Until now, it is true, the research and discussion that have gone

into this debate have produced careful studies of contemporary

allusions to acting. But it seems unlikely that further progress

can be made by considering Elizabethan acting in relation to

these fixed poles of formality and reality. Brown and Foakes have

undertaken a new approach by urging an evaluation of Elizabethan

acting in terms of the Elizabethan conception of reality. But

neither has followed through. They have merely redefined what is

meant by natural acting. Much of what the formalists consider

conventional, they argue, represented reality to the Elizabethan.

Do sudden insubstantially motivated emotional changes in _Othello_

or _Measure for Measure_ seem forced? They occurred in life

and therefore were natural to the period, is their answer. The

result has been confusion. The formalists describe the means at

the actor’s disposal, the techniques of voice and gesture; the

naturalists, the effect at which he aimed, the imitation of life.

This confusion is inherent in the original proposition. Harbage

wrote about both aims and means, but without sufficiently

discriminating between the two. I think that it is necessary

to clarify our understanding of the aims and methods of the

actor’s art in general before returning to a consideration of the

Elizabethan actor’s art in particular.

At the heart of dramatic presentation stands the actor, imitating

a person in a fictional situation in such a way as to hold

the continuous attention of the audience in the unfolding

circumstances. This holding of attention is dramatic illusion.

Whether that illusion is an imitation of contemporary life,

historical life, or mythical life, the action and characters must

achieve a level of reality sufficient to involve us. For the

children who say, “I believe in fairies,” Tinkerbell has become

real. The means may be conventional and symbolic or contextual

and descriptive; the effect must be an “illusion of reality.”

Ultimately, we must reconstruct what that “illusion” signified and

how it was achieved in order to visualize the acting of a period.

The understanding that the actor has with the audience about

the relation of dramatic experience to life will determine the

significance of the illusion. The common understanding that they,

actor and audience, have about the characters and stories will

affect the means at the actor’s disposal for creating the illusion.

Consider a simple stage movement. An actor turns his back on the

audience. In the context of the Théâtre-Libre or the Moscow Art

Theatre this movement emphasizes the convention of the fourth wall

and the illusion of the unpresent audience. The same movement

employed in Molière’s _Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme_ is a deliberate

artifice introduced for comic effect. Not the fixed forms, but

their function and context shape the illusion of reality. Not the

intent, but the created image, determines the significance of that

illusion. The aim may be one, but the manifestations are many.

When an illusion of reality becomes differentiated sharply, it

eventuates in a style. Not being an arithmetic total of absolute

qualities, style does not remain constant. It is a dynamic

interplay of many impulses brought to a point of crystallization by

the creative genius of the actor. Such a complex, if distinctive

and appealing enough, itself becomes an impulse for further

creative activity. What we often term “formal acting” is a previous

means of creating illusion which has coalesced into a fixed form

imitable by later generations. Some of the impulses that led the

commedia dell’arte to create a Harlequin, a Franca Trippa, and a

Dottore were “realistic”; that is, the activities of Italian daily

life helped to refine the stage figure. Gradually the types became

stock and finally ossified so that they responded less to the

impulses of contemporary life and more to the tradition from which

they were derived. Perfection and variation of old roles rather

than the invention of new devices and characteristics became the

custom. By the time these figures came to the hand of Marivaux

they had, through the loss of much of their original force, become

somewhat precious and self-conscious. Illusion of reality was still

achieved, but it was a new kind of illusion, less robust, more

sophisticated, less aware of the cry of the street, more attuned to

the repartee of the drawing room. Then the acting became “formal,”

that is, traditional, conventional, “objective.” But from the

germination of the improvised drama to the “decadence” of Marivaux,

commedia acting went through several styles. To visualize the

style of any single period we have to study a cross section of its

theatrical and social conditions.

Of these conditions there are five which provide the principal

clues to an understanding of the Globe acting style. First, there

are general intellectual tendencies reflected in the theory and

practice of Elizabethan rhetoric. Next, there is the theatrical

tradition handed down to the Lord Chamberlain’s men. Thirdly,

and continuing the foregoing material, there are the playing

conditions under which the company operated. Fourthly, there is

the conception of human character and behavior held by society.

Lastly, and perhaps most important, there are the playing materials

themselves, the characters and actions with which the actors were

provided. Cumulatively, the study of these conditions supplies

an understanding of the means at the Globe actors’ disposal for

creating their “illusion of reality” and, through it, offers an

insight into the significance of that illusion.

I. THE RELATION OF TUDOR RHETORIC TO ELIZABETHAN ACTING

Rhetoric played a vital role in the education and life of the

Elizabethan man. From its study he could learn all that was known

of the art and techniques of oral and written communication.

Scholars of the school of formal acting have insisted that

seventeenth century works on rhetorical delivery reflect an

image of Elizabethan acting. Usually the actor is considered the

transmitter, the rhetorician the receiver of influence. This

contention has been disputed, as I have pointed out. For the

moment, however, let us suppose that there was some connection

between oratory and acting. What then does rhetoric teach us

of Elizabethan acting? To answer this question Bertram Joseph

relies principally upon Bulwer’s double study _Chirologia_

and _Chironomia_ (1644), a late work. But, since we have been

considering acting as a dynamic art, it would be well to examine

the evidence of sixteenth and early seventeenth century manuals of

rhetoric.

Compassed under the heading of rhetoric in the sixteenth century

were three of the five parts of classical rhetoric. _Inventio_ and

_dispositio_ had been transferred to logic, particularly in the

Ramist scheme. _Elocutio_, _memoria_, and _pronuntiatio_ remained.

However, _memoria_ or the art of memory was generally, though

not entirely, ignored. Of the two remaining parts that made up

sixteenth century rhetoric, _elocutio_, or the art of eloquence,

and _pronuntiatio_, or the art of speech and gesture, the former

received the almost undivided attention of Elizabethan writers.

Before 1610 only Thomas Wilson in _The Art of Rhetorique_ (1553)

and Abraham Fraunce in _The Arcadian Rhetorike_ (1588) treat the

art of pronunciation separately. The other writers,[8] except for

occasionally defining the term or citing an example, or describing

the qualities of a good voice, omit the subject entirely. Even

Wilson and Fraunce treat it in summary fashion.

Wilson defines the two parts of the subject, voice and gesture. A

praiseworthy voice is “audible, strong, and easie, & apte to order

as we liste.” Before an audience orators should start speaking

softly, “use meete pausying, and being somewhat heated, rise with

their voice, as the tyme & cause shal best require” (Sig. Gg1^r).

For those with poor voices, attention to diet, practice in singing,

and imitation of good speakers are the means of improvement.

Gesture, which is a “comely moderacion of the countenaunce, and

al other partes of mans body,” should agree with the voice.

Altogether, the orator should be cheerful, poised, and moderate in

deportment (Sig. Gg2^r).

The entire section sets up standards for good pronunciation, but it

does not specifically show how they are met. The standards place

emphasis on comeliness and grace, on a harmony of speech, gesture,

and matter. The actual manner of delivery shall be “as the tyme &

cause shal best require.”

Fraunce is both fuller and more specific in his treatment of

pronunciation, although, like Wilson, he devotes the smaller

portion of his book, _The Arcadian Rhetorike_, to it. Generally he

reiterates the points made by Wilson: the voice must be pleasing,

the speaker should begin softly and rise “as occasion serveth,”

the delivery should follow the meaning. Fraunce goes further than

Wilson, however, in equating a kind of voice with appropriate

rhetorical form.

In figures of words which altogether consist in sweete

repetitions and dimensions, is chiefly conversant that pleasant

and delicate tuning of the voyce, which resembleth the consent

and harmonie of some well ordred song: In other figures of

affections, the voyce is more manly, yet diversly, according to

the varietie of passions that are to bee expressed.[9]

His specific suggestions depend upon the equation of voice and

affection, for example, “in pitie and lamentation, the voyce must

be full, sobbing, flexible, interrupted.” Largely there is an

association of tone of voice with a particular passion. For “feare

and anger” there are additional injunctions concerning rhythm.

Otherwise, these “rules” seem suggestive and general rather than

imperative and specific.

In writing of gesture, Fraunce once again supplements the

standards of Wilson with illustrations of his own. The truism of

the age that “gesture must followe the change and varietie of the

voyce,” is conditioned by the warning that it should not be done

“parasiticallie as stage plaiers use, but gravelie and decentlie as

becommeth men of greater calling.” This implies that the attitude

may have been similar but the resulting manner different. Actual

suggestions are made for the portrayal of affections; for example,

“the holding downe of the head, and casting downe of the eyes

betokeneth modestie.” Forbidding gesture with the head alone,

Fraunce notes that its chiefest force is the countenance, and of

the countenance the eyes “which expres livelilie even anie conceit

or passion of the mind.” How to use the eyes is not explained. The

particular ordering of the lips, nose, chin, and shoulders is “left

to everie mans discretion.”

Concerning the arms and hands Fraunce writes little. The right arm

in being extended reinforces the flow of the speech. This action

is supplemented by the moderate use of the hands and fingers which

rather “follow than goe before and expresse the words.” Since the

left hand alone is not used in gesture, it is joined with the right

in expressing doubt, objection, and prayer. The fingers in various

combinations express distinct significance.

For the body as a whole Fraunce warns against unseemliness. He

associates striking the breast with grief and lamentation, striking

the thigh with indignation, striking the ground with the foot with

vehemency. By and large the speaker should not move more than a

step or two.

In substance this is the written material on pronunciation in

English before 1610. Fraunce alone shows any indication that there

was a conventional system of vocal delivery and physical gesture.

As early as 1531 Elyot in _The Governour_ (fol. 49) had included

“the voyce and gesture of them that can pronounce comedies” in the

attributes of a fine orator. This Ciceronian tradition is probably

reflected in _The Arcadian Rhetorike_ so that Fraunce may be

following the custom of the players except where he specifically

notes a difference. But do the “rules” of Fraunce demonstrate

the presence of an accepted system of convention in voice and

gesture, or are they personal observations organized into a system?

Writing of the affections and speech, Fraunce indicates that the

correspondence _must_ be followed. In writing of the affections and

gesture, he is less sure. Some matters are left to the discretion

of the speaker, others must adhere to a certain convention. About

the body he is suggestive. Striking the breast to express grief “is

not unusuall,” but striking the thigh to express indignation “was

usuall” as was stamping.’ Usual where? On the stage? In the law

courts? In the pulpit? He does not specify. Keeping in mind that

Fraunce alone has detailed such “conventions of voice and gesture,”

it is apparent that he is regularizing the general habit current in

sixteenth century England of finding external means of expression

for internal conceits or passions of the mind.

A habit is not a convention, however. The gestures described by

Fraunce reinforce the speech, lending harmony and vigor to the

vocal expression. But there is little evidence that they were

raised to the level of symbolism, that particular gestures came

widely to represent particular meanings. That this was the case,

is supported by a comparison of the supposed meanings of several

gestures. As quoted above, Fraunce claimed that “the holding downe

of the head, and casting downe of the eyes betokeneth modestie.”

But the author of _The Cyprian Conqueror_ (1633), cited by

Professor Harbage, asserts that “in a sorrowfull parte, y^e head

must hang downe.” Lest we think that two affections were expressed

by the same gesture, we must note how sorrow was expressed

according to Fraunce. “The shaking of the head noteth griefe and

indignation.” Obviously there was not complete agreement about the

significance of a particular gesture. Nor could there be since

forms of expression are usually left to the speaker’s judgment in

the rhetorics.

Nevertheless, although an exact pattern of conventions cannot be

discovered in Elizabethan rhetoric, general attitudes toward speech

can be discerned. Wilson and Fraunce call for a pleasant voice,

neither too high nor too low, but mean, capable of expressing

nuances of thought. The ideal blending of speech and movement for

the Elizabethan age is well presented in Baldassare Castiglione’s

_Courtier_, translated by Thomas Hoby in 1561.

[What is requisite in speaking is] a good voice, not too subtill

or soft, as in a woman: nor yet so boistrous and rough, as in one

of the countrie, but shril, cleare, sweete, and well framed with

a prompt pronunciation, and with fit maners, and gestures, which

(in my minde) consist in certaine motions of all the bodie, not

affected nor forced, but tempred with a manerly countenance and

with a moving of the eyes that may give grace and accorde with

the wordes, and (as much as he can) signifie also with gestures,

the intent and affection of the speaker.[10]

Grace, dignity, and spontaneity, in short, beauty of expression,

was the accepted aim of the age.

In addition to speaking pleasantly, the educated man was expected

to speak meaningfully. His vocal delivery should express figures of

eloquence effectively.

The consideration of voyce is to be had either in severed words,

or in the whole sentence. In the particular applying of the

voyce to severall words, wee make tropes that bee most excellent

plainly appeare. For without this change of voyce, neither anie

Ironia, nor lively Metaphore can well bee discerned.[11]

Nor must this attention to the figures of speech be lavished only

upon the formal speech. In his informal _Direction for Speech and

Style_ (c. 1590), John Hoskins applies the same consideration

to social occasion. Included in his discussion of Agnomination,

or repetition of sounds in sentence, such as “Our paradise is a

pair of dice, our almes-deeds are turned into all misdeeds,” is a

suggestion that “that kind of breaking words into another meaning

is pretty to play with among gentlewomen, as, _you will have but

a bare gain of this bargain_.” Sensitivity to the figures of

eloquence was widespread; we may expect the actors to have been

particularly attentive to their rendition.

Though scanty, indications exist that the speaker was not thought

to deliver his speech by rote. As Hamlet compares his behavior with

the player’s, he describes the man’s tears, distraction and broken

voice,

and his whole function suiting

With forms to his conceit.

[II, ii, 582-583]

“The conceits of the mind are pictures of things and the tongue

is interpreter of those pictures,” wrote John Hoskins to his

student.[12] Just as eloquence contained figures of sentence

encompassing an extended thought as well as figures of words

expressing a turn of a phrase, so did delivery require an

understanding of the conceit and passion as a whole as well as the

appreciation of the particular literary form.

Among the figures listed by Henry Peacham in _The Garden of

Eloquence_ (1593) is Mimesis:

Mimesis is an imitation of speech whereby the orator

counter-faitheth not onely what one said, but also his utterance,

pronunciation and gesture, imitating everything as it was, which

is alwaies well performed, and naturally represented in an apt

and skilfull actor.[13]

Since imitation is confined to a single figure, it probably was not

expected in delivery except in special situations. But this applies

to the rendering of character types, for the projection of passion

in oratory was generally accepted and encouraged. Fraunce, as we

have seen, describes the kinds of tones to be employed in terms of

the affections to be conveyed. Sir Thomas Elyot in 1531 writes that

whereas “the sterring of affections of the minde in this realme was

never used, therefore ther lacketh Eloqution and pronunciation, two

of the princypall parts of Rethorike.”[14] Wilson explicitly states

not only the desirability of stirring affections but the necessity

for the speaker to feel those affections himself.

He that will stirre affeccions to other, muste first be moved

himself.

Neither can any good be doen at all, when we have saied all that

ever we can, except we brying the same affeccions in owr owne

harte whiche wee would the Judges should beare towardes our awne

matter ... a wepying iye causeth muche moysture, and provoketh

teares. Neither is it any mervaile: for such men bothe in their

countenaunce, tongue, iyes, gesture, and in all their body els,

declare an outwarde grief, and with wordes so vehemently and

unfeinedly, settes it forward, that thei will force a man to be

sory with them, and take part with their teares, even against his

will. [Sig. T1^v]

Not only Elyot’s comment but also Peacham’s changes in _The Garden

of Eloquence_ for the second edition in 1593 show that increased

attention to stirring the emotions occurred in the last half of the

sixteenth century in England.

Peacham’s omission in 1593 of the grammatical schemes he had

included in the first edition of _The Garden of Eloquence_ and

his addition of many figures based on appeal to the emotions

may be taken as indications of a shift which had taken place

in rhetoric in England between 1577 and 1593.... During these

years, too, the rhetorical theories of Petrus Ramus and Audomarus

Talaeus, with their emphasis on those rhetorical devices which

directed their appeal to the emotions, flourished in England.[15]

In such a context, if rhetoric influenced or reflected acting,

it emphasized the already present stimulation of emotion and

encouraged the actor who wished to move his audience to “bryng the

same affeccions” in his own heart to the stage.

That it is misleading to apply the circumstances of later

rhetorical study to this earlier period is evident on two scores.

First, during the first half of the seventeenth century a shift

from medieval rhetoric, of which sixteenth century English rhetoric

is an extension, to classical rhetoric took place, principally

through the influence of Francis Bacon and Ben Jonson. This meant

the reentry of _inventio_ and _dispositio_ into the framework of

rhetoric, bringing about the second change. In the scheme that

Francis Bacon proposed for learning, rhetoric no longer should be

directed at moving the affections:

It is the business of rhetoric to make pictures of virtue and

goodness, so that they may be seen. For since they cannot be

showed to the sense in corporeal shape, the next degree is to

show them to the imagination in as lively representation as

possible, by ornament of words.

Actually, rhetoric should be brought into the attack against

affections:

Reason would become captive and servile, if eloquence of

persuasions did not win the imagination from the affections’

part, and contract a confederacy between the reason and

imagination against them.[16]

To infer conclusions about the details of Elizabethan acting from

Elizabethan rhetoric is, as we have seen, highly conjectural. Yet,

in the intellectual atmosphere of which rhetoric was a part, we can

discern several attitudes that probably shaped acting. Detailed

study was expended on the figures of eloquence and loving care was

devoted to models of fine tropes. The oral rendition of these forms

was left to the judgment of the individual, for the most part. The

few expositions of delivery stress grace of expression and stirring

of affections. But no thoroughly accepted conventions of voice and

gesture seem to have existed. Thus, although rhetorical theory

was conducive to the growth of formal and traditional acting,

rhetorical delivery had not solidified sufficiently by 1610 to

provide a systematic method. In seeking external forms for their

conceits, the orator, and probably actor, still responded more to

invention than tradition.

II. THE INFLUENCE OF THEATRICAL TRADITIONS UPON ELIZABETHAN ACTING

Although Elizabethan rhetorical tradition was essentially

continental, Elizabethan theatrical tradition was largely native.

For the better part of a century, troupes of four men and a boy had

crisscrossed the English countryside, bringing plays to village and

court. Though the Queen’s men, with twelve actors, at its formation

in 1583 became the largest troupe, the smaller troupes continued

to flourish. The English troupe that traveled to Denmark in 1586

numbered five men, and the various companies that are portrayed

in _Sir Thomas More_, _Histrio-mastix_, and _Hamlet_ all number

either four or five. Naturally, when the theater became stabilized

in London, increasingly so after 1575, the companies tended to grow

larger. But periodic difficulties because of politics or plague

caused frequent resort to the small troupe during the next twenty

years.

Small companies required the actor to play several roles in one

play. _Cambises_ divides thirty-eight parts among eight men, with

five of the men playing either six or seven parts each. Only the

Vice had fewer than three parts. _Horestes_ divides twenty-seven

parts among five. Even actors of the larger companies had to play

several roles. _Sir Clyomon and Sir Clamydes_, presented by the

twelve men of the Queen’s company, contained seventeen substantial

roles, plus twenty-one for supernumeraries. This tradition of

doubling gave the Elizabethan actor no opportunity to develop a

specialty. He could not concentrate on a specific genre, for he

was called upon to play courtly men and country men, villains

and saints. Probably we should except the leading comic from

this stricture. Usually he played fewer roles, and through the

recurrence of the Vice figure and the practice of extemporal

improvisation, he had the conditions necessary to the development

of a distinctive type. But the other actors had to enact all sorts

of roles. Unlike the Italian comedian who devoted himself to his

forte, the Elizabethan tried to become flexible and varied in his

abilities. It is evident that the attention of the actor had to be

concentrated on telling the story, not developing the characters.

Since the shift from one character to another necessitated some

change in appearance or manner, readily discernible characteristics

must have distinguished each type of part. As we shall see,

this kind of acting was in harmony with the generic nature of

Elizabethan characterization.

Systematic training of the popular players does not seem to have

been the rule either. Stephen Gosson in _Playes Confuted in five

Actions_ (1582), describes three sources of recruitment:

Most of the Players have bene eyther men of occupations, which

they have forsaken to lyve by playing, or common minstrels, or

trayned up from theire childehood to this abhominable exercise.

But the latter group, for which we can reasonably assume careful

training, does not seem to have supplied many actors to the

professional companies before 1600. Of the six men in Leicester’s

company we know the background only of James Burbage, who had been

a carpenter by trade. Of the twelve in the Queen’s men, we know

little more. John Dutton may have been a musician, since Lincoln’s

Inn paid him for musicians in 1567-1568. Richard Tarleton, the

renowned clown, tended swine, according to Fuller. But his fellow,

Robert Wilson, asserted that he had been an apprentice waterbearer

whose native wit led him to the stage.

When we come to the actors of the Globe company, the information

is somewhat fuller. Shakespeare himself did not leave Stratford

before 1584, when he was over twenty years of age, so that we

can assume that he went from some craft or from a schoolhouse

to the theater. Besides Shakespeare, there were thirteen other

sharers in the company between 1599 and 1609: Thomas Pope, John

Heminges, Augustine Phillips, Richard Cowley, Richard Burbage,

William Sly, Henry Condell, and Robert Armin, all members before

1603, and Laurence Fletcher, John Lowin, Alexander Cooke, Nicholas

Tooley, and Robert Goffe, all of whom became members after 1603.

Of the antecedents of most of the members we know little. Thomas

Pope had been one of the English players in Denmark and Germany

in 1586-1587. Heminges, in his will, calls himself “citizen and

grocer,” which may indicate that he, too, was an artisan turned

player. Burbage presumably grew up in his father’s theater.

While quite young, he appeared in the _Seven Deadly Sins_. Armin

was said to have been an apprentice to a goldsmith. Condell is

conjectured to have been the “Harry” of _Seven Deadly Sins_, but

the identification is inconclusive. Thus, of the earlier group

of actors, several seem to have come from the trades. In the

later group of five, three may have been apprentice actors and

one, Lowin, had been an apprentice goldsmith. Fletcher seems to

have been connected with a troupe in Scotland. The evidence,

inconclusive as it is, indicates that with the increased stability

of the theater and the alteration in theatrical taste the source of

actors shifted from adults to trained boys.

The ready transfer of a man from trade to stage in the early period

argues that an elaborate training, at least at the beginning, was

not expected. The ready conversion of the tradesmen into actors in

_Histrio-mastix_ (Sig. B1^r), once a poet has been secured, further

demonstrates that the possession of a story, not the cultivation of

a manner, was requisite. What the details of early acting may have

been, we do not know. The conditions of training and the methods

of recruitment, however, were not conducive to the development of

precisely executed conventions.

The actual skills of the early Elizabethan actors can be inferred

in part from references to various actors. Tarleton and Robert

Wilson were commended for their “extemporall wit.” In letters

dealing with English players on the Continent in the 1580’s,

acting is always linked with dancing, vaulting and tumbling. Thomas

Pope and George Bryan, a Lord Chamberlain’s man until the end of

1597, were among the five “instrumentister och springere” at the

Danish court in 1586. These scattered allusions reinforce the

opinion that simple characterization, rude playing, native wit, and

physical vigor were the qualities of the early actor.

We must turn to the plays presented by the public companies

before 1595 to round out the picture of the theatrical tradition.

Character was not fully developed in the popular theater until

Marlowe. Before his plays appeared, character had been barely

differentiated from generic types, such as kings, vices, rustics,

tyrants, etc. A word is necessary about generic types. Each of

the generic types arises from a social class, and the characters

within each type reflect their class. Differences between generic

characters of the same type are not as great as similarities. Some

distinctive habits of thought and behavior cluster about each type,

but these are never rigidly fixed. Simple representatives of the

generic type are the merchant and the potecary in John Heywood’s

interludes of _The Weather_ and _The Four PP._ respectively. The

generic type differs from the stock figure partly in source but

mainly in definition. The stock figure tends to coalesce into a

single perfect representative of each type: a Scapin, a Columbine,

a Harlequin. The generic type encourages multiplicity. The stock

figure, such as the doctor from Bologna, often has a regional

origin. From the region of his birth he usually derives physical or

social idiosyncracies, for example, a dialect, an item of apparel,

or a distinctive manner. As the stock figure develops, additional

external features become attached to him. Certain bits of stage

business, quirks of personality, modes of dress, and style of

playing, become his trade-marks. But the generic character seldom

becomes fixed and traditional. Instead, he constantly undergoes

change according to the demands of the story.

The early popular plays definitely show that the actors were used

to playing generic characters. Thus, they were able to concentrate

on the story, the sentiment, and the sententiousness of their

plays. In limited ways they relied on dress to identify types of

characters. Alan Downer has shown that there was some symbolism in

costume. Hotson has traced the evolution of a distinctive garment

for the Elizabethan “natural.”[17] Henslowe lists certain costumes

which were probably generic or symbolic. But features of dress

remained generalized rather than becoming attached to a stock type.

Whether habits of carriage or gesture corresponded with types of

roles, we do not know. But it is certain, as we found in our study

of rhetoric, that no traditional, systematic scheme of vocal and

physical conventions developed.

Actually, in a rudimentary way, the early plays show tendencies

toward the kind of structure described in the chapter on

dramaturgy. In _Cambises_, it is not the discovery or death of

Sisamnes which occupies our attention, but the responses of

the son, Otian, to his father’s execution. Affective display

and rhetorical pronouncement occupied the center of the stage.

Some time ago, Albert Walker demonstrated that the methods for

expression of emotions in the pre-Shakespearean plays can be found

in Shakespeare’s plays.[18] Many of the ways of portraying grief,

joy, anger, rage, could be and were handed down from one theatrical

generation to another. For the actor, the projection of grief in

the following speeches would not be very different in each case.

OTIAN. O father dear, these words to hear

--that you must die by force--

Bedews my cheeks with stilled tears.

The king hath no remorse.

The grievous griefs, and strained sighs

My heart doth break in twain,

And I deplore, most woeful child, that I

should see you slain.

[_Cambises_, 445-448]

NERONIS. Ah wofull sight, what is alas, with these mine eyes beheld,

That to my loving Knight belongd, I view the Golden Sheeld:

Ah heavens, this Herse doth signifie my Knight is slaine,

Ah death no longer do delay, but rid the lives of twaine:

Heart, hand, and everie sence prepare, unto the Hearse

draw nie:

And thereupon submit your selves, disdaine not for to die

With him that was your mistresse ioy, her life and death

like case,

And well I know in seeking me, he did his end embrace.

[_Sir Clyomon and Sir Clamydes_, 1532-1539]

AGA. What greater griefe had mournful Priamus,

Then that he liv’d to see his Hector die,

His citie burnt downe by revenging flames,

And poor Polites slaine before his face?

Aga, thy griefe is matchable to his,

For I have liv’d to see my soveraignes death,

Yet glad that I must breath my last with him.

[_Selimus_, 1863-1869]

QUEEN. A sweet children, when I am at rest my nightly dreames

are dreadful. Me thinks as I lie in my bed, I see the

league broken which was sworne at the death of your

kingly father, tis this my children and many other causes

of like importance, that makes your aged mother to lament

as she doth.

[_The True Tragedy of King Richard III_, 802-807]

Essentially the actors were provided with methods for making

emotion explicit. In the first three illustrations the characters

name their emotions outright, in the last the Queen describes

it. Descriptions of external manifestations of grief, such as

“strained sighs,” and apostrophe, either to another (“O father

dear”) or to oneself (“Aga, thy griefe”) or to abstract properties

(“Ah wofull sight”), or to divinity (“Ah heavens, Ah death”) are

common. The later plays were subtler in the depiction of emotion.

In _Selimus_, the similarity of his state to that of Priam

conveys the overwhelming grief of Aga. In _The True Tragedy_,

the Queen expresses the grief of the moment through the terror

of a dream. By utilizing these various methods for years, the

actor had become familiar with openly rendering the character’s

emotion. Furthermore, the quality of the emotion was not highly

differentiated. In force and depth, the grief for the loss of

a loved or revered one, in each of the instances cited, is

fundamentally the same.

One major development in the acting conditions must be noted.

In the plays of the 1560’s and 1570’s the verse was regular and

conventional. The galloping fourteener left little opportunity

for nuance. The rhythm and accent of the verse in _Cambises_, for

example, intruded upon the character. It erected a barrier to

the immediate impact of emotion upon the auditor. The actor who

rendered such verse was encouraged in the conventional expression

of emotion and the reliance upon rhythmic sweep for his success.

In the 1580’s the verse became suppler. Rhyme was abandoned,

rhythm because subtler and more varied. The total effect was

less stentorian and more lyrical. It was possible to utilize the

superior advantages of poetic drama without the artificiality to

which it is liable. For the actor the change tore down a veil.

Character portrayal could be more vivid. Contact between actor

and actor was easier to achieve. In a word, the actor was able to

make events more “real.” At the same time, he had a more difficult

task in rendering speech. Whether or not this change led to a

realistic style of acting will be discussed in connection with the

Globe plays. To these plays the early actor contributed experience

in playing all kinds of roles before all kinds of audiences,

portraying generic types through conventional means, emoting in

extravagant and conventional fashion, speaking verse with vigor and

sweep, and performing in the peripheral arts of dancing, tumbling,

and vaulting. The picture he presents is of a rough-and-ready

trouper, not a sophisticated and refined artist.

III. THE EFFECT OF PLAYING CONDITIONS UPON ELIZABETHAN ACTING

After 1592, stability and new theater construction, though

continuing the earlier tradition in many respects, brought about

new playing conditions, the third factor which contributed to

the acting style at the Globe. Playing conditions include the

structure of the theater, the arrangement of the repertory, and the

organization of the company. The first two of these conditions have

been discussed at length in previous chapters and the last has been

treated in Professor T. W. Baldwin’s _Organization and Personnel of

the Shakespearean Company_.

With the opening of the Globe playhouse the company, for the first

time since its organization, had its own building. Although the

Theatre may not have been very different in form, it had never

served as a permanent home. How much this affected the actors is

difficult to know. We found in Chapter Three that only 20 per cent

of the scenes in the Globe plays made use of stage facilities. For

the larger part of the play, the actor needed only a bare platform.

Thus the conditions that the plays required were no different from

those he had known for years.

But if the physical conditions did not change greatly, the artistic

conditions did. The splendor of the stage façade enhanced the

actions of the player. The very sumptuousness of the stage elevated

them to a level of grandeur, setting them off with elegance and

opulence. In return it called for scope in delivery, grace in

manner, and audacity in playing. Against a setting so dazzling only

intensive and extensive action could hope to make an impression

upon an audience.

Not only the design but also the plan of the stage conditioned the

acting. The flat façade and the deeply projecting platform had a

serious effect upon the physical movement of the actor. For the

moment we can assume that the actor played many scenes at the front

of the stage. To do so he had to come forward twenty-five feet. The

modern director would motivate such a movement, that is, provide

the actor with some internal or external impulse to cause him to

move forward. In some instances this must have been the same at

the Globe. Often we read scenes where characters on stage describe

the entrance and approach of another actor. But there are many

instances where such aid is not forthcoming. In those cases one of

two effects was possible. Either the movement forward was treated

as a conventional action which the audience expected, or it was

treated as a ceremonial action which dignified the player. Further

investigation of this matter is reserved for the next chapter.

Here it is sufficient to point out that in either case the actor’s

entrance was theatricalized. Boldness was necessary to catch and

hold attention on such a vast stage.

The sightlines of the theater also had an effect upon the acting.

Essentially they were poor. We are dealing with an aural theater,

not a visual one. Note how the author of _An Excellent Actor_

(1615) expresses the relation of actor and spectator:

Sit in a full Theater, and you will thinke you see so many lines

drawne from the circumference of so many _eares_, whiles the

Actor is the Center. [My italics.]

Gesture for specific communication rather than general

reinforcement of the speech was not feasible. For example, the

comic actor could not rely on a visual gag. A humorous walk or

risible situation, such as the tavern scene in _I Henry IV_, could

be managed. But the type of farcical routine represented by the

commedia dell’arte _lazzi_ would have been lost to a large part of

the audience.

The sightlines not only prohibited certain types of gestures, they

also required a certain orientation of the body. Today as much as

possible the actor will try to maintain the illusion that he is

facing a fellow actor and not facing the audience. The flat picture

frame of our theater encourages this illusion. In the Elizabethan

theater the actor had to turn out, that is, orient himself to the

circumference of auditors, if he were to be seen at all. This

condition reinforced the conventional or ceremonial manner in

acting.

By turning out, the actor emphasized the stage as a setting behind

him rather than as an environment around him. This was in accord

with the demands of the plays. As I have pointed out, most of the

scenes were set in a generalized locale. The actor did not have to

maintain an illusion of place. He could concentrate wholly on the

action and the passion of a scene. To achieve verisimilitude it

was not necessary that he project time and place. Standard practice

in movement and delivery would fit every play, for they would never

seem out of harmony with the conventional façade. The result was

that the actor did not adapt himself to every environment, as the

actor does now, but translated every environment into a theatrical

form.

These tendencies towards simplification and systemization were

reinforced by the conditions of repertory. In Chapter One I showed

how many plays were maintained actively in the Globe repertory.

A member of the company, who was likely to be in every play, had

to learn a new role every other week. At the same time, he had to

keep in mind thirty or forty others. We do know that the players

were used to preparing a script rapidly. Augustine Phillips, in

the course of testimony offered on the Essex conspiracy, reveals

that the Lord Chamberlain’s men had only a day or a day and a half

to revive _Richard II_, a play long off the boards.[19] The fact

that the play was actually presented at the Globe is proof of the

actors’ adaptability.

But the player’s task was still more arduous. There was no

opportunity for him to fix a role in his memory by repetition.

Rarely would he play the same role two days in succession. Even in

the most popular role he would not appear more than twice in one

week, and then only in the first month or two of the play’s stage

life. The consequences of such a strenuous repertory were twofold.

First, the actor had to cultivate a fabulous memory and devote much

of his time to memorization; various plays testify to the scorn of

the playwright for the actor who is out of his part. Secondly, the

actor had to systematize his methods of portrayal and of working

with his colleagues. How far this could be done will have to be

considered below in light of the variety of roles the actor played.

If we could have a glimpse of an actual rehearsal, we should learn

a great deal about Elizabethan acting. The closest that we can come

to such a glimpse is to examine various players’ scenes in the

drama of the period. From _A Midsummer Night’s Dream_ (I, ii, 101

ff.), we learn that it was the practice to distribute the sides

to the actors and, after these had been memorized, to rehearse

the company. That this was normal procedure is indicated by the

surviving part for Orlando from _Orlando Furioso_.[20] Used by

Edward Alleyn, it embodies the system adopted by the professional

companies. The part, inscribed on a narrow sheet of paper, was

originally arranged on a long roll. From this roll Alleyn studied

his part and from it we can learn some of his methods, particularly

by comparing the part to the extant copy of the play.

The part contains Orlando’s speeches, together with the cues for

each speech and some stage directions. The cues are extremely

brief, consisting of no more than two or three words of the

preceding actor’s speech. If the speeches of more than one actor

separate two speeches of Orlando, only the last cue is inserted. Of

the presence of any other actors on stage there is no indication.

The stage directions, usually written in the third person, are

not as descriptive as in the text of the play. Entrances of other

actors are not noted. In effect, the part is shorn of almost

everything but the speeches of the character.

As Dr. Greg has pointed out, the part does not rely upon quite the

same text as the full copy of the play. Therefore, a word-by-word

comparison cannot be made. Yet there is some evidence that short

replies by the other actors were conventionalized in the part.

Compare the following extract, for example:

Part.

stay villayne I tell

the/_e_/ Angelica is dead, nay she is in deed

... lord

but my Angelica is dead.

... my lord.

[154-158]

Play.

ORL. O this it is, Angelica is dead.

ORG. Why then she shall be buried.

ORL. But my Angelica is dead.

ORG. Why it may be so.

[856-859]

In several other places short lines of the other actor have been

omitted.[21] There is one instance, in an otherwise satisfactory

section, where a cue is omitted (after Part, 344, compare with

Play, 1311-1312). Another set of omissions involves brief

interchanges between Orlando and another character. The brevity

of the speeches where the omissions occur indicates that they are

not cuts in the script. Perhaps these lines were picked up by the

actors in rehearsal.

The uncertainty governing the relationship of part to play

makes it difficult to depend too much upon the evidence of the

comparison. But a few tentative deductions can be made. We must

remember the little time available for rehearsal. Nowadays when

extensive rehearsals in the Moscow Art Theatre manner are the

ideal, the few hours that were available to the Globe actors appear

to be an insurmountable obstacle to dramatic art. However, long

rehearsals of an entire dramatic company are a comparatively recent

innovation. In the last century, for instance, a rehearsal or two

was deemed sufficient. An actress who was asked by Edwin Booth to

rehearse the closet scene in _Hamlet_ was so insulted that she left

the production. Concentration upon the individual player rather

than the play, which this anecdote illustrates, is also reflected

in the part of Orlando. It is trimmed to provide the actor with the

information he needed as a solo performer, not as a member of a

group. Since the full copy of the play was difficult to secure, the

one copy being zealously guarded by the bookkeeper, the part was

all the actor had to rely on. From it he got his familiarity with

the play. In it he put the essentials of his role. The absence of

more stage directions in the part than are in the play indicates

that the acting was free from any but the most relevant business,

an observation with which B. L. Joseph seems to agree. Altogether,

the evidence points to a type of acting which emphasized the

individual performer, minimized his relationship to the other

actors, and placed great emphasis upon the delivery of speeches.

The organization of the Globe company may have somewhat mitigated

the emphasis upon the individual. Between 1599 and 1609 the company

became stabilized and won the prestige of a royal patent. From

the opening of the Globe to the accession of James in 1603, the

sharers, who were the principal actors, remained the same. They

were Thomas Pope, John Heminges, Augustine Phillips, Richard

Cowley, William Shakespeare, Richard Burbage, William Sly, Henry

Condell, and Robert Armin. At the time the company received the

royal patent in May, 1603, it was enlarged to twelve members.

Entering at the same time was a replacement for the deceased Pope,

Laurence Fletcher. The three new members were John Lowin, who had

been a member of Worcester’s men in 1602-1603, Alexander Cooke,

who may have been the “sander” of the _Seven Deadly Sins_ of 1592,

and Nicholas Tooley, who spoke of Richard Burbage as “master.” E.

K. Chambers conjectures that the Samuel Grosse whose name appears

in the Folio actor list preceded Tooley into the company, but that

he probably died of the plague almost at once. This history is

doubtful, but even if true, it made little difference. Since it

is generally accepted that Fletcher did not act with the King’s

men, only three actors joined the company. One was clearly an

outsider, one was probably an apprentice, who had grown up in

the company, and one, Cooke, may have been an apprentice. On

the death of Phillips in 1605 either Samuel Gilburne or Robert

Goffe succeeded him. To account for Gilburne’s name in the Folio

actor list, Chambers places him after Phillips, to be followed by

Goffe before 1611. Baldwin believes that Goffe, who was Phillips’

brother-in-law, entered the company in 1605. He was possibly the

“R. Go.” of _Seven Deadly Sins_, and may have remained with the

company as apprentice or hired man throughout. In 1608 William

Ostler replaced Pope, who was buried August 16, and John Underwood

replaced Fletcher, who was buried September 12. Both men came from

the Revels company, where they had been boy actors. However, since

they entered during the period when plans for placing the King’s

men at Blackfriars were under way, we can exclude them from our

consideration. Thus, in the ten years we are treating, three new

actors joined the company and one replaced a former actor. Two of

the new actors had probably appeared with the company previously,

another possibly had, but only one had been definitely associated

with another group, and that one of the popular companies. The

hired actors have not been considered, it is true, but the sharers

who were the principal players made a tightly knit, relatively

unchanging group.

Determination of the identity of the boys of the company who

played the ladies is somewhat difficult. Baldwin lists seven names

of boys who acted the female roles between 1599 and 1609.[22] In

1599 Samuel Gilburne, Ned (Shakespeare?), and Jack Wilson were boy

actors. Samuel Grosse joined them in 1600, shortly after which

Gilburne and Ned ceased playing women. In 1603 John Edmans, John

Rich, and James Sands began playing women’s parts. Grosse in 1604

and Wilson in 1605 in their turn ceased performing as women. This

rapid turnover is to be expected, since the span of a boy’s ability

to play a feminine role was relatively short. However, since each

of these boys was apprenticed to one of the members of the company,

his training and performance would probably have harmonized with

the adult acting.

What effect, then, did this closed and intimate group have upon

the style of the acting? Baldwin proposed that each actor had a

special character “line” to which he devoted himself and to which

the playwrights, particularly Shakespeare, trimmed the roles.

Baldwin points out that the same actors consistently took the

major roles. In this I believe he is correct. Richard Burbage

invariably played the leading role, Robert Armin the leading comic

role, Robert Cowley played important secondary roles. Lowin seems

to have come in to play leads or second leads just below the rank

of Burbage: Baldwin gives him the role of Enobarbus to Burbage’s

Antony. Although this designation may not be strictly accurate,

the relation it reflects is likely. It is apparent that a modified

star system obtained in the Globe company. This arrangement had

two advantages. On the one hand, it enabled the company to develop

virtuoso acting. On the other, it ensured a high level of general

competence throughout the production. The competitive conditions

which drew actors away from the King’s men after 1615 did not exist

at this time, so that actors who received minor roles year after

year had little opportunity to separate from the company.

The distribution of prominent roles to the same actors at all

times, however, does not constitute a “line.” By a “line” Professor

Baldwin seems to mean the recurrent appearance of a type of role,

requiring certain definite characteristics in the player. Although

he applies the conception of “line” rigorously, he never defines

the term clearly. The criteria which he apparently considers in

establishing a line are prominence of role, physique, age, genre,

temperament, and special skills. First, actors distinguished

according to prominence of role was a fact of Globe organization

as we have seen. But instead of aiding the formation of an

actor’s “line,” it interfered with it, for a leading actor would

assume a leading role regardless of its type or nature. Secondly,

Shakespeare may well have kept the physiques and ages of the

actors in mind as he wrote, but, though such a practice may have

aided naturalism, it hardly affected the type of role. In effect,

the practice is no different from the kind of casting that occurs

today. Thirdly, Baldwin distinguished an actor’s line according to

the genre in which he specialized, comedy or tragedy. Probably the

clown was a comic specialist who had to be given a role in most

plays. But that there was any general tendency to specialize in one

genre or the other is unlikely in view of the alternation of plays,

some of which call for almost all comedians, others for almost all

tragedians. _The Merry Wives of Windsor_ was performed about the

time of _Hamlet_, and _Volpone_ about the time of _Lear_. Fourthly,

special talents may be dismissed, for they involve such abilities

as Kemp’s dancing. Finally, we are left with one criterion for the

actor’s “line”: his temperament. Baldwin links the temperament of

the actor to the temperament of the “line” that he played. Sly was

the player of jolly, roisterous roles; Lowin, the player of blunt,

honest soldiers. Ultimately Baldwin rests his case for a “line”

upon the playwright’s adherence to distinct character types and his

imitation of the actors’ temperaments.[23]

The Elizabethan playwright, however, could not adhere to types, for

the actor had no tradition of playing clear-cut types, as we have

seen. The actor did not specialize, but he portrayed a wide range

of characters. This practice persisted into the Shakespearean

era. For example, Dogberry may be regarded as a comic type, the

bumbling constable. The character who most nearly approaches him

in type is Elbow in _Measure for Measure_. He too is the inept

comic constable, malapropisms and all. But the original actor of

Dogberry, Will Kemp, was not in the company when _Measure for

Measure_ was presented. Obviously, in this case at least, the type

was not shaped by the actor, that is Kemp, but the actor fitted the

generic type.

Nor did the playwright imitate the actors’ temperaments, for the

host of different roles which a single actor was called upon to

play could not have been shaped to one personality. The four

Shakespearean roles that are assigned to Burbage upon reliable

evidence are Richard III, Hamlet, Othello, and Lear. I think

no one would care to describe the personality that could serve

as a model for these four roles. Moreover, when we add to this

repertory, Baldwin’s assignments to Burbage of the parts of

Claudio in _Much Ado_, Ford in _Merry Wives_, and Bertram in

_All’s Well_, we must give up any idea that these characters

were fitted to a personality except that of a sensitive, capable

actor. Instead, the Globe company seemed to have distributed

roles without attention to personal traits of the actors. This is

evident in _II The Return from Parnassus_. Philomusus, after he

has been auditioned by Burbage and Kemp (IV, iii), is considered

suitable for parts as different as a foolish justice and Richard

III. The scene may be mockery, but it accurately reflects all we

know about role distribution. In contrast to this method, Molière,

in his public plays, kept the number and distribution of roles

fairly constant, evidently to meet the needs of his company. But

neither the number, distribution, nor type of role was consistently

repeated by Shakespeare or any other writer for the Globe company.

Consequently, I fear that Baldwin’s “line” is a fiction which bears

little relation to reality. His insistence upon it betrays an

ignorance of histrionic method.

We must not, however, presume that the stability of the company

and the absence of rigid types gave rise to ensemble acting in the

naturalistic sense. The arrangement within the plays was suitable

to individual playing. Most scenes in Shakespeare’s plays involve

less than five active players on stage at one time. Even where

there are a large number of actors on stage, the action is confined

to a scene between two or three. For example, only 24 per cent

of the lines in _As You Like It_ are spoken when more than three

actors are active on stage. In _Twelfth Night_ the percentage is

higher, 34 per cent, but in _Hamlet_ it is only 19 per cent and

in _Lear_, 31 per cent. These percentages are as high as they are

because the final scene in most plays is a formal resolution of the

story involving a public revelation or judgment. In _Lear_ half the

lines involving more than three active players occur in the first

and last scenes of the play. The actor generally had to play with

one or two others. When on stage, he was involved in the action.

When on stage and mute, which was rare, he was excluded from the

immediate sphere of action. In most scenes, one or more of these

actors were likely to be virtuosi performers, for though the Globe

plays require large casts, they rely upon relatively few performers

to carry the bulk of the play.

IV. ACTING AND THE ELIZABETHAN VIEW OF HUMAN BEHAVIOR

The dramatic tradition, however, affected the general type of

character rather than its specific form. In evolving this form

the actor was guided by two influences: his own understanding of

behavior and thought and the poet’s image of behavior and thought.

In the first instance we must deduce the actor’s understanding from

the outlook of Elizabethan society as a whole. In the second we can

analyze the poet’s image in his plays. The poet’s unique outlook,

infused in his image, is still a part of society’s conception of

behavior and thought, and in the case of Shakespeare has come to

represent the larger conception of the age. Together, age and poet

present the psychological and philosophical foundation which the

actors and audience took for granted and thus upon which the actors

built their roles.

Study of characterization is complicated by the absence of decisive

evidence. The literary practice of the time does not encourage a

ready formulation of a poet’s idea of character. As Hardin Craig

says:

One sees no evidence in the field of knowledge of the art of

characterization as it is known in modern criticism. The art

of characterization, as distinguished from simple biographical

narrative, was there, but often not as a conscious factor.

Craig goes on to relate this lack of development to the Elizabethan

idea of personality:

Indeed, the conception of human character as set down in formal

psychology, and often evident in literature, taught instability

in the natures of men, taught that there was no such thing as

consistency of character, except in so far as it might result

from “complexion” or be super-induced by training.[24]

It is in the works of “formal psychology” that the most explicit

statements of the Elizabethan conception of human character can be

found. But in offering a detailed exposition of how Elizabethans

thought man functioned, the works are inconsistent. Miss Louise

Forest has pointed out the contradictions in the theories and

definitions of the Elizabethan and Jacobean writers. Instead of

a scientific system with which the dramatists were familiar, we

find that “Elizabethan popular psychology was simply every man’s

private synthesis of observations of human behavior understood in

the light of whatever selections from whatever authorities appealed

to him.”[25] Although her criticism has won general approbation

as a healthy corrective for facile and mechanistic application of

“psychological” theory to literature, it has not undermined the

conviction of scholars that the evidence of Elizabethan psychology

can prove illuminating in revealing not necessarily _what_ the

Elizabethans thought, but how they thought.

Mr. R. A. Foakes admits that although the disagreement in detail

hinders the application of Elizabethan psychology to literature, it

does not hinder an understanding of “the general habit of thought

from which the detail springs.”[26] The exposition of this “general

habit of thought” has been set forth in part by Theodore Spencer,

Lily B. Campbell, E. M. W. Tillyard, and John W. Draper, and

most fully by Hardin Craig in _The Enchanted Glass_.[27] Against

the broad and deep background painted by them, I shall consider

the “general habit of thought” as it affected three aspects of

character: decorum, motivation, and passion.

_a. Decorum_

Classical decorum in literature sought to reflect a broader decorum

in life. As it came down to the playwrights of the Renaissance,

however, it implied little more than a trite correspondence between

character type and nature. Edwardes in The Prologue to _Damon and

Pithias_ (1565-1571) refers the audience to Horace as his model in

the observance of “decorum”:

In Commedies, the greatest Skyll is this, rightly to touche

All thynges to the quicke: and eke to frame eche person so,

That by his common talke, you may his nature rightly know:

A Royster ought not preache, that were to straunge to heare,

But as from vertue he doth swerve, so ought his woordes appeare:

The olde man is sober, the yonge man rashe, the Lover triumphyng

in ioyes,

The Matron grave, the Harlot wilde and full of wanton toyes.

[Prologue, 14-20]

George Whetstone seconds this propriety in his Epistle to William

Fleetwood, prefixed to _Promos and Cassandra_:

For to worke a Commedie kindly, grave olde men, should instruct:

yonge men, should showe the imperfections of youth: Strumpets

should be lascivious: Boyes unhappy: and Clownes, should be

disorderlye.

Both statements of the principle of decorum rigidly match character

type with nature or behavior. By simplification of character,

consistency could be assured. It is obvious that this view of

dramatic character did not prevail in Elizabethan drama, but not

because it was completely out of harmony with Elizabethan thought.

When Timothy Bright approvingly noted that “butchers acquainted

with slaughter, are accepted therby to be of a more cruell

disposition: and therefore amongst us are discharged from iuries of

life & death,”[28] he was reflecting a type of thinking in keeping

with the principle of decorum.

It is against such Idols of the Tribe that Bacon inveighs. But even

when he attacks such habits of thought, he gives us a clear concept

of them.

The spirit of man (being of an equal and uniform substance)

pre-supposes and feigns in nature a greater equality and

uniformity than really is. Hence the fancy of the mathematicians

that the heavenly bodies move in perfect circles, rejecting

spiral lines. Hence also it happens, that whereas there are

many things in nature unique and full of dissimilarity, yet the

cogitation of man still invents for them relatives, parallels,

and conjugates. Hence sprang the introduction of an element

of fire, to keep square with earth, water, and air. Hence the

chemists have marshalled the universe in phalanx; conceiving,

upon a most groundless fancy, that in those four elements of

theirs (heaven, air, water, and earth,) each species in one has

parallel and corresponding species in the others.... Man is as

it were the common measure and mirror of nature. For it is not

credible (if all particulars be gone through and noted) what

a troop of fictions and idols the reduction of the operations

of nature to the similitude of human actions has brought into

natural philosophy; I mean, the fancy that nature acts as man

does.[29]

For the Elizabethans, as Bacon laments, external and internal

experiences were manifestations of a single spirit which had

parallels in the natural and moral universe. Consequently, in

depicting and understanding character, the Elizabethans looked for

similarities, not differences. What made one man like another and

like the macrocosm was a habitual way of estimating character.

However, instead of the simple formulae of “decorum,” the

Elizabethans employed a complex system of correspondences. For

them, man was volatile. Potentially he was capable of absorbing

concepts shared by other men. This reduced the possibility of

matching thought and character. He was also capable of experiencing

passions common to all mankind. This made it impossible to match

nature and character. In so dynamic a philosophy the meaning of

decorum had to change. Professor Lily B. Campbell has rightly

pointed out that decorum in Elizabethan drama was “not a law of

aesthetic theory but a law of moral philosophy.” To extend her

definition, it was also a law of social organization and political

life.

In the highly stratified Elizabethan society, precepts and models

of behavior were strictly developed. Bearing, speech, and dress

reflected class status. Ceremony was not only appropriate but

necessary, for, as Sir Thomas Elyot admonished:

Lette it be also consydered, that wee bee men and not Aungelles:

wherefore we know nothyng but by outwarde signification. [Honor

is not everywhere perceived] but by some exterior signe, and that

is eyther by lawdable reporte, or excellency in vesture, or other

thing semblable.[30]

In this context ceremony is not unnatural, and in fact, to the

Elizabethan, ceremony signified the natural order of the universe.

Man constantly saw his corresponding reflections in the “outward

signification” of society, nature, and morality.

That this central habit of thought was deeply ingrained in

Elizabethan nature is reflected in Bacon himself. Despite his

recognition of the fallacy of such thought, he still finds general

similitude between feature and nature. He still thinks that the

deformed person must be evil, although he tries to provide a

scientific explanation of the causes of this correspondence. It is

true that this form of logic was falling before the development

of inductive thought, particularly in the sciences. Nevertheless,

through most of the Renaissance and certainly in the period with

which we are dealing, it prevailed.

Its effect on the decorum of character was twofold. First,

character fitted into a group. Whatever his individuality might be,

a man was a member of a class and his behavior conformed to the

behavior of the class. Second, external features implied internal

qualities. Man carried the mark of his class and his nature, in

his walk, talk, features, and costume. The outer man was the inner

man; therefore, the inner man tended the form and bearing of the

outer man carefully. In these ways decorum still functioned in

Elizabethan thought and served as a basis for the portrayal of

character by the actor.

_b. Motivation_

The habit of generalized thinking operated also in the explanation

of human motivation. Thinkers and writers were not concerned with

the unique impulse that drove a man to certain ends but with the

broad desires that all men experienced. This aspect of personality

was understood in terms of the struggle between passion and reason

which went on in each man.

It was an Elizabethan commonplace that reason allied man with

God, passion with the beasts. Imagination, which receives images

of experience and relays them, should be subordinate to reason.

Unfortunately, since it is often allied with the affections, the

affections rule man. As Bacon explained it:

The affections themselves carry ever an appetite to apparent

good, and have this in common with reason; but the difference is

that affection beholds principally the good which is present:

reason looks beyond and beholds likewise the future and sum of

all. And therefore the present filling the imagination more,

reason is commonly vanquished and overcome.[31]

This “good which is present” is often the satisfaction of the

senses or passions without concern for the consequences. When

the affections, like the imagination, are under the control of

reason, all is well. When the passions lead man, they often lead to

disaster.

Man, therefore, was moved either by his reason or his affection. If

he were learned in or persuaded by a moral or politic course, he

could measure the particular good in terms of the enduring good.

Thus reason, moved by consideration of ethics or policy, obeyed

objective and rational motivations which, individual though they

might have been in particular circumstances, had in common with all

cases the attainment of goodness or power. But if affection ruled,

then man was moved to satisfy it. Although his personality might

make him liable to certain passions more readily than to others,

he could give way to any of them. His past life did not accumulate

motivations which impelled him or influenced his reception of new

motivations. Instead, immediate and direct contact was effected

between the object of desire and the governing passion.

Functioning in such a way, man was moved by generalized ends.

The habit of seeing motivations in general terms is reflected

in the titles of essays by such men as Bacon, Charron, and Sir

William Cornwallis: “Of Ambition,” “Of Envy,” “Of Affections,”

etc. Although a physio-psychological theory in part replaced

temptation by the devil as an explanation of motivation, entities

such as pride, lust, ambition, and envy, among others, continued

to be regarded as genuine temptations by the Elizabethan. By

and large the motives for man’s actions were taken for granted

or symbolized. Often in the drama they are never made explicit.

Here too correspondence was observed. Women were easily given to

lust, unpromoted men to envy, young men to prodigality, Italians

to revenge. An Elizabethan audience would assume or ignore the

reasons for Iago’s or Antony’s or Bertram’s actions. They would be

interested in what they did and how they felt.

_c. Passion_

In concentrating on what happened to the characters, the audience

found its attention directed toward the passions that the

characters experienced. Passions were divided in kind and number.

They were either concupiscible or irascible, that is, arose

either from coveting or desiring some end, such as Love, or from

accomplishing or thwarting some end, such as Anger. However, there

was disagreement over the number of passions. Coeffeteau lists more

than fifteen, Bright only six, some writers even fewer.[32] In the

matter of detail there is no concurrence, but the difference arises

from the degree of subordination observed by the different writers.

Behind all their thinking is the habit of regarding a passion as an

autonomous quality which is either operative or not. An inclination

toward or a repulsion from an object induces physiological changes

in the bodily humors. These changes feed the passion so that it

dominates the individual entirely. But the passion is a fixed

thing. It betrays external symptoms; for example, fear leads to

trembling and love to sighing. It affects internal operation, such

as the contraction of the heart and the acceleration of breathing.

It alters the view of reality, for passions are like “greene

spectacles, which make all thinges resemble the colour of greene;

even so, hee that loveth, hateth, or by anie other passion is

vehemently possessed, iudgeth all things that occure in favor of

that passion, to bee good and agreeable with reason.”[33]

Moreover, a particular passion was the same for all persons

affected by it. Fear in one was the same as fear in another. Love

in one man was not very much different from love in another. One

man was not distinguished from another by the quality of a passion,

but by his propensity toward it. Man was thought to have a dominant

temperament or complexion. It might fall into one of four principal

categories: the sanguine, the choleric, the phlegmatic, or the

melancholic. The Elizabethan physiologists developed a series of

correspondences, of course disagreeing among themselves, between

temperament and physique, intellect and passion. Supposedly each

type was liable to certain passions more readily than others.

Yet, when a man is carried away by a passion uncongenial to

his temperament, he assumes the quality of the passion fully.

“Each passion alters the complexion of the entire body, which

assumes, at least temporarily, the very qualities which excite the

emotion.”[34] Thus, in Elizabethan thinking, there was a range of

distinct passions and a range of distinct temperaments. Although

there was a tendency for certain passions to cluster about a

certain temperament, any passion could enter into any temperament.

When it did, it transformed the temperament into its quality.

Some disagreement existed over the completeness and ease with which

a temperament could be transformed. Bright considers the complexion

strictly fixed. Other writers believe that there is a strong

tendency toward a specific temperament, but that an uncongenial

passion could overpower natural resistance to it. As Forest has

observed of these discrepancies in the Elizabethan views about

complexion, it is difficult to establish any firm conclusions

about the details of the subject. Generally, it can be said that

each man was thought to have some definable central temperament

which arose from the disposition of humors in his system, that his

external and internal faculties corresponded in a broad sense with

his temperament, and that he was liable to passions which were

sympathetic to his temperament. And yet it was accepted that his

natural temperament could be overpowered by passions in disharmony

with it, that one passion could drive out another, and that the

nature of the passion was not affected by his temperament. These

two groups of concepts are at bottom mutually contradictory; the

first visualizes relative stability and consistency in character,

the second, virtually complete subordination of the individual to

immediate impulses. These views reflect the desire for similitude

and order on one hand and the awareness of the power of passion

on the other. Without reconciliation they continued as habits of

thought throughout the English Renaissance.

Both views acknowledged the swiftness with which passion could

overwhelm an individual. Professor Craig explains sudden changes

in Bellafront in _The Honest Whore I_ and in Hamlet by reference

to “the theory that one emotion or passion drives out another, and

that the substitution is immediately operative.”[35] One passion

yields readily to another, the concupiscible passion often giving

way to the irascible, as hatred may give way to anger or grief

to despair. Love at first sight, as R. A. Foakes points out,

is a convention based on a reality and the “common and ancient

thought-habit that the sight is the chief and most powerful of

the senses.” Sudden emotional changes were either the daily acts

of Elizabethan behavior or the usual explanation of more gradual

alterations. In either case, the potential for such immediate

transformation was thought to be ingrained in every man, just as at

present the potential for repressed infantile conflicts is thought

to exist in every man.

Furthermore, the ability to suppress the mounting passions within

oneself was thought to be very slight. Once a passion subdued the

reason, the reason was virtually powerless to control the passion.

It coursed through the entire body, expressing itself in external

signs. An individual of extraordinary will could suppress these

signs, but the vast majority of people was helpless to hide the

play of passion within their souls. A correspondence between the

passions and the external signs was assumed, but as we found in the

study of rhetoric, there was no clear codification of passions and

symptoms. Instead, the habit of expecting an expression of emotion

in recognizable symptoms rather than the repression of emotion

in enigmatic behavior marked the Elizabethan age. The volatile

and pervasive nature of passion, then, was one of the crucial

assumptions of the Elizabethan period.

Thus, the Elizabethan conception of how human beings function

and feel shows two principal tendencies. In a strictly regulated

society such as the Elizabethan, the members were keenly aware of

degree and order. So urgent was the impulse to find order in the

universe, that an elaborate series of correspondences was observed

between man and all other forces in nature as well as between man

and all forces within himself. It was natural for the Elizabethan

to look for correspondences, no matter how farfetched, and to

insist on decorum, no matter how trifling. In conflict with this

tendency toward order was the recognition of the tendency toward

disorder. Largely, this was thought to arise from man yielding

to passion. The orderly arrangement of the moral and political

world could be destroyed by the unrestrained passions of man. As a

result, the description and analysis of passion became a central

function of Elizabethan psychology and philosophy. Bacon carries

the condemnation of passion to such an extreme that he condemns

love almost entirely. It is a weak passion, it is a “child of

folly.” As we turn to a consideration of the plays themselves, we

shall find that by and large the tendency toward order subsumed the

actions, and the depiction of passion occupied the forefront of the

Globe stage.

V. THE EFFECT OF THE GLOBE PLAYS UPON THE ACTING

The drama that appeared on its stage is the single most important

witness to the acting style of the Globe company. Through this

drama the general style of acting, which was a product of the

conditions I have outlined heretofore, became refined into the

specific style of the company. The wide gap between the quality

of the Shakespearean and non-Shakespearean plays in the repertory

makes the delineation of this style extremely difficult. The

differences are those of subtlety, insight, and penetration.

Probably the acting wavered between the more obvious requirements

of the non-Shakespearean plays and the modulations of the

Shakespearean.

For the actor an important part of the drama was the distancing of

the action. Almost every popular pre-Globe play is distanced in

time or place or both. Plays such as _Orlando Furioso_ and _A Knack

to Know an Honest Man_ are set in France and Italy respectively.

_The Troublesome Reign of King John_ and _Fair Em_ are set back in

English history, the latter to the days of William the Conqueror.

Plays such as _Selimus_ and _The Battle of Alcazar_ are set back

in time and place, to Islamic Turkey and Moorish Africa. Sometimes

the action was placed in a mythical or semimythical land. But only

three of the pre-Globe plays are set in London. Two are moralities

of Robert Wilson, _Three Ladies of London_ and _The Three Lords

and Three Ladies of London_. In these the allegory distances the

action. Only _A Warning for Fair Women_ is placed in contemporary

England. Its realism, however, is somewhat removed by a morality

framework in which Tragedy as a presenter moralizes upon the sins

of lust.

This practice is followed by the Globe plays. Of the Shakespearean

plays _The Merry Wives of Windsor_ is usually thought to picture

contemporary England. However that may be, the action is actually

placed in the days of Henry IV or Henry V. Falstaff’s presence

and Page’s references to Fenton’s escapades with the young prince

identify the period. The compliment bestowed at the end of the play

upon the worthy owner of Windsor Castle is anachronistic. Of the

non-Shakespearean plays, four may be considered as taking place in

contemporary England. Three of these are prodigal son plays, still

close to the morality theme. The fourth, _Every Man Out of His

Humour_, is clearly set in England, as the scene at Paul’s shows.

But the characters have Italianate names. The effect is one of a

double image, a removed intimacy.

The characters who are distanced are also typed. Most of them fall

into one of several categories: the tyrant, the tyrant-father, the

gull, the beloved, the lover, and so on. Usually they stem from

generic types. Unlike the practices in the commedia dell’arte where

the characteristics of the stock figures dictated the plot, in the

English drama, as I have shown in Chapter Two, the story dictated

the handling of character. The types that existed were a function

of the story. That is why the generic types did not develop into

stock characters. As long as the story could wrench a character as

it required, the stock type could not become solidified.

In Shakespeare the generic types are blended and enriched. An

examination of all the characters in the Globe Shakespearean plays

reveals the presence of a definite group of related characters.

They are more than the repeated figures of any author’s art, for

they hark back to the traditional types. The most frequently

recurring and most sharply marked are the lovers, villains, clowns,

gulls, loyal advisers, faithful friends, chaste maids, faithful

wives, tyrant fathers, tyrant princes, and politic princes. One

could go on multiplying subsidiary classes of characters as

Polonius does classes of drama. Though certain types, such as the

faithful servant (Adam, Provost in _Measure for Measure_, Corin

in _As You Like It_), recur with some frequency, many do not. One

type, the elderly _grande dame_, has only two representatives: the

Countess in _All’s Well_, and Volumnia in _Coriolanus_. Nor do the

types recur in the same form. Horatio is the faithful friend in

_Hamlet_; Kent is also the faithful friend, but he has something of

the court adviser in him too. From this it follows that the types

are not differentiated clearly. Antony in _Julius Caesar_ has some

of the faithful friend in him, but as his character develops, he

reveals something of the Machiavellian politician, and in battle

shows himself the honest soldier. Furthermore, the same generic

type may show strong differences in temperament. Lafeu, the court

adviser of _All’s Well_, is a merry gentleman; Escalus, the same

type of adviser in _Measure for Measure_, is sober and serious.

They are both members of the same type whose quality is dictated by

the function that it performs in the story. But the full range of

the character does not remain within the confines of the types.

The combination of distanced action and generic type served to

romanticize and symbolize the Shakespearean stage figures. No

matter how reminiscent of a contemporary Londoner a character

may have been, the audience reposed in the fiction that he was

an Italian, a Roman, or an ancestor. With the Elizabethan’s

insularity, the fiction took on imaginative reality and tinted

the action of the plays with romance. The characters of this

romance, who had a generic base, were not only individuals but

also symbols of the host of kings, lovers, and clowns who peopled

the world. Again, this is a reflection of the Elizabethan habit

of seeing similarities rather than differences in human behavior.

The interaction of these two qualities alone would have elevated

the action into a wondrous world of imagination, untouched by real

experience. But, as we shall see, other elements were at work.

Within the broad boundaries of the generic type, individualization

of character took place. But in what manner was this accomplished

by the dramatists, particularly by Shakespeare? Today we place

great stress on motivation. Our plays constantly search the past

to explain the present. In _A Streetcar Named Desire_ Blanche

is revealed and drawn in terms of her tortured past and her

unfulfilled desires. In the Elizabethan period, as we found, there

was little awareness of specific motivation. The plays reflect this

condition. The motivation is usually generalized. Viola wishes

to love and be loved, and Sir Toby wants to have an easy life.

Antony wishes to love Cleopatra, Coriolanus to satisfy his pride.

But little attention is directed to probing or developing these

motivations. At the conclusion of these plays we do not understand

the motives of these characters one whit better. Motivation is

often assumed, as in Lear’s partition of his kingdom, or promised

for the future, as in _Othello_ when Iago persuades Roderigo

to kill Cassio. In the same type of character there is little

distinction in motivation. The motives for Horatio’s loyalty

to Hamlet are no different from the motives for Kent’s loyalty

to Lear. In the prodigal son plays, the motivations for the

prodigality are barely noted. It is considered a condition to which

all youth is liable. Motives for any act were so often assumed that

they could not have demanded concentrated attention by the actors.

Another way in which the modern playwright individualizes character

is through speech and gesture. This does not seem to have been a

regular practice at the Globe playhouse. Here and there are hints

that status may have been indicated by carriage and accent. In _As

You Like It_ Orlando questions “Ganymede” about his life.

ORL. Your accent is something finer than you could purchase

in so removed a dwelling.

ROS. I have been told so of many. But indeed an old religious

uncle of mine taught me to speak, who was in his youth an

inland man.

[III, ii, 359-363]

In these externals the Elizabethans maintained a strict decorum.

Yet the play does not reveal any difference between Rosalind’s and

Corin’s speech insofar as breeding is concerned. References to

fineness in speech, as in _Twelfth Night_ (I, v, 311), place the

character in a class rather than make him unique. Only in a few

cases can we be certain that characteristic speech habits are used

to individualize. The Hosts of _The Merry Wives of Windsor_ and

_The Merry Devil of Edmonton_ have their tricks of speech; so does

Corporal Nym. Edgar as Poor Tom alters his speech as an aid to his

disguise. Other less certain instances are Osric in _Hamlet_ and

Thersites. But more important characters are not drawn in that way.

Dogberry and Elbow both use malapropisms, but the characters are

not distinguished by them. In fact, the linguistic twist tends to

obscure the differences of character and emphasizes the likeness in

type. The distinction between the two comes from Dogberry’s fatuous

self-confidence and condescension in contrast to Elbow’s alternate

deference to authority and scolding of Pompey.

If neither kind of motivation nor form of speech and gesture

individualized the characters, perhaps the kind of action they

performed did so. In modern drama this usually happens, for the

action comes out of the character. But the narrative nature of

Elizabethan drama, with its loose causation, makes this less

possible. Plays based on the same narrative, for example, differ

not so much in action as in character. _Lear_ does contain a

sub-plot, the Gloucester story, not present in _King Leir_. But

this addition does not affect the character of Shakespeare’s Lear

very much. In a number of scenes both Lear and Leir perform the

same action, but there is a world of difference in the characters.

Lear proposes the division of his kingdom upon entering, and

then immediately questions his daughters. At Cordelia’s muteness

his emotions mount in three stages: rejection of Cordelia,

banishment of Kent, and dismissal of France. From the beginning

Lear demonstrates authority and pride. Leir, however, reveals two

reactions: delight at the flattery of Gonerill and Ragan, anger at

the bluntness of Cordelia. But he does not have Lear’s intensity of

emotional expression.

In their first realization of rejection, the two men repeat these

differences. Leir mourns, repenting his folly, regarding Gonerill’s

treatment as payment for his sins. This is the beginning in Leir

of the grief that he shows throughout the play. Lear, on the other

hand, demonstrates amazement, anger, scorn, all at a great height

of intensity. This too is the beginning of the barely suppressed

rage which finally drives him to madness. When, near the end,

Leir’s request for Cordelia’s pardon emerges as grief, he is

continuing the emotional quality he attained at the beginning.

Lear, however, comes to that level of humility only after having

passed through the fires of rage and madness. Of the central range

of passion poured out by Lear on the heath, there is no sign in

_King Leir_.

For it is mainly through the depiction of the passions that

Shakespeare individualizes his characters. Just as the Elizabethan

age envisions reason struggling with passion, so Shakespeare

reveals the individual emerging through his passions. With the

possible exception of Jonson, this was the general method of the

other writers for the Globe company. By them too the generic type

is rendered unique when passion is freshly portrayed.

A secondary means of individualization was the presentation of

a character’s mind. Many of Shakespeare’s finest characters are

distinguished by a profuse and keen wit. Rosalind, warm-hearted

and merry, becomes the distinct figure she is through the play

of her wit.[36] Octavius Caesar in _Antony and Cleopatra_ is a

man supremely guided by reason. In these cases wit or reason,

rather than passion, controls the character. But in the gallery

of Shakespeare’s portraits such characters are in the minority.

Prepared as the actor had to be to render thought vividly, his main

efforts had to be devoted to painting the varied passions of man.

The application of this interpretation will be more evident in an

examination of Globe plays. For example, the faithful wife type

appears in them with some frequency. In the prodigal son plays she

is probably closest to a pure type. Luce in _The London Prodigal_

does not wish to marry Flowerdale, but she is forced to do so by

her father. After the marriage, when Flowerdale is revealed as a

wastrel, the father commands Luce to leave her husband. She replies:

LUCE. He is my husband, and his heauen doth know,

With what vnwillingnesse I went to Church,

But you inforced me, you compelled me too it:

The holy Church-man pronounced these words but now,

I must not leaue my husband in distresse:

Now I must comfort him, not goe with you.

LANCE. Comfort a cozoner? on my curse forsake him.

LUCE. This day you caused me on your curse to take him:

Doe not I pray my greiued soule oppresse,

God knowes my heart doth bleed at his distresse.

[Sig. E1^r]

Her grief is conventional. It is echoed by the wife in _A Yorkshire

Tragedy_ and by Anabell in _Fair Maid of Bristow_. Shakespeare,

however, assuming the conventional devotion, deepens the emotion of

the wife. Virgilia in _Coriolanus_ is the same type of character.

Her only individualizing element is her readiness to weep at the

slightest hint of her husband’s danger. This sensibility serves

as a strong contrast to Volumnia’s Roman pride and honor. Portia

and Calpurnia in _Julius Caesar_ are other representatives of this

type, yet they are distinguished from each other. Not through

motivation: they both wish the well-being of their husbands. Not

through action: they both try to persuade their husbands to another

course of action. Portia demonstrates a stoicism, a suppression of

fears, in order to persuade Brutus to reveal the reasons for his

troubled state, only to give way later to her uneasiness. Calpurnia

pours out her fears and forebodings, nagging and pleading in turn.

Probably in manner, gait, speech, and gesture, this type would be

played in the same way. Only the drawing of the different passions

would transform them into distinct characters.

In many types this kind of differentiation occurs. Leonine and

Thaliard are minor villains in _Pericles_. They are both commoners

and servants, both are commanded to commit murder by their

masters. Yet they differ from each other. In manner Thaliard is

prompt, reflecting a cynical attitude toward his task. Leonine

is reluctant, reflecting an innate gentleness. Dogberry and

Elbow, as I have noted, are distinguished from each other by one

being condescending, the other deferential. Kent and Enobarbus,

faithful friends and advisers, have much in common: bluntness in

speech, an unbreakable tie to their royal masters, loyalty in the

face of disaster. Their abilities too are not so very different,

though Enobarbus is a soldier. The distinction arises from their

temperaments and passions. Enobarbus is critical and scornful,

Kent is blunt and protective. But Enobarbus attains striking

individuality only when he undergoes the pangs of shame for having

abandoned Antony.

Implied emotion is not characteristic of the period. Today

actors hint at unfathomed depths or suppressed drives which are

ever on the verge of bursting forth. This was not the style of

the Globe. Passions were immediately and directly presented. A

character revealed the full extent of his passion at once. Our

habit of seeing unplumbed depths in people may lead us to sense

inner turmoil in Elizabethan plays where it does not exist. But

this is in accord neither with Elizabethan thought habits nor

with Elizabethan dramaturgy. Professor Albert Walker has shown

that Shakespeare inherited conventional expressions of emotion

and utilized them in a unique manner. A perusal of any of the

Shakespearean plays will demonstrate the prevalence with which the

overt expressions of emotion enumerated by Professor Walker are

found.

One matter of the treatment of passion by Shakespeare remains to

be considered, that of consistency. In analyzing the Elizabethan

theory of passion, we discovered some dispute over the stability

of temperament. Some writers believed that it was fixed and

sympathetic to certain passions only. Other writers believed it was

fairly flexible, that any passion could overwhelm the temperament.

The same question arises in reference to the plays. Professor

Draper, for example, has attempted, unsuccessfully, to prove that

the Shakespearean characters fitted into one of six types of

temperament. It seems to me that he attributes to a consistent

temper what may only be the result of a dramatic type.[37]

Nevertheless, though it is unwise to press consistency of

temperament too far, some characters seem to be controlled by a

dominant passion. There is a distinction. Temperament differs

from dominant passion by including a predisposition not only to a

particular passion, but also to a specific physique, intellect,

and morality. Malvolio is moved by self-love, a form of pride;

Antony, by lust; Angelo, by self-righteousness. Malvolio’s temper

is never superseded by another passion; Antony often gives way to

self-chastisement or grief, yet fundamentally obeys his passion;

Angelo is transformed into another man by yielding to lust and

still another by yielding to penitence at the conclusion. Thus the

degree of consistency varies with the individuals, yet even with

the most consistent characters, the interest is not directed to

incidental characteristics such as physique, but to the passions to

which they yield. Only here and there do we find a man of balanced

temperament who does not yield to passion. As we might expect,

such a man, of whom Horatio is the most famous example, shows very

little individuality.

All of the foregoing conditions, verbal and physical expression,

theatrical tradition, playing circumstances, thought habits, and

acting roles shaped the Globe actor. As he took on a role, he

had to work with dispatch. In less than two weeks the show was to

go on the boards. While he was studying a new role he was playing

from eight to twelve others. Given a copy of his part, he depended

principally upon himself for working up the role. Shakespeare might

advise him about the interpretation, but in the time available not

much group rehearsal could take place. Since most of the scenes in

which he appeared involved only one or two other characters, little

time had to be spent in worrying about blocking out the movements

or about grouping.

The role he had been given most likely fell into one of several

general types to which had become attached some conventions of

portrayal. But these conventions were suggestive rather than

absolute since the period had not developed a rigid correspondence

of passion and external expression. The actor could rely on these

conventions or habits because the basic outline of his character

would fit into some social group. He endeavored to impersonate a

typical character of this group in his walk, manner, character

relationship, speech. Acutely conscious of ceremony, he infused

these elements with an artistry which imitated the ideal rather

than the specific. With his voice he did not attempt to imitate

particular persons, but expressed the meaning of the speeches

by accenting the figures of language. In all this he obeyed the

tendency of the age to find similarities rather than differences in

behavior.

This ritualistic acting, however, contained within it specific

passions which burst from these typical characters. Unto the

portrayal of these passions the actor had to give himself fully.

Audacity and vehemency were required. He knew he had to feel

the emotions himself if he were to move his auditors. Overtly

expressed, the emotions came forth without self-conscious

restraint. Perhaps in other acting companies the actors relied on

conventional expressions of emotions. But Shakespeare gave his

actors too rich a variety of emotions of too fine a subtlety to

permit them to rely upon a stock rendition of outworn conventions.

Although the actor did not have to search for the emotion, as

actors do now, he had to discriminate among the various emotions

and individualize each of them in order to project an effective

character. His conceit or idea of the passion had to be keen to

make the character come to life; he knew that without a vivid

comprehension, the external expression would be hollow.

On stage, he shared his experience directly with the audience.

He was part of an elaborate pageant taking place in a far-off

land against an opulent backdrop. Yet on an emotional level he

communicated intimately and directly with the audience. In more

or less unrestrained utterance he portrayed extremes of passion,

passion which was so alive and real that the audience might wish to

say about the Globe player what Polonius said about the player in

_Hamlet_:

Look, whe’r he has not turn’d his colour, and

has tears in’s eyes. Prithee no more!

[II, ii, 542-543]

At the peak of his passion he might well have fitted Hamlet’s

description of the player who

in a dream of passion,

Could force his soul so to his own conceit

That, from her working, all his visage wann’d,

Tears in his eyes, distraction in’s aspect,

A broken voice, and his whole function suiting

With forms to his conceit.

[II, ii, 578-583]

To this type of ceremonious acting, the heart of which was

overwhelming passion intensively portrayed, neither the adjective

formal nor natural applies. I suggest that we accept the inevitable

adjective and call it romantic acting, but romantic acting

understood in the finest sense before decadence and extravagance

set in. The Globe company brought this art to perfection.

Chapter Five

THE STAGING

I. STAGE ILLUSION AT THE GLOBE PLAYHOUSE

Staging, like acting, is an art of illusion, but its illusion,

unlike that of acting, deals not with being but with time and

space. In the manipulation of time, it has long been recognized

that Shakespeare is a master. An oft-cited example of his mastery

occurs in the guard scene in _Othello_ (II, iii). During the

course of the action a night is made to pass. At the beginning of

the scene, the time is not yet “ten o’ the clock” (15). At the

conclusion, Iago remarks, “By th’ mass, ’tis morning!” (384).

In the midst of the alarum, Othello speaks of night and Iago

agrees that Cassio should see Desdemona “betimes in the morning”

(335). Here, as elsewhere, Shakespeare creates his own illusion

of time corresponding neither to actual chronology nor to agreed

convention, but solely to narrative demands.

It has also been generally recognized that Shakespeare may utilize

more than one time scheme within a single play. For example, after

Edmund has shown “Edgar’s” letter to his father, the Duke of

Gloucester, he assures him that he will seek out Edgar as quickly

as he can,

convey the business as I shall find means, and

acquaint you withal.

[I, ii, 109-111]

In Act II, scene i, three scenes later, he expedites his plot,

presumably without delay, for the action picks up where it had left

off. In the intervening scenes, however, Lear spends sufficient

time at Goneril’s castle for her to complain to the Steward, “By

day and night, he wrongs me!” (I, iii, 3). Certainly the spectator

is to suppose that a good portion of a month has gone by.

Through a kind of illusion the author accelerates or decelerates

the passage of time to fit the needs of his narrative. Thus, the

time sequence varies during the course of the play. In some scenes

time is extended, in others highly contracted. Antony is told,

only a moment after the mob, which he has stirred to fury, rushes

out to revenge Caesar’s death, that Brutus and Cassius have fled

before this same mob. The reference point, manifestly, is not the

length of time that the events would require in actuality, or a

fixed standard of time, such as the twenty-four-hour neoclassical

day, or a symbolic dimension, such as the morality time scheme of

man’s life on earth, but the duration of time required to tell the

story. This narrative ordering of time, moreover, has a parallel in

a similar narrative ordering of space.

Simultaneous staging illustrates the operation of such ordering

of space. By simultaneous staging is meant, in this instance, the

practice of mounting more than one setting on stage at the same

time so that during one scene the setting for another is already

present. The degree to which it was employed by the popular

companies is a matter of controversy.

In 1924 E. K. Chambers endeavored to distinguish between

simultaneous staging in the private theaters and sequential staging

in the public playhouses. But Professor George Reynolds has shown

that at the Red Bull, some of the time at least, simultaneous

staging was practiced. Later studies by George Kernodle and C.

Walter Hodges have supported his position. In writing about

simultaneous staging Reynolds, as well as Kernodle and Hodges,

refers to the disposition of properties only. Reynolds argues

that properties from one scene were occasionally left on-stage

during the playing of another. Or he suggests that tents or shops,

utilized much like the mansions of the medieval stage, were erected

on-stage. He cites the tents scene in _Richard III_ (V, iii), where

both Richard’s and Richmond’s tents occupy the stage, as evidence

that “theaters permitted violation of realistic distance and the

use of simultaneous settings.” Instances of such simultaneity,

although not abundant, do occur among the Shakespearean Globe plays.

The disguised Kent is placed in stocks before Gloucester’s castle

where he is to remain all night (II, ii). The Quarto specifies

that at the end of a soliloquy he “sleeps.” A soliloquy by Edgar

follows. After Edgar’s exit, with the coming of morning, Lear

arrives. Editors frequently treat the sleep and Edgar’s exit as the

conclusions of separate scenes, thus marking Edgar’s soliloquy Act

II, scene iii, and the scene commencing with Lear’s arrival, Act

II, scene iv. However, neither the Folio nor the Quarto texts have

any divisions at these points, although the Folio text is otherwise

divided. John C. Adams, in his proposed staging of _King Lear_,

suggests that the “inner stage” curtain was closed while Kent

sleeps in order to allow Edgar to deliver his soliloquy, and then

reopened for the next scene. But the direction “sleeps” indicates

that this was not the case. Edgar merely entered while Kent slept

in the stocks. Whether he was supposed to be in the same part of

the castle yard or another part does not much matter. In this

instance an imaginative expansion of space occurs and he “does not”

see Kent.

A similar instance occurs in _As You Like It_. While Amiens and

Jaques are singing in the Forest of Arden, a banquet is brought

out. Seeing the uncovered dishes, Amiens says,

Sirs, cover the while; the Duke will drink under

this tree.

[II, v, 32-33]

After they sing some more, Jaques announces that he will go off to

sleep and Amiens replies:

And I’ll go seek the Duke. His banquet is prepar’d.

[64-65]

These definite exit lines spoken by Amiens, as well as those spoken

by the Duke at the end of Act II, scene vii (where he is careful

to have Adam supported off stage), indicate that discovery of the

banquet is not intended in either scene. Between the setting and

partaking of the banquet, there intervenes the scene in which

Orlando and Adam enter the forest fainting from want of food. Here

is demonstration of the blending of general localization with

simultaneous staging.

However, such simultaneous staging did not set the style for

an entire play. Nowhere is there evidence that mansions or

properties were left on-stage throughout an entire play. Nor is

this surprising. It is apparent by now that scenic materials

appeared infrequently on the Globe stage. Therefore, if there were

conventions of spatial order, they involved not merely the physical

elements of staging but more especially the organic elements,

namely, the actors.

A nonrealistic ordering of space becomes necessary when the

demands of a dramatic story create a disparity between the actual

dimensions of the stage and the spatial dimensions of the action.

Utilizing the theatrical conventions of the age, illusion masks

this disparity. Such illusion is a product of two factors: the

extension and/or compression of space and the juxtaposition of

actors and properties.

As in the case of temporal illusion, Elizabethan _spatial_ illusion

does not obey a fixed proportion between stage and reality.

It employs neither the unity of place nor the cosmic range of

medieval drama. Between property and actor and between actor and

actor, space assumes whatever dimension the narrative requires.

This is true not only of the compression of space, that is, how

closely characters stand to one another, but of their dramatic

relationship, that is, the quality of that proximity.

To illustrate how the Elizabethans employed narrative space

relationships between actors, I turn to a striking, and, as far as

I am aware, hitherto unnoticed instance of compression in one of

the Globe plays, _Pericles_.

In the first scene of the play Pericles seeks the hand of the

Daughter of Antiochus. To win her, he must successfully answer

a riddle. To fail, as many princes before him have done, means

death. After the Daughter appears before him in all her regal

beauty, Pericles receives the text of the riddle which he reads

aloud. Almost immediately he fathoms the meaning: Antiochus and his

daughter have committed incest. Pericles expresses this revelation

in an aside, in the midst of which he addresses the Daughter

directly.

Y’are a fair viol, and your sense the strings:

Who, finger’d to make man his lawful music,

Would draw heaven down, and all the gods, to hearken;

But being play’d upon before your time,

Hell only danceth at so harsh a chime.

Good sooth, I care not for you.

[I, i, 81-86]

We might assume that, since the character speaks an aside, the

actor was standing some distance from the Daughter in order to give

the illusion that he is not overheard. But the next line, which

Antiochus addresses to Pericles, shows that Pericles was actually

next to the Daughter.

ANT. Prince Pericles, touch not, upon thy life,

For that’s an article within our law,

As dangerous as the rest. Your time’s expir’d.

Either expound now, or receive your sentence.

[I, i, 87-90]

Apparently, Pericles in his aside gestures toward the Daughter on

the line, “Good sooth, I care not for you.” Antiochus misinterprets

the meaning of the gesture and warns Pericles not to touch his

daughter. Thus, instead of speaking from afar, Pericles delivers

the aside in the midst of the other actors.

In analyzing the aside as a dramatic device, writers have accepted

the convention but rejected a conventional delivery by suggesting

that in performance the platform stage enabled the actor to render

it realistically. Not only this scene in _Pericles_, but equally

significant instances of spatial compression contradict this

theory. Many asides give the actor neither time nor motivation for

creating verisimilitude. When Othello meets Desdemona, after Iago

has awakened the “green-eyed monster” within him, he is struggling

to hide his conviction of her guilt. Desdemona greets him.

DES. How is’t with you, my lord?

OTH. Well, my good lady. O, hardness to dissemble!

How do you, Desdemona?

[III, iv, 33-35]

Today the actor mutters the aside, “O, hardness to dissemble,”

turns away, or in some other manner endeavors to give plausibility

to the convention that Desdemona does not hear the remark. In final

desperation, he may cut the line. The study of asides below shows

that these were not the methods employed at the Globe.

Naturally, the high degree of spatial compression among the players

caused a change in the quality of their relationships. When one

actor comes closer to another than realistic action plausibly

admits, as in the scene in _Pericles_, he destroys illusion, if it

is one of reality, or he creates a new illusion, if it is one of

convention. By standing near the defiled princess while he unravels

the mystery, the actor of Pericles can convey his horror with

maximum effectiveness, and by speaking his aside near her while he

paints a word picture of her outer beauty and inner pollution, he

can project his revulsion at her foul proximity. The Globe players,

in the staging of asides, did not think in terms of creating an

illusion of actuality but of relating the crucial elements of

the narrative to each other. Within such a frame of reference

the dilemma, folly, or scheme which gives rise to an aside is

demonstrated more lucidly and more dramatically than it could be

within a realistic frame of reference. What is true of the aside is

equally true of observations, disguises, concealments, parleys, and

other theatrical devices.

The conventions governing grouping of actors also governed the

sequence of actions. From scene to scene, and within scenes,

space had a fluidity which was accommodated to the narration.

Generalization of locale required such fluidity, for locale was

as broad or as narrow as occasion demanded. The picturing of

locale, we must remember, was not accomplished with scenery.

Nor was passage from one locale to another accomplished through

physical changes in the stage façade, as some scholars have

insisted. According to various views, the drawing of a curtain or

a shift from one part of the stage to another or from one mansion

to another was a conventional means of conveying a change of

place to the audience. All these views assume in common that the

establishment of space was dependent upon clues of a physical sort.

The application as well as the refutation of such an assumption

can be illustrated in the assassination scene of _Julius Caesar_,

which begins in the streets of Rome and moves to the Capitol (III,

i). Ronald Watkins would express this sequence in a change in the

stage itself. To mark the moment when the scene shifts into the

Capitol, he would open the “inner stage” curtain to reveal a state

for Caesar.[1] The possibility that the street and the Capitol were

situated in the same imaginary area is never explored although

there is no instance in a Globe play where a shift takes place

like that which Watkins predicates. Before examining this scene in

detail, it might be well to turn to another Globe scene which is

unqualified evidence against Watkins’ method of staging.

In scene x of _Miseries of Enforced Marriage_, it will be recalled,

Butler has convinced Ilford, Bartley, and Wentloe that he can

provide them with rich wives. Appointing a time to introduce them

to their “brides-to-be,” he arranges to meet first Ilford and then

the other two “at the sign of the Wolfe against Gold-smiths row”

(Sig. G1^v). After these rakes depart, Butler soliloquizes upon the

punishment that he will inflict upon them for their villainy. At

the conclusion of this brief soliloquy, he does not exit. Instead,

Thomas and John Scarborrow enter.

BUT. O, are you come. And fit as I appointed.

[Sig. G2^r]

He bids them wait while he sets up the plot for Ilford. The scene

with Ilford is played in continuous fashion. There is no indication

that the scene has shifted to any other part of the stage, for

Ilford observes the Scarborrows from a window. When Wentloe and

Bartley appear, Wentloe points out the sign of the Wolfe. Through

dialogue, the audience is made aware that a change of locale has

occurred without either a clearing of the stage or a shift in

area. Furthermore, the appearance of the sign suggests one of

three possibilities: the sign was visible throughout the scene,

thus creating a type of simultaneous setting; it was not employed

physically and thus Wentloe’s line is imaginative; or it was placed

in position during the course of the scene. In any one of these

instances the change of scene did not depend upon any change in the

form or size of the stage space.

To return to _Julius Caesar_. It is possible to carry out the

staging of the scene as Watkins suggests. But there is no instance

in the Globe plays which clearly shows this to be Globe practice.

A scene in _The Devil’s Charter_ (II, i, Sig. E1^r) contains a

similar scene of procession, this time to a papal state. In the

other stage directions of the play, Barnes has carefully indicated

when the enclosure was employed, even within a scene, so that his

failure to mention it in a stage direction for this scene argues

against its use. In that event the state must have been thrust

out. This method would serve equally well in _Julius Caesar_ with

the result that both street and Capitol would be simultaneously

presented.

Essentially the stage was a fluid area that could represent

whatever the author wished without the necessity for him to

indicate a change in stage location. The actors did not regard the

stage as a place but as a platform from which to project a story,

and therefore they were unconscious of the discrepancy between real

and dramatic space. How far behind Malvolio were the “box tree”

and his tormentors? How far from Brutus and Cassius are Caesar

and Antony when Caesar sneers at Cassius’ “lean and hungry look”?

Is the eye meant to take in both parties at once? In performing

these scenes, the Globe players probably concentrated on making

the observation of Malvolio and the scornful characterization of

Cassius dramatically effective. That this frequently necessitated

the substitution of imaginary for real distance must have passed

unobserved both by the players and the audience.

Space, though flexible, was not amorphous. Principles of order in

staging existed independently of the stage façade and machinery.

As in Elizabethan graphic art during this period, the principles

were simple and derivative. The “primitive” art of the medieval

period had been suppressed by Henry VIII. No vital growth in a

secular art appeared to take its place. Save for some painters who

created original and masterly miniatures, among them the master

Nicholas Hilliard, the Elizabethans failed to develop a school of

graphic art and thus resorted to foreign artists or imitators. It

is not surprising, therefore, that the stage which developed at

this period was simple in composition and imitative in adornment.

Massive and symmetrical, not easily varied in its fundamental

appearance, its boards served any scene.

Evidence for fixing stage positions is scanty at best. The text of

a drama, unless it is accompanied by detailed stage directions,

does not contain the kind of evidence needed. Unfortunately, no

one at the Globe thought of preparing a _regiebuch_. Furthermore,

methods of rehearsal indicate that the pictorial arrangement of the

actors received little attention. Considering the history of the

Elizabethan acting company and the conditions of its repertory,

it is not unlikely that traditional patterns of arrangement

were retained and repeated. Novelty in the stage picture is

a characteristic of the director’s theater, not of the stock

company’s repertory. But, though the evidence for stage composition

is scanty, what evidence there is is consistent.

The simplest order in art is symmetrical balance. It is this type

of composition which one observes in the Globe plays from time to

time. At a banquet in _The Devil’s Charter_, Act V, scene iv, Pope

Alexander enters with three cardinals and three soldiers. The stage

direction reads,

The Pope taketh his place, three Cardinals on one side and

[three] captaines on the other.

[Sig. L1^r]

Poisoned at this banquet by the Devil, Alexander rushes to his

study,

Alexander unbraced betwixt two Cardinalls in his study

looking upon a booke, whilst a groome draweth the Curtaine.

[Sig. L3^r]

This might be an echo of Richard III’s position between the Bishops

as he receives the Lord Mayor’s embassy from London. A more

dramatic use of symmetry can be found in the finale of _Miseries of

Enforced Marriage_. At the last moment Scarborrow repents his wild

courses. Surrounded by the brothers and sister he has ruined, the

wife and children he has neglected, and the uncle he has abused, he

is deeply shamed.

Harke how their words like Bullets shoot me thorow

And tel mee I have undone em, _this side_ might say,

We are in want and you are the cause of it,

_This_ points at me, yare shame unto your house,

_This tung_ saies nothing, but her lookes do tell,

Shees married but as those that live in hel.

[Sig. K4^r. My italics]

The demonstratives indicate brothers and sister on one hand, the

uncle on the other, and his wife next to him.

This type of symmetry can be seen in Shakespearean plays also. At

one point in _Antony and Cleopatra_ Antony’s soldiers, while on

watch, hear the subterranean music which signifies, according to

one of them, that “the god Hercules, whom Antony lov’d,/Now leaves

him.” For the setting of the watch occurs the stage direction,

“They place themselves in every corner of the stage” (IV, iii,

7). What arrangement could be simpler? In the same play there is

another example. Antony and Caesar are to meet to settle their

dispute (II, ii). The scene opens with Lepidus urging Enobarbus

to “entreat your captain/To soft and gentle speech.” Then the two

monarchs of the world enter from opposite sides of the stage. I

quote at length to make the balance clear.

LEP. Here comes

the noble Antony.

(Enter Antony and Ventidius.)

ENO. And yonder, Caesar.

(Enter Caesar, Maecenas, and Agrippa.)

ANT. If we compose well here, to Parthia.

Hark, Ventidius.

CAE. I do not know,

Maecenas. Ask Agrippa.

LEP. Noble friends,

That which combin’d us was most great, and let not

A leaner action rend us. What’s amiss,

May it be gently heard. When we debate

Our trivial difference loud, we do commit

Murther in healing wounds. Then, noble partners,

The rather for I earnestly beseech,

Touch you the sourest points with sweetest terms,

Nor curstness grow to th’ matter.

ANT. ’Tis spoken well,

Were we before our armies, and to fight,

I should do thus.

(Flourish)

CAE. Welcome to Rome.

ANT. Thank you.

CAE. Sit.

ANT. Sit, sir.

CAE. Nay then.

[13-28]

And they sit, to discuss their grievances. From the entrance to

the final seating, the scene and dispositions are balanced. At the

end of this episode there is a formal symmetrical grouping: Caesar

seated with his two supporters in attendance facing Antony with his

two supporters in attendance. Between them, mediating the matter,

is Lepidus.

Throughout the Shakespearean Globe plays instances of this sort can

be found, not only in the arrangement of the actors but also in

the writing of the scenes. An extended example of verbal symmetry

occurs in _As You Like It_, where Rosalind vows to marry Phebe if

she marries any woman (IV, ii, 90-118). Often these symmetrical

arrangements are taken for granted because they seem dramatic and

do not disturb the flow of narrative. Yet occasionally we can

discern dramatic logic sacrificed for symmetrical arrangement.

This “failing” can be more graphically observed in the buildings

of the period and, therefore, I digress for a moment. A feature

of the great houses built as show places during the Tudor age was

the adherence to symmetrically balanced design. Usually a central

structure would be flanked by more or less elaborately developed

ells or wings, as at Wollaton Hall, Hatfield House, Charlton House,

or Hardwick Hall. The main hall was in the center, naturally, and

the quarters of the noblemen were in one wing. In the other wing

the buttery, scullery, or otherwise menial part of the household

was located. In both Wollaton and Hardwick Halls, the kitchen or

scullery occupies the front chamber of only one wing to balance

the opposite lordly wing.[2] From a functional point of view in

planning, the symmetrical arrangement did not satisfy the living

accommodations of the Tudor household. But from a visual point

of view, it represented a dignity and order that relatively

unsophisticated builders could create. Despite the obvious waste in

space, the visual need determined the structural design.

This tendency can be observed on the stage. I have already cited

the scene in _Twelfth Night_, when Malvolio “returns” Olivia’s

ring to Viola. Olivia had sent him to run after the “peevish” boy

to tell him that she would not take “his” ring (I, v, 318-323).

We should suppose that, in order to catch the boy, Malvolio would

have followed Viola on the stage. Yet the stage direction clearly

specifies that they enter “severally,” that is, from opposite sides

of the stage. The entrance is symmetrical but not logical.

The general thesis for symmetrical staging that I have advanced

must be qualified in two respects. First, the reliance upon

symmetrical arrangement was probably stronger in the earlier than

in the later period. The plays themselves change from a more

formal, balanced arrangement of speeches to a more colloquial,

asymmetrical arrangement. The balanced dirges of the various queens

in _Richard III_ (IV, iv) and the measured laments of Blanch in

_King John_ (III, i, 326 ff.) begin to disappear. However, they do

not wholly vanish during the Globe period.

Secondly, the principles of composition may not be readily

perceived in scenes involving only a few characters. Therefore,

in the Globe plays symmetry as an element of staging can be best

studied in group scenes, for it is a simple way to arrange groups

of actors. The nature of Elizabethan dramatic material made simple

balance not only the most feasible but also the most meaningful

method of composition.

II. STAGE GROUPING AT THE GLOBE PLAYHOUSE

In considering grouping on the Elizabethan stage, we should keep

in mind the basic conditions of production. During its periods

of rehearsal the Globe company was actively engaged in daily

performance. Within two weeks customarily, the actors had to

learn extensive parts and mount a multiscene play. In a certain

proportion of these scenes many characters appeared on stage. Once

presented the play was not repeated for some days. Furthermore,

the stage on which the actors played had poor sightlines. The only

area from which they could be seen by virtually all members of the

audience was at the center of the platform in front of the pillars,

at the very place where DeWitt’s Swan drawing shows a scene in

progress.

Although most scenes in the Shakespearean Globe plays require

five people or less on the stage at any one time, there are still

quite a number of scenes or sections of scenes in which more than

five people appear. In the fifteen plays of Shakespeare in the

Globe repertory, I count one hundred and sixty-six such scenes

or episodes, or an average of more than ten in each play. The

lowest proportion is 14 per cent in _Twelfth Night_, the highest

61 per cent in _Coriolanus_. Generally 20 to 30 per cent of a play

consists of what I term “group” scenes or episodes.[3]

In terms of the problems of staging, these group scenes fall into

four distinct categories. More than half of the group scenes,

eighty-eight, fall into category one. These are scenes in which

though there are actually five or fewer speaking characters on

the stage, the addition of one or more mute supernumeraries

increases the size of the group to six or more Almost all of these

mute supers fall into one of several distinct generic types,

easily recognizable and probably conventionally portrayed. The

most frequently recurring types are soldiers in thirty scenes;

attendants and servants in twenty-three scenes; and noblemen of one

sort or another in twenty-one scenes. A small but important type

consists of the crowds in _Julius Caesar_ and _Coriolanus_. The

rest of the supers come from various miscellaneous classes, such

as ladies, musicians, sailors, and so on. It is probable that the

stock-in-trade of the hired men and gatherers was a standardized

portrayal of such types. Problems in grouping must have been

solved as readily. The prevailing types, soldiers, attendants,

and noblemen, contain in their ranks and duties the rationale for

their positions upon the stage. Implied in the relationship of

servant to master or nobleman to king is an attitude of service

expressed in a characteristic manner. That this pattern was

representative of Globe plays as a whole is borne out by the

examination of the non-Shakespearean and non-Jonsonian plays in

the Globe repertory. Although in proportion there are fewer group

scenes in the non-Shakespearean plays than in the Shakespearean, in

the separation into types of group scenes, the same divisions are

evident.