The stagery of Shakespeare

THE STAGERY OF SHAKESPEARE.

The

Stagery of Shakespeare

By
R. Crompton Rhodes

Birmingham

Cornish Brothers Ltd
Publishers to the University

39 New Street
1922

TO

BARRY VINCENT JACKSON.

Acknowledgment.

To the Editor of The Times Literary Supplement, I am indebted
for permission to incorporate in this book two articles of mine
on " Shakespeare's Prompt- Books." To the Editor of The
Birmingham Post I am also indebted for the use of extracts
from a number of my articles and criticisms, and to the Editor
of The Stage for permission to reprint the appendix on the
Birmingham Repertory Theatre.

CONTENTS,

PAGE

PREFACE ix

CHAPTER

I. A SHORT SURVEY OF TEXTS . 1

II. STAGE DIRECTIONS . . 8

III. THE CURTAINS ... 25

IV. THE BALCONY .... 45
V. THE ASSEMBLED TEXTS . . 59

VI. CONTINUITY OF PERFORMANCE . 68

VII. PLACE, AND CHANGE OF PLACE :

'A THEORY . . 76

APPENDICES I

I. SOME THEORIES OF MR.

WILLIAM POEL ... 90

II. SHAKESPEAREAN METHODS AT
THE BIRMINGHAM KEPERTORY
THEATRE . . 94

NOTES 97

PREFACE.

THIS little book is an attempt to ascertain
the nature of Shakespeare's Stagery from an
intensive study of the Stage-directions in the
original texts in Quarto, authorised and
unauthorised, and in Folio. It involves a
survey of these texts, to determine the source
and relative value of the directions. Often
the comparative study of directions places
the texts in an entirely new aspect, as I have
tried to show in dealing with the " assembled
texts." So far as I know, this is the first
attempt to examine this large mass of
evidence, and to determine the relation
between the texts and the performances.
Such an examination must be dispassionate,
even if it leads to inconclusive results, as in
the case of continuity of performance.
Accordingly an explanatory theory of stagery
is sketched in a single and separate chapter.
The theory — "of the triple stage" — may be
considered a development of the theory of
" alternative scenes " as transformed by a
recognition of the vast importance of the

balcony as a scenic resource. The problem
of a modern producer is to replace or
reproduce the balcony.

My quotations have been deliberately
restricted to the original texts of Shakespeare,
although I have compared (with or without
citing) the directions for a particular situation
both with those in the source plays like
The Contention, or King Lear, and with those
in their late adaptations like Henry VI by
Crowne and King Lear by Nahum Tate.

Moreover I see no reason to introduce
extraneous problems by comparisons with
plays written for performance under circum-
stances which have no parallel in Shakespeare,
as those by Ben Jonson for the Children of
the Chapel. The single exception I have
made is to show the use of the device of
" discovery." This involves, of course, an
attempt to establish the continuity of practice
which connects the practice of drawing
curtains on the Elizabethan Stage with that
of drawing scenes on the Restoration Stage.

The playhouse and the library have both
played their part in the making of this book.
Most of the questions considered have been
provoked by the performances of Shake-
speare— some hundreds in all — during the

last decade, in London, Birmingham, Strat-
ford and elsewhere, which have fallen under
the view of a dramatic critic. To the
editor of The Birmingham Post I would here
record my gratitude for his generous
encouragement throughout that period.

The most extensive experiments in the
staging of Shakespeare in full text by
continuous action have been carried out
at the Stratford Memorial Theatre by Mr.
W. Bridges Adams, and at the Birmingham
Repertory Theatre by Mr. Barry Jackson.
To both of them I am indebted for friendly
counsel, although my views are not always
theirs. The practical compromises they have
effected between the methods of the
Elizabethan and the Victorian stage have
often suggested to me the solution of
difficulties. Again, although certain of my
arguments, notable as to pauses between
acts, are not acceptable to Mr. W. J.
Lawrence, his courtesy has been unremitting.
For other assistance and encouragement I
am indebted to Mr. Gordon Craig, to Mr.
L. P. Hadley, and to Mr. John Dover Wilson.

CHAPTEK I.
A SHORT SURVEY OF TEXTS.

THE printed texts of Shakespeare, in Quarto
and in Folio, must bear a certain relation,
direct or indirect, to the original " prompt-
books " — a convenient but not Elizabethan
term. Though this relation cannot be
determined with absolute precision, it can be
estimated in some measure by considering
the adequacy of a given text for use as a
prompt-book — of course, as if by an Eliza-
bethan prompter, with Elizabethan players,
and in an Elizabethan playhouse.

While Shakespeare was alive seventeen
Quartos from separate sources were published
of his plays. These are : —

1. Titus Andronicus . . 1594

2. Romeo and Juliet . . 1597

3. King Richard II . . 1597

4. King Richard III . . 1597

5. Love's Labour's Lost . . 1598

6. 1 King Henry IV . . 1599

7. Romeo and Juliet . . 1599

8. King Henry V . . 1600

2 STAGER Y OF SHAKESPEARE

9. The Merchant of Venice . 1600

10. Much Ado About Nothing . 1600

11. 2 King Henry IV . ' . 1600

12. A Midsummer Night's Dream 1600

13. The Merry Wives of Windsor 1602

14. Hamlet .... 1603

15. Hamlet .... 1604

16. King Lear . . . 1608

17. Troilus and Cressida . . 1609

To these must be added —

18. The Contention (1594) for its relation
with. 2 Henry VI, and 19. The True
Tragedy (1595) for its relation with
3 Henry VI.

A preliminary survey of these nineteen
texts as documents for the study of stagery
would result in their division into two classes
• — according to whether their directions are,
or are not, few, concise, orderly and formal.
The line of division is not precise, but the
difference is best approached through the
question of piracy.

The arguments as to piracy of the Quartos
— that is, as to their publication without
authority — have been stated with finality
from the bibliographical aspect by Professor
Pollard in Shakespeare's Fight with the
Pirates. The comparison of results, from

A SHORT SURVEY OF TEXTS 3

a theatrical aspect, is instructive. Of the
four piracies that he has determined, in
three cases — Romeo and Juliet (1597),
Henry V (1600) and The Merry Wives of
Windsor— the directions have a certain
informality, as of observations rather than
instructions. The lack of finish and quality
in parts of the dialogue is also apparent in
the directions. In The Merry Wives of
Windsor this is conspicuous, as in the
instructions for the first of the three scenes
where FalstafE is fooled :

1. Enter Mistress Ford with two of her men and
a greate buck basket. 2. Enter Mistress Page.
3. FalstafEe stands behinde the arras. 4. Sir
lohn goes into the Basket, they put clothes over
him, the two men carries it away. 5. Foorde
meets it and all the rest, Page, Doctor, Priest,
Slender and Shallow. 6. Exit omnes. 7. Enter
alle.

The entire absence of directions in the
Folio makes direct contrast between the
texts of The Merry Wives of Windsor im-
possible ; but it is possible in Romeo and
Juliet. In Act III, Scene 3 (where the Nurse
finds Romeo in the Friar's cell), the un-
authorised Quarto of 1597 has —

1. Nurse Knockes. 2. Shee knockes againe.
3. He rises. 4. He offers to kill himself e & Nurse
snatches the dagger away. 5. Nurse offers to go
in and turnes againe.

4 STAGERY OF SHAKESPEARE

The Folio, which follows the authorised
Quartos, has merely " Knocke " thrice, as
the other directions would be obvious to an
Elizabethan player. Therefore these descrip-
tive notes are not in the manner of the
prompt-book, but of an observer. About
Hamlet (1603) there is less certainty. Without
doubt it was published without authority,
but perhaps printed from an old " stolne "
prompt-book, with the addition of certain
directions in the descriptive manner, as
" Enter Ofelia with a lute, and her haire
downe, singing." This difference remarked,
it must be grouped among the unauthorised
texts with the other three piracies and the
two early versions of the York and Lancaster
plays.

This leaves the thirteen texts which
Professor Pollard has claimed as being
authorised. Of these thirteen, ten are
homogeneous, despite the minor peculiarities
of each. But in three the directions have a
style which may be considered literary rather
than theatrical. Those of Titus Andrcmicus
are elaborate and literary, while those of
1 King Henry IV have been given also a
literary form, though less elaborately. King
Lear may be styled an " authorised piracy."

A SHORT SURVEY OF TEXTS 5

Professor Pollard suggests that the authority
for its publication was obtained from the
King's Players by blackmail — John Busby
threatening to print King Leir, the old play,
with the happy ending. The speculation
suggests another : perhaps Busby had already
in his possession a surreptitious copy, with
notes on stage-business as observed in the
theatre, and threatened that if he were not
allowed to print King Lear he would print
King Leir. The ten remaining texts in Quarto
were printed from the prompt-books or from
accurate and unedited transcripts of them.

The closer the study of the texts, the more
clear will it become that they must not be
regarded as a theatrical homogeneity.
Actually almost thirty years of theatrical
practice may separate the directions of two
of the elaborate texts — Titus Andronicus in
the Quarto of 1594, and King Henry VIII
in the Folio of 1623. The resources of the
new Globe Theatre of 1614 and of the old
Globe Theatre of 1599 must inevitably have
been different. Again, while Love's Labour's
Lost demands no more than what Quince
found in the clearing of the forest outside
Athens :

6 STAGERY OF SHAKESPEARE

A maruailous conuenient place for our
rehearsall. This greene plot shall be our
stage, this hauthorne brake our tyring
house,

some of the early histories, as 3 Henry VI,
demand a most elaborate structure. They
may not all be versions which were presented
in regular playhouses, for many of them are
manifest adaptations, as if for Court. The
longer plays, above all the authorised versions
of Hamlet, may have been arranged for
connoisseurs at the private theatre in Black-
friars. Even in the time of Betterton the
full Hamlet was too long for ordinary public
representation, and a reprint of the Second
Quarto "as it was acted in the Duke of
York's Theatre " in 1676 has numerous
passages marked off as not being played.

On the standard of the directions in these
ten Quartos, the plays in the First Folio may
be sorted into three classes for their value as
prompt-books : —

(1) The inadequate—

The Two Gentlemen of Verona, The
Merry Wives of Windsor, Measure for
Measure, The Winter's Tale, and
King John.

A SHORT SURVEY OF TEXTS 7

(II) The elaborate—

Titus Andronicus, the three parts of
King Henry VI, The Tempest, King
Henry VIII, Coriolanus, and Timon
of Athens.

(III) The simple--

All the remaining plays.

" For their value as prompt-books " does
not imply that the twenty-three simple plays
were, of necessity, directly printed from a
prompt-book unaltered. In the Folio in
some simple plays the directions bear signs
of literary revision, and in others of theatrical
accretion. The Othello in Quarto of 1622
and the Othello in Folio of 1623 were obtained
from different sources, as were the texts of
King Richard HI and King Lear in Folio
and in Quarto. A closer examination of
their stage directions reveals much that has
been obscure in the history of Shakespeare's
texts — but, though my conclusions have been
kept in mind throughout this book, their
formal exposition is not strictly relevant to
the present theme.

CHAPTER II.
STAGE DIRECTIONS.

THE Elizabethans were not accustomed to
putting a marginal note to show that an
actor " suited the action to the word." In
The Tempest, when Caliban said " He fall
flat," he fell flat ; and when Trinculo,
following him, said " My best way is to creepe

under his Gaberdine I will here

shrowd till the dregges of the storm be past,"
he crept under the gaberdine and "shrowded."
To an Elizabethan, the directions in the later
acting-editions that Caliban " lies down," and
Trinculo " lies down behind Caliban," would
have been purely gratuitous. When the
action was " suited to the word," no stage-
direction was required. No great ingenuity
is needed to " amend " the texts by express-
ing these implied directions, though the labour
has occupied a long line of commentators,
many of whom have given their excuse that
the stage-direction " required by the text "
has either " dropped out " or " been edited
away." The great mass of these modern

STAGE DIRECTIONS 9

directions were never recorded in the
Elizabethan prompt-books, where stage
direction was given only where the action
or the movement was not the natural
corollary to the dialogue.

Where the movement became intricate, as
in many of the histories, the directions were
made express. An example of essential
instructions for " business," or "pantomime,"
is found in 1 King Henry IV, where the fights
at Shrewsbury (Act V, Sc. 3) demand no less
than eighteen directions in the First Folio.
Taken together, they give an almost perfect
scenario of action.

1. Alarums, excursions, enter the King, the Prince,
Lord John of Lancaster, and Earle of Westmorland.

2. (Prince) Exit. 3. Enter Dowglas. 4. They
fight, the K. being in danger. 5. Enter Prince.
6. They Fight, Dowglas flyeth. 7. (King) Exit.
8. Enter Hotspur. 9. (Prince and Hotspur)
Fight. 10. Enter Falstaffe. 11. Enter Dowglas,
he fights with Falstaffe who fals down as if he
were dead. The Prince killeth Percie. 12.
(Prince) Exit. 13. Falstaffe riseth vp. 14. Takes
Hotspurre on his backe. 15. Enter Prince and
lohn of Lancaster. 16. A Retreat is sounded.
17. (John and Prince) Exeunt. 18. (Falstaffe)
Exit.

In the Quarto of 1598 is one more direction,
for Prince Hal : "He spieth Falstaffe on the
ground " ; but the scenario is still not quite

10 STAGERY OF SHAKESPEARE

complete, because in both Quarto and Folio
there is one " implied action," no express
direction being given that Westmoreland and
Prince John exeunt, though they depart when
John says : —

We breath too long : Come cosin Westmorland,
Our duty this way lies, for heauens sake come.

1 King Henry I V is an exceptional text in
many ways, as is King Henry VIII, which
belongs, perhaps, to a quarter of a century
later. The directions in a single scene
comprehend all the types of direction that
are found in the plays of Shakespeare —
formal movement, manner, costume, music
and effects, as well as " movables " or
furniture.

1. Hoboies. A small Table under a State for the
Cardinall, a longer Table for the Guests. Then
Enter Anne Bullen, and diuers other Ladies &
Gentlemen as Guests at one Doore, at an other
Doore enter Sir Henry Guilford. 2. Hoboyes.
Enter Cardinall Wolsey, and takes his State.

3. Drum and Trumpets. Chambers discharg'd.

4. Enter a Seruant. 5. All rise and Tables
remov'd. 6. Hoboyes. Enter King and others
as Maskers, habited like Shepheards, vsher'd by
the Lord Chamberlaine. They passe directly
before the Cardinall, and gracefully salute him.
7. Choose Ladies, King and An Bullen. 8.
Musicke, Dance. 9. Whisper. 10. Exeunt with
Trumpets.

STAGE DIRECTIONS 11

The directions in Elizabethan play-books
may therefore be divided into four classes :
(I) those of formal movement, (II) those
demanding noises and effects, (III) the
descriptive notes, (IV) those concerning the
scenical divisions.

The directions for formal movement are
enter, exit, and manet, with their variations.
The exit is frequently implied, as in Macbeth,
where, although the ghost of Banquo is twice
marked to enter, there is no instruction for
him to leave the stage. These directions
were inserted gradually, as in A Midsummer
Night's Dream, after Bottom cried out in a
strange voice " If I were faire, Thisbie I were
onely thine," Quince shrieked " We are
hanted, pray masters, flye masters, helpe " ;
whereupon they all fled. For this they
needed no formal direction, and there is none
in Fisher's Quarto of 1600. But in "Roberts' "
Quarto of " 1600 " (i.e., Jaggards of 1619),
exit is marked for Quince, the action still
being left implied for the others, as is else-
where the case when one member of a group
speaks the cue on which they all go out.
Again, in the First Folio this has been changed
to " The Clownes all Exit," which was not
altered to " Exeunt " till the Third Folio.

12 STAGERY OF SHAKESPEARE

This custom of revision accounts for the
defective Latinity of many directions, though
not for the change of " staies all the rest " in
The Contention, Part 1, into ' manet the rest "
in the corresponding direction of King
Henry VI, Part 2. Revision is apparent also
in The Comedy of Errors, where a double
instruction is given for the same persons.
" Runne all out " and " Exeunt omnes, as
fast as may be, frighted." It is safe to say
that the prompt-book had merely " Exeunt
omnes," the additions being made for reasons
external and literary, and not internal and
theatrical.

The directions for noises like " shout
within," for effects like " thunder and
lightning," and for music like " sennet,"
" flourish," and " tucket " need no expansive
illustrations.1

The descriptive notes concern exceptional
circumstances of manner, appearance, cos-
tume and property. They are most common
in the unauthorised Quartos, as in Romeo and
Juliet, the Quarto of 1597 having " Enter
luliet somewhat fast and embraceth Romeo,"
and " Enter Nurse wringing her hands with
the ladder of cordes in her lap," where the
Quarto of 1599 has only " Enter luliet " and

STAGE DIRECTIONS 13

" Enter Nurse with cordes." Again, in
Hamlet, where the unauthorised Quarto of
1603 has " Enter Ofelia playing on a Lute,
and her haire downe singing," the author-
ised Quarto of 1604 has " Enter Ophelia,"
which in the First Folio becomes " Enter
Ophelia distracted." The First Folio has a
few examples like " Enter the Queene with
her haire about her eares," in King Richard
III, where also is found " Enter Richard and
Buckingham in rotten Armour, maruellous
ill fauoured," the Quarto having only " Enter
Duke of Gloster and Buckingham in Armour."
In The Merchant of Venice is " Enter Morochus,
a tawnie Moore all in white and three or foure
followers accordingly " ; and in Alls Well
that Ends Well is " Enter yong Bertram "
(etc.) " all in blacke." These descriptive
notes are rare, and, of course, are usually
attached to a note of entrance, where they
were considered as implied by the dialogue
or imposed by the situation, they were not
inserted.

Costume is difficult, because it was first
prescribed by oral instruction, afterwards
becoming traditional. But to show the
state of the texts as to costume, it is best to
isolate a small group of allusions and

14 STAGERY OF SHAKESPEARE

directions, as those for appearance in night-
gowns.

In four texts a man is directed to appear
" in his night-gown," but only one of them
is found in the First Folio where, in The
Tragedie of Julius Ccesar, is " Thunder and
Lightning. Enter Julius Caesar in his
night-gowne." Again, in 2 King Henry IV,
where the First Folio has " Enter King with
a Page " to speak of " 0 Sleepe. 0 gentle
Sleepe," the First Quarto has "Enter the
King in his night-gowne alone." Here, it
is not unreasonable to suppose that any
player, who had to lament in a bed-chamber
that he could not sleep, would wear his
" night-gown," so the instruction may be
considered implicit. Brabantio called from
sleep in Othello has the same attire prescribed
in the First Quarto but not in the First Folio.

In Hamlet, when the Ghost shows himself
to the Prince, who is with his mother, where
the First Folio has "Enter Ghost" the
unauthorised Quarto of 1603 has " Enter
the Ghost in his night-gowne. ' ' The costume
is scarcely implied by " My Father in his
habite as he lived." His previous appear-
ance in armour is implied : though in
neither of the Quartos nor in the Folio is

STAGE DIRECTIONS 15

there a mark of costume for the entrances
upon the platform. "Arm'd at all points
exactly Cap a Pe"

In Macbeth there is no direction that
Macbeth appears in his night-gown after the
murder of Duncan, as it is prescribed by
Lady Macbeth saying " Get on youre
Night-Gowne."

Even in the elaborate texts costume is
often left implied. In 2 Henry VI it is
directed that " Enter Duke Humfrey and
his Men in Mourning cloakes," when they
await the entry of the Duchess " in a white
sheet " of penance. But elsewhere in the
play costume is not prescribed by directions,
as in the amusing scene where Duke Humfrey
exposes an imposter who pretends that he
has received his sight by a miracle at the
shrine of St. Alban. The Duke questions
the man as to the colour of his clothes. From
this it appears that Duke Humfrey wears a
" Cloake of Red, Master, as Red as Blood,"
and a " Gowne of Black, forsooth, Coale-
black, as iet," but there are no actual
directions to this effect.

Similarly in 1 Henry VI, when Duke
Humfrey is at the Tower Gates, to him enter
the Bishop of " Winchester and his men in

16 STAGERY OF SHAKESPEARE

Tawney coates." But it is the dialogue, not
the directions, that speak of Duke Humfrey's
men wearing " Blew Coats." This device of
contrast in colour as between " Blew " and
" Tawney " for bodies of opposed forces must
have been common throughout the plays of
Shakespeare. Furthermore in King Henry V,
before Agincourt, the King is directed to
enter with " his poore souldiers " whose
stained and " warre-worne coats " contrast
with the fine bright French attire — a
distinction always violated in modern
practice.

It is a little curious to find that in The
True Tragedy of Richard Duke of York (1595),
and also in The Whole Contention, Part 2 (1619)
the entrance of Yorke and his men is directed
" With Drunime and Souldiers with White
Roses in their hats " and of Henry's
" Souldiers with Red Roses in their hats,"
the descriptive note of costumes is not found
in the corresponding direction of King
Henry VI, Part 3.

The great regard of the Elizabethans to
the wearing of sumptuous costume is not
reflected in the directions. All the cere-
monious habiliments of a coronation are
comprehended in a word or phrase, the King

STAGE DIRECTIONS 17

entering " with his traine," or "in pompe,"
or " crowned/'

The directions for the procession to the
coronation of King Henry V at the close of
2 King Henry IV are curt. In the Quarto
is :

1. Enter Strewers of rushes. 2. Trumpets sound,
and the King and his traine pass ouer the Stage.
After them, Enter Falstaffe, Shallow, Pistoll,
Bardolfe and the Boy. 3. Enter the King and
his traine.

In the Folio is :

1. Enter two Groomes. 2. Enter Falstaffe,
Shallow, Pistoll, Bardolfe and Page. 3. The
Trumpets sound. Enter King Henrie the Fift,
Brothers, Lord Chiefe Justice.

The Folio has no indication of the pro-
cession, which is a hint that the two texts
of this play were based upon distinct
performances.

The return from the coronation in Richard
III appears in Actus Quartus Scena Secunda
of the Folio as

" Sound a Sennet. Enter Richard in pompe,
Buckingham, Catesby, Ratcliffe, Louel."

In the First Quarto this is :

" Enter Richard Crowned, Buckingham, Catesby
and other Nobles."

Again, where the Quarto directs, " He
ascendeth the throwne," the Folio has only

18 STAGERY OF SHAKESPEARE

" sound" (i.e., a sennet), the ascension being
implied.

On the other hand, the great exception is
King Henry VIII, in which there are many
instances of the importance of costume. Of
course the element of pageantry imposed the
necessity for definite and elaborate instruc-
tions, not only as to costume, but also as to
the disposition of players about the stage.
The order of the procession for the Coronation
of Anne Bullen is set out with much precision,
though it seems as if inserted in the text
after a performance, one hint being in the
tense of "he wore a Gilt Copper Crowne."
It follows :

The Order of the Coronation.

I . A liuely Flourish of Trumpets.
2.>vThen two ludges.

3. Lord Chancellor, with Purse and Mace before
him.

4. Quirristers singing. Musicke.

5. Maior of London bearing the Mace. Then
Garter, in his Coate of Armes, and on his head
he wore a Gilt Copper Crowne.

6. Marquesse Dorset, bearing a Scepter of Gold,
on his head a Demy Coronall of Gold. With
him, the Earle of Surrey bearing the Rod of
Siluer with the Doue, Crowned with aa Earles
Coronet Collars of Esses.

7. Duke of Suffolke, in his Kobe of Estate, his
Coronet on his head, bearing a long white
Wand, as High Steward. With him, the Duke

STAGE DIRECTIONS 19

of Norfolk, with the Rod of Marshallship, a
Coronet on his head. Collars of Esses.

8. A Canopy, borne by foure of the Cinque-Ports,
vnder it the Queene in her Robe, in her haire,
richly adorned with Pearle, Crowned. On each
side her, the Bishops of London, and Winchester.

9. The Olde Dutchesse of Norfolke, in a Coronall
of Gold, wrought with Flowers, bearing the
Queene' s Traine.

10. Certaine Ladies or Countesses, with plaine

Circlets of Gold, without Flowers.
Exeunt, first passing ouer the Stage in Order and
State, and then A great Flourish of Trumpets.

The fourth class, which concerns the
scenical divisions, is the most difficult of all.
The doors, the curtains, and the balcony
were constantly used in Elizabethan pro-
duction. Yet it is little more than an
accident that we can trace their use in
Shakespeare. If we were confined to the
authorised Quartos, without reference to
plays published surreptitiously or posthu-
mously, we could scarcely find thirty
examples in Shakespeare, mostly concerned
with the stage-doors. Though the principle
of the " implied action " is fundamental
and far-reaching, it cannot account for all
the apparent deficiencies.

The stage had three ways of entrance —
to the fore-stage by a door on either side,
and to the after-stage by a middle door ;
but the middle door, which was known as

20 STAGERY OF SHAKESPEARE

" the gates " in the histories and tragedies,
was not always looked upon as " a door."

To show that " the gates " was the middle
door may be cited from The Whole Contention,
Part 2 (1619), a set of directions which were
taken, with some changes in spelling only,
from The True Tragedy of Richard Duke of
Yorke (1595) :

1. Enter the Lord Maior of Yorke upon the Walls.

2. Exit Maior. 3. The Maior opens the doore,
and brings the Keies in his hand.

During the dialogue " the doore " is spoken
of as " the gates," as by Edward :

So my Lord Mayor, these gates must not be shut.

Although the main entrance was through
the side doors, they are mentioned in
Shakespeare only where both are to be
used at the same time, as by two contending
forces or opposed trains. This type of
direction is found most often in the histories
and tragedies, and takes two forms — the first
as in Cymbeline, where " Enter Lucius
lachimo and the Romane Army at one doore ;
and the Britaine Army at another," and the
second as in King John, where " Enter the
two Kings with their powers, at seuerall
doores." It is rare in the comedies, a notable
exception being A Midsummer Night's Dream,

STAGE DIRECTIONS 21

where " Enter the King of Fairies at one
doore, with his traine, and the Queene at
another with hers." Sometimes the direction
concerns only two persons, as in King Lear,
where the Quarto has " Enter Kent, and a
Gentleman, seuerally."

Although " the doors " of the directions
are the two side doors, the third door is not
a great difficulty. However, the direction
for entry " at one door " is continued some-
times by "at the other," sometimes by
" at another." In King Henry VIII both
are used. In the First Folio " at the other "
is used in three other texts, these being
2 Henry VI, King Richard III, and Titus
Andronicus. " At another " is used in eight
other texts : A Midsummer Night's Dream,
King John, King Henry V, 3 Henry VI,
Troilus and Cressida, Coriolanus, Anthony and
Cleopatra, Cymbeline — an example from
Anthony and Cleopatra being " Flourish.
Enter Pompey at one doore with Drums and
Trumpet : at another, Caesar, Lepidus,
Anthony, Enobarbus, Mecenus, Agrippa,
Menas with Souldiers marching."

The same entrance appears in both forms
in the two texts of King Henry V, for where
the unauthorised Quarto has :

22 STAGERY OF SHAKESPEARE

Enter at one doore, the King of England and his
Lords. And at the other Doore the King of France,
Queene Katherine, the Duke of Burbon and others.

the First Folio has :

Enter at one doore, King Henry, Exeter, Bedford,
Warwicke, and other Lords. At another, Queene
Isabel, the King, the Duke of Bourgogne, and
other French.

The instance is not conclusive, but con-
firmation that the third entrance was, or
was not, counted as a door merely from a
personal point of view is found from Pericles,
in the First Quarto of 1609, " as it hath been
diuers and sundry times acted by his
Maiesties Seruants, at the Globe on the
Banck-side," where both terms are used
in descriptions for " Dombe-Shews " —

Enter at one dore Pericles talking with Cleon
all the traine with them : Enter at another dore
a gentleman with a Letter to Pericles. Pericles
showes the Letter to Cleon : Pericles gives the
Messenger a reward and Knights him. Exit
Pericles at one dore and Cleon at another.

Enter Pericles at one doore, with all his trayne
Cleon and Dioniza at the other. Cleon shewes
Pericles the tombe. Whereat Pericles makes
lamentation, puts on sack cloth and in a mighty
passion departs.

The spelling as " doore " and " dore " points
to the work of two different hands.

An unusual instance occurs in 2 King
Henry IV. The Quarto opens Act 1, Scene 2,

STAGE DIRECTIONS 23

" Enter Lord Bardolfe at one doore." He
obviously crossed the stage, and the Porter
opening " the other " (implied, but not
mentioned), answered at once. Here the
folio has only " Enter Lord Bardolfe and
Porter," without " seuerally." And in the
next scene at the opening it directs " Enter
Falstaffe and Page," obviously on one side
and a little later " Enter Chief Justice and
Seruant," obviously on the other, which
appeared in the later acting-editions as
" Enter Falstaf , L." and " Enter Chief Justice,
R." Even assuming that the Elizabethan
custom was to work the stage mainly from
" one door," there were hundreds of cases
where " the other " was used. Yet a generous
estimate, in all the canon of Shakespeare, in
Quartos and Folios — excluding, of course,
simple reprints — there are not more than
fifty stage directions where the doors are
mentioned ; and always for simultaneous use
in entrance. What is the conclusion ? It
is either that, with unexampled industry and
absolute precision, they were absolutely
deleted from the printer's copy, or they were
never in the prompt-book. For the prompt-
book was not a complete self-contained
manual of instruction in stage management

24 STAGERY OF SHAKESPEARE

and, though the chief means of regulating
the rehearsal and performance of plays, it
was not the only requisite. There was also
the " platt," a remembrancer in the form of
an extract from stage-directions with ad-
ditions. Even recognising the far reach of
the implied action in histrionics, not one of
these printed texts of Shakespeare — even
those that seem elaborate — is self-contained
for the purposes of stage management.

CHAPTER III.
THE CURTAINS.

WHILE a study of Elizabethan stagery shows
the peculiar importance of the curtains in
the Elizabethan playhouse, they were never
mentioned in Shakespeare's directions. For
the purpose of attack, it is convenient to
assume that three terms — the arras, the
traverse, and the curtains — cover variations
of the same device, which was to provide a
recess, an inner stage, or an after stage,
where players could be revealed at will.

In the formal directions, but for certain
minor exceptions which will be noted in due
order, Shakespeare's rule of silence is
absolute. Explicit descriptions showing the
force of this device must therefore be sought
elsewhere, and Marlowe provides an example
in Tamberlame, Part 2 (1590), with the death
of Zenocrate :

1. The arras is drawen and Zenocrate lies in her
bed of State, Taraberlaine sitting by her : three
Phisitians about her bed tempering potions.

2. They call musicke. 3. The musicke sounds,
and she dies. 4. The Arras is drawen.

26 STAGERY OF SHAKESPEARE

The after-stage was therefore devised for
scenes, such as death-bed scenes, where it
was more effective for persons to enter or
depart unseen. They could be " discovered,"
as in : —

(I) David and Bethsabe by Peele, where is found
" The Prologue-speaker before going out draws
a curtain, and discovers Bethsabe with her
maid, bathing over a spring."

(II) The Tragedy of Dido by Marlowe, where is found
" Here the curtains draw, there is discouered
lupiter, dandling Ganiraed on his knee and
Mercury lying asleepe."

(Ill) The Duchess of Malfi by Webster, where is
found " Here is discouered behind a traverse
the artificial figures of Antonio and his children
appearing as if they were dead."

In my opinion, these were not notes from
the prompt-book, but descriptions devised
for readers. Nevertheless, we have to
reconcile the absence of directions by the
curtains in the authorised texts of Shake-
speare with the frequency of their use. Is
this accounted for by the " implied action " ?

A most convenient example is the last
scene of Othello.2 The initial direction is
" Enter Othello, and Desdemona in her bed."
The instruction for Desdemona to " Enter "
had no relation to actual appearance before
the audience, but was a direction for the

THE CURTAINS 27

player to take his position behind the cur-
tains. In Othello the curtains are drawn
four times : —

(I) by Othello, who opens them discovering
Desdemona, his cue seeming "Put out the
light."

(II) by Othello, who closes them when he says,
" Soft : by and by, Let me the curtains draw,"
as Emilia calls " at the doore " ;

(III) by Emilia, who opens them on hearing
Desdemona's moaning.

(IV) By Montano or another actor, who closes them
on Lodovico, saying to lago —

Looke on the Tragicke Loading of this bed :
This is thy work : The Object poysons Sight.
Let it be" hid.

The four directions have clearly not been
" edited away," since they are absent from
the Quarto of 1622, which is far more
circumstantial than the Folio of 1623. In
this scene the Quarto directs : —

1. He Kisses her. 2. He stifles her. 3. Emilia
calls withir. 4. She dies. 5. Othello falls on the
bed. 6. The Moore runnes at lago. lago kills
his wife. 7. She dies. 8. Gra. within. 9. Enter
Lodovico . . . Cassio in a chaire. 10. He stabs
himself e. 11. He dies.

Of these in the Folio appear only three,
each in another form, being : -

2. He smothers her. 3. ^Emilia at the door,
11. Dyes.

28 STAGERY OF SHAKESPEARE

In the Quarto there is another important
difference. The initial direction being only
" Enter Othello with a light," the presence
of Desdemona is not indicated except by the
marginal name when she speaks. Now,
although the curtains were closed in Act V,
Scene 2, the audience knew that Desdemona
was behind. For in the preparatory scene,
Act IV, Scene 3, before the Willow Song,
Othello had made his innocent-sinister com-
mand, " Get you to your bed on th' instant."
And at the close of the scene Desdemona
passed towards her bed, and Emilia, drawing
the curtains upon her mistress, departed by
the stage-door. The dramatic continuity
with the preparatory scene is ensured by this
theatrical device — obvious, although not
indicated in Quarto or Folio.

There is a similar continuity in Act IV of
Romeo and Juliet, between Scenes 3 and 5,
the first of which is known as the " potion
scene." The " stolne and surreptitious "
Quarto of 1597 is explicit in its descriptions.
Scene 3 has " She falls upon her bed within
the Curtaines," and Scene 5 " They all but
the Nurse goe forth casting Rosemary on
her bed and shutting the curtens." In none
of the five texts of Romeo and Juliet printed

THE CURTAINS 29

under authority are the curtains mentioned,
and the principle of implied action fails to
apply.

A clue to the use of curtains comes from
one puzzling direction in 2 Henry VL which
is the curt note " Bed put forth " in Act III,
Scene 2. Mr. A. W. Pollard says in
Shakespeare's Figlit with the Pirates (p. 65)
that this prompter's note

reveals to us the primitive stage management,
which thrust forth a bed with Gloucester's body
on it, into the middle of the stage, instead of
having it ceremoniously brought in according to
the directions in modern editions, " Exit Warwick"
and " Re-enter Warwick and Others bearing
Gloucester's body on a bed."

There is no particular reason to think that
" Bed put forth " implies a lack of ceremony,
or anything but " Bed carried forth." There
are many instances of formal directions
whose curtness has an unceremonious sound.
In King John the Folio directs the appearance
of the dying King with " lohn brought in,"
where The Troublesome Reigne of 1591 has,
in the corresponding place, " Enter King
lohn carried betweene 2 Lords."

Moreover, the directions in 2 Henry VI
show its stage-management under peculiar
conditions was not primitive but full of
resource and invention. Besides, it is a most

30 STAGERY OF SHAKESPEARE

valuable document for the study of Eliza-
bethan stagery, since it can be compared not
only with an earlier form — The Contention of
1594 — but also with a later adaptation,
The first part of King Henry VI, by John
Crowne, of 1681. Many scenes are common
to all three plays. Instead of " Bed put
forth," The Contention of 1594 has :—

Warwicke drawes the curtaines and shews Duke
Humphrey in his bed.

and 1 King Henry VI of 1681 has :—

The scene is drawn and the Duke of Gloucester
is shown dead in a Chair.

the cue being " Ho ! open these doors."

Clearly, the body of Duke Humfrey was
discovered on the after-stage in the earlier
and the later versions, the only difference in
stage-management being that where the
Elizabethan inner chamber was partitioned
off by curtains, the Restoration inner chamber
was partitioned off by doors (of painted
canvas), but in both cases the partition was
drawn apart. Why was this changed in the
middle play, 2 Henry VI, of the First Folio ?
The principle of coupled scenes is a
reminder that though all three titles lay
stress " on the death of the good Duke
Humfrey," his "murther" was not enacted

THE CURTAINS 31

according to the text of the First Folio.
Instead it is replaced by the short scene
(Act III, Scene 2, section 1), headed " Enter
two or three running over the Stage from the
Murder of Duke Humfrey." The direction
in The Contention for the suppressed scene is
explicit and vivid :—

Then the curtains being drawne Duke Humphrey
is discouered in his bed, and two men lying on
his brest, and smothering him in his bed. And
then enter the Duke of Suffolke to them.

In this direction, printed in 1594, we have
positive example that the platform stage had
already within its compass a picture-stage,
where the essential use of stage-curtains was
displayed in full colour.3 In his play of 1681,
John Crowne gave the following directions
in the course of this scene. After a discussion
between Cardinal Beaufort and three
murderers : —

1. The Scene is drawn and the Duke of Gloucester
is seen sitting and reading in his night gown.

2. They lay hold on the Duke and strangle him.

3. They place the body in a chair, shut the scene
and exit.

Here, again, we have the middle version of
three differing from the others, because the
after-stage is not used. Yet in the next
scene (Act III, Scene 3) we have the death
of Cardinal Beaufort in a frenzy of madness :

32 STAGERY OF SHAKESPEARE

Enter the King, Salisbury, and Warwicke, to the
Cardinal in bed.

which appears in the corresponding note in
The Contention as : —

Enter King and Salisbury and then the curtaines
be drawne and the Cardinall is discouered in his
bed, rauing and staring as if he were mad.

A sharp distinction must always be made
between " the curtaines," double and a
permanent fixture, and " the curtaine," a
single and temporary contrivance. Often,
a " curtaine " must have been placed
" tandem " behind " the curtaines," but in
this play (2 Henry VI of 1623) I believe that
" a curtaine " was set obliquely across each
side of the main stage, the body of Humfrey
being shown, say, on the right, and the
death-bed of Beaufort on the left. This is
pure speculation, but the whole of its
directions, as compared with those of The
Contention, show that this Folio version was
prepared for performance under special
conditions, and not, I think, in an ordinary
playhouse. Here, after the death of Cardinal
Beaufort, King Henry says " curtain," not
" curtaines " : —

Close up his eyes, and draw the curtaine close
And let us to our Meditations.

THE CURTAINS 33

In all examples cited, the curtains were
mentioned because they had acquired a
localised significance by the coincidence that
they are taken to represent a primitive
partition, the curtains which made an inner
room in an Elizabethan mansion ; but it is
clear that they were often used when no
mention is made of them in dialogue or
directions. The clue is found from The
Merchant of Venice, in the casket scenes,
which form a triple sequence with a single
scene between each pair. The first and last
lines of Act II, Scene 7 (with Morocho) are : —

(1) Goe drawe aside the curtaines and discouer
The seuerall caskets to this noble Prince.

(2) A gentle riddance : draws the curtaines, go.
Let all of his complexion choose me so.

Act II, Scene 9 (with Arragon), opens and
closes with similar precision ; but in Act III,
Scene 1 (with Bassanio), we search in vain
for any cue, although the curtains must have
been drawn as before.

This scene is a most valuable link in the
chain. It is clear proof that the curtains
were used where there is no mention of them
in directions or in dialogue. A curious
instance comes from the comparison between
King Lear in the First Folio and in the First

34 STAGERY OF SHAKESPEARE

Quarto, which, so far as directions are con-
cerned, are two independent texts. The
scene is Act IV, Scene 5. The King has gone
mad, and Cordelia, with Kent by her, is
discussing his illness with a Gentleman : — •

Gent. So please your Maiesty,

That we may wake the King, he hath slept
long ?

Cor. Be gouern'd by your knowledge, and proceede
I'th sway of your owne will : Is he array'd ?
Enter Lear in a chaire carried by seruants.

Gent. I Madam : in the heauinesse of sleepe
We put fresh garments on him.
Be by good Madam when we do awake him.
I doubt of his temperance.

Cor. 0 my deere Father, restauratian hang

Thy medicine on my lippes, and let this kisse
Repaire those violent harmes

Now, it is rather strange that while an
obsequious gentleman is desiring permission
to awaken the King, the old man is being
carried about by servants. Actually, in the
First and Second Quartos, there is no direc-
tion for " Lear in a chaire," nor is his entrance
marked or presence shown, the initial
direction being " Enter Cordelia, Kent and
Doctor " ; but between " I doubt not of his
Temperance " (the correct reading) and
" 0 my deere father " are two lines, obviously
deleted from the text in the Folio : —

THE CURTAINS 35

Cor. Very well.

Doct. Please you draw near, louder the musicke
there.

From this it is clear that they moved towards
his bed, and drew apart the curtains, the
action taking place on the after-stage. For
the change there are two possible reasons,
the first being that the after-stage was not
available, the second being the desire of the
actors that this pathetic scene of the " very
foolish fond old man " should be played as
close as possible to the audience.

A similar instance is found in 2 King
Henry IV, where the modern editions make
from Actus Quartus Scena Secunda two
scenes which they call Scene 4 and Scene 5.
The King falls with apoplexy in the Jeru-
salem Chamber, and on recovering :

King. I pray you take me vp, and beare me hence
Into some other chamber : softly pray :
Let there be no noyse made (my gentle friends)
Vnless some dull and fauourable hand
Will whisper Musicke to my wearie spirit.

War. Call for some Musicke in the other Roome.

King. Set me my crowne upon my Pillow here.

Here, again, the action was continuous, and
the curtains were drawn, showing a bed of
State, to which the King was borne. Yet
on the modern stage these are often enacted
as separate scenes in different settings.4

36 STAGERY OF SHAKESPEARE

The usage is again illustrated in King
Henry VIII, by Scenes 2 and 3 of Act V,
which the First Folio marks as a single
continuous scene. This divides readily into
three sections, each enacted in a different
scenical division : —

(i) On the fore stage, which represents an
ante-chamber, Archbishop Cranmer is kept
in waiting among " Boyes, Groomes, and
Lackeyes," by a Keeper on command of the
Lords in Council. His disgrace is witnessed
by the King's Physician, who passes through.

(ii) On the balcony, which represents
" a window above," where the Physician tells
the King of the incident, and they look down
upon the ante-chamber. This window is
curtained, as is shown by Henry saying
" drawe the curtaine close."

(iii) On the full stage, which represents the
Council Chamber.

During sections (i) and (ii) the curtains
were closed, giving emphasis that the place
was an ante-chamber,6 which would not have
been apparent if the " State and Councell
Table " were visible : —

A Councell Table brought in with chayres and
stooles, and placed vnder the State. Enter Lord
Chancellour, places himself at the vpper end of the
Table on the left hand : a Seate being left void
aboue him, as for Canterburies Seate, Duke of

THE CURTAINS 37

Suffolke, Duke of Norf olke, Surrey, Lord Chamber -
laine, Gardiner, seat themselves in order on each
side. Cromwell at the lower end, as Secretary.

When the curtains are opened, only the
State, or Royal Chair, is discovered, the
other movables being carried in by servants.
The continuity of method in stagery is shown
by the version of King Henry VIII printed
by BeU in 1773. "As it was acted at
Co vent Garden." The only change in
this scene was that the whole of the
movables were discovered when " the
scene opened " (which was the development
of " the curtains being drawn "). Cranmer
still remained throughout the three sections
without leaving the stage, and, when the
Keeper told him " Your Grace may enter
now," he " approached " the table.

In another fifty years, a change of method
was imposed because of the disuse of the
windows above the proscenium doors, and
Henry could not overlook the ante-chamber.
So in Cumberland's edition of 1824, as then
" acted at Covent Garden," the short
dialogue in section (ii) was suppressed, and
the action was discontinuous, Cranmer
leaving the ante-chamber in the first scene,
and entering the Council chamber in the
second.

38 STAGERY OF SHAKESPEARE

These examples give indisputable proof
that the case for " primitive stage-manage-
ment/' so industriously propagated of late,
has no foundation.

In The Theory of the Theatre (1911) Mr.
Clayton Hamilton says of the Elizabethan
stage that " As there was no curtain, the
actors could never be discovered on the
stage "• — a statement that shows the utmost
confusion of thought. Even now it is unusual
for the stage-curtains to be used at any time
during the course of the play, the " act-drop "
being used between the acts. Actually the
very characteristic that distinguishes the
Elizabethan Stage from the English Stage
after the Restoration was not the absence of
curtains, but the precise opposite — their
use as a scenical contrivance. The
Restoration Stage retained them as an
architectural feature, their only theatrical
use, then as now, being to denote the
beginning and end of a play ; but as a scenical
contrivance they were replaced by painted
scenes on framed canvas, whose manifest
origin was shown by their " drawing " apart.

The Elizabethan curtains were constantly
used to " discover " persons and set-scenes
with heavy movables. In hundreds of cases

THE CURTAINS 39

the direction to " enter " would have been
given as "is discovered " if the term had
been used by Shakespeare. Although (I
think) it points to a traverse, and not the
ordinary curtains, a striking instance is
found in the last scene of The Winter's Tale,
which is headed by " Enter Leontes,
Polixenes, Florizell, Perdita, Camillo, Paulina,
Hermione (like a statue), Lords, etc." The
direction for Hermione to enter had no rela-
tion to appearance before the audience, as
she is not seen until Paulina draws a curtain
aside, this being clear since Leontes after-
wards implores, " Doe not drawe the
curtaine."

Another valuable pointer is found in the
frequent directions " A Banquet prepar'd "
and " A Table prepar'd," as contrasted with
"A Banquet brought in" and "A Table
brought in." "A Banquet prepar'd " shows
that a banquet had been laid out on
the after-stage for discovery. The term had
the same meaning after the Restoration, for in
Macbeth, where the First Folio has " Banquet
prepar'd," in the version of 1674 by Davenant
is found " Scene opens. A Banquet pre-
pared." A banquet demanded not only
such " properties " as dishes and flagons, but

40 STAGERY OF SHAKESPEARE

" movables," as tables and stools. In
Macbeth a state — a canopied chair or throne —
was set for Lady Macbeth.

If the Folio text of Hamlet were all that
existed, it would be impossible to show a
definite reason for thinking that the after-
stage was used in preparing for the last scene
(Act V, Scene 2).

The initial direction in the First Folio is : —

Enter King, Queene, Laertes and Lords, with
other Attendants with Foyles, and Gauntlets,
a Table and Flagons of Wine on it.

but in the authorised Quarto of 1604 is
found : —

A table prepared — Trumpets, Drums, and Officers
with Cushions, King, Queene, and all the State,
Foiles, daggers, and Laertes.

Of course, as in these instances, the setting
of properties upon the after-stage in no way
precluded, but usually demanded the action
— at least in part — taking place upon the
fore-stage. Indeed, in very few scenes
was the action confined to the after-stage,
a conspicuous example being Actus Secundus,
Scena Secunda, of Cymbeline, where lachimo
comes from the trunk in the bedchamber of
Imogen. The initial direction is " Enter
Imogen, in her Bed, and a Lady," which
means that when the curtains are drawn,

THE CURTAINS 41

Imogen is discovered reading " the Tale of
Tereus " with a taper burning on the table
by her side. Here, also, of course, is dis-
covered the trunk, which is not mentioned
in the scene until the direction " Enter
lachimo from the Trunke." On the depar-
ture of lachimo, the curtains were closed,
whence the curious survival in some modern
editions of the direction " the scene closes."
Again, because " movables " were used in
a scene, it does not always follow that they
were discovered on the after-stage.6 The
scene in Coriolanus (Act I, Scene 3), whose
initial direction is : —

Enter Volumnia and Virgilia, mother and wife to
Martius : They set them downe on two lowe
stools and sowe.

was played on the fore-stage, since the after-
stage could not be used " with set movables "
in two successive scenes and it was needed
for the next scene, which is before the
Gates of Corioli.

This is the only direction in Shakespeare
which points to the early origin of " Two
chairs to the front. It's a custom in our
profession," as it is styled in Tom Robertson's
David GarricJc (1864).

The Elizabethan stage was a more re-
sourceful place than is commonly supposed.

42 STAGERY OF SHAKESPEARE

A hint of the possibilities of the curtains is
found in King Richard III, where the crux
of stage management is found in Act V,
Scene 3, when the tents of Richard and
Richmond are required alternately and then
simultaneously. There seems only one
solution. The after-stage must have been
divided into two compartments by an arras
hung in the middle, so that the curtain on
each side could be drawn, leaving each half
covered or uncovered at will.7 Of course, no
trace of this appears in the printed text, but
that actual tents were not pitched is made
certain by the otherwise unnecessary insist-
ence upon them in the preparatory dialogue.
Richmond, in thirty lines, mentions his
" tent " three times : —

" Give me some Inke and Paper in my Tent."
" Desire the Earle to see me to my Tent."
" Into my Tent, the Dew is rawe and cold."

and Richard uses the word twice. If this
device of a double traverse were used so
early as 1594, it is quite possible that it was
used frequently under less peculiar circum-
stances, for instance, in the alternation
between Orsino's house and Olivia's in
Twelfth Night.

Also the device may have been used
" tandem " more often than " abreast " — a

THE CURTAINS 43

curtain behind the curtains. To my mind
" the curtains " mean always the double
and permanent fixture, and " the arras " and
" the curtain " a single and temporary con-
trivance, as clearly a playhouse movable as
a bed or state. I suspect the tandem device
in King John, where Hubert is discovered in a
room furnished with a large chair, and
perhaps also with a table, and with him are
the executioners, who shortly hide behind
the arras. The arras was often, in short,
the symbolic setting of a room- — the mark of
an interior scene. Like the curtains, the
arras is not mentioned in the formal directions
of Shakespeare, although in The Merry Wives
the surreptitious Quarto of 1602 has "Falstaff
stands behinde the arras," a descriptive note
which is the sign of a surreptitious text.
There are no directions to use the arras in
Hamlet, but in Act III, Scene 4, where
Polonius says " He silence me een here," in
the unauthorised Quarto of 1603 Corambis —
the early Polonius — says " He shrowde my
selfe behinde the Arras," in which " shrowde"
seems to imply a narrow space.

The possible use of a traverse is suggested
by two elaborate texts. In King Henry VIII
is found " Exit Lord Chamberlain, and the

44 STAGERY OF SHAKESPEARE

king drawes the curtaine and sits reading
pensiuely," a second scene following the
former (in which the King is not an actor)
without a pause by the device of drawing the
curtain, from within, where he has been
waiting unseen.

In The Tempest, " Heere Prospero discouers
Ferdinand and Miranda, playing at Chesse,"
almost certainly by drawing a curtain. This
is the only instance of the use of " discouer "
— a technical word — in the actual directions.

CHAPTER IV.
THE BALCONY.

THE central structure of the stage in an
Elizabethan playhouse bore a resemblance
to the gates of a mediaeval city, with walls
above an archway, which was convenient for
the historical chronicles. The problem as to
whether the form of the playhouse determined
the form of the play, or the playhgjrs'e the
play*, is a mere futility.8

In the early plays the most common
direction concerning the balcony is for its
use as " the walls " of a besieged city.

The early usage9of the balcony as the walls
is shown by the death of Arthur in The
Troublesome Raigne of King lohn (1591),
where the directions are : —

1. Enter Young Arthur on the walles. 2. He
leapes and bruising his bones, after he was from
this trance speaks thus. 3. He Dyes.

His body is carried off by the lords departing
on the words, " Then let us all convey the
body here."

46 STAGERY OF SHAKESPEARE

In the First Folio of King John the two
directions for the death of Arthur are simply
" Enter Arthur on the walles " and " Dyes.'5
His leap was implied by the words : " The
wall is high : and yet will I leape downe."

The disappearance of the permanent
middle balcony, and its replacement by a
scenical erection, is shown by the corre-
sponding place in Colley Gibber's alteration
of Shakespeare, Papal Tyranny in the Reign
of King John (1745), the directions being : —

1. Arthur on the walls of a Castle. 2. He leapes
from the Walls and is covered by a parapet
between his Body and the Audience. 3. As they
are passing the Castle, Salisbury sees the body of
Arthur in the Ditch. 4. They bring the body
forward.

The use of " the walls " is really insepar-
able from the use of the gates. An extract
from Coriolanus (Act 1, Scene 4), which com-
prises the assault on Corioli, shows the con-
junctive use. The directions are : —

1. Enter Martius. Titus Lartius, with Drummes
and Colours, with Captaines and Soldiers, as before
the City Corialus. 2. They sound a Parley :
Enter two Senators with others on the Walles of
Corialus. Drum me afare off. 3. Alarum farre
off. 4. Enter the Army of Volsces. 5. Alarum,
the Romans are beat back to their Trenches.
Enter Martius cursing.

Then follows a passage of dialogue :

THE BALCONY 47

Look to't, come on,

If you'l stand fast wee'l beate them to their Wiues

As they vs to our Trenches followes.

Martins followes them to the Gates and is shut in.
So now the gates are ope : now proue good Seconds
Tis for the followers Fortune, widens them
Not for the flyers : Marke me, and do the like.
Enter the Gate.

1 Sol. Fool-hardinesse, not I.

2 Sol. Nor I.

3 Sol. See they haue shut him in.
All. To th' pit I warrant him.

This double direction to enter the gate — one
(at the time of action) theatrical and impera-
tive, and one (as a preparative summary)
literary and descriptive — is the sign of an
edited text, as distinct from an unaltered
prompt book. The final directions are : —

Enter Martius bleeding, assulted by the enemy.
They fight and all enter the City.

In 1 Henry VI the gates and walls are
used constantly in conjunction. The third
scene is placed in modern editions as in
" London, before the Tower." In the First
Folio the directions are : —

1. Enter Gloster with his Seruing men. 2.
Glosters men rush at the Tower Gates and
Wooduile the Lieutenant speakes within. 3.
Enter the Protector at the Tower Gates Winchester
and his men in Tawney coatcs. 4. Here Glosters
men beat out the Cardinalls men, and enter in the
hurly burly the Maior of London, and his Officers.
5. Here they skirmish again. 6. Exeunt.

48 STAGERY OF SHAKESPEARE

During the same play the central structure
becomes in turn the Gates of Orleans (Act I,
Scene 6), of Rouen (Act III, Scene 2), of
Bordeaux (Act IV, Scene 2), and of Angiers
(Act V, Scene 3). The usual method of
localising was by a line early in the scene,
as Talbot's :

Go to the Gates of Burdeaux, Trumpeter.

Above the middle balcony was built the
playhouse tower, which was sometimes, but
rarely, used as for the stage-action.

In 1 Henry VI (Act I, Scene 4) the Master
Gunner of Orleance " tells " his Boy : —

How the English, in the Suburbs close entrencht
Went through a secret Grate of Iron Barres,
In yonder Tower to ouer-peere the Citie,

when " Enter Salisbury and Talbot on the
Turrets." From the context " the Turrets "
might have been either the Tower or the
balcony ; but in Act III, Scene 2, La Pucelle,
who has entered " the Gates of Roan " by a
" happy Stratageme " of disguise, has pro-
mised to specify :

Here is the best and safest passage in

By thrusting out a Torch from Yonder Tower,

the next direction being " Enter Pucelle on
the top, thrusting out a Torch burning," at
which Bastard says :

The burning Torch in yonder Turret stands.

THE BALCONY 49

Here "Yonder Turret" and "Yonder
Tower " were not the terms for the balcony,
since a little later the Dauphin and others
joined La Pucelle " on the Walls," obviously
another place, where they remain till they
" Exeunt from the Walls," and later, issuing
from the Gates below " they flye."

The Tower seems to have been used also
in The Tempest, where it is directed in Act III,
Scene 3 :—

" Solemne and Strange Musioke : and Prosper on
the top (inuisible)."

The Tower must not be confused with the
Tower of London, as in 2 Henry VI, where is
" Enter Lord Scales upon the Tower walking.
Then enter two or three citizens below," for
there Scales is clearly walking " on the Walls."
The balcony was not confined to the central
structure, but stretched on either side, and
was perhaps continuous with the gallery
along the side walls of the playhouse. From
the side balconies the fore stage and after
stage were visible, and players upon the side
balconies were visible from the fore stage
and after stage. This is clear from the scene
in the Parliament House which opens
3 Henry VI, where the balcony was used by
the soldiers of the Duke of York, who has

50 STAGERY OF SHAKESPEARE

entered with Warwick and other Lords. His
instruction, as he sits on the " Chaire of
State " upon the after stage :

Stay by me my Lords,

And Souldiers stay and lodge by me this night.

is followed by a direction " They goe vp "
for the soldiers. Later, when Warwick says
to King Henry :

Doe right vnto this Princely Duke of Yorke,
Or I will fill this House with armed men,
And ouer the Chaire of State, where now he sits
Write up his Title with vsurping blood.

the direction is " He stamps with his foot,
and the Souldiers shew themselves," and last,
when Exeter says :

Now York and Lancaster are reconciled :
Accurst be he that seeks to make them foes.

the direction is " Senet. Here they come
downe."

In Titus Andronicus (1594) the balcony
becomes " the Senate House." Professor
Herford thinks the debate in the Senate
House was transferred to the main stage,
but this is clearly contradicted by the
directions :

Flourish. Enter the Tribunes and Senators aloft.
And then enter Saturninus and his Followers at
one doore, and Bassanus and his Followers at the
other, with Drum and Colours,

THE BALCONY 51

after which comes " Enter Marcus Andronicus
aloft with the Crowne." Then Saturninus
and Bassanus having dismissed their followers,
there is a " Flourish. They go vp into the
Senat house," where they await " A long
flourish till they come downe."

In Antony and Cleopatra the balcony
became the monument into which the Queen
of Egypt locked herself from Caesar. When
it was ascended from the main stage it was
by ladders, as in Romeo and Juliet by a ladder
of ropes, and as in King Henry V by scaling-
ladders. In Antony and Cleopatra, which is
not divided into acts and scenes in the First
Folio, there are two scenes which take place
in the monument, marked in modern editions
as Act IV, Scene 15, and Act V, Scene 2.
The first may be looked upon as the outside
of the monument, and was played mainly on
the balcony, and the second as the inside of
the monument, played mainly on the stage
below. In the first is the death of Antony,
in the second the death of Cleopatra, both
the superb consummation of tragedy. To
find that a scene like the death of Antony
was enacted in the balcony is to see its
dramatic possibilities in an entirely new way,
but I am convinced that the death of Antony

52 STAGERY OF SHAKESPEARE

was not originally played in the balcony. The
case may be stated simply. Cleopatra, after
her last quarrel with Antony, is advised by
Charmian to go

" To th' Monument, there look your selfe,"

and Cleopatra, taking up the thought,
cries : —

" To th' Monument :
Mardian, go tell him I have slaine my selfe —

. . . . Hence Mardian
And bring me how he takes my death to th'
Monument."

Wherever next she appeared, this reiteration
of " monument " would localise the place as
the monument, so there is no need to suppose
any structural contrivance, other than the
balcony, to suit the stage-direction : —

Enter Cleopatra and her maids aloft, with
Charmian and Iras.

Then Diomed comes below with news of
Antony : —

" His death's vpon him, but not dead.
Looke out o' th' other side your Monument.
His Guard have brought him thither."

Cleopatra cries : —

" Helpe, Charmian, helpe Iras, helpe ; helpe

Friends
Below, let's draw him hither."

Antony demurs, but at last consents, and

THE BALCONY 53

" They heaue Antony aloft to Cleopatra,"
and after his death the women "Exeunt,
bearing of (i.e., off) Anthonies bodye."

Looking back over the earlier scenes we
find that wherever " Monument " is men-
tioned, the line has twelve or fourteen
syllables, as in

" Lockt in her monument ; she had a prophesying
feare."

which plainly shows that the words have
been altered, as if they were added during a
rapid revision.

And in Act V, Scene 2, there is a great
difficulty. Obviously Proculeius, the mes-
senger from Caesar, enters below, as to her
gates, while she speaks to him from " aloft/'
although there is no stage-direction. The
decisive passage in the First Folio runs : —

Pro. This He report (deere Lady)

Haue comfort, for I know your plight is
pittied

Of him that caus'd it.
Pro. You see how easily she may be surpriz'd.

Guard her till Cesar come.

The continuous arrangement of the dialogue
(and the short line) shows that some altera-
tion or abridgment has taken place, and it
seems likely that here the soldiers had taken
scaling ladders and climbed them stealthily

54 STAGERY OF SHAKESPEARE

while Cleopatra was talking, and then seized
her from behind. Yet there is no indication,
in dialogue or direction, that she descended,
although obviously when " she kneels " to
Caesar it is below on the main stage. She
died " on her bed," which would be placed
on the after stage. All this is perfectly
clear, but the act has been so badly " cut "
that no trace of her movements has been left.
But, in my opinion, the scenes " aloft," both
carefully written, were late alterations for a
revival — maybe when the Globe Theatre,
which had been burnt down, was rebuilt
two or three years before Shakespeare's
death.10

Of course, if a scene like the death of
Antony could be enacted upon the balcony,
its use was by no means restricted, as has
often been stated. In many plays I believe
that one scene in every four was played,
wholly or in part, upon the balcony ; but at
present I shall only cite some of the more
obvious instances. It should be noted that
while " the balcony " is not an actual term
in the directions of Shakespeare, it is con-
venient and comprehensive to cover the three
actual terms " aloft," " above/' and " at a
window." The three terms seem to have been

THE BALCONY 55

used interchangeably, for in Othello, where the
Quarto of 1622 has " Enter Brabantio at a
window," the Folio of 1623 has "Enter
Brabantio above " ; and in Romeo and
Juliet, where the unauthorised Quarto of
1597 has " Enter Romeo and Juliet at the
window," the authorised Quarto of 1593 has
" Enter Roineo and Juliet aloft." Again, in
2 Henry VI, where Dame Eleanor Cobham
is described as " aloft," in The Contention
she is described as being " aboue." But it
is not always positive that " aboue " and
" aloft " mean the balcony, as in some cases
there is strong supposition that the playhouse
tower is meant.

The identity of "aloft" and "at a
window " seems to be important, because it
solves the difficulty of the constructive defect
in The Taming of the Shrew.

In the old play of 1594, The Taming of a
Shrew, the device of an induction and a
conclusion, beginning and ending with
Cristopher Slie outside an alehouse door,
converts the inner play into a pretended
dream, and enables Slie and his supposed
servants to act as presenters throughout.
As a mimic audience in the old play, they
were placed in " the fairest chamber," where

56 STAGERY OF SHAKESPEARE

they remained during the presentation, the
first direction being " Enter two with a table
and a banquet on it, and two other, with
Slie asleepe in a chaire, richly apparelled and
the music plaieng." A clear indication that
this " fairest chamber " was the localised
balcony is found in the Lord's speech near
the end :- —

And put him in his own apparel againe

And lay him in the place where we did find him

Just vnderneath the alehouse side below.

They " did find " him outside " the doore,"
where he had been lying in a " droonken
sleepe."

In The Taming of the Shrew of the First
Folio, Sly disappears before the play is well
begun. He was bustled out of " the doore "
by the Hostess in the first part of the
Induction, and the second part was enacted
upon the balcony — as is shown by " Enter
aloft the drunkard with attendants, some
with apparel, Bason and Ewer and other
appurtenances," while the direction at the
end of the first scene of the actual comedy
reads : " The Presenters above speches," and
after a few sentences " They sit and marke."
But they do not seem to " sit and marke "
for long, since they do not speak again, the
reason for their defection being that the

THE BALCONY 57

balcony is required in Actus Quartus when
" The Pedant lookes out of the window."

However, I am afraid this is too plausible.
It supposes an absence of side-balconies ; it
is almost incredible that Shakespeare can
have originally allowed Sly to slip away in
so casual a manner. This was more likely
the result of a posthumous revision, when
Sly at some revival was required to play
another part.

However, the great importance of these
two scenes is that they show the use of
movables and properties on the balcony,
from 1591 onward. Another important
point is that from King Henry VIII it is clear
that " the window " was which " aboue " had
a curtain that could be drawn.

Two more instances without directions, but
clear from the context, may be cited. In
Julius Ccesar the orations over Caesar's body
were delivered from the balcony. The initial
direction is " Enter Brutus and goes into the
Pulpit," which in the dialogue is called " the
publique chair e." Both ascents and descents
of Antony and Brutus took time ; but, of
course, the " chaire " may have been a
" property."

58 STAGERY OF SHAKESPEARE

The balcony was localised as the platform
in Hamlet. The Ghost of King Hamlet was
seen in Act I, Scene 1, by Horatio and his
fellows " vpon the platforme " where they
" kept the watch," and Hamlet says :—

Vpon the Platforme twixt eleven and twelve
He visit you.

He is therefore " vpon the platforme " in
Scene 4, and when the " Ghost beckens
Hamlet " he follows, and they next appear
below on the main stage, as is made certain
because the " Ghost cries vnder the Stage "
for them to " sweare " their secrecy.11

CHAPTER V.
THE ASSEMBLED TEXTS.

IN the First Folio there are four plays, all
printed for the first time under authority,
which have no stage-directions, or very few,
and they cannot therefore have been set up
by the printer from the prompt-book. They
are The Two Gentlemen of Verona, The Merry
Wives of Windsor, Measure for Measure, The
Winter's Tale, and King John. The problem
is, what was the source of their text ?

Now in August, 1623, when the First Folio
was being printed, the Master of Revels made
a note that " the allowed book " (i.e., the
prompt-copy endorsed with his license for
performance) of " An olde play " called The
Winter's Tale was missing, but on the word of
Master Heminges that " nothing prophane
had been added or reformed " he returned it
without fee. This " reformed " manuscript
must have been the printer's copy for the
First Folio.

The control of a theatrical performance
required two partial transcripts from the

60 STAGERY OF SHAKESPEARE

prompt-book — (1) a set of parts, complete
with cue, dialogue, and certain directions,
and (2) a detailed extract from the stage-
directions to serve as his remembrancer.
Among other things this would contain scene
by scene a list of the characters in order of
their appearance, so they could be called
to stand by. This was known as the
"platt" or "plot." Now if an "allowed
book " were lost it would be easy for the
prompter to take his remembrancer as a
guide for sorting the players'parts and keeping
them in order whilst pasting them together
into one continuous text. This reconstructed
manuscript would inevitably lack many
directions — for instance, those to the
musicians and, moreover, some of the
entrances and exits would be pasted over.
The Winter's Tale bears all the stigmata of an
" assembled " text. The entrances of the
players are not, as is usual, distributed in the
places where they are due to appear, but each
scene is headed by a list of characters in the
order of their appearance, and ends- with
" exeunt omnes." In all the five acts there
are not more than a dozen incidental entrances
and exits, and those are mostly of minor
characters. Apart from these, there are two

THE ASSEMBLED TEXTS 61

cursory notes among the lists of characters —
(i) in Act III, Scene 3, it says: "Enter
Hermione (as to her triall) " ; and (ii) in
Act V, Scene 3, " Enter Hermione (like a
statue)."

These parenthetical notes would have an
origin no more remote than the fact that the
players spoke of these two scenes as " the
Trial Scene " and " the Statue Scene." " As
to her triall " was a comprehensive reminder
that the scene was conducted with all the
ceremony and circumstance of a High Court
of Justice, and for its stage-management may
be compared the directions for the trial of
Katherine in King Henry VIII, which are
almost unaltered in modern editions. Enter
" Hermione (like a statue) " of course did
not imply " visibly to the audience," as the
Queen took her place behind a traverse.

There are only three more directions, the
first of which is one of the most peculiar
stage directions in all Shakespeare. For when
the ship that bears the Lord Antigonus and
the pretty babe Perdita " hath toucht upon
the Desarts of Bohemia " the " poore
gentleman " is exhorted to " exit, pursued
by a beare."12 Another direction is " Heere
a daunce of shepheards and shepheardesses."

62 STAGEKY OF SHAKESPEARE

To me this absence of any but the curt,
absolutely essential directions for coherent
reading is conclusive proof that The Winter's
Tale could not have been printed from
the prompt-book.

The Merry Wives of Windsor has no
directions except the list of characters in the
order of their appearance, and the " exeunt
omnes " which marks a clear stage and the
close of a scene. A few minor differences
might be noted in The Two Gentlemen of
Fmma,13while Measure for Measure has the
entrances in their due place, but no stage
directions. I conclude that these three, like
The Winter's Tale, were all " assembled "
texts from the players' parts. Against this
it may be suggested that the directions were
deliberately omitted in printing — " edited
away " is the term. Now a prompt-book
was a valuable property, the chief tool of the
player's trade, and, because endorsed by the
license, the sole authority for performance.
It would not be submitted to the systematic
deletion of directions, for that would destroy
its character and prevent its use as a prompt-
book. Nor would the prompter have looked
with favour at receiving in exchange for his
book an awkward tome like the Folio, even

THE ASSEMBLED TEXTS 63

if he could have patiently reinstated all the
deleted directions. Again, his precious
possession would not be lent lightly, and even
if the " allowed book " were not missing, as
in the case of The Winter's Tale, Heminge and
Condell may have set out to make a con-
tinuous text from the players' parts as being
quicker than a transcript and less valuable
than the prompt-book. Of course, the players'
parts were not left in their possession, but in
the custody of the prompter, who, among
other things, was the theatrical librarian. It
was dangerous to leave these parts loose,
because years before Merry Wives had been
pirated in a text which was built around two
stolen parts — Falstaff s and the Host's.
These parts have " style," while the rest of
the play reads like a mixture of a transcript
from an incompetent report by stenography
(" scarce one word trew," said another
Elizabethan playwright in like case) and a
clumsy paraphrase.

To show what the missing stage directions
from The Merry Wives were like, I copy out
these " descriptions " — the term is advised —
from the pirated Quarto of 1600 :—

1. Enter Sir John with a buck's head on him.

2. Enter Mistris Page and Mistris Ford. 3. There
is a noyse of homes, the two women run away —

64 STAGEKY OF SHAKESPEARE

Enter Sir Hugh like a Satyre and boys drest like
Fayries, Mistrise Quickly like the Queene of
Fayries : they sing a song about him and after-
wards speake. 4. Here they pinch him and sing
about him and the Doctor comes one way and
steales away a boy in red. And Slender another
way and takes a boy in greene ; And Fenton
steals Mistris Anne being in white. And a
noyse of hunting is made within ; and all the
Fayries runne away. 5. Falstaffe pulles off of his
buck's head, and rises up and enter M. Page,
M. Ford, and their wives, Shallow, Sir Hugh.

The absence of similar but more formal
directions in the Folio is, I think, absolute
proof that the play was not set up from a
prompt book. So we are thrown back on
the hypothesis of an assembled text.

King John was also an assembled text, in
process of reconstruction as a prompt-book,
and most of the directions are clearly derived
from the dialogue. The initial direction of
Actus Primus, Scena Secunda (Act II,
Scene 1, in modern editions) is :

Enter before Angiers, Philip King of France, Lewis,
Daulphin, Austria, Constance, Arthur,

Where the prompt-book would have said :

Enter at one doore Philip King of France, Lewis
(Daulphin) and at another Austria, Constance,
Arthur."

" Before Angiers " has been taken from the
opening line, " Before Angiers well met

THE ASSEMBLED TEXTS 65

braue Austria." Again, in the same scene,
the dialogue :

Some Trumpet summons hither to the Walles
These men of Anglers.

has suggested the direction :

" Trumpet sounds. Enter a Citizen upon the
Walles."

The other directions are few, being mostly
for entrance " on the walls " or "to the
gates." A striking instance of their absence
is found in the scene between Hubert and
Arthur,14 which is Actus Quartus, Scena
Prima, of The Life and Death of King lokn
in the First Folio. Hubert says to the
Executioners :

Heate me these Irons hot, and looke thou stand
Within the Arras : when I strike my foot
Vpon the bosome of the ground, rush forth in
And binde the boy which you shall finde with me
Fast to the chaire. . . .

The Executioners depart and return on the
command :

Come forth : do as I bid you do.

but there are no directions in either case, nor
for their departure in :

Hub. So stand within : let me alone with him.
Ex. I am best pleas'd to be from such a deede.

Beyond " Enter Hubert and Executioners,"
"Enter Arthur," and the final "Exeunt,"

66 STAGERY OF SHAKESPEARE

there is no direction whatsoever in the entire
scene, although the " business " was con-
siderable. The contrast is made clear by an
extract from The Troublesome Raigne of King
lohn (1591) — where, by the way, the arras is
not mentioned : —

Hubert. Stale within that entry, and when you
heare me crie God Saue the King, issue
sodainly foorth, lay hands on Arthur,
blade him in this chayre, wherein (once
fast bound) leaue him with me to finish
the rest.

Attendants We goe tho loath. Exeunt.

The final instruction being given later :— -

Hubert. God send you freedom and God saue
the King.

They issue forth.

Obviously, the reconstruction of an
assembled text might have been so careful
and complete that it would be indistinguish-
able from a prompt-book. Yet the infor-
mality of directions in certain texts, notably
in the First Quarto of King Lear and in the
three parts of Henry VI, can be explained
only by the hypothesis of an assembled text,
as against " the less authentic and less
complete transcripts in private hands " of
Sir Sydney Lee's theory of textual sources.
To explain the full force of this hypothesis
is outside the scope of the present study,

THE ASSEMBLED TEXTS 67

but the assembled text is a factor which
cannot now be disregarded, and so far as
the comedies at least are concerned, Mr.
John Dover Wilson arrived at very similar
conclusions to mine, at the same time, but
by other ways.

CHAPTER VI.
CONTINUITY OF PERFORMANCE.

WHETHER they appeared with authority or
without, and whether in first or later editions,
the plays of Shakespeare printed while he
was alive were not divided into Acts. That
is to say, the thirteen authorised and seven
unauthorised Quartos had all the same
peculiarity, which is an entire absence of
any direct evidence that there were pauses
during the performance. Moreover, the
construction of the plays shows that there
was no need for pauses for any purpose, and
indeed their entire movement is against any
interval. From this there seems no doubt
;that at the old Globe the plays of Shake-
speare were performed in one unbroken
continuity.15

But the first new Quarto published after
his death, the Othello of 1622, is partly
divided into acts ; though having no division
between " Actus 2 Scena 1 " and " Actus 4."
So, in the First Folio of 1623, only six plays
are printed in continuous text, while eleven

CONTINUITY OF PERFORMANCE 69

are divided into acts, and eighteen are not
only divided into acts but also divided into
scenes. Hamlet has Actus Primus divided
into three scenes only, while the first scene
of the Second Act, marked "Actus Secundus,"
is followed by " Scena Secunda," after which
the text is continuous. Sometimes the
divisions are not fully marked, The Taming
of the Shrew in the Folio not having Actus
Secundus. If such texts were printed from
prompt-books, there can have been no
relation between the act markings and the
pauses during the performance.

The six continuous texts are two histories —
the second and third parts of King Henry VI,
and four tragedies — Troilus and Cressida,
Romeo and Juliet, Timon of Athens, and
Antony and Cleopatra, While there was no
hint either for or against revivals of the
others about 1623, Romeo and Juliet was,
without doubt, then, as always, one of
the most popular of Shakespeare's plays,
since Leonard Digges, in his poem " To
the Memorie of the deceased Author,"
is loud in praise of the " Passions of Juliet
and her Romeo " ; but as the Folio text of
this play was printed without alteration
from one of the late Quartos, it would

70 STAGERY OF SHAKESPEARE

not affect an argument that these six texts
had been for some years immune from
the prompter's attention.

There is left the large mass of plays all
divided into acts, and some also subdivided
into scenes. The question of the scene
marking is of no great importance. In one
early Quarto the surreptitious Romeo and
Juliet of 1597, while the first half of the play
is undivided, in the second half the scenes
are separated by a printed ornament.
Division into scenes was merely a question
of drawing a line across the book each time
there was a clear stage after an exeunt omnes.™
Its relation to place was a coincidence, for,
as in Merry Wives of Windsor, Scenes 1 and 2
of Act 1 are obviously continuous in time
and place. In theory, an act is a phase of
dramatic development, but in the Folio the
practice has often no relation to the theory.
The divisions are often purely arbitrary —
a notorious example being Twelfth Night.
The divisions in King John are negligible :
Actus Secundus consists of a colloquy
between Constance, Arthur, and Salisbury,
only eighty lines in all, at the end of which
Constance declares :

. . . . Here I and sorrowes sit

Here is my Throne, bid kings come bow to it.

CONTINUITY OF PERFORMANCE 71

and at once the Kings of France and England
come to her, the action being continuous,
though the Folio marks their entrance as
Actus Tertius, Scena Prima. Again, in
King John, Act IV and Act V are both
marked as being " Actus Quartus."

The phases of action in King Henry V are
divided by four speeches by Chorus, yet the
Folio begins Actus Secundus with the third
chorus, leaving the second in the middle of
Actus Primus, and having none for Actus
Quartus, so the pauses cannot conceivably
have taken place where the acts are marked
in the Folio.

In A Midsummer Night's Dream the division
of the " game of blind man's buff," which takes
place in the wood, into three acts is obviously
arbitrary, and pauses during its course
cannot have been permitted under any
rational system of stage-management. Yet
this play has the only direction in all
Shakespeare that has any possible connection
with act pauses. Curiously enough, in
his Textual Introduction to The Tempest,
Mr. John Dover Wilson, in arguing for
absolute continuity of performance during
the life of Shakespeare, cites this direction
as evidence of a change after his death. He

72 STAGER Y OF SHAKESPEARE

says that the division into acts of A Mid-
summer Night's Dream was almost certainly
due to the players. He cites the direction
at the end of Act 3, which is not in the
Quarto of 1619, although it is found in the
Folio, " They sleep all the act." He explains
"act" as "interval," and calls it "an
important clue, and one eloquent of the shifts
which a curtainless stage imposed." But
those who have lived on terms of theatrical
intimacy with the Dream know the early
part of Act IV is the cause of much vexation.
The poor bewitched lovers of Athens have
to feign sleep for a long period ; first, while
Titania caresses Bully Bottom, then while
Oberon talks to Robin Goodfellow, next
while he has a conversation with Titania.
At this place the Folio directs " Sleepers
lie still," and they have to lie there without
the flicker of an eyelid, while Theseus and
his hunting party are eloquent about their
hounds, until at last the benevolent Duke,
seeing them, calls for the sound of " Horns,
and they wake." Now the four actors
always wonder why that can't be " off "
during these conversations, and the
peremptory directions read like the cold
fury of an annoyed prompter at their

CONTINUITY OF PERFORMANCE 73

plaintive suggestions. I cannot conceive
any producer adding to their misery by
directing them to sleep also through an
interval. Moreover, I know no instance of
" act " being used in the meaning of interval,
though in The Changeling of Middleton " in
the act- time " means " between the acts."
(Performed in 1623, but not printed till 1653.)

Not only is the division of the Folio
arbitrary, but the nomenclature is peculiar.
Though The Comedy of Errors is divided
only into acts, each of them is headed by
the number of the act followed by " scena
prima." Moreover thirty-three of the plays
begin with " actus primus, scena prima,"
flourishing above the double column of the
first page. This was obviously a device of
typographical uniformity, with no theatrical
meaning or origin.17 Moreover, division into
acts had no necessary relation to pauses in
performance. It had a purely academical
origin from a pseudo-classical practice. Its
convenience, however, is manifest, since it
provided a ready means of correlating the
various theatrical documents— the prompt-
book, the parts, and the platt. For purpose
of reference it was invaluable, as it told,
say, the stage keeper at what place in the

74 STAGERY OF SHAKESPEARE

performance his properties were to be set. Like
the division of books into chapter and verse,
the division of plays into acts and scenes,
however arbitrary, has much to commend it,
especially with so complete an organisation
as the stagery of the Elizabethans, with its
rapid sequence of scenes.

There is no positive evidence that pauses
were not introduced in the new Globe.
Indeed, King Henry VIII, with its pro-
cessions and trials and continuous changes
of vestment, seems to have demanded the
four pauses. I am also a little uncertain
about a few other revised plays ; but there
is not the slightest trace of evidence against
the absolute continuity of performance in
all the unrevised original plays. Their
whole structure demands it.

The " two houres trafficque of our Stage "
is not relevant, since its relation to Shake-
speare depends upon two prologues — -to
Romeo and Juliet and to King Henry VIII.
The problem of the relations between the
authorised and the unauthorised Quarto of
Romeo and Juliet complicates the question,
but, to my mind, the prologue (which was
not reprinted in the Folio) was designed for
a shorter version of the play. Again, the

CONTINUITY OF PERFORMANCE 75

prologue of King Henry VIII clearly does
not relate to the elaborate and spectacular
version in the Folio, since its whole tone
promises a solemn tragedy and not a show-
piece. Certain other plays in the Folio,
however, have manifestly been abridged, as
if for performance at Court in some two hours.

CHAPTER VII.

PLACE, AND CHANGE OF PLACE :
A THEORY.

THE chief problem in the Stagery of Shake-
speare is the method of indicating place,
and changes of place. On the stage there
are two means of " localising " a place — by
dialogue and by setting. Dialogue may be
anticipatory, the character announcing that
he is going to a place, or incidental, the
character announcing that he is there.
Setting may be illusory or symbolical.
These four separate methods cannot always
be disentangled.

According to my theory, on the Stage of
Shakespeare the curtains played a very large
part in marking changes of place. As a
point of departure the most obvious necessity
for some simple and striking mark of a
changed place is demanded for the distinction
between the inside and outside of the same
City, as in a siege. Between them, without
such a device as the drawn curtain to hide

PLACE AND CHANGE OF PLACE 77

the gates, there would be no visible difference,
and it is therefore reasonable to postulate
its use for such changes of place in many
histories and tragedies, as in 1 Henry VI,
where, in Act II, Scene 1, which is outside
Orleans, before the Gates, is directed : —

1. Enter a Sergeant of a Band and two Sentinells.

2. Enter Talbot, Bedford and Burgundy with
scaling ladders : Their Drummes beating a Dead
March.

In Act II, Scene 2, which is inside Orleans,
in the middle of the city, is directed : —

Enter Talbot, Bedford, Burgundie.
Talbot says :

Bring forth the body of old Salisbury
And here aduance it hi the Market Place
The middle Centure of this cursed Towne.

A similar sequence is found in Coriolanusf
where Act I, Scene 4, takes place before the
Gates of Corioli : —

Enter Martius, Titus Lartius, with Drummes and
Colours, with Captaines and Souldiers, as before

the City Coriolus They fight and all enter

the City,

and Act I, Scene 5, takes place within the
city, where : —

Enter certaine Romanes with spoiles,

while Act I, Scene 7, is again localised a&
before the Gates : —

78 STAGERY OF SHAKESPEARE

Titus Lartius having set a guard upon Carioles,
going with Drums and Trumpets towards Cominus
and Caius Martius, Enters with a Lieutenant,
other Souldiers and a Scout.

Titus says : —

So let the Ports be guarded

Hence, and shut your Gates vpon's.

Which shows that the curtains must again
have been drawn aside.

On this foundation the theory may be
developed still further. The fifth act of
1 Henry VI is a conspicuous instance which
may be examined. Accepting the theory
as an accomplished fact, it is an excellent
example of changes of place, and through
its action it is clear that the curtains were
alternately withdrawn and closed. Near the
end of Act IV, where Edward has captured
Henry, is a short passage :

Hence with him to the Tower, let him not speake.

Exit with King Henry.

And Lords, towards Couentry bend we our course
Where peremtorie Warwicke now remaines,

which pre-localises (i) the place of Henry's
next appearance as the Tower, and (ii) the
place of Warwick's next appearance as
Coventry.

Moreover, Richard of Gloucester closes the
scene with

PLACE AND CHANGE OF PLACE 79

Braue Warriors, march ainaine towards Couentry.

The initial direction of Act V, Scene 1, is :

Enter Warwicke, the Maior of Couentry, two
Messengers and others vpon the Walls.

During Scene 1 the curtains were open,
because the Gates could be seen, and Oxford,
and Montague, and Somerset, each with
" Drumme and Colours," march through
them into the city, and, as the first party
enters, Gloucester says :

The Gates are open, let vs enter in.

The change of place for Scene 2 was marked
by their closing, the initial direction being
" Alarum and Excursions. Enter Edward
bringing in Warwicke wounded." After
Warwick's death Somerset and Oxford clear
the stage when " Here they beare away his
Body."

Scene 3, like Scene 2, is " at Barnet field,"
and it begins with " Flourish. Enter King
Edward in triumph, with Richard, Clarence,
and the rest." But Scene 3 clearly takes
place in " another part " of the field, marked
by the opening of the curtains, and the entry
of Edward through the middle door. During
Scene 3 Edward says that the forces of
Margaret of Anjou :

80 STAGEEY OF SHAKESPEARE

Doe hold their course toward Tewkesbury :
We having now the best at Barnet field.
Will thither straight.

In Scene 4 the appearance of Margaret with
her forces has therefore localised the place as
near Tewkesbury, and the curtains were
closed, Edward, on entering to them, says,
perhaps pointing " off " : —

Brave followers, yonder stands the thornie Wood.

Scene 5 was enacted with opened curtains
as within and before this thornie wood. An
actual " thornie Wood " is the point of
Edward's taunt to " young Edward : — "

Bring forth the Gallant, let vs heare him speake.
What ? can so young a Thorn begin to prick ?

After Edward stabs the young Prince, his
mother, Queen Margaret, is borne away on
the new King's command, and young Edward
left dead and dishonoured, the curtains being
closed on him as he lies.

Meanwhile, Gloucester has rushed out,
crying " Tower, Tower," and on Edward
asking where he has gone, Clarence says : —

To London, all in post, and as I guesse
To make a bloody svpper in the Tower.

When therefore in Scene 6 Henry appears
on the balcony, the place has been pre-
localised as the Tower of London, and the
initial direction is : —

PLACE AND CHANGE OF PLACE 81

Enter Henry the sixt, and Richard, with the
Lieutenant on the Walles.

Richard " Stabbes him," Henry " Dyes," and
Richard " Stabs him againe," and then
descends with the body, saying : —

He throw thy body in another roome.

For Scene 7 the curtains are open, and
Edward is discovered enthroned, saying : —

Once more we sit in Englands Royall Throne,

the place having been pre-localised by Edward
at the end of Scene 5 saying : —

Let's away to London.

This theory of the triple stage may be
regarded as a development of " the theory
of alternative scenes " advanced by Brandl
and Brodmeier, according to which " the
action took place alternately upon the inner
stage and the outer stage, a recurring scene
with elaborate properties being arranged
upon the inner stage, which was curtained
off, while intervening scenes were played
upon the outer stage." In an essay upon
" Shakespeare's Stage in its bearing upon
his drama " (in The Warwick Shakespeare),
Professor Herford has disposed briefly
of the theory to which there is one
special objection — it collapses in practice.
But its entire aspect is changed by the

82 STAGERY OF SHAKESPEARE

introduction of the third division, the balcony
or upper stage, for use in conjunction with
the curtains. At once there are five distinct
localities : —

(i) main stage - - curtain closed.

(ii) main stage and after

stage - curtains open.

(iii) main stage and bal-
cony -',--• curtains closed.

(iv) main stage, after

stage and balcony curtains open.

(v) balcony - curtains closed.

This still enables the after-stage to be used
alternatively if required for (a) setting and
(6) playing ; but without forcing the inter-
vening scene to be played upon the main
stage. Again, on the evidence already
advanced, before 1623 the balcony had been
used for all the purposes of the after stage,
since it was : —

(i) curtained, wholly or in part, as for

King Henry VIII (before 1623).
(ii) set with properties as for The Taming

of the Shrew (1591).
(iii) used for important scenes, as the

death of Antony in Antony and

Cleopatra (before 1623).

PLACE AND CHANGE OF PLACE 83

(iv) used for a large number of persons, as
in Titus Andronicus (1594).

Even if, as may be, these were all exceptional
cases, its value would still have been con-
siderable.

Of course " recurrent scenes " could not
be enacted in different scenical divisions ;
that is to say, the same room could not be
represented in one scene by the balcony and
in another by the after stage. Again, scenes
in streets and open spaces were enacted as a
rule upon the fore stage, with closed curtains.
With these two necessary provisions, the
capacity of the stage becomes almost without
limit.

Of course, not all the plays of Shakespeare
can be arranged in the beautiful simplicity
of 1 Henry VI. Without a second traverse,
or a double traverse, it would seem impossible
to stage Romeo and Juliet, and even then is
the difficulty of staging the orchard and the
cell in successive scenes. Moreover, it is
by no means certain that " the balcony
scene " was enacted upon the balcony.
It is more likely that " the window "
was that of the " tower " above the
middle^balcony, as is hinted by a direction
in the unauthorised Quarto, "she goeth downe

84 STAGERY OF SHAKESPEARE

from the window," as if to the room below
in the balcony. But Romeo and Juliet is the
most intractable of the plays. This theory,
therefore, pretends to be no more than a
contribution to a solution, laying emphasis
on the function of the curtains.

Again, I do not believe that any scene was
merely pre-localised by a few words in an
earlier scene, or localised by a few words in
it, unless the locality were of no dramatic
importance.18 The symbolic property must
have been largely used.

It is beyond dispute that symbolic
properties are effective for denoting place —
as a throne to show a palace, an altar with
candles to show a church ; so it was with
denoting time — night out of doors being
shown with torches, and indoors by tapers.
Of course, these symbols are used to reinforce
the dialogue, and are not absolutely sufficient
of themselves.

A curious hint of the symbol of place is
found in 2 Henry VI. In Act V, Scene 2,
" Enter Richard and Somerset to fight," and
when Somerset is killed, Richard, remem-
bering the Wizard's warning to Somerset,
" Let him shunne Castles," says : —

PLACE AND CHANGE OF PLACE 85

So lye thou there,

For underneath an alehouse paltry sign

The Castle in Saint Albans, Somerset hath made

The Wizard famous in his death.

Obviously, an Alehouse sign19 was here
hanging above their heads ; and in The
Contention, Part I (1594), the definite direction
is given : —

Alarum to the battle and then enter Duke of
Somerset and Richard fighting, and Somerset fals
vnder the signe of the Castle in St. Albones.

Now Act III, Scene 1, was also placed at
Saint Albans, the locality being marked
midway by talk of a miracle at the shrine
of St. Alban, where " a blind man hath
receiu'd his sight " and " the Townesmen on
Procession " are directed to enter with " the
Maior of St. Albones and his Brethren bearing
the man betweene two in a Chayre." If
the sign had been hung out in Act III,
Scene 1, in Act V, Scene 2, the presence of
the same device would mark the place as
St. Albans at once.

On Richard going out in Act V, Scene
2, the curtains were drawn, both to enable
Somerset to rise and depart unseen, and to
mark the place as " another part of the
field " where King Henry and Queen
Margaret are flying from the battle. This

86 STAGERY OF SHAKESPEARE

change, however, is not marked as a new
scene in modern editions. The next scene
— their Scene 3 (which should therefore be
Scene 4) — was played before open curtains,
showing by " the signe of the Castle " that
it was again St. Albans.

The development of this theory also
supposes a greater variety of scenical device
than has been usually admitted, but not the
use of " perspective" or flat painted scenery.
That is to say, in Timon of Athens, when
Timon came as was directed " from the caue,"
this cave was not merely the localised
after stage, nor a hole in a piece of scenery in
two dimensions, but a property of consider-
able size in three dimensions. Again, in the
same play it is directed " Enter Timon in
the Woods " ; from the tone of the dialogue
it seems that the trees were not simply
imaginary, but they were palpable, like
" the thornie wood " in 3 King Henry VI.
"From the caue" and "in the wood"
may not have been found in the original
prompt-books, since there are no similar
directions in the authentic and unedited
Quartos. In Julius Cwsar, a Folio text,
is also " Enter Brutus in his orchard,"
which would suggest a corresponding

PLACE AND CHANGE OF PLACE 87

direction in Much Ado About Nothing
and Romeo and Juliet ; but there are
none in the Folio texts, which, however, are
derived directly from the Quartos. Obviously
the evidence depends upon a recognition of
the difference between an authentic and
unedited Quarto and a revised text in the
Folio.

A contrast is possible in 2 King Henry IV,
where, contrary to the usual rule, the Quarto
text has been edited for publication and the
Folio text has been taken from a prompt-
book. In Act IV, Scene 1, where the Folio
has " Enter the Archbishop, Mowbray,
Hastings, Westmerland, Coleuille," the
Quarto has " Enter the Archbishop, Mow-
bray, Bardolfe, Hastings, within the forest
of Gaultree." Whatever the reason for its
insertion, I think that " within the forest "
shows an entry by the middle door and not
by the side-doors. The middle entry was
the custom, I think, in set scenes on the
after-stage, which accounts for the special
insertion in A Midsummer Night's Dream of
" Enter a Fairie at one doore and Robin
Goodfellow at another " in the Forest scene.
I suppose a wood to have been represented
by a number of trees, either properties, or

88 STAGERY OF SHAKESPEARE

more likely actual trees in tubs or pots
disposed about the after-stage. It should be
noted that this group of directions is very
small, and its survival almost an accident
of editing.

Another small but important group,
distinguished by "as," is instanced from
Coriolanus. " Enter two officers to lay
Cushions, as it were, in the Capitol," and
" Enter Martius," etc., " as before the
City Coriolus " ; and from Richard the
Second ; " Enter as to the Parliament,
Bullingbroke," etc. Here the directions are
clearly opposed to the use of " perspective."
The place was merely " supposed," without
any pictorial device. Actually they prescribe
manner as much as place, or rather the
manner imposed by the place, like the
" as to her triall " in The Winter's Tale.

It must be said over and over again that,
as a guide to Stagery, the value of an
Elizabethan stage-direction depends upon a
knowledge of its origin — the special nature
of the situation to which it refers, the general
nature of the text in which it occurs, the
period of its insertion, the probable resources
of the playhouse. It is only by infinite
patience and pertinacity that the com-

PLACE AND CHANGE OF PLACE 89

plexities are resolved into simplicity, the
disorderliness into order. For that reason,
I do not think the theory of the triple stage
is by any means final without taking into
account as an exceptional resource the
possibilities of the playhouse tower, the
double traverse, and the second traverse.

APPENDIX I.

SOME THEORIES OF MR. WILLIAM POEL.

WHEN Mr. William Poel speaks about Elizabethan
stagery he is entitled to the most profound gratitude
and respect, since the modern English revival of
" Shakespeare in the full text by continuous action "
has been inspired by his example, beginning in April,
1881, with the presentation of Hamlet from the Quarto
of 1603. On the appearance in The Times Literary
Supplement of the substance of Chapter II of this book,
Mr. William Poel challenged my use of " scene " as
being misleading to modern readers, and suggesting
the substitution of " episode " ; and while finding
" episode " still more misleading, and a mere corrupt
usage in the picture-houses, I admitted that " scena "
might be used, as in the First Folio. Wherever this
term is employed, despite the diversity of divisions
in the First Folio, one fact is perfectly clear — at each
exeunt omnes one scena ends and another begins. In
other words, a scena is the section of a play between a
clear stage and a clear stage. Scena has, therefore,
no essential connexion with locality. Nor, of course,
had it any original relation with changes of painted
" scenery " or " pieces of perspective."

The argument is double. In the First Folio : —

(1) A change of locality did not (necessarily) connote
a change of scena, as in

(a) Measure for Measure. Actus Tertius Scena
Prima is one continuous scena which has been
divided in modern editions into " Scene 1 : a
Prison," and " Scene 2 : a Street." In the
Folio there was no division, because there was

APPENDIX I 91

no " clear stage," the Duke remaining while the
locality was changed by closing the curtains
behind him, thus hiding the prison, a scene set
with properties.

(6) 2 King Henry IV. Actus Quartus Scena Secunda
is one continuous scena which has been divided
in modern editions into " Scene 4 : Westminster.
The Jerusalem Chamber," and " Scene 5 :
Another Chamber." As a later passage shows,
these apartments were " supposed " as at a
distance, and not as ante-chamber to chamber.
In the Folio there was no division, because there
was no " clear stage," the King remaining on the
stage, but moving with his Lords from the fore-
stage to the bedchamber, which was approached
by drawing " the curtains " (cf. King Lear,
Act IV, Scene 4, Q.I, 1608).

(2) A change of scena did not (necessarily) connote a
change of locality, as in : —

(a) Measure for Measure. Actus Primus, Scena
Secunda, and Scena Tertia, are marked in modern
editions as one continuous scene, " Act I, Scene 2 :
a Street." In the Folio the division was marked
at the exeunt which marked a clear stage, and
not an overlapping of entrance and exit.

(6) The Merry Wives of Windsor. Actus Primus,.
Scena Prima, and Scena Secunda, are marked in
modern editions as " Scene 1 : Outside Page's
House," and " Scene 2 : The Same." In the
Folio the division was marked at an exeunt omnes.
Here, however, I doubt the continuity of place,
since Scene 2 may have been enacted either on
the balcony or on the fore-stage, the curtains
being closed because the properties were set, or
were being set, for the next scena at the Garter
Inn.

92 STAGERY OF SHAKESPEARE

In the three texts cited — Measure for Measure, The
Merry Wives of Windsor, and 2 King Henry IV, the
divisions are made on a definite principle. However,
the division of Twelfth Night is casual and perfunctory,
and, mainly misled by Rowe (1709), the modern
editors have confused the localities. In the First
Folio, Actus Tertius Scena Prima is one continuous
scena, still undivided in modern texts and on the modern
stage, although the locality shifts from a garden to a
street, once marked, as usual, by closing the curtains.
Whoever made the hasty division of this text missed
the " clear stage " in the middle. Haste, again, must
account for the flagrant instance of King John. But
it is obvious from all the texts where reasonable
care has been exercised that a scena is the section
between a clear stage and a clear stage. Mr. Poel
had claimed that " while the actors at the close of
an episode were leaving the stage by one door those
taking part in the succeeding episode were entering
by another." This overlapping would not be con-
tinuity, but confusion.

Thereupon he replied that the Elizabethan stage
" never was clear," the privileged spectators sitting
in a " ring around the front, or acting space of the
platform." As this "ring" would have made it
impossible (not merely difficult) for the " groundlings "
to see, it could not therefore have been the general
custom in playhouses with a pit. Of course, spectators
sat on the stage — but at the sides, even, on occasions,
until the early nineteenth century. Moreover, Mr.
Poel urged that players often waited their cue among
the spectators, which would obviously have caused
confusion, as it would have not been apparent whether
a player was " on " or "off." A similar objection
may be urged against the supposed practice of " fore-
stalling cues " by a premature entry. The Induction
to The Malcontent (1604) shows clearly that it was
against -theatrical etiquette for players to sit among
the " gentlemen " on the stage.

APPENDIX I 93

Mr. Poel's theory of performance depends upon the
use of " two doors, one for entrances and the other
for exits," a statement which he reiterated. But
obviously there was in constant use " the third door,
localised often as the gates." In Titus Andronicus
(First Quarto, 1592) it was the door of the study ; in
The Merry Wives of Windsor (the piracy of 1602) it
was the door of the counting house. Other instances
abound, as in Arden of Fever sham (Act V, Scene 1),
where the murder of Arden demands three doors — the
" street door," the " back door," and the " counting-
house door." The three doors could be used in scenes
played on the full stage, while those on the fore-stage
were entered by two doors, the third being available
for the entrance of persons and properties " behind
the curtains " in preparation for discoveries. When-
ever players were " discovered " they had entered the
after- stage by the middle door.

APPENDIX II.

SHAKESPEAREAN METHODS AT THE

BIRMINGHAM REPERTORY

THEATRE.

THE plays of Shakespeare may be performed in full
text by a reasonable compromise between Elizabethan
and modern methods, which does not reject, say, the
more modern system of lighting. Accordingly, to
bring this little book in its relation to contemporary
practice I add an extract from my article on
Shakespearean Methods at the Birmingham Repertory
Theatre, which appeared in The Stage during Sept.,
1919. Since then Mr. Barry Jackson has added to
his list, among other plays, Othello, Love's Labour's
Lost, and 2 King Henry I V. His methods are becoming
more Elizabethan as he progresses, but I have left
the extract unaltered, keeping the conventional terms
which are usually employed : —

" Mr. Barry Jackson, the owner of the Birmingham Repertory
Theatre, has the rare faculty of " seeing Shakespeare steadily
and seeing Shakespeare whole."

His company have performed twelve plays of Shakespeare,
all from the full text, and the acting time has rarely been more
than two and a half hours. This time has been lengthened, it is
true, by one or two intervals of ten minutes or less, not from
any need of the stage, but as a concession to the audience.

For the last thirteen or fourteen years, always helped by
Mr. John Drinkwater, he has studied the problems of simple
staging— first with the company of Pilgrim Players, whom he
founded to present the mediaeval interlude of " Youth," and
secondly with the Repertory Theatre company. Mr. Jackson
started with methods in some ways similar to Mr. William Peel's,
and at last, about the time of The Winter's Tale at the Savoy,
had reached methods in some ways similar to Mr. Granville

APPENDIX II 95

Barker's. He had studied the structural conditions of the
Elizabethan theatre in their relation to Shakespeare's play-
craft, and had considered the value of an archaeological recon-
struction, particularly of the platform or apron. To this there
were many objections, the chief being that it would have re-
stricted the repertory to Elizabethan plays, making the theatre
useless for all those of other periods.

He decided, therefore, to employ a compromise between the
Elizabethan method, which was presentation upon a platform-
stage, and the Victorian method, which was representation upon
a picture-stage. This compromise was very much a revival
of the transitional method that had been established in the old
Georgian playhouse at the point it had reached before footlights
were first used by Garrick. The stage of the Birmingham
Repertory Theatre resembles that of the old Georgian playhouse.
On either side of the proscenium stands a permanent door, which
gives access to the narrow forestage. This forestage is built
above the musicians' well, and is removed for the performance
of modern plays in prose, though it is employed in the presentation
of the plays in verse of Mr. Drinkwater, Mr. Yeats, and others.
On the forestage, and before the theatre curtains, are presented
all the ordinary " front scenes," which are short and need only
few players. Another use, more important histrionically, is
for the delivery of soliloquies, like Benedick's or Lancelot Gobbo'a,
directly and frankly to the audience.

Mr. Jackson, like Mr. Barker, uses a stage of thr.ee depths —
forestage, middle=slage, and after-stage. The middle-stage,
opened by the raising of the theatre-curtains, is divided from the
after-stage by a second curtain, which is sometimes a plain cloth
of silver-grey, sometimes a decorative arras in the mediaeval
manner. The second curtain is usually stretched across the full
width of the stage, except when it is replaced by what is in
effect an Elizabethan " traverse " or small inner curtain between
two solid and permanent pillars, the rest of the space being filled
by the walls of a house, or some other piece of scenic architecture.
The traverse-pillars, and the principle of the inner stage, are
invariably employed in Mr. Jackson's full settings, though with
such dexterity and facility that they never appear to be a device
of pedantic archaeology, which is the great danger of all such
devices.

When the " second curtain " is raised, the stage opens to the
permanent horizon, heaven, or firmament. This is a curved
wall of white concrete, lighted by reflected sky-colours, which
give the sense of spaciousness and distance. No painted skies
are used, and no painted backcloths, except perhaps now and
then at the foot of the firmament, and therefore at the back of
the after-stage is painted a stretch of sea or hills, or a village,
which appears to be so small and so distant that the perspective
is not affected by the movement of the actors. In general
of course the scene appears to be enacted on a hill, a terrace,
or other high place.

96 STAGERY OF SHAKESPEARE

Some part of the after-stage is usually elevated above the
stage-level, which, by placing the action on a higher plane,
always disguises the shallowness of the stage. The raised section
behind the traverse is used for scenes like the banquet-hall of
Baptista's House or the Witches' Cave in Macbeth. Between
the traverse pillars there often runs a flight of steps leading to
a terrace at the back, and on either side, at the higher level,
there is a balcony. In Much Ado this balcony serves for Leonato's
arbour. The same arrangement can be adapted to represent
Juliet's balcony, or the walls of Harfleur, or for any other place
thatlrequires the player to speak from a higher level.

Localities in important scenes are shown by some single
conspicuous property — a church by a cross, a royal palace by
a throne, a garden by a row of conventional trees, like yews or
elms. Of course, wherever localities are important, Shakespeare
always marked them clearly in the dialogue, and no scenery
is required to show that both Benedick and Beatrice hide in
an arbour, whilst their friends walk in the orchard. So, too, in
The Winter's Tale the prison is clearly spoken of, but the impres-
sion can be reinforced by some clear central device, like a barred
window between the traverse-pillars, as well as by the presence
of the gaoler with his huge keys. Mr. Jackson always seeks for
some simple, plain, and striking device of this nature, and leaves
the rest to the imagination.

Not all Shakespeare's plays can be treated so simply. As You
Like It and A Midsummer Night's Dream are full of difficulties,
chiefly because of the prejudice of audiences against the
conventional presentation of forests. In The Merry Wives
of Windsor the full stage is needed for Ford's House and
for Windsor Forest, though, since the last scene is played
in darkness, a single oak trunk standing against a shadowy
background is enough, and whilst this is being set the action is
confined alternatively to the fore-stage and the middle-stage.
The Garter Inn can be clearly shown by a decorative use of the
tavern sign.

But in general the stage of three depths, with the traverse
and the proscenium doors, can be applied to most plays of
Shakespeare. Where it can be applied, action is continuous
and uninterrupted."

NOTES.

12).

The directions for noises take many forms, as " Noyse and
shout within " in King Henry VIII, for effects as " Storm
and Tempest" in Ring Lear and "Thunder and Lightning"
in Julius Ccesar, and for music as " Flourish for the players "
in Hamlet, " Trumpets sound " in Antony and Cleopatra. " The
cock crowes," which follows " Stop it Marcellus," in both
the early quartos of Hamlet, is curious, because, despite its
absence from the Folio, the " business " survived on the stage
long after Betterton. Strictly, the sound is implied by "It
was about to speake, when the Cocke crew."

2.— (Page 26).

In A Woman Killed with Kindness (1607), by Thomas Heywood,
is a note, " Enter Mrs. Frankford in her bed," she being a woman
almost on the point of death. Collier commented that " In the
simplicity and poverty of our ancient stage, it often happened
that a bed was thrust upon the scene in order that it might
represent a sleeping-room instead of a sitting-room, when it
was brought before the audience." This patronising attitude
is not warranted by the facts (for the descriptive note would have
been " The curtains are drawn and Mrs. Frankford is discovered
in her bed "), but it is at the root of many misunderstandings.

3.— (Page 31).

Mr. Walkley's coinage of " the platform stage " and " the

picture stage " furnished a valuable antithesis, but

antithesis is a figure of rhetoric. Its value lay in its emphasis
upon the declamatory element in Elizabethan drama, but
Elizabethan declamation was not confined to the platform of
the fore-stage, for the after-stage and the balcony had their
share of declamation. Also, of course, as this chapter should
convey, the element of " discovery," the fundamental principle
of the picture stage, was never absent.

4.— (Page 35).

There is no practical difficulty in distinguishing between the
movement of the curtains which creates a new locality and the
movement which shows a contiguous inner chamber. In the
former case the curtains are drawn fully open, and in the second
the curtains are drawn only partly.

98 STAGERY OF SHAKESPEARE

5.— (Page 36).

It is dangerous to assume that a scene was enacted throughout
as in an unchanged locality (see Appendix I). Recently my
deductions were confirmed by a production of Mr. Bridges
Adams at the Stratford Memorial Theatre, where, in The Merchant
of Venice (1920), he recovered this device by opening the Trial
Scene before the curtains, as in an antechamber before passing
to the Court. The dramatic gain was that the Duke's talk with
Antonio seemed as in his private capacity, and not ex cathedra.
The mechanical gain was a little longer time for setting the
Court. The division of this scene may have been incorrect, but
it showed the value of the device, which must therefore always
be weighed as a possible resource on the Elizabethan stage.

6.— (Page 41).

In The Taming of the Shrew, as revived for continuous per-
formance in full text by Sir John Martin Harvey (in 1913),
the stage properties, such as chairs, tables, and so on, were
placed in position, in full view of the audience, by the servants
dressed " in the period." This method was perhaps due to
his adviser, Mr. William Poel, who has always been enamoured
with it ; but there is no reason to suppose that on the stage of
Shakespeare it was the general practice or anything but an
expediency. Moreover, where the men appeared to move
properties, it is usually clear that they appeared in the dramatic
character of household servants. Sometimes, however, it was
otherwise. As Mr. Puff said to the scenemen in The Critic
{1779) : " It is always awkward, in a tragedy, to have you fellows
coming on in your playhouse liveries to remove things. I wish
it could be managed better."

7.— (Page 42).

Mr. W. Bridges Adams used the Elizabethan method in
reviving King Richard III at Stratford Memorial Theatre
(April 23rd, 1921), but spoiled it by lighting each tent in turn
as the Ghosts spoke. He afterwards wisely abandoned any
tricks with lighting. The usual modern practice is to pitch a
tent at each corner of the stage so they both look like bathing
tents on a beach.

8.— (Page 45).

Of course there is no certain evidence as to the appearance
of the Elizabethan playhouse, so my statement is conjective.
I hesitate to use De Witt's drawing as evidence, because in
so many particulars it is obviously inexact.

NOTES 99

9.— (Page 45).

The " walls " are prescribed in plays printed before the first
printed Quarto of Shakespeare. In Tamberlaine the Great (part 2)
is " Enter the Gouenor of Babylon upon the Walles with others.
.... Alanne, and they scale the Walles." This play wag
printed in 1590, its first performance being usually ascribed
to 1588.

10.— (Page 54).

There is a chance, then, that we can " look over Shakespeare's
shoulder as he works." We may fancy Shakespeare in his garden
at Stratford, remembering his Antony and Cleopatra, and there
at a distance, writing the great scene for the monument, and
sending it off to Burbage, leaving it to be incorporated in the
play by another hand. All this is fancy, based on " cautious
conjecture," but is there any other way to account for the facts ?

11.— (Page 58).

" Under the Stage " is a scenical division of some im-
portance. In Antony and Cleopatra there enter " A Company
of Soldiours " who " meete other soldiers " and place themselves
in every corner of the stage as for the night. When they have
settled down, the " Musicke of the Hobeyes " is heard " vnder
the stage " and one cries of " Musickei' th' Ayre," and another
of " Vnder the earth," then all " speak together," and they
decide to " Follow the noyse so farre as we have quarter."

12.— (Page 61).

In " Shakespeare's Workmanship " Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch
records his private opinion that the bear came on " because
the Bear Pit in Southwark, hard by the Globe Theatre, had a
tame animal to let out, and the Globe management took the
opportunity to make a popular hit." This would have been a
rather feeble and belated bid for popularity, since one of the
first pieces at the Globe, the old comedy Mucedorus, played also
at Whitehall, and by strolling players all over the country,
had a bear whose exploits were much more exciting. The Quarto
of 1598 has these directions : 1. Enter Mouse with a bottle of
Hay. 2. As he goes backwards the Beare comes in, he tumbles
ouer her and runnes away and leaues his bottle of Hay behind
him. Enter Segasto runing and Amadine after him, being
persued with a beare. 5. Segasto runnes away. 6. Enter
Mucedorus like a shepheard with a sworde drawne and a beares
head in his hand." Seventeen editions of Mucedorus were
published in seventy years. To me, as The Spanish Tragedy
is to Hamlet, so is Mucedorus to The Winter's Tale.

100 STAGERY OF SHAKESPEARE

13.— (Page 62).

The substance of this chapter appeared on the same day as
the Cambridge University Press published an edition of The
Two Gentlemen of Verona, in which Mr. John Dover Wilson
announced a similar conclusion based on other reasoning. He
pointed out, for instance, that the text is free from obvious
corruptions, as it would be, since the players' parts must be plain
and make sense.

U.—{Page 65).

If it were desired to express the actions in this scene by
directions there could be found parallels in the surreptitious
and posthumous texts.

(i) He stands behind the Arras (The Merry Wives of
Windsor, Quarto, 1602).

(ii) Speakes to himself (King Richard III, First Folio,
1623).

(iii) Enter three or foure and offer to binde him (The
Comedie of Errors).

(iv) He stampes with his foot, and the soldiers shew
themselves (3 Henry VI).

But, again, these four are each unique in the canon, even the
note in King Richard III, being added in the Folio where the
six editions in Quarto have no directions of the kind.

15.— (Page 68).

Mr. W. J. Lawrence, in The Elizabethan Playhouse, says that
" the idea of continuous performance as a principle cannot be
entertained." It would have involved " a serious mental strain
and called for powers of concentration given to few." But
the many recent revivals in full text have reduced the intervals
to one, and seriously challenged the statement, which, in any
case, is no proof that the division into five acts connoted four
pauses with or without music.

16.— (Page 70).

In many prompt-books the change of scena must have been
marked by drawing a line underneath the exeunt omnes. This
would account for the line across the column between Act IV,
Scene 3, and Act IV, Scene 4, in All's Well that Ends Well, a
text otherwise divided only into acts. (See also Appendix I)

NOTES 101

17.— (Page 73).

The numbering of scenes was very irregular in plays until
the nineteenth century. In The School for Scandal (ed. 1795),
Act III is marked " Scene : Sir Peter's House," then " Scene :
Charles House," and then " Charles, Careless, Sir Toby and
gentlemen discovered drinking," not one of the three scenes
being numbered. Even in Macbeth (1673), reprinted from the
Folio, numbers of scenes are left out.

18.— (Page 84).

Mr. W. J. Lawrence contends that the locality of scenes was
often shown by sceneboards bearing the names of places. In
The Elizabethan Playhouse he instances All's Well that Ends Well,
Act III, Scene 1, where " the text affords no clue to the place of
action or the identity of the Duke," and Act V, Scene 1, which
is " an equally unlocated scene." He adds that " in both cases
were scene boards positively demanded." In Act III, Scene 1,
a scene board is no more necessary than a label round the Duke's
neck, and actually the place is definitely fixed by the two French
Lords who, in Act II, Scene 1, have taken " leave for the Florentin
warre," appearing at their destination with "a troope of souldiers"
before one who is obviously the Duke of Florence. Act V,
Scene 1, has been prelocalised as Marseilles in Act IV, Scene 4
(the second previous scene), by Helena saying " His Grace is at
Marcellca, to which place We have conuenient conuoy." I deny
the use of scene-boards for these or any other scenes in the texts.
The Elizabethan Playhouse is a most valuable work. It is not
an instance of depreciation that in my notes I have contradicted
a few statements in it.

19.— (Page 85).

Mr. W. J. Lawrence, in The Elizabethan Playhouse, mentions
" the signe of the Castle in Saint Albones," and passes on to
two cases where trade-signs were required — the Pelican for
Shore's shop in 1 King Edward IV, and the Pole and Bason for
the Barber's shop in the Knight of the Burning Pestle — saying
" These two properties were utilised in the spirit of the Multiple
Stage. They must have been in position from the beginning
of the Act." But Mr. Nigel Playfair, reviving The Knight of
the Burning Pestle (1918), thrust forth and took away at need
both the " Pole and Bason " and " the sign of the Bell " for the
Inn at Waltham, without any conspicuous incongruity. With
a curtained balcony this could have been accomplished easily,
as was most likely in King Henry VI. Since large hanging
trade-signs were universal for London shops, whatever the trade
or calling of the owner, until 1704, they must have been used
frequently on the stage. Another old custom which must not

102 STAGERY OF SHAKESPEARE

be forgotten was that of distinguishing rooms by a device on
the walls or the ceiling, like the " Half-moon " and " the Pom-
garnet " mentioned at the inn in 1 King Henry IV. This was
common also in mansions, and must have left its trace in
Elizabethan stagery. In the inns it continued for many years,
a later example being " The Lion " and " The 'Rose " in The
Recruiting Officer (1704).

/

Rhodes, Raymond Crompton
3091 The stagery of Shakespeare

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