a fundamentally
Tudor structure to which they attached classical ornaments more or
less at random. In such a structure the stage would certainly be
the focus of such adornment.
Based solely on the evidence of the Globe plays, what then is
the picture of the Globe stage? The principal part of the stage
was a large rectangular platform upon which rested two pillars.
At the rear of the platform two doors and a curtained recess
between them provided access to the stage. The recess, which was
an integral part of the tiring house, had to accommodate less than
half a dozen people. Above the recess and/or doors was an upper
level principally required where characters related themselves
to others below. In the floor of the outer stage there was at
least one substantial trap. No machinery for flying either actors
or properties existed. In over-all design the stage, which was
Renaissance in surface details, emphasized formal rather than
realistic decoration. Altogether it was a theater that presented
itself as a show place rather than as an imitation of London.
In a review once Granville-Barker remonstrated against overemphasis
on the physical aspects of the stage at the expense of the
imaginative. Such overemphasis has too frequently resulted. In
their zeal to reconstruct the Elizabethan stage, theorists have
given the impression that the theater of that day was constantly
using traps, heavens, upper level, and enclosure. However, a
comparison of the number of scenes which use some stage facility,
be it merely a stool, with the number which use no stage facility
whatsoever, neither property nor stage machinery, save merely
a means to get on and off, shows that of the 345 scenes in the
Shakespearean Globe plays, only 20 per cent require any facility.
Fully 80 per cent need nothing but a bare space and an audience,
not so much as a stool.
As a result, Shakespearean drama depends a great deal upon the
vigorous movement of the actors coming on and off the stage.
The actors themselves, rather than the stage equipment, provide
the impetus for a play’s progression. We are all familiar with
the conclusion of a Shakespearean scene. More often than not, a
character will say, “Come along with me,” and off will go the
actors. I have checked every scene in the Globe plays and found
a startlingly high percentage of such exits. For purposes of
computation I divide the scene conclusions into four categories.
First, there is the explicit exit line.
ORL. Come, I will bear thee to some shelter,
and thou shalt not die for lack of a
dinner if there live any thing in this
desert. Cheerly, good Adam. Exeunt.
[_As You Like It_, II, vi, 16-19]
Next, there is the implicit exit line.
ANT. [musing upon Sebastian’s departure]
But come what may, I do adore thee so
That danger shall seem sport, and I will go. Exit.
[_Twelfth Night_, II, i, 48-49]
Thirdly, there is the scene which ends with no exit line implying
motion.
TO. [to the dancing Sir Andrew] Let me see
thee caper. Ha, higher! ha, ha, excellent! Exeunt.
[_Twelfth Night_, I, iii, 149-150]
Lastly, there is the scene which ends in a soliloquy or an aside.
Although the playwright occasionally inserts an exit line in such
a conclusion, his opportunity to do so is slight. Below I have
enumerated the scene endings that conclude with explicit and
implicit exit lines, with no exit lines, and as a solo exit.
Explicit Implicit No. Solo
Exit lines Exit lines Exit lines Exits
Shakespeare 192 57.2% 74 22% 35 10.4% 35 10.4%
Non-Shakes. 88 48.4% 37 20.3% 23 12.6% 34 18.7%
Only 9 to 13 per cent of the scenes fail to indicate that the
characters end a scene by leaving the stage. Although the
soliloquies may or may not imply that the actors leave the stage,
the majority of the scene endings clearly demonstrate that it was
the physical departure of the actors which gave fluency to the
action. When a stage direction reads “exeunt” at the end of a
scene, it means exactly that: “they go out.”
It is time to revive an old cry. The pendulum has swung too far. It
is time to reassert that the Globe stage _was_ bare. Sumptuous and
gorgeous as this playhouse may have appeared, the decoration was
largely permanent and passive. In brief, the Globe was constructed
and employed to tell a story as vigorously and as excitingly and
as intensely as possible. Though spectators were usually informed
where a scene took place, they were informed by the words they
heard, not the sights they saw. Instead, place was given specific
emphasis only when and to the degree the narrative required.
Otherwise, the audience gazed upon a splendid symbol of the
universe before which all sorts of human actions could be unfolded.
Chapter Four
THE ACTING
Since 1939 the debate over the style of acting in the Elizabethan
theater has been argued on the grounds defined by Alfred Harbage.
One of two styles could have existed, he wrote. Acting was either
formal or natural.
Natural acting strives to create an illusion of reality by
consistency on the part of the actor who remains in character and
tends to imitate the behavior of an actual human being placed in
his imagined circumstances. He portrays where the formal actor
symbolizes. He impersonates where the formal actor represents.
He engages in real conversation where the formal actor recites.
His acting is subjective and “imaginative” where that of the
formal actor is objective and traditional. Whether he sinks his
personality in his part or shapes the part to his personality, in
either case he remains the natural actor.[1]
Professor Harbage then, and a succession of writers
subsequently,[2] have endeavored to prove that formal acting
prevailed on the Elizabethan stage.
When we have sifted the various arguments presented over the years
by this school of thought, we discover these common points. Oratory
and acting utilized similar techniques of voice and gesture so that
“whoever knows today exactly what was taught to the Renaissance
orator cannot be far from knowing at the same time what was done
by the actor on the Elizabethan stage.”[3] Contemporary allusions
which compare the orator to the actor establish this correspondence
without a doubt. This system depended upon conventional gesture,
“as in a sorrowfull parte, y^e head must hange down; in a proud,
y^e head must bee lofty.”[4] By learning these conventional
gestures, the actors could readily symbolize all emotional states.
Such symbolization was necessary since the speed of Elizabethan
playing left little room for interpolated action. The result was
that the actor did not so much interpret his part as recite it.
His personality did not intrude, for his attention was devoted
to rendering the literary qualities of the script. Although the
emotions expressed in the play were usually violent, the actor
projected them “by declaiming his lines with the action fit for
every word and sentence.”[5] In this way he properly stressed
the significant figures of speech. He played to the audience,
not to his fellow actors. The final effect, several writers have
concluded, was more like that of opera or ballet than modern drama.
Rejecting this theory of formal acting, a smaller but equally
fervent group of scholars is sure that Elizabethan acting was
“natural.”[6] Denying that oratory and acting were similar,
they maintain that style was dynamic, that an older formalism
gave way to a newer naturalism. Since Renaissance art sought
to imitate life, the actors in harmony with this aim thought
that they imitated life. To grasp how their style emerged from
such a view, it is necessary first to comprehend what was the
Elizabethan conception of reality. Admittedly, natural acting
then was different from natural acting today in some respects,
yet the intention was very much the same. “What can be said is
that Elizabethan acting was thought at the time to be lifelike
... [which would suggest] a range of acting capable of greater
extremes of passion, of much action, which would now seem forced
or grotesque, but realistic within a framework of ‘reality’ that
coincides to a large extent with ours.”[7]
Some attempt has been made to reconcile these contradictory views.
Generally the reconciliation has taken the line that Elizabethan
acting was mixed, partly formal, partly natural. Some have thought
of the mixture as a blend: a unified style midway between the
rigidity of formalism and the fluidity of naturalism. It has
also been thought of as an oscillation: certain scenes played
in a formal manner, such as longer verse passages delivered in
a rhetorical style; other scenes, such as brief exchanges of
dialogue, acted in an informal manner. The scholars who have
proposed this reconciliation, despite the fact that they arrive
at slightly different conclusions from those of the proponents
of formal or natural acting, accept the fundamental premise that
Elizabethan acting can be discussed only in terms of formal or
natural styles.