Playwright, Space and Place in Early Modern Performance: Shakespeare and Company

Playwright, Space and Place in Early Modern Performance Shakespeare and Company

Tim Fitzpatrick

Playwright, Space and Place in Early Modern Performance

General Editor’s Preface Helen Ostovich, McMaster University

Performance assumes a string of creative, analytical, and collaborative acts that, in defiance of theatrical ephemerality, live on through records, manuscripts, and printed books. The monographs and essay collections in this series offer original research which addresses theatre histories and performance histories in the context of the sixteenth and seventeenth century life. Of especial interest are studies in which women’s activities are a central feature of discussion as financial or technical supporters (patrons, musicians, dancers, seamstresses, wigmakers, or ‘gatherers’), if not authors or performers per se. Welcome too are critiques of early modern drama that not only take into account the production values of the plays, but also speculate on how intellectual advances or popular culture affect the theatre. The series logo, selected by my colleague Mary V. Silcox, derives from Thomas Combe’s duodecimo volume, The Theater of Fine Devices (London, 1592), Emblem VI, sig. B. The emblem of four masks has a verse which makes claims for the increasing complexity of early modern experience, a complexity that makes interpretation difficult. Hence the corresponding perhaps uneasy rise in sophistication: Masks will be more hereafter in request, And grow more deare than they did heretofore. No longer simply signs of performance ‘in play and jest’, the mask has become the ‘double face’ worn ‘in earnest’ even by ‘the best’ of people, in order to manipulate or profit from the world around them. The books stamped with this design attempt to understand the complications of performance produced on stage and interpreted by the audience, whose experiences outside the theatre may reflect the emblem’s argument: Most men do use some colour’d shift For to conceal their craftie drift. Centuries after their first presentations, the possible performance choices and meanings they engender still stir the imaginations of actors, audiences, and readers of early plays. The products of scholarly creativity in this series, I hope, will also stir imaginations to new ways of thinking about performance.

Playwright, Space and Place in Early Modern Performance Shakespeare and Company

Tim Fitzpatrick University of Sydney, Australia

© Tim Fitzpatrick 2011 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher. Tim Fitzpatrick has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work. Published by Ashgate Publishing Limited Ashgate Publishing Company Wey Court East Suite 420 Union Road 101 Cherry Street Farnham Burlington VT 05401–4405 Surrey, GU9 7PT England www.ashgate.com British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Fitzpatrick, Tim. Playwright, space and place in early modern performance: Shakespeare and company. – (Studies in performance and early modern drama) 1. English drama – Early modern and Elizabethan, 1500–1600 – History and criticism. 2. English drama – 17th century – History and criticism. 3. Theater – Great Britain – History – 16th century. 4. Theater – Great Britain – History – 17th century. 5. Theaters – Stage-setting and scenery – Great Britain – History – 16th century. 6. Theaters – Stage-setting and scenery – Great Britain – History – 17th century. 7. Shakespeare, William, 1564–1616 – Settings. I. Title II. Series 792’.0941’09031–dc22 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Fitzpatrick, Tim. Playwright, space, and place in early modern performance: Shakespeare and company / by Tim Fitzpatrick. p. cm. — (Studies in performance and early modern drama) Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. English drama—Early modern and Elizabethan, 1500–1600—History and criticism 2. English drama—17th century—History and criticism. 3. Space in literature. 4. Place (Philosophy) in literature. 5. Shakespeare, William, 1564–1616—Dramatic production. 6. Shakespeare, William, 1564–1616—Stage history—To 1625. 7. Theater—England— History—16th century. 8. Theater—England—History—17th century. 9. Theaters— Stage-setting and scenery—England—History—16th century. 10. Theaters—Stage-setting and scenery—England—History—17th century. I. Title. PR651.F47 2011 792.0942’09032—dc23 2011022325 9781409428275 (hbk) 9781409428282 (ebk) II

To Elena, Simon and Chris

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Contents List of Figures   List of Tables   Acknowledgements   Introduction  

ix xi xiii 1

Part 1 Onstage and Offstage Resources in Early Modern Performance 1 Playwrights Thinking Spatially  

9

2 What Playwrights Expected Onstage  

27

3 Bringing the Tiring House into Play  

63

Part 2 Establishing a Sense of Place and Fictional World 4 Nominating the Place  

87

5 Bringing Properties and Place Onstage  

103

6 The Divided Stage: Observers and Discoveries  

123

7

143

Stage Doors as Opposed Signifiers  

Part 3 A Spatially-based Stage-management and Meaning-making System 8 Stage Doors and Stage Management  

175

9 Stage Directions and Stage Management  

197

10

215

Stage Doors and Ramifications  

11 Space, Place and Meanings  

235

Appendix 1 Appendix 2   Works Cited   Index  

247 289 295 301

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List of Figures 2.1

A concealment space upstage centre: The Globe and The Rose.

2.2 ‘Volpone peeps from behind a traverse’.

36 37

2.3

The frontispiece of the 1640 edition of Jonson’s Works (identical to that of the 1616 ed.) Rare Book collection, University of Sydney Library, Australia.

58

2.4

‘The Tire-house dore and Tapistrie betweene’.

60

6.1

A split stage in King Henry VIII.

130

6.2

A split stage in The Famous Victories of Henry V.

132

6.3

A spatially logical two-door discovery in King Henry VIII.

138

6.4

A spatially illogical three-door discovery in King Henry VIII.

139

7.1

A three-door staging, The Knight of Malta.

163

7.2

A two-door staging, The Knight of Malta.

164

10.1

Front-on and side-on: issues of symmetry.

225

11.1

Much Ado About Nothing: the mourners visit the tomb, fix the scroll.

240

11.2

Much Ado About Nothing: Hero is reborn, and the scroll disappears.

241

App. 1.1 Eastward Ho!: different curtain arrangements modify the concealment space.

255

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List of Tables 4.1

Nomination and Inference in The Comedy of Errors 88

4.2

Nomination and Inference in Othello

5.1

Battlefield Traffic in King Henry IV part 1 120

7.1

Between ‘inwards’ and ‘outwards’ in The Comedy of Errors 146

7.2

Between ‘inwards’ and ‘outwards’ in Othello 148

7.3

Arrangement 1: a room between rooms

150

7.4

Arrangement 1(e): a room extruded, with rooms outwards

151

7.5

Arrangement 2: a room between rooms and outside the house

152

7.6

Arrangement 2(e): a room extruded, and outside the house

154

7.7

Arrangement 3: exterior, between a building and outside world

156

7.8

Arrangement 4: exterior, between close and distant locations

157

7.9

Arrangement 5: stage or one offstage location unspecified

158

7.10

Arrangement 6: non-spatialized, ‘emblematic’ patterns

159

7.11

Shifting Polarities Between Onstage and Offstage Places in Macbeth 170

8.1

Inwards-outwards Patterns in Othello, Acts I and II

187

8.2

Congestion Patterns in 50 Plays

192

9.1

Common Phrasal Verbs

200

9.2

The ‘in’/‘out’ Directions and Fictional Inwards/Outwards

207

11.1

Textual Echoes in Macbeth

237

94

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Acknowledgements This book would not have been possible without a number of chance meetings and exchanges which have determined the course of my research career, taking it in unexpected but exciting directions. As an undergraduate and postgraduate student, I was deeply influenced by the Professor of Italian at Sydney University, Frederick May. He nurtured my interest in theatre performance, in the work of Luigi Pirandello and in the commedia dell’arte – not unexpected in a department of Italian, but so broad was his scholarship that he also stimulated my interest in Shakespeare by means of elliptical comments, including references to the significance of ‘the history plays’ – references which meant nothing to me at the time, but which I now understand at least in part. Henry VI part 2 fills me with wonder. As a junior university teacher I then had the great good fortune to work with Dr Philip Parsons at the University of New South Wales. Earlier in his career Philip had managed to persuade the University of Western Australia to base the plans for its Arts Faculty building on the Fortune contract, and had collaborated on a range of productions in the courtyard theatre there, the New Fortune. His accounts of what happened when you performed Elizabethan plays in the open air, and of the sorts of meanings that started to emerge when you did so, were inspirational; it was only a pity that he did not publish more of his important insights, as many of his wheels are only now being re-invented in reconstructed theatres around the world. In the early 1990s I met Professor Andrew Gurr while he was visiting Sydney; I was finishing a book on commedia dell’arte, but discussed with him an article I had published some years earlier which suggested that the Porter’s scene in Macbeth was in fact written to enable it to be staged with just two doors. He was immediately interested and supportive, encouraging me to take this further. I did, and that work has occupied me more or less ever since. Despite the fact that Andrew Gurr, as is well known, had believed for many years that there must have also been a third opening onto the stage, his comments on, and encouragement of, my contrary thesis were helpful and generous. Throughout the ensuing years, as I have developed in a variety of fora the ideas encapsulated here, I have enjoyed a range of support, particularly from my colleagues in Performance Studies at the University of Sydney. My closest colleague, Professor Gay McAuley, with whom I worked to set up the Performance Studies, has been a constant inspiration. Her ideas on space in performance (the title of her important book) were central to the development of this discipline at Sydney, and quietly inform almost every page of this book. Her intellectual rigour, systematic thinking through of issues and honest but generous commentary has benefited all who have had the privilege of working with her. Equally generous and encouraging have been the comments and support of other department

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members: Ian Maxwell, Paul Dwyer and Laura Ginters; and in particular Daniel Johnston who has worked with me as Research Assistant. The central thesis of this book crystallized for me in the course of discussions with him. Penny Gay of the English Department has read my drafts assiduously and offered invaluable advice. The staff of various libraries have been of immense assistance. In addition to the staff of the British Library and Folger Shakespeare Library, the staff at Fisher Library at the University of Sydney have been of great help: in particular Sten Christensen, the Sydney eScholarship Repository Coordinator. I wish to thank the editors of Theatre Research International and Theatre Notebook for their generous permission to reproduce sections from articles previously published there. It has been a pleasure to work with the staff of Ashgate Publishing, particularly Erika Gaffney and Kirsten Weissenberg, but most especially Kathy Bond Borie: the best combination of well-oiled machine and personal attention to finicky details. Finally, my wife Elena and sons Simon and Christopher have played invaluable roles in the gestation of this book. They have patiently followed my vague mutterings about relational space and pompous pronouncements about two doors versus three with an understandable mixture of interest and scepticism, surprise and impatience – but they will not be surprised to learn that their questions and comments have inflected the direction of my research. Tim Fitzpatrick February 2011

Introduction Doct. Will she go now to bed? Gent. Directly. (Macbeth, V, i, 69–70)

The Gentlewoman’s response to the Doctor’s question in the sleepwalking scene in Macbeth confirms Lady Macbeth’s movement patterns, which the Gentlewoman has previously described to the Doctor: Gent. Since his Majesty went into the field, I have seen her rise from her bed, throw her night-gown upon her, unlock her closet, take forth paper, fold it, write upon’t, read it, afterwards seal it, and again return to bed; yet all this while in a most fast sleep … Lo you! here she comes. (Macbeth, V, i, 3–8; 19)

The trajectory is clear: Lady Macbeth enters from one of the stage doors, the door leading from her chamber, and afterwards exits back through it to her chamber. At the Doctor’s request to ‘Look after her; Remove from her the means of all annoyance, And still keep eyes upon her’ (75–7), the Gentlewoman then follows her there to ensure no harm comes to her. Some years ago I saw a production in which Lady Macbeth exited, and on the Doctor’s instructions the Gentlewoman left the stage with great sense of purpose – but in a completely different direction from that taken by Lady Macbeth. Some members of the audience laughed at this literal and spatial non sequitur. I do not believe that those who laughed were inappropriately imposing a twentieth-century spatial logic on the performance and expecting too much of it – as was perhaps implicit in the disapproving stares of those who didn’t laugh. If something was being imposed, it was being imposed via the spatial nonsense of the production, in complicity with these unamused members of the audience. The attitude they seemed to share with the production might be termed ‘spatial condescension’: it is expecting too much to ask early modern plays – I use this generic term to refer to specifically Elizabethan and Jacobean plays on the London stages – to make spatial sense, so it is inappropriate to laugh at a production which is merely reproducing these quaint historical artefacts and the spatially insensitive culture and theatre that spawned them. This book is a response to such a position: it attempts to articulate and exemplify what I believe was a straightforward yet sophisticated sense of space and place in early modern performance, a sense of place that means that the direction of the Gentlewoman’s exit is important, and that we have every reason to laugh if a production makes a nonsense of it. It argues that there was a set of shared

2

Playwright, Space and Place in Early Modern Performance

conventions about how the doors and other resources on the early modern stage were used to signify spatial relations in performance, and that these conventions are recoverable from the playtexts – many of which manifest clear ‘authorial intentions’ in regard to performance. These are the general issues that have prompted me to give this book its subtitle. ‘Shakespeare and Company’ intends to convey the sense that while there were no formal organizational structures that united the playwrights of the time, and standardized their writing practices and the ways in which they projected performances through their texts, nevertheless there is a real sense in which they shared a set of fundamental agreements as to how performance would be organized. If there was a reasonably standardized set of spatial practices – and we shall see throughout the book that there is evidence of such in the texts – then it cannot have been the result of local practices in different acting companies. Instead it must have been transferable, as a set of generalized conventions that playwrights could draw on as they composed their performance texts. The fact that we are dealing with conventions is of fundamental importance.1 Unlike rules and norms that are explicitly invoked, followed and enforced, conventions allow for varying degrees of applicability and must be constantly renegotiated. My analysis of the playtexts suggests that as they wrote, playwrights were inscribing ‘directorial objectives’ in their texts, and that these textual strategies were underpinned not by individual playwrights’ idiosyncratic projections of performance or by specific companies’ work practices, but by a set of generic spatial and semiotic conventions that loosely governed the way in which the early modern performance space and its inbuilt physical resources were used to stand for places and things in the fictional world. Conventions are not fixed and automatically applicable, and there are a number of factors that will govern their application in particular performances in particular spaces and times. The first such factor is that early modern playwrights would not have had equally proficient understandings of the conventions and how they could deploy them in their texts: some playwrights were clearly closer to playhouse production than others. Shakespeare would have had an intimate knowledge of the resources available in the playhouses that his company worked in, and of the spatial conventions the company used, but other playwrights might well have been less knowledgeable and therefore less competent in their inscriptions. The second factor that would impact the concrete application of such spatial conventions is simply that conventions are not enforceable, and are open to constant renegotiation as historical, social and cultural contexts change. A generally accepted set of conventions that governed how space and place could be represented in performance by deploying the resources generally available in the playhouses would therefore have been drawn on and deployed differently and to 1 Elizabeth Burns’s landmark study of how conventions work in the theatre and in social life is still unsurpassed: Theatricality: A Study of Conventions in the Theatre and in Social Life (London, 1972).

Introduction

3

different degrees by a range of playwrights writing for a range of different theatre spaces (possibly with slightly different resources) in different periods. A third factor is that production is a group activity, and the playwright is not the only participant who might seek to take some responsibility for production decisions. It is unarguable that in certain specific historical conditions the conventions might be negated or ignored by a particular actor, book holder or (much later) by a young antipodean director. However, adapting a play from outdoors to indoors or taking it on tour to avoid a plague-racked London does not necessarily render unreadable and irrelevant the embedded spatial conventions which the texts manifest: it merely means that their applicability might move up or down a sliding scale according to the different degrees to which a book holder or company of actors might find them workable in a particular performance context. These three factors combined mean there will always be local variability at the moment of performance, so the inscription by the playwright of spatial parameters in the playtext is always vulnerable to revision or alteration by a company of actors. While it is likely that some playwrights (depending on such factors as their practical experience, their closeness to the production process, their status in the company, the particular space being used for the performance) might have been able to exercise a more effective remote ‘directorial’ influence through their texts, others will not: there will have been a sliding scale of vulnerability to revision or alteration by the company as it rehearsed. But the important point is another: this vulnerability to individual performance contexts that might vary the playtexts’ spatial projections or limit their application does not seem to have discouraged a large number of playwrights. They still seem to have been inscribing spatial projections as though they considered this was worth doing as a useful way of ‘shaping’ the performance and facilitating the production process by ‘shaping’ their texts. I argue that this belief was based on strong grounds: that they were aware of and were working to generally accepted conventions, rather than merely inscribing their own one-off or idiosyncratic spatial solutions – and that these conventions, even if they might occasionally be overridden in particular performance contexts, provided at least some guarantee against vulnerability. This issue of the tension between generic dramaturgical strategies evidenced in the playtexts and the concrete playing out of such strategies in a particular historical performance has been addressed by Jeremy Lopez in Theatrical Convention and Audience Response in the Early Modern Theatre. Writing in relation to audience response, he argues persuasively that despite the valuable work of scholars in identifying different types of audiences in different types of playhouse at different times, it is still possible – and indeed necessary – to talk generically about a concept such as ‘audience response’ that rides above such particular considerations:

4

Playwright, Space and Place in Early Modern Performance The increasing exactness … of audience study may also have begun to be unnecessarily paralysing, making it seem as though we cannot talk about the effects of a play on an ‘audience’ until we understand the exact composition of that audience.2

The case for spatial conventions is closely analogous: we do not have a clear picture of the preparation processes which led to specific performances, how they varied in different venues and times, and how this would have affected the application of spatial conventions; but this should not paralyse discussion of what the spatial conventions might generally have been that underpinned the ‘directorial objectives’ evident in the texts – objectives that betray playwrights writing to influence those playhouse processes via their texts. As evidenced in the discussion above of the sleepwalking scene from Macbeth, I believe it is possible and legitimate to infer from the texts what might have been the spatial conventions the playwrights were working to and reinscribing in their texts so as to facilitate performance preparation by standardizing the spatial set-up. This book does not address the important issue of the role which the book holder (or indeed other participants in the group work of putting on a production) might have had in the spatial ‘shape’ of any one actual performance, but nevertheless this study of the generic spatial conventions that were in play does open one potentially interesting line of inquiry, since it might suggest that there were certain things the book holder did not need to do, as they were underpinned by conventions which enabled the playwright to deal with them through the text. If there was a set of generally accepted conventions that the playwrights could draw on and inscribe in their texts – conventions about how the space and features of the stage were deployed to stand for fictional space and other features – then this would reduce the ‘one-off’ decisions that might otherwise have to be made by the book holder. It would provide a range of ‘default settings’ which – precisely because they are conventionally encoded as ‘the usual way of doing things’ – would reduce the range of issues that the book holder would have had to address in a specific performance context, whether it be an early or late public playhouse, an indoor hall, a performance at court, or a guild hall being pressed into service on tour. The book begins in what is perhaps a deceptively simple manner, by discussing straightforward spatial patterns in some well known Shakespearean texts, and by suggesting that these textual patterns would have had clear outcomes in performance. I believe these patterns are deducible from the texts because the playwrights embedded them there; that they did so because they expected the actors, experienced as they were in a strong and developing performance tradition, to decode them from the text and re-encode them in spatial patterns in performance; and that the audience in the playhouse would in turn decode these spatial patterns and use them to make meanings. This discussion is therefore not about possible 2 Jeremy Lopez, Theatrical Convention and Audience Response in the Early Modern Theatre (Cambridge, 2003), p. 17.

Introduction

5

‘directorial’ decisions that might be permitted by the texts, but about decisions made by the playwright (in fact the ‘playwright-director’) to structure his text in such a way that performance patterns would flow logically and meaningfully from it. This is to suggest explicitly that playwrights were aware of the set of performance resources available to them, and were writing with foresight to inscribe them in their texts. Such an insight entails then an analysis of the texts to better understand what those expected resources might be, and the book proceeds to articulate what the most important resources were that can be inferred from the texts as having been available for the playwrights to draw on. In addition to the usual onstage resources, it emphasizes in particular the resource of ‘offstage’ – the unseen parts of the play’s fictional world that can be located and localized from one scene to the next behind one or other of the entrance- and exit-points. On the basis of these onstage and offstage resources, the book then gradually increases the degree of difficulty to consider a number of more complex and technical issues around the organization of early modern performance. It articulates a range of techniques used by the playwrights to establish a sense of place on the stage – either explicitly or implicitly. It is often clear exactly where the onstage characters are and how that location is related to other offstage locations, but equally often the location of the onstage space is only implicit, established indirectly by reference to the offstage counter-places it relates to. In other words it is established ‘relationally’: a particular location (such as Lady Macbeth’s chamber in Macbeth) may be established as a ‘there’ just offstage, but the ‘here’ figured by the stage is not equally well established. This is because for the playwright’s purposes it is not important where we are – the important thing is simply that we are ‘here’ rather than ‘there’, where Lady Macbeth has come ‘from her [offstage] bed’ to execute onstage the obsessive-compulsive behaviour patterns the Gentlewoman describes. A relational spatial system such as that which this analysis suggests has a number of different potentials for our understanding of early modern performance. The book proceeds to argue its possible relevance in terms of the pragmatic organization of performance (since it might also provide actors with specific cues as to where they should enter and exit the stage); in addition it suggests that a relational spatial system has implications for broader patterns of meaning-making, that space and spatial patterns can be used make thematic meanings. This is not to suggest that if spatial meanings are deducible from the texts when they are considered in their original performance context, such meanings should become determinants of the broader work of interpretation implicit in modern productions of the plays. Historical ‘readings’ of the texts in their nesting performance contexts should be liberating rather than restricting: they should serve to complicate and extend the range of meanings available to modern interpreters. Conversely, the less that is known about the texts and the contexts which made them originally meaningful, the greater the danger of blinkered and therefore potentially reductive modern interpretation.

6

Playwright, Space and Place in Early Modern Performance

Many of my textual examples are from Shakespeare, but the other members of the ‘company’ of playwrights are well represented – and clearly some of them, like Shakespeare, were expert in their knowledge of how performance would be actualized from their texts. It is my argument that the better we come to appreciate the technical work done by playwrights to facilitate performance by utilizing the operative spatial conventions to reduce the cognitive overheads of the actors, the better we will understand the stagecraft genius of some members of this company of playwrights.

Part 1 Onstage and Offstage Resources in Early Modern Performance

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Chapter 1

Playwrights Thinking Spatially Othello. This fortification, gentlemen, shall we see’t? (Othello, III, ii, 5)1

This book explores the implications of the hypothesis that Shakespeare and his contemporaries were thoughtful and practical playwrights as well as dramatic poets, concerned with how their plays would look and work in the space and time of performance at the Globe and the other public playhouses. If a particular sort of textual analysis, one that attends to possible performance implications, can establish that early modern playtexts were written to provide the actors with practical information – and were not just providing generic ‘optimal’ projections of performance – then such textual analysis might not only illuminate the plays, but it might also provide invaluable evidence that would lead us to reconsider what we know about the original playhouses and how they were equipped. For instance in Othello, when the eponymous hero invites the Gentlemen to see the ‘fortifications’, we can be sure that this does not imply such fortifications being physically visible onstage. However this reference to an offstage ‘reality’ may serve as more than a mere reinforcement for the audience of the fictional world of the play (in particular the military status of Cyprus); it might serve to locate in the audience’s mind the direction of the city and its fortifications in relation to the ‘here’ of the stage; and it might also then serve a more immediate practical purpose, that of suggesting to the actors the direction of their exit to this military world outside the citadel. On Your Imaginary Forces Work This chapter will introduce a strategy for analysing the texts with an eye for their practical and spatial implications in their original performance context.2 It will examine a number of simple examples in which the text seems to betray a Unless otherwise indicated, quotations of Shakespeare’s work are from The Riverside Shakespeare, G. Blakemore Evans, gen. ed. (Boston, 1974). 2 The long-standing methodological approach to theatrical texts as potentially rich sources for understanding performance conditions has spawned many works that could be cited in this regard. The following have most influenced this book: Bernard Beckerman, Shakespeare at the Globe, 1599–1609 (New York, 1962); John L. Styan, Shakespeare’s Stagecraft (Cambridge, 1967); Andrew Gurr, The Shakespearean Stage 1574–1642 (3rd ed., Cambridge, 1992); Mariko Ichikawa, Shakespearean Entrances (Basingstoke/New York, 2002); John C. Meagher, Pursuing Shakespeare’s Dramaturgy (Madison, 2003); and Anthony Brennan, Onstage and Offstage Worlds in Shakespeare’s Plays (London, 1989). 1

Playwright, Space and Place in Early Modern Performance

10

playwright thinking spatially, and using the text to project the spatial patterns he wants in performance – structuring the text so that the movement patterns will be clear for the actors and eloquent for the audience. But the suggestion that the playwright is projecting and manipulating performance through his text also implies a certain audience competence, and a playwright who is aware of what his audience might infer: there is no point in using the text to project spatial signmaking strategies in performance unless the audience can read the resulting spatial ‘meaning’ – unless, that is, the audience shares with the actors and playwright a set of spatial conventions with which to make and extract meanings.3 It is important to understand ‘conventions’ not as a set of ossified behavioural practices, but as a set of agreements between participants in a social interaction that are by their very nature being continually questioned, reinforced and negotiated.4 The particular conventions that concern us here constitute a developing competence shared by playwrights, actors and audience in the early modern period about parts of the fictional world that are taken to lie offstage, behind the stage doors which the characters are to use for their entrances and exits. These first examples illustrate a range of means used by the playwright to make the audience work on their ‘imaginary forces’ (as Shakespeare enjoins through the Chorus in Henry V) so as to build a mental picture of this offstage fictional world. A Parting of the Ways The playwright concerned in these initial examples is William Shakespeare, and the first is the climax of a long scene from Henry VI part 2. The Queen is bidding farewell to her beloved Suffolk, who has been banished by the King her husband. Fighting to control her own emotions at what is now clearly the end of a long and intense relationship, the Queen brings Suffolk to the realization that he must choose exile over certain death, and the scene ends with Suffolk’s wonderful image of their being torn apart like a ship foundering on the rocks:

This complicitous relationship between author and audience (or author and reader) has been treated by Umberto Eco, who places the reader and his or her responses within the story, as the target of authorial manipulation whose inferences in response to the unfolding text are integral to the work. See Umberto Eco, The Role of the Reader (Bloomington, 1979). 4 For a comprehensive discussion of how conventions develop and work in performance (both in the theatre and in social life), see Elizabeth Burns, Theatricality: a Study of Conventions in the Theatre and in Social Life (London, 1972). A study of the conventional understandings that underpin textual production and interpretation involves the construction of an ‘audience’ that seems to be posited by the author as a constitutive target of the text in performance, rather than a concrete historical audience. See Jeremy Lopez, Theatrical Convention and Audience Response in the Early Modern Theatre (Cambridge, 2003), p. 17. 3

Playwrights Thinking Spatially

11

Queen. Now get thee hence, the King, thou know’st, is coming. If thou be found by me, thou art but dead. Suffolk. If I depart from thee I cannot live, And in thy sight to die, what were it else But like a pleasant slumber in thy lap? … To die by thee were but to die in jest, From thee to die were torture more than death. O, let me stay, befall what may befall! Queen. Away! Though parting be a fretful corrosive, It is applied to a deathful wound. To France, sweet Suffolk! Let me hear from thee; For wheresoe’er thou art in this world’s globe, I’ll have an Iris that shall find thee out. Away! Suffolk. I go. Queen. And take my heart with thee. [She kisseth him.] Suffolk. A jewel, lock’d into the woefull’st cask That ever did contain a thing of worth. Even as a splitted bark, so sunder we: This way fall I to death. Queen. This way for me. Exeunt [severally] (Henry VI part 2, III, ii, 386–90; 400–412)

The final shared or ‘broken’ rhyming couplet is breathtaking in its alliterative and monosyllabic economy, its meaning visually complemented by the exits of the two characters in opposed directions. But as we begin to unpack this example, we quickly realize how complex sign-making and sign-reading is. The dialogue suggests that Shakespeare wants the exit pattern to be a physical representation or sign of the characters’ ‘parting’, and that he intends the actors to leave the stage in different directions. He would only have constructed such a textual pattern, with both characters using the same word ‘this’ to indicate two separate ‘ways’ off the stage, if the stage he was envisaging for that representation had two counterposed exit-points that would enable him to make his meaning both verbally and spatially. It seems clear, therefore, that Shakespeare thinks he has at least two exit doors to play with, and it might also be possible to infer that they are far enough apart, and/or angled in such a way that they can readily stand for exits in radically opposed directions – so this simple example implicates the actual physical resources available on the early modern stages, and the associated question of how focussed the playwrights might have been, as they wrote, on what resources they had to play with. A further implication of this example is that Shakespeare seems to have believed he had a competent audience: that not only the actors, but also the audience would be able to ‘read’ a counterposed use of the doors as a physical representation of ‘parting’, and were practised at reading movement patterns as fictionally significant – the playwright seems to assume that the audience would infer that the actors leaving the stage in opposite directions stands for the characters parting forever:

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Suffolk is going in one direction out of the kingdom into exile, the Queen returning to the centre of the kingdom. This is a competence that we would probably take for granted, and that we would probably assume that the original audience would have taken for granted because this exit is based on a commonsense, more or less concrete or iconic (in the Peircian sense5) correspondence between the signifier (two opposed exit points) and the signified (two opposed segments of the fictional world). But it is a competence6 nevertheless: the exit would not be meaningful without it. Such a competence would have developed quickly in open air theatre, since when the whole stage is bathed in light the audience will see the direction of every entrance and exit: even in the course of a single play – let alone the many plays seen by regular theatregoers – there is enormous potential to build up quickly a ‘database’ of exit and entrance patterns and to begin to perceive or construe regularities. This text suggests that Shakespeare was relying on an audience familiar with just such a set of meaning-laden conventions, conventions that enabled them to ascribe meaning to the direction of the exit and entrance, decoding and in turn constructing a concrete spatial geography of the fictional world. The next thing to be noted is that it is the dialogue, rather than the stage directions, that Shakespeare has used to stress the opposition between the ‘here’ of the kingdom and the ‘there’ of exile, and to cue his actors to create this spatial meaning and represent the ‘parting’ physically by exits in different directions. The original stage direction is merely ‘Exeunt’; the dialogue renders superfluous an additional ‘severally’ (though modern editors insist on supplying it). Indeed, if early modern texts betray signs of a practical performance orientation, we should expect to find such evidence of a practical author with concrete production foresight not in the stage directions but in the dialogue, as we do here. The relative paucity of stage directions in early modern texts has at times been adduced in support of the view that the playwrights either didn’t care about, or felt they had little say in, the practicalities of staging their texts.7 I believe that this scarcity is only significant in that it points us elsewhere: the relevant information for the actors is not in the stage directions, but in their dialogue. If a playwright wanted 5 Charles Sanders Peirce’s semiotics provides an important complement to Ferdinand Saussure’s work. Throughout this book I have tended to use the more common Saussurian terms ‘signifier’ and ‘signified’, but Peirce’s typology of sign functions (icon, index, symbol) is also drawn on. A useful summary of these categories is provided by Keir Elam, The Semiotics of Theatre and Drama (London, 1980, 2002), pp. 21–7. 6 The notion of audience competence is usefully discussed by Marco De Marinis, Semiotica del Teatro (Milan, 1982), pp. 179–99; and in ‘Cognitive Processes in Performance Comprehension: Frames Theory and Theatrical Competence’, in Tim Fitzpatrick (ed.), Performance: From Product to Process (Sydney, 1989), pp. 173–92. 7 One recent example of such a position is Richard Dutton’s introduction to the Revels Edition of Ben Jonson’s Epicene, or The Silent Woman (Manchester, 2003). Dutton suggests that the text’s massed entries and lack of marked exits makes of it a text ‘largely presented as a report of a performance, rather than as a script marked for production’ (p. 57).

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to provide performance information, he would logically have put it in the dialogue since it was that part of the actor’s ‘part’ that the actor would have most closely concentrated on as he attempted to learn his dialogue.8 This book will argue that if we interrogate early modern dialogue in a systematic and sophisticated way, we will find indications that the playwrights were first of all – and perhaps even above all – authors with a clear and distinct idea about how they expected and indeed intended the performance to unfold in the specific theatrical space and time offered by the public playhouses, as Anthony Brennan has argued.9 Comings and Goings These general considerations about spatial sign-making and reading in performance are further exemplified in the simple but indicative entrance and exit patterns in the sleepwalking scene in Macbeth. At the start of the scene the Doctor and Gentlewoman enter together, deep in conversation. They have clearly come to see if Lady Macbeth will sleepwalk again tonight, since they have met and are now coming in concert to take up a convenient vantage point somewhere near Lady Macbeth’s chamber: Doctor. When was it she last walk’d? Gentw. Since his Majesty went into the field, I have seen her rise from her bed, throw her night-gown upon her, unlock her closet, take forth paper, fold it, write upon’t, read it, afterwards seal it, and again return to bed; yet all this while in a most fast sleep … Lo you! here she comes. (Macbeth, V, I, 2–8; 19)

It would only be logical for Lady Macbeth then to enter on the Gentlewoman’s cue from the door opposite to that used by the other two onstage characters. This sets up a commonsense spatial opposition between the two doors: one is marked as the door to her chamber, the other the door which provides access from other parts of the castle. The two onstage observers then comment as Lady Macbeth plays her celebrated scene: at the Globe they were probably, unlike on a proscenium arch stage, standing centre-stage as Lady Macbeth traced a trajectory around the stage perimeter. Lady Macbeth then returns to exit through the door she entered from, back to her chamber – since the Gentlewoman has already informed us that the obsessive-compulsive behaviour she has observed on previous occasions culminates with Lady Macbeth ‘returning to bed’. This is now underlined again: See Tiffany Stern, Rehearsal from Shakespeare to Sheridan (Oxford, 2000), pp. 61–7, for a particularly insightful discussion of the implications of the fact that the actors depended almost solely on their ‘part’. 9 Brennan, Onstage and Offstage Worlds: ‘Shakespeare organized his plays to suit the resources available to him, stretching them to the limits perhaps, making virtues of his necessities’, p. 1. 8

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Doctor. Will she go now to bed? Gentw. Directly. Doctor. … Look after her; Remove from her the means of all annoyance, And still keep eyes upon her. – So, good night. (Macbeth, V, I, 69–70; 75–7)

The trajectories are therefore crystal-clear: the Doctor and Gentlewoman enter together by one stage door, then Lady Macbeth enters from the other door (the door leading to her chamber), and afterwards exits back through it to her chamber. The Gentlewoman then follows her there to ensure no harm comes to her. The Doctor’s ‘good night’ indicates that at this point he and the Gentlewoman are parting ways, as he exits though the other door to return to wherever it was he entered from. We can note in passing that one of the doors in this scene is very specific, while the other is less so: it matters little where the Doctor and Gentlewoman have come from. What is important is where they have come to (near the chamber), all focus being on the door through which Lady Macbeth will enter – and this is a focus created by managing the contrasting entrance and exit patterns of the three characters. Pursuing and Overtaking The Gentlewoman’s exit, following Lady Macbeth back towards the chamber, is an example of a pattern which also governs pursuit and overtaking scenes, and which bestows spatial meaning on the exits and entrances of pursued and pursuer. In The Merchant of Venice IV, i Portia, having unsuccessfully attempted to have Bassanio give her his ring, leaves the stage with Nerissa: Bass. Good sir, this ring was given me by my wife, And when she put it on, she made me vow That I should neither sell, nor give, nor lose it. Por. That scuse serves many men to save their gifts, And if your wife be not a mad-woman, And know how well I have deserv’d this ring, She would not hold out enemy for ever For giving it to me. Well, peace be with you! Exeunt [Portia and Nerissa]. (The Merchant of Venice, IV, i, 441–8)

Then Bassanio, persuaded by Antonio, has a change of heart and sends Gratiano in pursuit of Portia to give her the ring: Ant. Bass.

My Lord Bassanio, let him have the ring. Let his deservings and my love withal Be valued ’gainst your wive’s commandement. Go, Gratiano, run and overtake him; Give him the ring, and bring him, if thou canst,

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Unto Antonio’s house. Away, make haste. Exit Gratiano. Come, you and I will thither presently, And in the morning early will we both Fly toward Belmont. Come, Antonio. Exeunt. (The Merchant of Venice, IV, i, 449–57)

It seems logical that Gratiano should exit the stage in the same direction as his quarry, and three lines later Antonio and Bassanio exit on their way to Antonio’s house (possibly by the same door used by Gratiano, but this is not significant in this context). The following scene is set in the street: Portia and Nerissa are seeking Shylock’s house. They enter, and have four lines to establish these details before Gratiano overtakes them: Enter [Portia and] Nerissa [disguised as before]. Por. Inquire the Jew’s house out, give him this deed, And let him sign it. We’ll away to-night, And be a day before our husbands home. This deed will be well welcome to Lorenzo! Enter Gratiano. Gra. Fair sir, you are well o’erta’en. My Lord Bassanio upon more advice Hath sent you here this ring, and doth entreat Your company at dinner. (The Merchant of Venice, IV, ii, 1–8)

It is significant that Gratiano salutes Portia as being ‘well o’erta’en’. The more common salutation, ‘well met’ would be appropriate if they entered from different doors, ‘meeting’ on stage in a standard pattern suggested by Ichikawa,10 so the variation suggests that the act of following and overtaking is to be represented visually on the stage by having both pursued and pursuer use the same door – both on their exits (‘run and overtake him’) and now on their entrances (‘you are well o’erta’en’). We shall examine in a later chapter a similar overtaking scene in Twelfth Night, which for very interesting reasons has a variation on this commonsense spatial arrangement. Meeting An example of the act of meeting being portrayed by entrances at separate doors – though it is hardly a case of ‘well met’ – occurs in King Lear II, ii. Both Kent and Oswald have previously been sent to Gloucester’s by their respective masters and mistresses, Lear and Goneril. The scene opens with the two characters entering the stage at separate doors, as the Folio makes explicit:

Ichikawa, Shakespearean Entrances, p. 78.

10

16

Playwright, Space and Place in Early Modern Performance Enter Kent and Oswald severally Oswald. Good Dawning to thee, friend. Art of this house? Kent. Ay. Oswald. Where may we set our horses? Kent. I’th’mire. (King Lear II, ii, 1–5)

The location of the scene is established in two ways: by the opposed entrances of the two characters and by Oswald’s questions. Kent enters via one stage door, having already arrived at Gloucester’s house and prompting Oswald’s query: ‘Art of this house?’; and Oswald enters via the other door, asking where he can tether the (offstage) horses on which his party has just arrived. This spatial arrangement is reinforced at II, ii, 46 when Gloucester, Regan, Cornwall and Edmund come out to separate the antagonists, and subsequently confirmed when Kent recounts to Lear the sequence of events which led to his punishment for assaulting Oswald. He describes how he had already arrived at Gloucester’s and delivered the letters as Lear had requested earlier (I, i, 1–5), and then Oswald arrived at Gloucester’s house, having been sent there to inform Regan of Goneril’s concerns, as we are already aware from I, iv, 336–40. This is how Kent summarizes for Lear the events that occurred: Kent. My lord, when at their home I did commend your Highness’ letters to them, Ere I was risen from the place that showed My duty kneeling, came there a reeking post, Stew’d in his haste, half breathless, [panting] forth From Goneril his mistress salutations; (King Lear II, iv, 27–32)

In II, ii the antagonism between Kent and Oswald is therefore communicated not only verbally but spatially, by their ‘opposed’ entrances. And once again it is the simple commonsense opposition between the two entrance doors which carries and reinforces this meaning for the audience. Coming Back into Play An eloquent commonsense spatial logic also seems to govern scenes in which a character exits in a particular direction to a particular offstage location, and then returns shortly afterwards from that location. This is exemplified in two ways through the entrance and exit patterns of Cassio and Othello in Act III of Othello. In III, i Cassio arrives, wishing to speak to Desdemona to persuade her to intercede for him with Othello; Iago has promised to draw Othello apart (III, i, 37–8) to facilitate this meeting – planning to bring Othello back to catch them together. The scene ends when Emilia ushers Cassio, presumably through the door opposite to that through which he entered the stage, into Othello and Desdemona’s lodgings: if Cassio has entered stage left, Emilia takes him off stage right:

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The next scene, III, ii, begins with the entrance of Iago and Othello and Gentlemen, on their way out to inspect some fortifications: Othello. These letters give, Iago, to the pilot, And by him do my duties to the Senate. That done, I will be walking on the works; Repair there to me. Iago. Well, my good lord, I’ll do’t. Othello. This fortification, gentlemen, shall we see’t? Gentlemen. We’ll wait upon your lordship. Exeunt. (Othello III, ii, 1–6)

Since Othello is coming from the very place to which Cassio has just been conducted, it would be logical that he and Iago enter stage right, to then exit stage left:

The next scene begins with the entrance of Desdemona, Cassio and Emilia (III, iii, 1): this is a re-entrance for Cassio, so it would be logical that it be from where he last exited. But the conversation is interrupted by the return of Othello and Iago (III, iii, 28), also coming from where they last exited, and Cassio is forced to make a hasty exit back in the direction of his first entrance in the sequence:

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At the simplest level, we see here two instances of characters returning to the place signified by the stage space, and from the same door through which they had previously exited to a particular nominated offstage place (the ‘fortifications’ for Othello, Desdemona’s lodgings for Cassio). This scene also involves deeper spatial and temporal manipulations of the performance to make meanings for the audience, to which we shall return in a later chapter. Unexpected Returns, Part 1 The pattern of having characters normally return to the stage from the same direction as they had previously exited is validated by a sequence from The Comedy of Errors: it is the climactic scene of the play, and Adriana has been having trouble with the erratic behaviour of her husband Antipholus – not realizing that she has for at least part of the time been interacting with his identical twin brother. She has seen the man she believes to be her husband take refuge behind one of the stage doors in the abbey: Adr.

Antipholus my husband, Who I made lord of me and all I had, At your important letters – this ill day A most outrageous fit of madness took him, That desp’rately he hurried through the street – With him his bondman, all as mad as he – Doing displeasure to the citizens By rushing in their houses, bearing thence Rings, jewels, any thing his rage did like. Once did I get him bound, and sent him home, Whilst to take order for the wrongs I went, That here and there his fury had committed. Anon, I wot not by what strong escape, He broke from those that had the guard of him, And with his mad attendant and himself, Each one with ireful passion, with drawn swords, Met us again, and madly bent on us

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Chas’d us away; till raising of more aid, We came again to bind them. Then they fled Into this abbey, whither we pursu’d them, And here the Abbess shuts the gates on us, And will not suffer us to fetch him out, Nor send him forth that we may bear him hence. (The Comedy of Errors, V, i, 136–58)

But then a messenger arrives, reporting that Antipholus is elsewhere; and immediately they hear an offstage cry – a cry which Adriana recognizes as her husband’s voice: Mess. O mistress, mistress, shift and save yourself! My master and his man are both broke loose, Beaten the maids a-row, and bound the doctor, Whose beard they have sing’d off with brands of fire, … Adr. Peace, fool, thy master and his man are here, And that is false thou dost report to us. Mess. Mistress, upon my life, I tell you true; I have not breath’d almost since I did see it. He cries for you, and vows, if he can take you, To scorch your face and to disfigure you. Cry within. Hark, hark, I hear him, mistress; fly, be gone! … Adr. Ay me, it is my husband! Witness you, That he is borne about invisible: Even now we hous’d him in the abbey here, And now he’s there, past thought of human reason. (The Comedy of Errors, V, i, 168–71; 178–84; 186–9)

It is unlikely that the playwright would write the final two lines, with their emphatic ‘shifters’ (‘here’/‘there’), unless he believed the performance space would enable them to be disambiguated by the contrasting gestures of Adriana, i.e., unless he expected the stage to be equipped with two physical resources that Adriana could point to so as to establish the abbey as ‘here’, and the source of the offstage cry as ‘there’. So this speech relies for its sense on there being at least two entrances, one which signifies the door to the abbey (‘here’), the other an interface with an offstage elsewhere (‘there’, not the abbey, off up the street towards her house). More importantly in terms of the discussion so far, it is assumed that these two fictional places are not connected offstage: if Antipholus has somehow got from the abbey to where he now is, he has been ‘borne about invisible … past thought of human reason’. This exception serves to prove the rule: the ‘normal’ re-entrance for Antipholus (at least for the Antipholus who exited into the Abbey) would be from that same door, not from elsewhere.

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Unexpected Returns, Part 2 A similar playing with what can be confirmed as the ‘normal’ rule – that a character re-enters from whence he or she last exited11 – occurs in Antony and Cleopatra. The opening scene is set in Cleopatra’s palace, and there are two initial contrasting entrances: first a processional entrance involving Cleopatra, Antony, Ladies, Eunuchs and Train (I, i, 9). Shortly afterwards a Messenger from Rome arrives, and it can be assumed that he would enter from a different door from that used by Cleopatra and Antony since he is arriving at the palace from elsewhere. At the end of I, i, Antony, having refused to speak to the messenger from Rome (‘Speak not to us’, 55) exits with Cleopatra and train, presumably using the same door from where they entered to return to their more private quarters. In the following scene (involving Enobarbus, Charmian, Iras, etc.) there is what at first sight looks like a strange and unnecessary false sighting of Antony by Enobarbus: he sees someone offstage approaching, and nominates Antony. Perhaps he is being ironic: the entering character turns out to be Cleopatra who is returning from where she previously exited, having misplaced Antony. However there is more to it than irony: Enter CLEOPATRA Eno. Hush, here comes Antony. Char. Not he, the queen. Cleo. [Saw] you my lord? Eno. No, lady. Cleo. Was he not here? Char. No, madam. Cleo. He was dispos’d to mirth, but on the sudden A Roman thought hath strook him. Enobarbus! Eno. Madam? Cleo. Seek him, and bring him hither. Where’s Alexas? Alex. Here, at your service. My lord approaches. Enter ANTONY, with a MESSENGER [and ATTENDANTS]. Cleo. We will not look upon him: go with us. Exeunt. (Antony and Cleopatra, I, ii, 75–87)

Enobarbus must exit (since a re-entry for him is marked later, at 130), but his exit cannot cross with Antony’s almost simultaneous entrance. The most logical explanation for what is occurring is that Enobarbus, on Cleopatra’s command, sets off in the direction of Antony’s previous exit, because that is where he is expecting him to be (and from where he has already mistakenly seen him approaching). This previous false sighting of Antony serves the stagecraft function of reinforcing audience expectations that Antony is still somewhere in the direction in which he previously exited with Cleopatra. Ironically, as Enobarbus exits in one direction on a wild goose chase, his quarry arrives unexpectedly to all concerned (including Ichikawa, Shakespearean Entrances, pp. 82–3.

11

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the audience) from the other door. Antony has crossed backstage, and now enters deep in conversation with the messenger whom he previously ignored.

A ‘Roman thought’ has indeed struck Antony: despite his initial dismissal of the messenger and exit with Cleopatra, he has stolen around backstage to find out what deep-down he wants to know about the events occurring in Rome. This is therefore a ‘marked’ re-entrance from the other door, reinforcing by its exception the normal spatial rule; it does not signify a spatial discontinuity between the two scenes, but rather marks a fictional discontinuity in Antony’s behaviour. Some Initial Conclusions The preceding examples enable us to draw up an initial taxonomy of some of the straightforward ways in which the texts project a range of readable commonsense entrance and exit patterns – patterns through which the actors and audience can start to share meanings in relation to how the overall fictional world of early modern drama is constructed. These meanings can be articulated as a series of spatial continuities and oppositions: • If characters are parting, they leave by separate exits (The Queen and Suffolk in Henry VI part 2). • If they enter mid-conversation, they come on together (The Doctor and the Gentlewoman in Macbeth). • If they are meeting, they enter at separate doors (Kent and Oswald in King Lear). • If someone comes in from a particular offstage location, and then returns to that location, then he or she re-exits through the same door (Lady Macbeth sleepwalking in Macbeth). • If a character goes off in a particular direction and is then pursued by another character, then the pursuer follows in that same direction. If subsequently

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the ‘overtaking’ is represented, the pursued and pursuer re-enter the stage from the same door. In other words the actors playing the pursued and the pursuer follow the same trajectory off and back onto the stage, to provide an iconic representation of ‘following’ and ‘overtaking’ (Gratiano and Portia in The Merchant of Venice). • If someone goes off in one direction to a particular offstage location, and returns shortly after in the same scene from that location, then he or she re-enters from the same door (Othello and Cassio in Othello, with The Comedy of Errors and Antony and Cleopatra as exceptions which prove the rule). This is by no means a complete list of such basic commonplace patterns; Mariko Ichikawa has dealt with these in considerable detail, making valuable and detailed comments on these various ‘entry-level’ patterns.12 In all these instances – and there are myriad examples of such – the texts reflect a commonsense concrete iconicity and reinscribe it into the performance practice, potentially providing a system the audience could learn to ‘read’ so as to access spatial meanings in performance. This spatial awareness is therefore integral to any attempt to interpret the texts on their own terms, as documents which project at least the broad outlines of performance. General Spatial Conventions We may, however, begin to suspect that there is something more general going on, and that these ‘commonsense’ arrangements are merely the tip of a more complex and extensive iceberg. This suspicion arises because even these basic patterns imply a semiotic geography which involves not just the stage space but the offstage spaces with which it is connected: the plays seem to work on the basis of a quite concrete sense of the relationship between onstage and offstage within each scene – necessitated, as suggested above, by the fact that in the open air the audience can see, and therefore expect to make a meaning from, the direction of entrances and exits. So it is possible that these simple patterns are merely the most obvious symptoms of a more general and deeper set of spatial conventions. By ‘conventions’ in this context we are to understand, as Elizabeth Burns has argued, a set of regularities that gradually develop to the point that they become predictable and meaningful for participants in social situations.13 If there are spatial conventions operating in early modern performance, and traceable in the texts, they would rest on regularities in spatial relationships set up in each scene: relationships between onstage and offstage, and between the different offstage places just out of our sight beyond the stage doors (the flexibility of Elizabethan staging derives from the fact that these relationships can change Ichikawa, Shakespearean Entrances, pp. 73–89. Burns, Theatricality, pp. 41–65.

12 13

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from one scene to the next, as the fictional location changes). Such patterned regularities would have developed by trial and error over an extended period in the performance practice, would have been encoded in the texts written for that practice (which thus reinforced them); and would have been assimilated into the audience’s competence, through repeated exposure to performances, as a set of expectations or conventions that enabled them to make spatial sense of the fictional world of the play. These conventions, since they depend upon and develop a sense of what lies where offstage behind the doors, will revolve around the organization and control of who enters and exits where – and why. The initial articulation of such a set of conventions, as it emerges from the simple examples examined so far, might run thus: the stage space represents or ‘stands for’ a place which is ‘in between’ two other offstage places, which are themselves often in binary opposition to each other. In our examples, the stage represents a place that is: • somewhere between the centre of King Henry VI’s kingdom and exile from it; • somewhere between Lady Macbeth’s chamber and other parts of the castle; • somewhere between Gloucester’s house and Oswald’s horses; • a street between Shylock’s house and somewhere else; • somewhere between Othello and Desdemona’s private quarters and the outside world of Cyprus with its fortifications; • a street between an Abbey and other parts of Ephesus. It is interesting that not all these spatial triangles are, so to speak, equilateral – in the sense that often the spatial location of one of the three apexes is not clearly specified. Often it is the onstage apex of the triangle which is vague, merely an unspecified ‘somewhere’ between two other places. In other instances it is one of those offstage places that is barely sketched in, since (it would seem) it is not considered strictly pertinent to the action of the scene. However, as we progress to examine a broader range of examples we will begin to see how endemic such triangular spatial relationships are to early modern plays – and not just to Shakespeare’s, though he is a master of their deployment. I will argue that these regularities are sufficiently clear to constitute a set of spatial conventions that develop and trigger a particular spatial competence in the audience – a competence which the playwrights can then take for granted and work with to make meanings as they write their texts. Proactive Playwrights To characterize playwrights in this way as manipulators of pre-existing performance conventions is to take a particular position in regard to the role of the playwright in the performance process, and the role of the playwright’s text as an instrument for participating in and influencing that process. Playwrights are often not present at the moment of performance, so they are by necessity ‘remote control freaks’.

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They can set up possibilities via their texts: they can order interactions in particular ways, provide information flow to the audience to keep them up with (or ahead of, or behind) the game. This is probably less of a question of ‘control’ and more one of ‘responsibility’: the anthropologist Richard Bauman has usefully defined performance in terms of the performer taking responsibility for a certain piece of interaction,14 and I suggest that even the simple examples discussed so far suggest that early modern playwrights were effectively taking part in this responsibility for the performance. They do this by organizing their texts in ways that determine performance outcomes and enable actors and audience to share in the interactional meanings that are activated in performance. Such a theoretical and methodological position is by no means uncontested. The critical commonplace is that the paucity of stage directions in early modern texts suggests that playwrights didn’t care about their plays in performance; a variation of this notion has re-emerged recently from a significant quarter. Andrew Gurr suggests that the playwrights of the period had little or no control over how their texts were performed: ‘Authors … had little authority over staging: that was a product of team-work’.15 The inevitable compromises of such ‘team-work’, allied to variable performance conditions and factors such as the weather, he argues, means that interrogating the texts for the playwright’s concrete performance projections is ‘an act of the imagination not so very distant from those of the lunatic, the lover and the poet’.16 We might, he suggests, be able to deduce ‘the performances that the writers … might reasonably have hoped to create when conditions were at their best’,17 so in this view the texts become little more than somewhat abstract projections of ‘optimal’ performance patterns imagined by playwrights dreaming of the best of all possible performance worlds. My argument to this point is obviously based on a radically different set of assumptions, and suggests that it is not productive to sideline the texts as abstract documents. It seems that the texts, if properly considered, can reveal an important dimension of spatial meaning-making in performance, and can as well yield information about original performance conditions. The argument will now proceed by presenting more complex textual evidence to argue that early modern playwrights seem to have believed they had a key role to play, through their texts, in the production process. We will consider a number of examples where the texts betray playwrights who were foreseeing specific production resources and pre-existing staging practices, and were then re-encoding those resources and

Bauman defines performance as consisting in ‘the assumption of responsibility to an audience for a display of communicative competence’: Richard Bauman, Verbal Art as Performance (Illinois, 1984), p. 11. 15 Andrew Gurr, ‘Doors at the Globe: the Gulf between Page and Stage’, Theatre Notebook 55/2 (2001), p. 59. 16 Gurr, ‘Page and Stage’, p. 59. 17 Gurr, ‘Page and Stage’, p. 59. 14

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practices in their texts, as though they felt they had (and could exert through their texts) a significant impact on staging. Such an argument must depend on sophisticated textual analysis which takes account of stage directions (which are indeed scarce compared to modern dramatic texts, as has been repeatedly noted)18 and, more importantly, of their nesting dialogic context. I suggest that proper textual analysis can demonstrate that the texts encode in their stage directions and dialogue clear and practical directions for performances, and can therefore provide significant evidence of Shakespeare’s and other playwrights’ concrete thinking about early modern performance and about the physical performance conditions they expected the texts to encounter. In short, I argue that these texts are generated in the context of a strong pre-existing performance tradition, and since they reflect that tradition in their textual organization they can provide precious information about concrete performance and staging practices. The examples to which we shall now turn suggest that playwrights were acutely aware of the standard configuration, physical resources and constraints of the early modern stages on which their plays would be performed; that they were also aware of the competence and performance-processing capabilities of their audience; and that as a result they were deliberately structuring their texts to capitalize on the available resources and constraints of the performance space, and on the audience’s competence. One of their primary aims is to facilitate the work of the actors in the preparation of performance; they are not simply concerned with ‘optimal’ projections, but are completely at home in the ‘team-work’ of production. They demonstrate sophisticated technical knowledge which enables them, through their texts, to optimize the effectiveness and smooth running of performance. But these playwrights are also aiming to make spatial meanings in performance for their audience: they assume and rely on the competence of the actors and audience in that performance tradition, and structure their texts on the basis of that shared competence. But they also operate on that competence, creating specific performance effects and developing the shared competence of actor and audience at every turn.

Linda McJannet, The Voice of Elizabethan Stage Directions (Newark/London,

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1999).

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Chapter 2

What Playwrights Expected Onstage Collonna. What shall I do wi’th’ Key? (The Knight of Malta, IV, ii, 102)

The Basic Resource Set of the Elizabethan Stage It is generally accepted that the stages in the early modern playhouses had a reasonably standard set of features that could be drawn into performance to perform a range of fictional functions – different ‘spaces’ that were available to become ‘places’. This is a topic on which a great deal has already been written, and it is not the purpose of this chapter to add to the excellent work of other scholars1 – its purpose is somewhat different, but a brief introductory discussion of the main features is nevertheless necessary. The stage features are usually posited on the basis of iconographic or documentary evidence (for example De Witt’s sketch,2 Henslowe’s diaries3), but are also inferred from references, both in stage directions and in the dialogue, in the playtexts written for these performance spaces. Does Colonna’s concern, for instance, about what to do with a key in The Knight of Malta imply that a stage door was to be involved in the fiction, and that it was expected to be fitted with lock and key that could then be incorporated in the fiction? We do know that the stages were at least partly covered by a roof that was supported by two stage posts,4 and these could be enlisted into the fiction as trees or hiding-places. There was also a trapdoor which provided access to and from the understage, and could serve to signify places that are normally ‘below’, such as dungeons.5 Behind the stage was the tiring house, which provided the functional backstage for the actors and also served as the fictional ‘offstage’ to and from which most exits and entrances were made. It was separated from the stage by the Andrew Gurr and Mariko Ichikawa, Staging in Shakespeare’s Theatres (Oxford,

1

2000).

2 Andrew Gurr, The Shakespearean Stage 1574–1642 (3rd ed., Cambridge, 1992), pp. 131–6. 3 See Carol Rutter, Documents of the Rose Playhouse (Manchester, 1984). 4 De Witt’s sketch shows two enormous pillars supporting a roof that covers less than half the stage. The drainage arrangements specified for the stage cover in the Fortune contract (see Gurr, The Shakespearean Stage, pp. 136–9) suggest that the roof is to cover the whole stage; this seems also to have been the case at the Rose: see Julian Bowsher, The Rose Theatre: An Archaeological Discovery (London, 1998). 5 Gurr, The Shakespearean Stage, pp. 115, 122, 140; Gurr and Ichikawa, Staging in Shakespeare’s Theatres, p. 58.

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tiring-house wall, a wall which featured a gallery (accessible from within the tiring house) above the stage. This gallery was probably a continuation of the middle audience gallery of the polygon, and might indeed have accommodated audience; but if required it could be used to house musicians, or as a performance space (usually complementary to the stage proper) to signify places that are normally ‘above’, such as upper windows or the walls of cities.6 The tiring house wall was perhaps a discrete architectural element, a straight wall that was part of a separate stage-tower structure inside the polygon (as shown in de Witt’s sketch of the Swan, and as at the London Globe reconstruction).7 However in some playhouses it was angled, i.e., was merely a continuation of the geometry of the polygonal playhouse (this was clearly the case at the Rose8). As we shall see in this chapter, there is some textual evidence that might reinforce the argument that an angled tiring house wall was more common in the playhouses, and was what playwrights were expecting as they wrote their texts. This wall behind the stage was pierced by two openings for entrances and exits, openings that were fitted with either single or double doors (de Witt’s sketch shows double doors at the Swan). There was also a third feature upstage centre, between the two lateral doors. The principal disagreement about the stage resources revolves around this feature, the ‘place in the middle’ in Beckerman’s terms.9 It is clear that this was at least a curtained space into which onstage characters could go to conceal themselves from the sight of other characters, but it is also generally believed that it provided a third entrance- and exit-point, and that therefore it was here that ‘discoveries’ were set from backstage and revealed to the audience by drawing back the curtains.10 Methodologies: From Text to Performance Feature This chapter is not intended to add to the already copious literature on the precise detail of these features, and how they were deployed in performance. Instead it will examine some pieces of textual evidence which have served as the basis for inferences about these features and their use. As such it will focus as much on methodology, on the process of inference, as on the feature in question – to demonstrate the extent to which such a process of inference (from textual reference to physical feature) requires complex reading strategies and a good deal of caution. Collonna’s concern about what should happen to the key in The Knight of Malta 6 Gurr and Ichikawa, Staging in Shakespeare’s Theatres, pp. 63–5; John C. Meagher, Pursuing Shakespeare’s Dramaturgy (Madison, 2003), pp. 110–19. 7 Gurr, The Shakespearean Stage, p. 133. 8 Julian Bowsher, The Rose Theatre (London, 1998), pp. 39–40, 50. 9 Bernard Beckerman, Shakespeare at the Globe, 1599–1609 (New York, 1962), p. 73. 10 Gurr and Ichikawa, Staging in Shakespeare’s Theatres, pp. 104–7; Meagher, Pursuing Shakespeare’s Dramaturgy, pp. 132–46.

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might well lead us to infer that the stage doors were fitted with practicable locks – but what are the assumptions underlying such an inference? Beckerman’s ‘place in the middle’ provides an excellent example of the pitfalls of inference from textual reference to physical resource. We shall see that the textual evidence from which we might infer that it provided a third entrance point (and that ‘discoveries’ could therefore be set there from backstage) is not univocal: there is evidence to suggest that some playwrights expected the two lateral doorways too to be fitted with hangings, so we cannot automatically infer that any mention of ‘arras’, ‘curtains’ or ‘hangings’ must refer only to the central curtained space, and that therefore discoveries were located there. This inferential chain is extensive: if we can infer hangings also in the lateral doorways, hangings which could be drawn back (presumably by unseen backstage hands) to ‘discover’ characters, they would have to have been behind the tiring house wall. This would mean that the stage doors, which were also fitted in these doorways, would have had to open out onto the stage rather than inwards into the tiring house (otherwise the doors would interfere with the hangings) – and we shall see that Collonna’s concern over the key may constitute important evidence that this was indeed the case: if the stage door opened into the tiring house then any key inserted in its outer (i.e., offstage) side would remain invisible to the audience, reducing or eliminating any necessity to account for it in the dialogue. And if the doorways could serve for discoveries, the ‘place in the middle’ might not have had to provide that function, and so not had to provide access to the tiring house: it might instead have been used purely as a concealment space where onstage characters could hide temporarily, to subsequently return to the stage. This case exemplifies some of the methodological problems we need to be aware of as we proceed. In the first place, if much of our evidence about the enabling performance context is deduced from the texts, this can lead to ambiguities and indeed to hermeneutically vicious circles. Misreadings and misunderstandings of textual features can generate mistaken beliefs about what was there on the stage – and then the mistaken feature can be ‘read back’ into textual interpretation. This was clearly the case with the now discounted ‘inner stage’: a quasi-naturalistic reading of the texts suggested that ‘private’ scenes required a confined, private space – so such a resource was hypothesized on the early modern stage, and the texts then read and interpreted in this light.11 A similar false assumption might also be at the root of discussion of the need for a third entrance- and exit-point and central location of discoveries: if the logistical advantages of more than two entrance points are imagined rather than real (as a later chapter will argue), and if textual references to ‘hangings’ might also point to the lateral doorways, the hermeneutic spiral which runs from textual analysis to the positing of a third opening and then back into textual interpretation is vitiated.

For instance, see Anne Pasternak Slater, Shakespeare the Director (Sussex, 1982),

11

p. 35.

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To restate this hermeneutic problem instead as a semiotic problem clarifies these issues significantly. The interplay between analysis of texts written for performance and their intended performance context must inevitably deal with the interplay between verbal and visual signifiers (see Alan Dessen’s important discussion of the potential for variable and flexible relationships between verbal and scenic signifiers on the early modern stage12). If a character mentions a particular visual feature, this does not necessarily mean that that feature is also signified visually in performance. A castle or a palace might involve no use of visual signification by large or small signifiers; a castle might at most be signified by a gesture to the stage and tiring house, a throne might have to serve as the sole visual signifier of a royal palace. At the opposite end of the spectrum, we can probably assume that a dialogue reference to a small object such as Desdemona’s handkerchief in Othello is complemented by a small hand property; such will also be the case with chairs, stools, swords etc. Doors referred to in the dialogue or stage directions are probably to be understood as generally also signified visually by the stage doors (unless, as we will see, they are remote doors somewhere else offstage). A ditch or grave might involve enlisting the trapdoor, but might not – and this grey area is the problem. Put briefly, there is a certain ‘semiotic threshold’ at which occurs a switchover in signification: below that threshold there is no problem in representing a particular fictional object both visually and verbally. The two communication codes are complementary, and we hear the word ‘handkerchief’ and see the object in question on stage. But above the threshold this complementarity breaks down, and the verbal code must substitute for the visual: it is a castle because – and only because – a character calls it such. This need not be problematical for the audience, since the object to be represented is clearly beyond the resources of this sort of dramaturgy and performance. But what of those objects close to the semiotic threshold, in the grey area of things that are neither so manageable to be deemed automatically available (handkerchiefs, swords, stools), but not so big as to be clearly unmanageable (castles etc.)? Does every reference to a ditch or a hole or a grave connote the use of the trapdoor and the space below the stage? Does every reference to a throne entail an onstage throne? There are no automatic answers to these questions, and careful and guarded analysis is required in each individual case, as we shall see in the ensuing discussion. One further clarification remains to be made: the onstage resources of the playhouse which we find projected in the texts are projected according to a concrete or iconic semiotic logic,13 rather than by an arbitrary or symbolic logic such as that used by the linguistic system (where there is no concrete nexus between the

12 Alan C. Dessen, Recovering Shakespeare’s Theatrical Vocabulary (Cambridge, 1995), pp. 55–9. 13 For a useful introduction to C.S. Peirce’s semiotics in relation to theatre studies, see Keir Elam, The Semiotics of Theatre and Drama (London, 1980, 2002) pp. 21–7.

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signified ‘cat’ and the signifier, which can be ‘cat’, or ‘chat’, or ‘gatto’).14 If the playwright needs a door he will use the stage door, because it is obviously the best thing available to signify ‘door’; but it is ‘the best thing available’ according to a concrete or iconic logic that depends on some visual similarity between the signifier and signified. And this, it must be stressed, is typical of the playwrights’ mode of proceeding: if there is a resource that can be made to stand for a fictional object with some degree of similitude, then it is invoked and involved in the fictional world as a concrete, rather than arbitrary, signifier of the fictional object in question. To tease out these issues we will therefore discuss firstly a set of reasonably non-contentious features as they are exemplified in the texts: the two stage posts, the trapdoor, and the gallery over the stage. We will then proceed to discuss three more significant and more contentious features: the tiring house wall, the pair of lateral stage doors that served for most entrances and exits, and the central upstage feature. Stage Posts, Gallery, Trapdoor In Barnabe Barnes’s The Devil’s Charter III, v it is clear that the playwright is well aware of the visual barrier that could be provided by the stage posts, to the point that he specifies in the stage direction that one of the stage posts (presumably signifying a post or column in the street) as a particular ‘place’, in fact a hiding place: Fresco. Now to my watchword: it is quight forgot, oh Col nuvolo la Pioggia: thinke upon it. The clocke strikes eleven. This is mine hower appoynted; this the place, Here will I stand close till th’allarum call. He stands behind the post. (The Devil’s Charter, III, v, TLN1740–45)

Frescobaldy makes clear in the dialogue that he is hiding behind something such as a post in the street, and that this is to be signified by the stage post is made obvious in the stage direction. We note too that there is a similar semiotic complementarity in the sound effect: Barnes could simply have had Frescobaldy refer to the hour of the ambush, but the time is signified concretely by the chime of the clock. A stage post might serve as an appropriate concrete visual signifier for a tree (and in the process ‘stand for’ a forest), so we might justifiably assume that in As You Like It, III, ii when Shakespeare has Orlando pin his verse to the trees of the forest, he intends the actor to use at least one of the stage posts as a tree: 14 Ferdinand de Saussure, Course in General Linguistics (London, 1974 [1915]). See also Kendall Walton’s useful discussion of mimesis in this regard: Mimesis as MakeBelieve: On the Foundations of the Representational Arts (Cambridge, MA), 1990.

32

Playwright, Space and Place in Early Modern Performance Orl. Hang there my verse, in witness of my love, And thou, thrice-crowned queen of night, survey With thy chaste eye, from thy pale sphere above, Thy huntress’ name, that my full life doth sway. O Rosalind, these trees shall be my books, And in their barks my thoughts I’ll character, That every eye which in this forest looks Shall see thy virtue witness’d every where. Run, run, Orlando, carve on every tree The fair, the chaste, and unexpressive she. Exit. (As You Like It, III, ii, 1–10)

The first line clearly signals the hanging of the verse on the ‘tree’; in the final two exit lines he enunciates his project of ‘carving’ on every tree Rosalind’s name, so in the ensuing eight lines he might also have used the other stage post. Orlando’s textual strategies seem to be two-pronged: on some trees he pins a paper with verses written on it, on others he carves Rosalind’s name or even whole love-songs (Jacques subsequently enjoins him in III, ii, 260 to ‘mar no more trees with writing love-songs in their barks’). He might therefore use the eight lines at his disposal to pin one, or perhaps two verses on the stage posts; alternatively he could pin the verse as directed on one post, and ‘carve’ Rosalind’s name on the other before exiting. The act of ‘carving’ would of course be less iconic than the act of pinning, unless the theatre-owners and/or acting companies were more tolerant of onstage graffitists than we might expect. In Romeo and Juliet, V, iii, Paris directs the Page to stand (or rather to lie) guard and listen for oncoming footsteps in the churchyard, perhaps invoking the stagepost: Paris. Give me thy torch, boy. Hence and stand aloof. Yet put it out, for I would not be seen. Under yond [yew] trees lay thee all along, Holding thy ear close to the hollow ground, So shall no foot upon the churchyard tread, Being loose, unfirm, with digging up of graves, But thou shall hear it. Whistle then to me. (Romeo and Juliet, V, iii, 1–7)

Paris’s instructions are strongly and explicitly visual, suggesting a high degree of iconic correspondence between words and stage action. It certainly involves the Page lying down on the stage; it also involves an iconic correspondence between the natural resonance of the timber trestle stage and the resonance of the churchyard’s earth due to its hollow graves; it might therefore also involve an iconic correspondence between the stage posts and the yew trees nominated in the first Quarto text. Later in the same scene Balthazar, who has disobeyed Romeo’s order to leave, clarifies that in the meantime he too has been under a yew tree, asleep: ‘As I did sleep under this [yew] tree here’ (V, iii, 137), so it is possible that Shakespeare foresaw two figures lying on the stage, one by each stage post. It is

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not impossible, however, that this is one of the marginal cases discussed above: that the ‘yew trees’ are specified in the dialogue because some sort of hiding is suggested, but yew trees are not available on the stage. If the Page were to lie down as directed, but somewhere else other than near the stage posts, the audience would most likely have read that as ‘under yon yew trees’ and not be concerned at the lack of iconic correspondence. Vertical stage posts might also serve as concrete signifiers for vantage points. Dessen and Thompson list a number of instances in which characters climb a ‘tree’ by climbing one of the stage posts,15 and a similar use might well occur in Julius Caesar, V, iii, 20–30, where Cassius orders Pindarus to ‘get higher on that hill’ to survey the offstage battlefield. After two lines of soliloquy he then asks Pindarus to report, and since there is no exit marked for Pindarus this short interval, which would hardly cover the time required to exit the stage and reappear in the gallery, might instead be to provide him time to scale one of the stage posts. Similarly, when he is told to ‘come down’ Cassius only has two lines (33–5) to cover Pindarus’s re-entrance. If he has exited to the gallery and now returns from there to the stage itself he would have to be moving very quickly indeed. It is not impossible therefore that the iconic representation of ‘a higher place’ is represented here not by the gallery but instead by Pindarus climbing part way up, and then descending the stage post. It can, however, be argued that since a stage post is not a particularly apt iconic signifier for a hill, that this might well be a case where a part of the stage might be indicated as a hill, and Pindarus merely moves there on Cassius’s direction: rather than complementing a visual signifier, the word ‘hill’ must compensate for its absence as the audience imagines a hill on the stage. As Dessen and Thompson’s dictionary shows, the term ‘gallery’ is rarely used in stage directions.16 However this signifier of places ‘above’ the place represented by the stage is very commonly invoked through its signified: as ‘walls’ (Dessen and Thompson suggest that ‘walls’ ‘had virtually become a technical term’, replacing the signifier with the signified17). Alternatively it serves to signify ‘window’,18 as occurs in Romeo and Juliet, II, ii: the vertical displacement between Romeo in the street and Juliet at her upper floor window is played out and represented iconically by the vertical displacement between the stage and the first-level gallery. If the vertical displacement between stage and gallery can be exploited to signify the vertical displacement between two places in the fiction (one above, one below), a similar operation can occur in relation to the trapdoor. Again Dessen and Thompson indicate the ways in which the trapdoor can be employed to 15 Alan C. Dessen and Leslie Thomson, A Dictionary of Stage Directions in English Drama, 1580–1642 (Cambridge, 1999), p. 236. 16 Dessen and Thomson, Dictionary, p. 98. 17 Dessen and Thomson, Dictionary, p. 245. 18 Dessen and Thomson, Dictionary, p. 251.

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create unseen counter-places below the level of the stage, whether they be caves, gulfs, vaults or wells,19 to which can obviously be added dungeons, underground passages, graves or the underworld. In Marlowe’s (?) Lust’s Dominion the trapdoor is nominated as a door which leads to an underground passageway. Eleazar sends his mistress the Queen and her pages down the trapdoor to avoid being seen by characters who are knocking offstage to enter the chamber, and in the process sketches in for us the topography of the offstage fictional world. The trapdoor gives access to a secret underground passage from Eleazar’s lodging to (and, for the Queen’s previous carnal purposes, from) the royal chambers: Eleazar. Stir Eugenia, You know your old walk under ground, away. So down hye to the King, quick, quick you Squalls, Crawle with your Dam, i’th dark, dear love farewell, One day I hope to shut you up in hell. Eleazar shuts them in. (Lust’s Dominion, I, i, 1657, ed. B4v–B5r)

The stage direction creates a high degree of semiotic correspondence between the dialogue’s stressing of the ‘shutting up’ of the Queen and her children and the strongly visual gesture of shutting the trapdoor over them. The dialogue also explicitly associates the underground with hell, according to the normal vertical tripartite Christian topography. An Angled Tiring House Wall The first question to be addressed in regard to the wall behind the stage is whether the playwrights were foreseeing a straight or angled wall: is it possible that the texts might indicate what sort of architectural structure the playwrights had in mind as they wrote for projected performance? Such textual evidence might help clarify the competing iconographic and archaeological evidence on this vexed question of the configuration and shape of the tiring house wall. De Witt’s sketch of the Swan shows a straight tiring house wall, as do Inigo Jones’s or John Webb’s drawings for a much later playhouse that might never have been built.20 In contrast the archaeological remains of the Rose leave little doubt that the tiring house wall there followed the cants of the playhouse polygon and was concave, with two angles of the polygon on stage.21 Dessen and Thomson, Dictionary, p. 235. This piece of iconographic evidence will be discussed in Appendix 1. 21 See Bowsher, The Rose Theatre, pp. 39–40, 50. For a fuller discussion of the 19

20

implications of this evidence see Tim Fitzpatrick, ‘The Visual Semiotics of ‘Elizabethan’ Public Playhouses: The First Globe and its Modern Reconstruction’, International Yearbook of Aesthetics 10 (2006): pp. 24–39.

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A passage from Ben Jonson’s Volpone involves the central character spying unseen on the others; Volpone instructs Mosca on how he should deal with the interested visitors coming to monitor Volpone’s state of health: Volpone. Hold, here’s my will. Get thee a cap, a count-book, pen and ink, Papers afore thee; sit as thou wert taking An inventory of parcels. I’ll get up Behind the curtain, on a stool, and hearken; Sometime peep over, see how they do look. (Volpone, V, ii, 80–85)

This suggests that Jonson was expecting the stage to be equipped with a curtain, presumably seven or eight feet high, with enough space behind it for someone to stand on a stool and peep over. It is subsequently referred to in a stage direction as a ‘traverse’: ‘Volpone peeps from behind a traverse’ (V, iii, 8). A ‘traverse’, which the Oxford English Dictionary identifies as ‘a curtain or partition across room’, does not aptly describe a hanging which is flush with a straight tiring house wall, either in the central feature or in one of the lateral doors, and such hangings cannot be peeped ‘over’ since presumably they would be hung so as to cover the whole opening from top to bottom. It might be possible to string a temporary lower curtain in front of the character, who would then stand offstage, framed within the doorway or central feature, but peeping over the curtain; but this would involve either a very low stool or a very high doorway. However neither does such an arrangement correspond with the use of the word ‘traverse’, a curtain on a rod or cord which crosses and divides a room into two sub-spaces. A ‘traverse’ is difficult to arrange with a straight tiring-house wall – no matter how the hangings in front of the tiring house wall might be arranged, they would not be sufficiently clear of it to enable Volpone’s peeping over. Precisely these difficulties have led David Carnegie to argue that it is not necessary for Volpone to actually peep over anything: he can instead simply use a gap in the curtains.22 Carnegie is actually having recourse to the ‘semiotic threshold’ argument outlined above, since he is effectively suggesting that this is a case where the verbal signifiers in the text (‘get up behind a curtain’, ‘on a stool’, ‘peep over’) need not be matched precisely by visual signifiers in performance (i.e., by an actor on a stool behind a curtain, peeping over). However, it is one matter to suggest that the verbal signs can compensate – as they undoubtedly do in many cases – for clearly unrealisable visual signs; it is another matter altogether if the verbal sign refers to a visual item such as a stool which one would expect to be easily available for performance. Why would Jonson supply such specific dialogue if he simply intended Volpone to disappear behind the curtain and then 22 David Carnegie, ‘Stabbed Through The Arras: The Dramaturgy of Elizabethan Stage Hangings’, in Heather Kurr, Robin Eaden and Madge Mitten (eds), Shakespeare: World Views (Newark, 1996), pp. 181–99.

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(perhaps not even on a stool) peep out from between the curtains? There seems little reason for the dialogue’s placing Volpone in a ‘superior’ position to the gulls, in the position of the puppeteer which he undoubtedly is in this sequence, if this is then not actualized physically in performance. Otherwise Jonson could simply have indicated that Volpone disappear behind the arras, as does Polonius in Hamlet. It might be observed that it is the limitations of the (assumed) stage shape and hangings configuration which are driving Carnegie’s argument here, and that with another set of assumptions the performance might represent visually the stage direction and relevant dialogue without any semiotic somersaults. Jonson’s textual arrangement projects physical spaces and features that go directly to the question of the underlying assumption of a straight tiring-house wall, since this textual arrangement clearly presents no problem if the tiring house wall was not straight, but followed instead the cants of the polygonal playhouse structure as it did at the Rose. A concealment space perfectly adapted to Jonson’s text would result if a curtain were hung on a rod across the chord which cuts across one or more of the obtuse angles of the polygonal structure:

Fig. 2.1

A concealment space upstage centre at the Globe and the Rose.

The gap between the curtain and the angled tiring-house wall enables Jonson’s implicit and explicit stage directions to be carried out without any mental gymnastics, providing plenty of space for Volpone to set a stool there and to then peep over the curtain:23

23 This figure shows that it is not necessarily the case, as Andrew Gurr has argued, that in the Rose configuration any curtain would be hanging close up against the central upstage wall (see Andrew Gurr, ‘Doors at the Globe: the Gulf between Page and Stage’, Theatre Notebook 55/2 [2001]: p. 61). In fact the angling of the two lateral wall-faces would provide anchor-points at each end that would enable a curtain to stand out from the central wall section.

What Playwrights Expected Onstage

Fig. 2.2

37

‘Volpone peeps from behind a traverse’.

If this upstage curtain were anchored to the outer sides of the two central bays on the stage, it would be perhaps as wide as 20’ – wide enough for the six chairs ‘placed at the Arras’ in the first Folio (I, iii, 129) of The Maid in the Mill.24 It would have been more than adequate to house the caskets in The Merchant of Venice and Volpone’s gold. The question of the shape of the tiring house wall has another important implication. Quite apart from the fact that an angled wall would avoid the additional cost and complexity involved in inserting a straight wall into the polygonal structure, it might also have served as an acoustic aid, reflecting the actors’ voices around the circular building. An angled tiring house wall such as at the Rose, consonant with the angular structure of the rest of the polygon, would have been less dominant as architectural statement, as visual focus and as backdrop to the onstage action. The plainness of de Witt’s frons, even though it is planar rather than angled, would support such an argument (it is, of course, quite at odds with the elaborately decorated third Globe). These chairs do not, pace Gurr, have ‘no direct role in the following Act’ (Andrew Gurr, ‘Stage Doors at the Globe’, Theatre Notebook 53/1 [1999]: p. 15). They are brought onto the stage either from the tiring house or from behind the arras (having been stored there since the start of the play), and set out in a line in front of the arras to seat the onstage audience for the ensuing spectacle. The removal of the stage direction from the second Folio may indicate they were subsequently considered unnecessary: certainly Martine does not seem to remain seated, since he intervenes in the spectacle and is directed to ‘stand further out o’the’ way’ (II, ii, 128–9). 24

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An Unadorned Tiring House Wall There are fundamental dramaturgical considerations which suggest the tiring house wall, with its doors and gallery which are so integral to the staging of the plays, might have been a self-effacing or neutral signifier rather than prominent and ostentatious. This book is about the capacity of early modern performance to create a sense of place, and the single most distinctive dramaturgical characteristic of the theatre which emerged in the late sixteenth century is its scenic flexibility.25 It can change ‘place’ from one scene to the next, as the stage rapidly transforms itself in the audience’s mind – that is without a change of physical scenery – from one fictional signified (a forest, a garden, a street) to another (a palace, a seashore, a room) purely on the basis of dialogic indications. Emergent early modern dramaturgy based itself on a rapid succession of ‘scenes’ located in different fictional places, each of which is established for the audience not by changes of scenery but by verbal indications and at best a rough iconicity (gallery stands for window, stage post for tree, stage door for cave opening etc.). It is legitimate to ask whether such an emergent dramaturgical structure of scenic signification, which liberates the playwright and performance-makers from the logistical complications of frequent changes of scenery, would have been possible had the frons been decoratively ‘marked’ as if it were the façade of a splendid palace. Indeed the very development of this unique scenery-free ‘wipe and reset’ dramaturgy in early modern England might well suggest that the tiring house wall was self-effacing – a tabula rasa devoid of splendid ornament which, by virtue of its very neutrality as a signifier, could stand in rapid succession for a sequence of different signifieds. One can ask whether, with a flexible ‘wipe and reset’ dramaturgy in place and functioning broadly across the London playhouses, there would have been serious motivation, as new playhouses replaced older ones, to move towards ornate decoration that would have broken this flexible link between a neutral canvas of a plain tiring house wall and the ‘scenes’ that were verbally projected onto it. It can be suggested that this system of instant scene-changes might have derived from, and in turn re-encoded, a neutral signifier that would adapt easily to the multitude of signifier-signified relationships required of it, rather than a highly ornate signifier with clear and specific – and therefore limiting – architectural connotations. It is also relevant that for the bulk of the early modern audience located in the side galleries of the playhouse, the tiring house wall would not have served as a backdrop, as a visual ‘frame’ serving as a ‘background’ to the action: it would have been at best in their peripheral vision off to one side from where the actors were performing downstage. There would thus have been even less motivation for ostentatious ornamentation to turn the tiring house wall into the façade of a fictional building.26 25 See Gay McAuley, Space in Performance: Making Meaning in the Theatre (Ann Arbor, 1999), pp. 30–32 and 87–9. 26 For a fuller discussion of this issue, see Fitzpatrick, ‘Visual Semiotics’, pp. 38–9.

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Two Doors Before discussing the contentious possible central opening in the tiring house wall, it is necessary to deal briefly with the universally accepted fact of two lateral doors which were used for entrances and exits and, as we have seen, were loaded with fictional signification by oppositional patterns of entrance and exit. De Witt’s sketch of the Swan shows two large double doors which look as though they hinge out onto the stage, and there is no other iconographic evidence that would contradict that.27 The plays are peppered with stage directions which have characters enter ‘at one door’ and ‘at the other door’ or ‘at another door’, and even critics who would posit a third central opening still maintain that most entrances were by the lateral doors, with the central opening reserved for particular and very limited purposes.28 The supporters of a third central opening for discoveries adduce two objections to the idea that the lateral doorways would not have been used for such actions: they were too narrow for discoveries or to have beds ‘thrust out’ of them, and the actual hinged doors, rather than hangings, would preclude their use for discoveries which often explicitly require curtains to be drawn back. It is therefore important, before proceeding to an examination of what the playwrights might be signalling about the central feature, to clarify two details about the workings of the lateral doors: how wide they might have been, and how the doors were hinged. Some playwrights clearly expected quite wide doorways, and at least one playwright seems to have been very clear that the doors were hinged to open out onto the stage. Two Wide Doorways The final exit in The Comedy of Errors has the two Dromio twins following the other characters into the abbey, through one of the stage doors: Eph. Dro. Will you walk in to see their gossiping? Syr. Dro. Not I, sir, you are my elder. Eph. Dro. That’s a question; how shall we try it? Syr. Dro. We’ll draw cuts for the senior, till then, lead thou first. Eph. Dro. Nay then, thus: We came into the world like brother and brother; And now let’s go hand in hand, not one before another. Exeunt. (The Comedy of Errors, V, i, 420–26)

The twins’ elaborate banter about who should have seniority and precedence suggests that the playwright did not expect it to be visually undercut by an exit which necessitated one of the actors having to give precedence to the other because See Gurr, The Shakespearean Stage, p. 135. See Gurr, ‘Stage Doors’, p. 17.

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the doorway was not sufficiently wide to enable them to go through it together, hand in hand. This example therefore suggests a wide doorway, probably fitted with two doors. Andrew Gurr suggests that the singular ‘at one door … at the other door’ often used to describe processional entries must be a clear indication that lateral doors were single, not double – and that the doorway was probably narrow, too narrow for discoveries and beds.29 This would therefore imply that the twins’ exit through a wide doorway took place elsewhere, through a third, grander double-doored central feature. Gurr refers to A Knack to Know an Honest Man in support of this particular physical arrangement: a pair of central doors flanked by two single doors in the frons.30 He argues that the distinction between plural and singular forms of the noun ‘door’ in this play is significant, reflecting a physical contrast between double doors upstage centre and single doors on either side. He notes that Lucida’s house, assaulted by Fortunio, is repeatedly identified by the plural ‘doores’ (lines 1032, 1034, 1035), as distinct from the singular ‘doore’ (line 1081) used for a door in another house, and for two processional entries earlier in the play. At line 903 there are entries for the Duke of Milan at one door and the Duke of Florence ‘at the other doore’. However the argument that the plural ‘doores’ would locate Lucida’s house at the central opening is not borne out elsewhere in the play, which contains as many as five instances in which Lucida’s door is referred to in the singular. Lelio refers to it metaphorically: ‘Haste forceth griefe, danger keepes the doore’ (132), but various other characters are referring to the concrete object: Annetta asks ‘What mean this troup of armed men about my dore?’ (408); Sempronio gets the ladies to take refuge inside it (Here put them in at doore) (739), and later instructs Zepherius what to do ‘If any man shall attempt to breake your sisters doore’ (895). When Fortunio’s follower knocks, Gnatto replies from within ‘what scab is at the doore at this time of the night’ (1011–12). Ignoring this interchangeability of singular and plural in relation to Lucida’s door, Gurr suggests (9) that the singular ‘at one door … at the other door’ must therefore be a clear indication that these lateral doors were single, not double. Such an argument is flatly contradicted by the double funeral procession in A Chaste Maid in Cheapside: ‘Enter at one Dore the Coffin of the Gentleman, solemnly deck’t, his Sword upon it, attended by many in Blacke … At the other Doore, the Coffin of the Virgin … attended by Mayds and Women’ (V, iv). There are a number of reasons to suppose that these singular nouns refer to double lateral doors: firstly this play was performed at the Swan, which De Witt’s sketch clearly shows equipped with double doors as wide as they are high; secondly, this is a funeral procession carrying a coffin (a coffin, it should be added, which has a sword precariously positioned on it, and is occupied by a real body which is about to resurrect itself). This would certainly require four pallbearers and doors wide enough to be safely negotiated without creating occupational health and safety Gurr, ‘Stage Doors’, p. 9. Gurr, ‘Stage Doors’, p. 9.

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concerns (for the pallbearers should the sword slide off, and for the actor inside the coffin should it be dropped). It might also be added that the christening procession in this play (II, iv) requires not one but two wide openings as it proceeds from Allwit’s house towards the church, since the dialogue makes it obvious the various characters enter, cross the stage and exit in pairs. The same can be said for Queen Anne’s coronation procession in King Henry VIII, IV, i: the comments of the gentlemen onlookers make it clear that it enters at one door (from the abbey), crosses the stage and exits at another door (towards the court). Besides various pairings in the procession, its centrepiece is grandiose: ‘A canopy, born by four of the Cinque-ports, under it the Queen’. The lateral doorways foreseen by these playwrights are not narrow, and could therefore conceivably have been used for discoveries and to bring large properties onto the stage. The plural references to the physical aspects of the doors in A Knack to Know an Honest Man (their being heaved from their hinges etc.) suggest that Gurr is correct to infer that the door(way) which stood for Lucida’s house was indeed fitted with a set of double stage doors. However if the text refers to this doorway and its double doors interchangeably in the singular or plural depending on whether the emphasis is on its function as doorway or on its physical fittings, then there is no reason why the lateral doorways (referred to in the singular) might not have been fitted with sets of double stage doors – as in any case their use for elaborate processions would indicate. And if this is the case then Lucida’s house could be located at one of them – thus rendering superfluous an upstage centre discovery space if its rationale is to compensate for the limitations of narrow lateral doorways each fitted only with single doors. This text therefore does not support Gurr’s underlying assumption that narrow lateral doors needed to be complemented by a central, wider discovery space fitted with two doors. Doors Opening Out Onto the Stage The Knight of Malta is a collaborative work by Fletcher, Field and Massinger.31 It seems that it is Fletcher who is to be identified as the playwright responsible for Act IV scene ii, a sequence that provides invaluable information about how the early modern stages were equipped. We will return in a subsequent chapter to the vexed question of exactly how many entrances onto the stage are projected in this text; for the moment let us concentrate on one small detail, the hinge arrangements of the stage door by which two groups of characters enter and exit the stage. That this seemingly trivial detail is elucidated in the text is in itself significant: the very fact that such fine-grained information is inscribed in the text betrays a playwright who seems to know exactly what will be available, and to be writing dialogue that would otherwise be nonsensical. 31 See George Walton Williams’s modern critical edition in The Dramatic Works in the Beaumont and Fletcher Canon (Cambridge, 1992), vol. 8, pp. 347–9.

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It seems clear from the text that at least one of the two lateral stage doors (each of which, the preceding discussion would suggest, were in fact double doors as De Witt’s sketch of the Swan indicates), was fitted with a lock and had a keyhole in its offstage face. There was also a key to fit this keyhole: quite apart from any theatrical use of the key as property, after-hours security of the tiring house and its contents would have made this useful. More importantly, when the door was unlocked and opened it was hinged so as to swing out onto stage (not into tiring house as at the Globe reconstruction), so that the key which has been inserted into the lock backstage became visible to the audience. Let us substantiate these assumptions and assertions by looking closely at the text. The scene is set late at night at the Temple of St John, where the heroine Oriana, presumed dead, is buried in her family’s monument. She is in fact not dead: her maidservant Abdella has given her, on behalf of the evil Mountferrat, a sleeping potion as a ploy to remove her from her new husband. Abdella brings Mountferrat news of Oriana’s whereabouts, and escorts him with his servant Rocca to the temple. But the noble knights Miranda and Norandine, with Miranda’s servant Collonna, arrive there first and enter the church under cover of darkness. Their dialogue sketches in some offstage realities as Collonna unlocks and opens the door: he has procured the key from the church ‘keeper’ who will need to be recompensed for his trouble, and they have arrived on horseback since Miranda sends Collonna back out to the horses: Collonna. Here sir, I have got the Key, I borrowd it Of him that keeps the Church, the door is open. Miranda. Look to the horses then, and please the fellow. (The Knight of Malta, IV, ii, 1–3)

The knights then hear the awakening Oriana moaning from inside the tomb, and quickly remove her from her coffin. Miranda calls Collonna from offstage, and gives instructions for Norandine, once the body has been carried out, to remain on guard at the church while he and Collonna will take her to the safety of the fort. With an inert body to be dealt with, the key is now a slight complication: it cannot be taken back to the ‘keeper’, so Miranda instructs Collonna to leave it in the keyhole: Miranda. Softly good friend, take her into your arms. Norandine. Put in the crust againe. Miranda. And bring her out there when I am a horseback: My man and I will tenderly conduct her Unto the Fort; stay you, and watch what issue, … Collonna. What shall I do wi’th’ Key? Miranda. Thou canst not stir now, Leave it ith’ door: go get the horses ready. Exeunt. (The Knight of Malta, IV, ii, 94–8, 102–3)

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The text begs the inference that the key is to be visible in the keyhole of the open door as they exit, since at this point, almost simultaneously with their exit, the other group arrives to implement their plan to steal Oriana’s ‘body’ – and it is obvious that they use the same door to the temple. On entering they see and mention the key which the exiting knights have just left in the open door: Enter Rocca, Mountferrat, Abdella. With a dark lanthorn. Rocca. The door’s already open, the Key in it. (The Knight of Malta, IV, ii, 104–5)

These exchanges tell us something about how the stage doors were hinged, and the direction in which they swung. There would be no point at all to the thricerepeated dialogue references to the key in the door if the doors did not open out onto the stage, revealing to the audience in the process the key which has been inserted in the offstage lock before Collonna first opens the door. We have discussed above the question of the precise location of the semiotic threshold at which the dialogue must take over and substitute for unrealisable visual signifiers such as castles, but this instance would seem to be well below that threshold, wherever it might be: as in the case of Volpone’s stool, if the stage was equipped with doors with keyholes (as shown in De Witt) and keys to them, then it seems logical to infer that dialogue references to such objects are to complement the visual elements rather than substitute for them. This implies that the stage doors opened out onto the stage to reveal to the audience the key in their ‘outer’ side, rather than opening into the tiring house. This would have the advantage of not having the doors constrict an already cramped tiring house, and would mean that the open doors would not interfere with curtains hung behind the wall in the open doorway – an issue to which we will return below. The ‘Place in the middle’ Bernard Beckerman’s deliberately noncommittal description of the upstage central feature epitomizes critical uncertainty over a third entrance-point.32 This mysterious feature involved curtains, and curtains are often associated in the texts with concealment and subsequent discovery.33 There is a handful of references that seem on the surface to suggest three entrance points (though we shall see subsequently that the evidence is ambiguous), but there is no stage direction anywhere in the early modern corpus which refers to the use of a central opening for an entrance independent of the two lateral doors.

Bernard Beckerman, Shakespeare at the Globe, p. 73. John L. Styan, Shakespeare’s Stagecraft (Cambridge, 1967), pp. 22–3, outlines

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in a clear and practical manner the implications of this combination of two doors plus a concealment space.

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Let us approach this issue via an extended discussion of a complex sequence from Ben Jonson’s Epicoene that explicitly features two opposed doors and a concealment space. It is so complex that it could even be argued that to stage it smoothly would require not two, nor three, but five doors – or more precisely four doors plus a concealment space, since one thing is absolutely clear: the central concealment space which is explicitly nominated in the text is simply that, requiring no access to and from the tiring house. This is a particularly eloquent example of the playwright’s foresight as he projects how this long and complex performance sequence will work, since in acts III and IV of Epicoene Jonson has his onstage alter ego and proxy director True-wit orchestrate and choreograph a series of exits and entrances, as he both physically and figuratively puts the two fools, Jack Daw and Sir Amorous La-Foole in their place(s). The sequence features a number of examples of the playwright bringing the stage doors into play – significantly, in terms of Ichikawa’s valuable conclusions,34 by having them closed and opened, locked and unlocked – to stand for fictional doors. Jonson makes the two lateral stage doors work overtime to serve as interfaces with not just two, but four different offstage places; and the central feature between the two flanking doors is not used as a ‘discovery space’ that would provide a third exit point, but seems to serve, as Richard Dutton notes, merely as a concealment space in which characters hide temporarily to then return to the stage.35 The movement patterns in this scene are complex, and perhaps for this reason Jonson has been careful to project them clearly in the text. This explicitness is a boon to the performance historian, as it clarifies the entrance and exit patterns choreographed by True-wit. Closer analysis suggests that even if the central feature did provide a third exit point, it would not facilitate the staging – you would need four doors to do that. Acts III and IV are set in Morose’s house, and cover his wedding and its aftermath. The Ladies arrive, and Morose invites them further into the house. His dialogue sketches an offstage network of rooms and spaces further inwards: ‘Will it please your ladiship command a chamber, and be private with your friend? You shall have your choice of roomes, to retire to after: my whole house is yours’ (III, vi, 303/563).36 After Mrs Otter’s arrival they all go in:

Mariko Ichikawa, ‘Were the Doors Open or Closed? The Use of Stage Doors in the Shakespearean Theatre’, Theatre Notebook 60/1 (2006): pp. 5–29. 35 Ben Jonson, Epicene, or The Silent Woman, ed. Richard Dutton (Manchester, 2003), p. 55. Dutton’s extrapolation of the features of the discovery space (access through it from tiring house to stage, possible access to it from each of the lateral ‘studies’: p. 56) is not borne out at all by this play’s use of it – which begs the question of what its real features might have been. It is unfair to characterize Jonson’s dramaturgy as a ‘failure to use the discovery space’ (p. 56) if the features he has supposedly not deployed were not there in the first place. 36 References are to Jonson’s Workes, London, 1616: act/scene/line is followed by the EEBO image number. 34

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Tru. Pray you entertayne her, and conduct your guests in. No? Mistris bride, will you entreat in the ladies? Your bridegroome is so shame-fac’d, here – (Epicoene, III, vii, 304/564)

This sets up the general spatial geography, which is simple and commonsense – and depends on a set of resources that are much simpler than those suggested by Jean MacIntyre in her consideration of ‘studies’ at Whitefriars.37 The commonsense spatial patterns established are as follows:

This leaves True-wit and Clerimont on stage, and they are joined by Dauphine who had exited with the ladies and now returns to describe Morose’s means of avoiding the visitors: Dau. Hee has … lock’d himselfe up, i’ the top o’ the house, as high, as ever he can climbe from the noise. I peep’d in at a crany, and saw him sitting over a crosse-beame o’ the roofe. (Epicoene, IV, i, 304/565)

Dauphine further fleshes out the geography of the offstage segments of Morose’s house. Meanwhile, he says, the Collegiates are ‘Withdrawne with the bride in private’. Otter now returns from inside with La-Foole, followed by Mrs Otter; and ‘Morose speakes from above’ (IV, ii, 306/569) and then ‘descends with a long sword’ (IV, ii, 307/570). He subsequently goes back in, followed (on Truewit’s advice) by Dauphine: ‘Best follow him, Dauphine’ (IV, ii, 307/570). Otter now leaves the house, as is clear from Clerimont’s sigh of relief: ‘I am glad we are rid of him’ (IV, ii, 307/570):

37 Jean MacIntyre, ‘Production Resources at the Whitefriars Playhouse, 1609–1612’, Early Modern Literary Studies 2/3, 1996: paragraphs 17, 21.

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The Ladies and fools then re-emerge from inside the house (IV, iii, 307/571), followed by Morose and Dauphine (IV, iv, 308/572). All of these characters subsequently return there. Firstly Morose and Dauphine and then, after a breathingspace, the ladies and the fools: Hau. Is that his keeper, that is gone with him? Daw. It is his nephew, madame. … Tru. You’ll make him mad indeed, ladies, if you pursue this. Hau. No, wee’ll let him breathe, now, a quarter of an houre, or so. … Good Morose [=Epicoene], let’s goe in againe. I like your couches exceeding well: wee’ll go lie, and talke there. Epicoene, ( IV, iv, 309/575)

As Epicoene leaves, True-wit asks her to get Daw and La-Foole to come back from inside: Tru. And but beate off these two rookes, Jack Daw, and his fellow, with any discontentment hither, and I’ll honour thee for ever. Epi. Will you goe in, and heare me doe it? Tru. No, I’ll stay here. Drive ’hem out of your companie. (Epicoene, IV, iv, 309–10/575–6)

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These details of the various comings and goings are necessary to set the stage for what is about to occur. The pattern established to this point is uncomplicated: one of the lateral doors signifies the entrance from the outside world, the other the entrance into the rest of the house, so Dauphine, who last exited further into the house with his uncle, now returns to report that Morose has ‘run out o’ dores in’s night-caps’ (IV, v, 310/576). This indicates that there is another exit, independent of the door from which they first entered the house, directly from the inner parts of the house to the street.

True-wit now explains his plan to Clerimont and Dauphine: Tru. Doe you observe this gallerie? or rather lobby, indeed? Here are a couple of studies, at each end one: here will I act such a tragi comoedy between the Guelphes, and the Ghibellines, Daw and La-Foole – which of ’hem comes out first, will I seize on: (you two shall be the chorus behind the arras, and whip out betweene the acts, and speake.) … I heare Daw comming: Hide, and doe not laugh, for gods sake. (Epicoene, IV, v, 310/576–7)

True-wit explicitly calls the audience’s attention to the stage and its spatial appendages at this point: the stage now represents a gallery or more precisely a lobby with a number of annexed rooms. This is a significant and deliberate attempt on Jonson’s part to clarify the unusually complex spatial parameters of what is about to occur. Daw and La-Foole will be coming from inside the house, heading outside (to the garden, to the courtyard ‘to make water’), but will end up in the ‘studies’. There is no known evidence for four flanking doors in addition to the central feature where Dauphine and Clerimont are to conceal themselves, so we have to assume that the two flanking stage doors will also signify the ‘couple of studies’, and this will involve the doors playing double roles and switching signification mid-scene.

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Daw is the first to enter. He is going to end up in one of the ‘studies’, but to enter the stage he must come from the door that leads further into the house, since that is where he has been with Epicoene and the ladies. If instead he entered through the central opening (assuming that the central feature had an opening to the tiring house), the flanking door would be able to take on a ‘study’ role, but this would be discontinuous with the layout of the house established so far. It would also be logistically awkward since Clerimont and Dauphine are hiding in the central feature. Daw’s dialogue on entrance indicates that the stage doors still stand for the door to the inner parts of the house and the door outwards, in addition to the ‘study’ role for the doors nominated by True-wit. He is coming from inside, and asks the way out: ‘Which is the way into the garden, trow?’ (IV, v, 310/577). True-wit convinces him that he needs to be on guard against La-Foole’s hostility, and hides him in one of the ‘studies’: Tru. Well, sir, conceale you selfe then in this studie, till I return. He puts him up. Nay, you must bee content to bee lock’d in: for, for mine owne reputation I would not have you seen to receive a publique disgrace … here hee comes: keep your breath close, that hee doe not heare you sigh. (Epicoene, IV, v, 310/577, 311/578)

From the audience’s point of view it would make sense if Daw entered by one door and were concealed behind the other. The reference to being locked in must indicate a key; once he has locked Daw behind the door, True-wit pretends to be talking to La-Foole onstage, to frighten the overhearing Daw. Then he must unlock the door to let Daw out momentarily, and then lock him in again: ‘He puts him up againe, and then come forth [Dauphine and Clerimont]’ from their central place of concealment (IV, v, 311/578).

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After dialogue with Clerimont and Dauphine, True-wit gets them to return to their concealment space: ‘To your places againe’ (IV, v, 311/579), as La-Foole too now comes from inside the house. He, like Daw, is on his way out, ‘Downe into the court, to make water’ (IV, v, 311/579). The logistical problem here is that if La-Foole is now to be hidden in the other ‘study’, this must be behind the door through which he has just entered (Daw is behind the other door). Jonson stretches the dialogue between True-wit and La-Foole (approximately 50 lines) before La-Foole is positioned in the study, partly at least to anaesthetize the audience to the possible contradiction: this is an excellent example of what Ichikawa refers to as ‘neutralizing’ the fictional significance of the door,38 creating a time lapse between its use as door further into the house and as door to the study: Tru. Enter here, if you love your life … will you in? La-F. I, I, I’ll in. … Tru. But what have you done to him within, that should provoke him thus? You have broke some iest upon him, afore the ladies – … La-F. Not I . he went away in snuffe, and I followed him. … Tru. … he walkes the round up and downe, through every roome o’the house. … La-F. Or, I’ll away into the country presently. Tru. How will you get out o’the house, sir? Hee knowes you are I’the house, and hee’ll watch you … La-F. Why, then I’ll stay here … Tru. Yet, there’s another feare – La-F. Is there, sir? What is’t? Tru. No, he cannot breake open this dore with his foot, sure. La-F. I’ll set my backe against it, sir. He faines, as if one were present, to fright the other, who is run in to hide himselfe. (Epicoene, IV, v, 311/579, 312/580)

Ichikawa, ‘Were the Doors Open or Closed?’, p. 14.

38

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Again True-wit pretends his victim’s ‘enemy’ has arrived, to frighten La-Foole. However True-wit does not put La-Foole behind the door as he did Daw; rather La-Foole, of his own accord, ‘runs in to hide himselfe’, which suggests that La-Foole exits and closes the door from offstage. Note that this time there is no mention of a key to this door: La-Foole will keep it closed by leaning against it. This is to enable the door subsequently to revert smoothly (i.e., without having to be unlocked by True-wit and therefore re-identified as the study) to another fictional signification, as other characters will later enter through it from inside the house.

True-wit then calls forth again his two observers from behind the central hangings: ‘He calls forth Clerimont, and Dauphine’ (IV, v, 312/580). Clerimont suggests going to get the ladies so they can watch Daw and La-Foole making fools of themselves: Cle. Shall I goe fetch the ladies to the catastrophe? … Tru. Well, I will have’hem fetch’d, now I thinke on’t … doe, Clerimont, fetch’hem, and discourse to ’hem all that’s past, and bring ’hem into the gallery here. (Epicoene, IV, v, 312/580)

Clerimont therefore must go further into the house to get the ladies, and bring them to the gallery above the lobby, but there are more than 20 lines between La-Foole’s exit into the ‘study’ and Clerimont’s use of the same door to go into the house to fetch the ladies – plenty of time for the earlier fictional meaning of the door to be ‘neutralized’. In the meantime, True-wit gets Dauphine to go offstage to disguise himself, and brings Daw back onto the stage: Tru. There’s a carpet i’ the next roome, put it on, with this scarfe over thy face, and a cushion o’thy head, and bee ready when I call Amorous. Away – John Daw. (Epicoene, IV, v, 312/581)

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Dauphine too must exit through the door which leads into the house, into the ‘next room’ to put on his disguise, since as he exits True-wit brings Daw back out onto the stage from his study (presumably unlocking the door behind which he has been) to receive his punishment.

Dauphine now re-enters disguised as La-Foole – and from the door associated with La-Foole: Daw. What good newes, sir. … Tru. Hee is to come here in disguise, give you five kicks in private, sir, take your sword from you, and lock you up in that studie. … Dauphine comes forth, and kicks him. Tru. Your sword. Now returne to your safe custody … (Epicoene, IV, v, 312/581)

True-wit relieves Daw of his sword and shuts him up again in his study; he then takes the scarf from Dauphine (he will use it to blindfold La-Foole, so Dauphine needs no further disguise): ‘Give me the scarfe, thou shalt beate the other barefac’d. Stand by.’ Dauphine, having removed the scarf, is to ‘stand by’ in the concealment space where he can easily remove the rest of his disguise:

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True-wit then calls Sir Amorous La-Foole back onstage, and tells him he will be blindfolded with the scarf, will surrender his sword and be beaten and tweaked, which is precisely what happens: ‘Dauphine enters to tweake him’ (IV, v, 313/582). True-wit then gets La-Foole to retire offstage: ‘’Tis sir John’s pleasure, you should retire into the studie.’ He must also at this point put the two swords offstage behind the door.

True-wit then addresses the two offstage characters in their respective studies: Tru. Why, now you are friends. All bitternesse betweene you, I hope, is buried; you shall come forth by and by, Damon & Pythias upon’t: and embrace with all the ranknesse of friendship that can be. (Epicoene, IV, v, 313/582)

This address acts as a final summation of the whole preceding scene, and neutralizes the ‘study’ signification of the stage door which La-Foole has just used. A further two lines to Dauphine close the scene and then register the unexpected entrance of the Ladies: Tru. I trust, wee shall have ‘hem tamer i’ their language hereafter. Dauphine, I worship thee. Gods will, the ladies have surpris’d us! (Epicoene, IV, v, 313/582)

True-wit had previously directed Clerimont to fetch the ladies, ‘discourse to ’hem all that’s past, and bring ’hem into the gallery here’ (IV, v, 312/580). The stage direction specifies that they have indeed already witnessed part of the preceding scene from the gallery: ‘Having discovered part of the past scene, above’ (IV, v, 313/583). The ladies then propose to leave the stage and ‘go in againe’ to the inside of the house (IV, vi, 314/584), but True-wit forestalls their exit and makes one final use of the flanking doors to signify the studies, directing Daw and La-Foole to ‘slip out’ and ‘whip out’ onto the stage (IV, vi, 314/584). After some 20 lines of exchange between Daw and La-Foole (an exchange that includes comments about their missing swords), Morose enters with the swords which True-wit has previously deposited offstage (‘he had found the two swords drawne within’, IV, vii, 314/584).

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It seems therefore that for this scene to work on a stage which has only two entrance-points, the two doors – and particularly the door leading further into the house – need to switch signification a number of times within the scene, to stand as the doors to the ‘studies’ in which Daw and La-Foole are hidden as well as providing access to the outside world and further into the house. Even if there were a third entrance-point through the central feature, it would not make the logistics any easier. It could not be used as the entrance-point of characters arriving from inside the house, since it is where Clerimont and Dauphine are hidden. More importantly, it seems that Jonson has been careful to structure the text to enable the scene to be performed with just two entrance points – each of which has two alternating fictional functions – in addition to a simple concealment space upstage centre. The initial ‘flipping’ of the door into the house – when it becomes La-Foole’s Study – occurs after a lapse of some 50 lines, a lapse which enables the door to be ‘neutralized’ and re-assigned. The subsequent alternations occur with accelerating speed, suggesting that Jonson felt that once the convention of having one door stand for two discrete offstage places had been established, the audience would not be concerned at increasingly rapid ‘flips’ (as occurs in the final segment, with the Ladies’ and Morose’s entrances from the house separated by La-Foole’s entrance from the Study). This sequence refers to two doorways and an ‘arras’ behind which characters temporarily conceal themselves; it does not, as Ichikawa suggests, refer to three doorways.39 Neither – as we shall see in a later chapter – does the subsequent sequence, which Ichikawa claims ‘refers to three doorways for a second time’.40 This sequence from Epicoene provides very clear textual evidence that the upstage centre feature was just a concealment space, and if that is the case and there were no access to it from the tiring house its uses will have been limited, and the hangings may thus have been put in place only when required by a particular play. It would have been no use for discoveries which needed to be set from backstage, so such a hypothesis can only be sustained if there is evidence that the ‘hangings’ that were drawn back to stage discoveries might have been in one or other of the lateral doorways. Ichikawa, ‘Were the Doors Open or Closed?’, p. 19. Ichikawa, ‘Were the Doors Open or Closed?’, p. 19.

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Hangings in the Flanking Doorways Mariko Ichikawa, in an important contribution to our understanding of the role of the doors in the fictional world of the play, suggests that in certain indoor scenes the doors might have been shut (even if their closure was not invoked in the dialogue), to establish ‘atmosphere’ and a sense of intimacy and privacy for the onstage characters.41 This might have been necessary had the open doors not had any other means that would provide privacy for the offstage actors in the tiring house (and therefore conversely provide fictional privacy for the onstage characters): in the absence of any hangings in the open doorways, closure of the doors might well therefore have been indicated to provide some semblance of privacy. This indeed is Ichikawa’s position: ‘unlike the central opening, the flanking doorways were free from curtains’.42 Such a proposition is at odds with Frederick Kiefer’s considered conclusion to his extensive investigation of curtains on the Shakespearean stage. He concludes that ‘curtains could be drawn across one of the entrances onto the stage for discovery scenes’,43 but takes no definitive position on which possible opening or openings might be involved. He notes that some stage directions ‘refer to a curtain rather than a traverse, and that curtain almost certainly covers either a doorway onto the stage or a central alcove’.44 His examples do not include two discussed below, which seem to indicate conclusively that the lateral doorways were also equipped with hangings. Ichikawa’s no-hangings position also involves a practical problem; that of maintaining some privacy in the tiring house. She recognizes this and proposes a ‘crossover’ in each doorway, or rather slightly behind it.45 This would enable actors and stage hands to cross unseen behind the crossover, and for entries to be made around either end of the crossover and then through the open doorway. Such an arrangement would further congest an already small tiring house and would render oblique any entrance, weakening the impact of some entrances (to say nothing of the practical problems it would cause to processions such as that discussed above, where four characters enter carrying a coffin with an actor in it). However such a cumbersome means of preserving privacy was not necessary, since there is clear evidence that some playwrights were expecting the flanking doorways to be fitted with hangings. As well as providing privacy, they would have enabled entrances at the flanking doorways to be made through a central split in the hangings. Let us examine four pieces of evidence to this effect, two of which reveal playwrighterly expectations of a more complex configuration of hangings than Ichikawa’s sole

Ichikawa, ‘Were the Doors Open or Closed?’, p. 19. Ichikawa, ‘Were the Doors Open or Closed?’, p. 24. 43 Frederick Kiefer, ‘Curtains on the Shakespearean Stage’, Medieval & Renaissance 41 42

Drama in England (2007), pp. 20, 177. 44 Kiefer, ‘Curtains’, p. 164. 45 Ichikawa, ‘Were the Doors Open or Closed?’, p. 23.

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central curtain. The two plays concerned are Sharpham’s Cupid’s Whirligig and Davenant’s The Wits. Cupid’s Whirligig46 features a scene which requires two sets of hangings, not one. Wages gets Lady and Nan to hide behind hangings to await the arrival of the Knight: Wag. Therfore I wold have ye hide your selues here behinde the hangings, for twill not be long ere hee come this way, and then you shall come foorth and frame your behauiour according as our discourse shall require. Nan. Masse here he comes, lets stand close. (Cupid’s Whirligig, G4v)

The Knight then enters and is engaged in dialogue by Wages. Then Wages sees the Lady entering, as he had directed her, from behind the hangings: Enter the Lady and Nan. Wag. Masse here shee comes: what will you doe now? Kni. O, ile hide me here, and so I shall heare all what shee saies. Wag. O this is excellent, come, come, come, and stand close, ye shall heare how ile speake for ye: and if ye heare your pardon graunted, come forth. (Cupid’s Whirligig, H1r)

The similarity between the two sets of directions (‘Masse here he comes … stand close’/‘Masse here shee comes … stand close’) would be enough to suggest a symmetry of action that would have the Knight also go behind the hangings. However, these would have to be a different set of hangings from those from which the Lady and Nan are at that point emerging. This entrance is a good example of a phenomenon which Ichikawa identifies,47 and which we might term a gradual or phased entrance process: perhaps the Lady makes herself visible at a split in the hangings so Wages can ‘see’ her and hide the Knight before she fully comes out from behind the hangings onto the stage. Wages then plays a split scene, talking to the Ladies and to the concealed Knight (some eight lines about his recompense) and it becomes obvious that the suspicion of symmetry is correct: the Knight emerges, as previously directed on the ‘pardon’ cue, from behind the hangings – so much is clear from the Lady’s objection to his behaviour: La. Is there honestie in this, to set a man behinde the hangings to evise-drop our wordes. (Cupid’s Whirligig, H2r)

Edward Sharpham, Cupid’s Whirligig (London, 1607). Ichikawa, ‘Were the Doors Open or Closed?’, pp. 19–23.

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The most obvious and perhaps the only viable explanation is that there were two symmetrical sets of hangings available – not one (or just one) central set – and that these two sets of hangings were in the open doorways. Such a conclusion is confirmed in Davenant’s The Wits.48 Lucy arrives at Lady Ample’s house: Knocking within. Ampl. That speaks command, or haste: open the door. Enter Lucy. (The Wits, C3r)

It is clear from the dialogue that the stage door stands for the street door of Lady Ample’s house, so the door must have been closed initially and is opened for Lucy on Lady Ample’s command. Lucy is coming to seek accommodation – her aunt has cast her out of her house due to the amorous attentions she has been receiving from Young Pallatine. The door, however, is not closed again after her entrance. Towards the end of the scene, as Lady Ample retires with Lucy further into the house, a character half-appears in the open doorway: Ampl. Let us contrive within to tempt’um hither: Follow, my Luce, restore thy self to Fame! – Ex. Eng. Amp. Gin. Young Pallatine beckens Lucy from between the Hangings, as she is going. Lucy. Death on my eyes! How came you hither? Yo: Pallat. I’m, Luce, a kind of peremptory Fly, Shift houses still to follow the Sun-beames! I must needs play in the flames of thy beauty! … I’have been at thy Aunts house. (The Wits, C4v)

As Lady Ample and the others leave the stage through one door, going further into the house to ‘contrive within’, Young Pallatine appears ‘between the hangings’ and waylays Lucy. She asks how he got into the house, and he replies that he has previously been at her Aunt’s house and has followed her here like a ‘peremptory Fly’. These hangings cannot be in the central discovery space – the inescapable spatial pattern involved is for Young Pallatine to enter through the same doorway Lucy has previously used. It would seem therefore that the doorway is fitted not only with a door that Lucy can knock on from offstage, but also with hangings that come into play if the door is left open. The hangings are split down the middle, and Young Pallatine gestures through this split ‘between the Hangings’. This inwards/outwards geography is maintained through to the end of the scene. With Pallatine’s brother about to arrive, they both go further into the house and Lucy remonstrates with Young Pallatine, recommending secrecy: ‘You are

William Davenant, The Wits (London, 1636).

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too lowd! Whisper your plots within. Exeunt.’49 The movement patterns in this scene are so clearly projected in the text that there can be little doubt about the staging and about the resources which Davenant expected to be available. And they include hangings in at least one lateral doorway. In support of these two pieces of playtext evidence are two other indications that the lateral doors were fitted with hangings. The first is the frontispiece to Ben Jonson’s Workes, both editions of which (1616 and 1640) show a triumphal arch ‘translated’ to symbolize Theatre (Fig. 2.3). It is adorned with figures or statues that represent the five theatrical genres, asserting the continuity of Jonson’s work with classical theatre by placing his Workes in the blank central space. This frontispiece and triumphal arches more generally have been suggested as possible antecedents of or templates for the tiring house wall.50 Without going into the limitations of such a genealogy (some such arches have one, others two, and yet others three openings51), we can at least note some peculiar features of this particular arch. If it were to represent in some way, as has been suggested, a tiring house wall, then the central feature where Jonson’s Workes is inscribed would correspond to the discovery space as theorized by Gurr and Ichikawa. The arch also seems to feature two lateral openings or at least two recesses (the statues of Tragedy and Comedy pose on pedestals in front of these openings or recesses) which might seem to correspond to two lateral doorways opening into a metaphorical tiring house. If this ‘triumphal arch’ reflects a tiring house wall, then its central feature has no hangings; but the two lateral features behind the statues have hangings each attached by two prominent nails. However attempts to push the analogy further result in confusion. The central rectangular feature might depict a central opening and therefore imply a standard three-door architecture in the public playhouses, but on the other hand it might represent simply a blank wall on which the title of the work has been inscribed.52 But more importantly, if this does represent a central opening it is not equipped with the hangings which Andrew Gurr imagines were used for ‘discoveries’ – hangings that in this case one would expect to see drawn back to ‘discover’ Jonson’s Workes. But it is not just that the central feature lacks hangings: there are hangings, but they are to be seen somewhere else altogether – on either side, behind the figures of Davenant, The Wits, D1r. John Ronayne, ‘Totus Mundus Agit Histrionem’, in J.R. Mulryne and Margaret

49 50

Shewring (eds), Shakespeare’s Globe Rebuilt (Cambridge, 1997), p. 125. 51 Six arches from Stephen Harrison’s Arches of Triumph (1604) are reproduced in Mulryne and Shewring, Shakespeare’s Globe Rebuilt, pp. 125–7. 52 A similar ‘theatricalised title page’ to Francis Quarles’s Argalus and Parthenia (1629) shows a wall on which a printed page of the Argument is partly revealed, partly concealed, by a curtain. See Heinrich F. Plett, Rhetoric and Renaissance Culture (Berlin/ New York, 2004), pp. 273–4. Plett also shows (p. 108) a stage façade for a 1561 ‘Chambers of Rhetoric’ performance, which is similar to Jonson’s frontispiece. Its central opening is curtained, but may simply be an alcove.

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Fig. 2.3

The frontispiece of the 1640 edition of Jonson’s Works (identical to that of the 1616 edition). Rare Book collection, University of Sydney Library, Australia.

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Tragedy and Comedy. These hangings are a clearly visible but curiously temporary addition to the arch, attached by rather large nails to the wall which lies behind the decorative columns. The hangings are incongruous: what function do they serve in respect of the pedestalled statues in front of them? But their incongruity in the triumphal arch context might suggest that they constitute a direct visual reference to the tiring house wall in the playhouses. In a two-door tiring house wall such as that shown by de Witt, with no central opening, the lateral doorways would have had to serve for discoveries – and it has been argued that this would necessitate hangings in the doorways very like those we see here in Jonson’s frontispiece.53 Perhaps therefore this frontispiece complements the textual evidence adduced above to support the argument that the two lateral doorways in the playhouses were fitted with hangings, and might contradict Ichikawa’s argument that hangings were only in the central feature. The second piece of supporting evidence is quoted by Gurr,54 a description of Tarlton making himself partly visible to the audience, to comic effect, by peeping around the curtains. Nungezer’s A Dictionary of Actors55 cites Henry Peacham’s description of the actor’s comic routine: Tarlton when his head was onely seene, The Tire-house doore and Tapistrie betweene, Set all the multitude in such a laughter, They could not hold for scarse an houre after.

It is difficult to interpret this as referring to anything other than hangings within one of the open doorways to the tiring house. The stage door opens out onto the stage, as the evidence from The Knight of Malta strongly suggests;56 it swings open through 180 degrees to rest flat against the tiring house wall, and Tarlton peeps his head through the gap between the doorpost where the door is hinged and the curtain which hangs in the open doorway. This seems to be the only arrangement which places Tarlton’s head unequivocally between the ‘Tire-house dore’ and the ‘Tapistrie’ (Fig. 2.4).57 Ichikawa’s consideration of Massinger’s The Little French Lawyer prompts her to suggest that the central feature (the ‘discovery space’) might have been

53 Tim Fitzpatrick, ‘Visual Semiotics’, pp. 29–44. See also ‘Patronage and Theatre Design: The First Globe and its modern Reconstruction’, in Irene Eynat-Confino and Eva Sormova (eds), Patronage, Spectacle and the Stage (Prague, 2006), pp. 142–55. 54 Andrew Gurr, The Shakespearean Stage, p. 88. 55 Edwin Nungezer, A Dictionary of Actors: And of Other Persons Associated with the Public Representation of Plays in England before 1642 (New Haven, 1929), p. 362. 56 Tim Fitzpatrick, ‘Playwrights with Foresight: Staging Resources in the Elizabethan Playhouses’, Theatre Notebook 56/2 (2002): pp. 108–12. 57 Tim Fitzpatrick and Wendy Millyard, ‘Hangings, Doors and Discoveries: Conflicting Evidence or Problematical Assumptions?’, Theatre Notebook 54/1 (2000): p. 10.

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Fig. 2.4

‘The Tire-house dore and Tapistrie betweene’.

equipped with both hangings and doors;58 the evidence presented above suggests that if there was indeed some confluence of doors and hangings on the early modern English stage, it was in the flanking doorways and not in the central feature. Such a perspective leads to a reconsideration of Ichikawa’s hypotheses about what it means to ‘enter’ the stage. More importantly, it poses a new set of questions as to how the flanking doorways (with their doors and hangings) and the curtained central feature (usually referred to as the ‘discovery space’) complemented each other in terms of function. This evidence also weakens one of Ichikawa’s fundamental assumptions, that the central feature of the stage, between the two flanking doors, was a curtained opening into the tiring house where discoveries, which need to be set from backstage, were staged by drawing back the curtains. If either or both of the doorways had hangings in them, we need to reconsider our visualization of staging patterns: any mention of ‘hangings’, ‘arras’ or equivalent does not automatically connote the use of the central feature, but could refer instead to either doorway: it is possible that discoveries, which needed to be set from backstage, were done in one or other of the flanking doorways, and the hangings drawn back there. It is possible therefore that we have been wrongly inferring the characteristics and function of this central feature; perhaps it did not provide a third access-point to the tiring house for some entrances and for the backstage setting of discoveries, but instead (as we have seen exemplified in Epicoene) provided another resource altogether – a curtained space, behind the ‘arras’, for temporary concealment. While such a modified view of the resource set available to the playwrights and actors might seem to connote logistical limitations, we will see in a later chapter that these are apparent rather than real.59 And a redefinition of the ‘discovery space’ as a ‘concealment space’ provides an additional resource that in some scenes would prove dramaturgically invaluable. If it was a curtained alcove which provided onstage characters with a temporary concealment space but no exitpoint into the tiring house, it would have provided playwrights with an onstage Ichikawa, ‘Were the Doors Open or Closed?’, p. 6. See also Fitzpatrick, ‘Playwrights with Foresight’, pp. 112–13.

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‘dead end’, adding a real sense of danger and threat to anyone who hides there temporarily – since it provides no way out (one thinks, for example, of Polonius). We will see below that both Shakespeare in Macbeth60 and the author of The Knight of Malta61 seem to have structured their texts at certain points on the assumption that they only had two entrance-points (the lateral doors) to play with, and we have seen a similar pattern in Jonson’s Epicoene, which uses the central feature as a concealment space and nothing more: it is repeatedly used by two characters to conceal themselves temporarily and return from there onto the stage, but is not used for exits. In contrast, the two lateral doors are explicitly used for a complex array of entrances and exits. Such a perspective must therefore cause a reconsideration of the complementary functions of the flanking doorways and the curtained central feature, and of the inferential process whereby they have been deduced from the texts. A detailed consideration of where discoveries were staged, and where beds and other large properties were ‘thrust out’ onto the stage, will occupy us in a later chapter. But first we must consider a major, but largely unseen, resource on which the playwrights relied heavily: offstage.

60 See Tim Fitzpatrick, ‘Shakespeare’s Exploitation of a Two-Door Stage: Macbeth’, Theatre Research International XX (1995): pp. 207–30. 61 See Fitzpatrick, ‘Playwrights with Foresight’, pp. 108–12.

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Chapter 3

Bringing the Tiring House into Play Quin. This green plot shall be our stage, this hawthorn-brake our tiring-house. (A Midsummer Night’s Dream, III, i, 3–4) Knock within. Macb. Whence is that knocking? (Macbeth, II, ii, 55)

The previous chapter discussed the physical resources available on the early modern stage, resources that the playwrights could bring into play to represent with some degree of verisimilitude the fictional situations and actions that make up the play as it is experienced by the audience. However one resource not mentioned in that discussion is the tiring house, Quince’s ‘hawthorn-brake’. Quince is clearly aware of the key importance of backstage (his choice of rehearsal space involves a choice of stage plus backstage), to serve as the physical basis of the ‘offstage’ as an identifiable place in which the audience locates and experiences, directly or indirectly, offstage realities.1 These realities are parts of the fictional world that are unseen, but perhaps heard (via offstage sound effects – some of them of considerable sophistication and dramatic impact, such as the knocking in Macbeth), or implied as occurring or having occurred by the words and actions of the onstage characters. The playwright’s dramaturgical challenge is, in terms usefully adapted from the Prague school, to create a plot or szujet from the overall fabula.2 That is, the playwright is confronted by an overall story made up of a number of chronological incidents, and must then decide: • which of those incidents will be represented on the stage; • which will be represented in a limited way, by sound effects, as happening just offstage; • which will be assumed to be happening or to have just happened just offstage, to be narrated by onstage characters (and so determinants of onstage characters’ actions and interactions); A short discussion of offstage is to be found in John Russell Brown, Shakespeare and the Theatrical Event, (Basingstoke, 2002), Chapter 11. However it focuses more on the ‘offstage’ social reality of the time, as reflected in the plays. Anthony Brennan, Onstage and Offstage Worlds in Shakespeare’s Plays (London, 1989), provides a significant and systematic discussion of the importance of offstage in relation to a range of plays. Of greater significance is Jeremy Lopez’s discussion of the reporting of offstage events and the role of exposition scenes: Theatrical Convention and Audience Response in the Early Modern Theatre (Cambridge, 2003), pp. 83–95. 2 See Keir Elam, The Semiotics of Theatre and Drama (London, 1980, 2002), pp. 119–26, for a succinct and fruitful discussion of this issue. 1

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• which will be assumed to have happened more remotely, either spatially or temporally, to be narrated by onstage characters (and to form the broader contemporary context or historical backdrop which determines more generally characters’ actions and interactions). The playwright can thus choose to leave offstage certain features or events of the fictional world that might be difficult to represent onstage, and have their existence either suggested by offstage sound effects or described by onstage characters.3 The set of choices the playwright makes in this regard is fundamental to the dramaturgical process of prioritizing action and interaction, and this process of choosing and prioritizing is also the playwright’s single most important means of establishing a sense of fictional place and of fixing the parameters of the fictional world. Each play therefore involves a spatially complex fictional world of which the audience gets to see only a segment: that part of it which the playwright has chosen to be represented on the stage.4 However, whereas nineteenth-century naturalism often restricted itself to just one location for the whole play, early modern theatre had developed a dramaturgical system that allowed a vast range of places and counter-places to come into play from one scene to the next, with place and counterplace usually sketched in by the dialogue of the onstage characters. For Bradley this is a dramaturgical structure based on ‘the alternation and linear suppression of groups of characters’.5 Bradley shows a keen insight into the function of offstage: Plays continued to be constructed on the principle of the alternation of groups of characters entering and leaving the stage to play episodes of no great length, and creating by their movement an illusion of a world, just outside the range of the audience’s vision, in which time and place flowed with imaginative freedom at the bidding of the spoken word.6

There are of course further decisions for the playwright to make about precisely when information about offstage events is fed into the performance, and about the order in which the represented events are performed (the modern technique of

3 See Brennan, Onstage and Offstage Worlds, pp. 3, 4; and Lopez, Theatrical Convention, pp. 78, 81, 95 for important insights regarding the function of exposition scenes as a means of bringing offstage events into play. 4 To distinguish between the stage representation and the fictional world created in and by that representation, I have throughout distinguished between the term ‘space’ (referring to the stage and other associated physical spaces – in Saussurian terms the ‘signifier’), and ‘place’ (referring to the fictional place or places which the stage space and its offstage counter-spaces stand for from time to time – the Saussurian ‘signified’). This is simpler and clearer than Lopez’s use of ‘physical space’ and ‘theatrical space’ to the same end (Theatrical Convention, pp. 5–6). 5 David Bradley, From Text to Performance in the Elizabethan Theatre: Preparing the Play for the Stage (Cambridge, 1992), p. 34. 6 Bradley, From Text to Performance, p. 21.

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‘flashbacks’ is simply the presentation of such events in non-chronological order; it is not a factor in early modern performance).7 In regard to early modern performance it is important to note that this process has at its core choices about place. As suggested in the previous chapter, the place represented by the stage can be easily changed from one scene to the next – in Bradley’s words above, ‘at the bidding of the spoken word’. But as we have seen, and as Bradley suggests, it is not just the place represented by the stage space that changes from scene to scene; the offstage place or places ‘just outside of the range of the audience’s vision’ can be changed too. That is to say, each change of (stage) place brings with it a changed set of place relationships: a new scene involves a new onstage place and its relevant offstage counter-places. The complex spatial impression of the fictional world which Bradley alludes to is created by this ‘stereoscopic’ – or more commonly ‘triscopic’ – spatial geography, depending as it does on the presence of the two lateral stage doors which can give access to different, and often opposed, offstage places. It is this tripolarity, between the place represented by the stage and the two opposed places behind the doors, that changes from one scene to the next. This is, then, a relational spatial system: the fictional world is evoked by means of a series of relationships between ‘seen’ and ‘unseen’, by setting up scene-byscene different sets of spatial polarities between the ‘here’ represented by the stage and the ‘there’ or ‘theres’, one or more unseen counter-places, that are taken to be located offstage. An important insight follows from this: it is not always necessary to specify precisely what place is represented by the stage space as the ‘here’ of a particular scene. Sometimes it might be stated obviously, but sometimes (as in a number of the examples discussed in Chapter 1) what is pertinent is merely its relation to a specific offstage place or places: it is an unspecified ‘here’, the placesignificance of which is simply that it is not ‘there’. How then are these offstage places, their characters, their features and the events that occur in them, evoked? This ‘offstage’ is not the formless and vague imagined place which John C. Meagher has suggested: We are not often asked to imagine just what or where lies immediately beyond the doors that connect it [offstage] with the stage. Characters who exit into it are usually just disappearing … . [T]he normal dramaturgy simply dismisses the exiter into a space that is almost entirely indefinite.8

The examples discussed in Chapter 1 are sufficient to warrant a heavy qualification of such remarks, and as we proceed we shall see increasingly the extent to which the offstage places which lie, either immediately or more remotely, behind one Brennan, Onstage and Offstage Worlds, stresses the fundamental importance of the playwright’s ‘manipulation of the interrelationship between events onstage and those offstage’ (p. 7). 8 Meagher, Pursuing Shakespeare’s Dramaturgy, p. 146. See also Brennan, Onstage and Offstage Worlds, for discussions of particular plays. 7

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or other of the stage doors are in fact pivotal to the creation of an overall sense of place in the plays. This chapter will consider a range of techniques which the playwrights used to create, in Bradley’s words, the illusion of a world ‘just outside the range of the audience’s vision’ by bringing it onstage in one way or another. Verbal Reference One major factor influencing the playwrights’ dramaturgical decision-making process is, as suggested above, the performability of a particular incident or event. Playwrights generally choose to keep the horses offstage, for instance, while creating for the audience a clear sense of their ‘reality’ by verbal reference. Shakespeare does this skilfully in The Taming of the Shrew: when in IV, iii Petruchio decides to leave for Padua, the party sets out – but the horses which will obviously be necessary for them to make the trip are well offstage: Pet. We will hence forthwith, To feast and sport us at thy father’s house. Go call my men, and let us straight to him, And bring our horses unto Long-lane end; There will we mount, and thither walk on foot. (The Taming of the Shrew, IV, iii, 179–83)

The scene is set at Petruchio’s house, presumably inside it since it involves the Tailor and Haberdasher and Katherina’s clothes. Towards the end of the scene, with Petruchio’s announcement that they will visit Padua, the spatial polarity between the house and the offstage outside world is brought into play: Petruchio’s words evoke the lane they will walk along to leave the house and arrive at the horses – horses that the servants are to have waiting at the end of the lane to take them on the road to Padua. This lane, their walking along it, the horses, and the road to Padua are all economically evoked in Petruchio’s few words. And these horses remain an offstage presence: in a subsequent scene we meet the company on their journey, as Petruchio urges Katherina and the others onwards: ‘once more toward our father’s’ (IV, v, 1). However the characters are not on horseback, and the absence of the horses is explained in passing as Petruchio, angered at Katherina’s refusal to call the sun the moon, threatens to turn around and not proceed to Padua: Pet. Now by my mother’s son, and that’s myself, It shall be moon, or star, or what I list, Or ere I journey to your father’s house. – Go on, and fetch our horses back again. – (The Taming of the Shrew, IV, v, 6–9)

This suggests that the servants have gone ahead with the horses (since they are now to be fetched back). The place represented by the stage is quite indeterminate, and

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the Arden editor takes up the spatial reference and infers a fictional interpretation: ‘the fact that the horses have gone on before suggests that they are walking up a hill’.9 There might be other quite different but equally satisfying fictional explanations that do not depend, as this editor’s seems to, on a keen knowledge of equine limitations and their management – but the point is that this is just the sort of inference that the playwright expected that his audience, provided with this brief reference to the horses, would make to fill in the invisible blanks of the fictional world, both onstage (‘The unspecified place might be a hill they are walking up’) and offstage (‘The horses must have been led ahead by servants’). Shakespeare knew he needed horses to get his characters to Padua; knew that if he wanted to represent onstage part of that journey it was better to keep the horses offstage; and knew just how fleeting a reference to the offstage horses would be sufficient to trigger an audience inference that would satisfy them as to the coherence of the fictional world that was being played out. These two scenes then exemplify Shakespeare’s dramaturgical decision to represent the journey to Padua – a decision necessitated by another decision crucial to the plot, to have the travellers meet Lucentio’s father Vincentio on the way. He then does this by showing us merely the exit of the characters at the end of IV, iii and then an unspecified intermediate point in the journey (IV, v). The other parts of the journey are narrated or projected in the characters’ dialogue: the walk up the lane to the horses, the horses themselves, the road to Padua travelled so far, and the road still to be travelled once the horses are remounted offstage.10 Sound Effects Knocking is the most common sound effect for creating a sense of offstage characters and events. Often the knocking is on the back of one of the stage doors, thus made to stand for the door which leads from the (onstage) room to another (offstage) room. Alternatively this ‘close-up’ knocking entails the stage door standing for the door which gives onto the (offstage) street. Sometimes, however, as Ichikawa has detailed, the stage door does not lead immediately into the street. In such cases the knocking is not on the back of the stage door, but is instead somewhere further offstage. This requires a more remote sound effect, deeper in the tiring house, to evoke a door somewhere else in the house that leads to the street. This would suggest some sophistication in the range of sound effects: knocking within some other part of the tiring house rather than on the back of the stage door would still be audible to the audience (the timber frame of the playhouse would readily conduct the sound), but would sound quite different from a knocking on the back of one of the stage doors and could thus communicate a 9 William Shakespeare, The Taming of the Shrew, ed. Brian Morris (London, 1982), p, 275. 10 See Lopez, Theatrical Convention, p. 79, regarding the challenges posed by attempting to represent travel scenes.

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different spatial sense to the audience. Dessen and Thompson’s dictionary notes a number of stage directions which explicitly call for ‘distance’ effects, such as ‘horns afar off’.11 Both these kinds of knocking seem to be present in two successive scenes in Macbeth, and indeed the transition from one sort of sound effect to the other contributes significantly to communicating the change of location between the scenes. The knocking in question is of course the knocking of Macduff and Lennox at the ‘south entry’ in II, ii and II, iii. It is first heard as an unlocalized and distant knocking by Macbeth after Duncan’s murder. Shakespeare seems to have intended the knocking, if Macbeth’s reaction is any indication, to be mysterious and portentous: Knock within. Macb. Whence is that knocking? How is’t with me, when every noise appalls me? (Macbeth, II, ii, 54–5)

The knocking is also repeated: Lady Macbeth refers to it twice, at lines 62 and 66, and there is a second stage direction at line 70. Lady Macbeth is able to discern that it is coming from ‘the south entry’ (line 62), and its insistence triggers Macbeth’s guilt at the deed to the point that as he exits the stage after Lady Macbeth’s warnings that they need to take measures to avoid suspicion, he apostrophizes the unseen knocker, wishing that Duncan might still be woken: Macb. To know my deed, ’twere best not know myself. Knock. Wake Duncan with thy knocking! I would thou couldst! (Macbeth, II, ii, 70–71)

As Macbeth exits, the next scene begins with the entrance of the Porter: Enter a PORTER. Knocking within. Port. Here’s a knocking indeed! (Macbeth, II, iii, 0–1)

The porter’s possible hand property, the key to which he refers (‘If a man were porter of Hell Gate, he should have old turning the key’, II, iii, 1–3), establishes that we are now somewhere else in the castle, and the audience will infer that more precisely we are at ‘the south entry’ previously referred to by Lady Macbeth. The stage door has thus come to stand for an external entrance into the castle, and the knocking will logically now be localized and focused on the back of the stage door until it is opened by the Porter to admit Macduff and Lennox. We might speculate whether the transition from remote/unlocalized to proximate/localized sound effect occurs sharply or as a more gradual transition (in cinematic terms, is it the 11 Alan C. Dessen and Leslie Thomson, A Dictionary of Stage Directions in English Drama, 1580–1642 (Cambridge, 1999), pp. 2–3.

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acoustic equivalent of a jump-cut or a slow cross-fade?), but the transition itself is a major signifier of the spatial shift that has occurred. The subsequent transition back to the previous location outside Duncan’s chambers, which occurs with the return of Macbeth to the stage, is effected differently, and will be discussed below. Show and tell: Properties and Reports In the sequence above, Duncan’s chambers where the murder has been committed are taken to be just offstage: Macbeth comes from there with the bloody daggers (II, ii, 13), and refuses to return them (II, ii, 47). Lady Macbeth does so (II, ii, 54), and then returns a mere seven lines later (II, ii, 61). Such is the detail of the onstage characters’ references to what lies offstage behind the stage door that the audience quickly constructs a clear picture of the offstage topography. Lady Macbeth has left offstage doors open to give Macbeth easy access, has drugged the grooms to ensure they are sleeping soundly, presumably in an ante-chamber near the King. She has taken their daggers and placed them somewhere prominent near the sleeping Duncan, and as she did so she looked at him long enough to see a resemblance to her own father. Lady M. The doors are open; and the surfeited grooms Do mock their charge with snores. I have drugg’d their possets. … I laid their daggers ready, He could not miss ’em. Had he not resembled My father as he slept, I had done’t. (Macbeth, II, ii, 5–6, 11–13)

Macbeth then enters (II, ii, 13), the bloody daggers he is carrying providing the most concrete testimony to what has occurred offstage: ‘tell’ is complemented by ‘show’. But Macbeth’s words supplement the audience’s picture of the offstage world and its events. The grooms (who, Lady Macbeth confirms, are sleeping together), stirred but then settled down to sleep again: Macb. There’s one did laugh in ’s sleep, and one cried, “Murther!” That they did wake each other. I stood and heard them; But they did say their prayers, and address’d them Again to sleep. Lady M. There are two lodg’d together. (Macbeth, II, ii, 20–23)

This description serves at least two purposes. As well as its obvious function of making ‘real’ Duncan’s murder without actually representing it on the stage, it is also a detailed authentication by the two characters of what is out of sight of the audience. This authentication is then reinforced when Lady Macbeth returns to the crime scene to leave the daggers where they will compromise the grooms: despite

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Macbeth’s hallucinatory tendencies, her exit and return confirms all that he has described as having occurred. We shall see in Chapter 7 one possible reason for this emphasis on authentication. This identification of the offstage location, the ‘just there’ behind the stage door where Duncan has been murdered, is not continued in the next scene, where the emphasis is on the other door which stands for the ‘south entry’ through which the Porter admits Macduff and Lennox to the castle. However, when Macbeth returns to the stage, having done as Lady Macbeth enjoined (‘Get on your nightgown, lest occasion call us And show us to be watchers’, II, ii, 67–8), his entrance shifts the emphasis – and the location – away from the ‘south entry’ back onto the door behind which Duncan lies. Macduff seeks access to the King, and Macbeth offers to take him to Duncan: Macb. I’ll bring you to him. Macd. I know this is a joyful trouble to you; But yet ’tis one. Macb. The labor we delight in physics pain. This is the door. Macd. I’ll make so bold to call, For ’tis my limited service. Exit Macduff. (Macbeth, II, iii, 47–52)

There are two lines between Macbeth’s offer to take Macduff to the King and their arrival at the door – explicitly mentioned – behind which Duncan has been murdered. This crossing of the stage and Macbeth’s ‘This is the door’ transfers the emphasis back onto this stage door and re-activates its fictional signification from the previous scene, when Macbeth and Lady Macbeth used it as the door behind which Duncan was murdered. The fact that Duncan’s body, clearly described and authenticated by Macbeth and Lady Macbeth in II, ii is lying somewhere out behind this door is now confirmed again by the return through the door of Macduff – now he is the reporter of what has occurred just offstage: Enter MACDUFF. Macd. O horror, horror, horror! … Most sacrilegious murther hath broke ope The Lord’s anointed temple, and stole thence The life o’ th’ building! (Macbeth, II, iii, 64, 67–9)

Macbeth and Lennox, and then the other characters as they are awakened, rush in and then return from the murder scene, further reinforcing the spatial emphasis and power of the offstage reality. A reality summoned up ‘at the bidding of the spoken word’, as Bradley suggests, but also by means of the traffic with daggers which adds ‘show’ to ‘tell’; and then the accumulated entrances and

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exits of a range of characters through the stage door which stands for the door to Duncan’s chambers. This sequence is unusual insofar as the place represented by the stage changes mid-scene. This change is necessitated by Shakespeare’s decision to represent two places as just offstage (‘Duncan’s chambers’ and ‘outside the south entry’), when the audience would not expect two such places to be close to each other in the castle. This means that the place represented by the stage must change midscene from ‘somewhere inside the south entry’ to ‘somewhere outside Duncan’s chambers’. The deliberate vagueness of these two ‘somewheres’ is both a condition of and result of a relational spatial system which enables a place to be established merely by its relation to a more specific counter-place. In this scene the stage space, in all its unspecified vagueness, stands in succession as a counter-place to two very specific offstage places, avoiding a more precise and constraining locational identification. Long Distance Communication Offstage events that are more remote can be equally determinant in terms of onstage characters’ reactions and behaviour, and are often mediated, or brought onstage narratively, by the account of a messenger. Two brief examples, again from Macbeth, are sufficient to illustrate this very common technique; but in both cases Shakespeare’s use of the messenger is not simple and straightforward. In Macbeth I, ii the opening stage direction of the Folio text sets up a spatial opposition between the two entrance doors: the King and nobles enter from one door, ‘meeting’ a messenger from the battlefield: Enter KING, MALCOLM, DONALBAIN, LENNOX, with ATTENDANTS, meeting a bleeding Captain. (Macbeth, I, ii, 0)

The Captain brings news hot from the press of battle, as his wounds are still fresh: Dun. What bloody man is that? He can report As seemeth by his plight, of the revolt The newest state. (Macbeth, I, ii, 1–3) [Serg.] Doubtful it stood, As two spent swimmers that do cling together And choke their art. … For brave Macbeth (well he deserves that name), Disdaining fortune, with his brandish’d steel, Which smok’d with bloody execution, (Like Valor’s minion) carv’d out his passage Till he fac’d the slave;

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The immediacy of the Captain’s description of the battlefield, and in particular Macbeth’s deeds on it, give a sense that the battle is relatively near at hand. This impression is reinforced by the fact that the Captain is still bleeding from his wounds, but also by the initial direction for battle sound effects, ‘Alarum within’. But then, as the Captain is taken off to have his wounds treated, Ross and Angus also arrive from the battlefield, and obviously from the same battlefield where Macbeth has performed prodigies – but the battlefield which they narrate is some distance away in Fife, and their account is much less immediate than that of the Captain: Dun. Whence cam’st thou, worthy thane? Rosse. From Fife, great King, Where the Norweyan banners flout the sky And fan our people cold. Norway himself, with terrible numbers, Assisted by that most disloyal traitor, The Thane of Cawdor, began a dismal conflict, Till that Bellona’s bridegroom, lapp’d in proof, Confronted him with self-comparisons, Point against point, rebellious arm ’gainst arm Curbing his lavish spirit; and to conclude, The victory fell on us. (Macbeth, I, ii, 48–58)

It transpires that the King and nobles are nowhere near Fife, since in the following scene Banquo and Macbeth are on their way to the King in Forres (I, iii, 38), some hundred miles from a Fife battlefield – but of course the audience has no way of knowing this as I, ii unfolds in performance. This sequence is, I would argue, testimony to the playwright’s keen sense of the flexibility afforded by the clever use of offstage. Shakespeare has the scene begin with a bang – with trumpet sound effects to create the impression of a battle occurring just offstage. But it then becomes clear that this battlefield is not perhaps immediately offstage, not so close that the entering King and nobles could gain a view of it by exiting there: instead the description of the offstage reality is entrusted to a messenger. This messenger, however, does come from somewhere reasonably close if his bloody wounds are any indication – an impression reinforced by the graphic description he provides of the action. Rosse and Angus, on the other hand, when they arrive to supplement the earlier description, do so in a more detached and ‘distant’ manner, and locate the battlefield at Fife. The sequence of prompts from offstage (a sound effect and two types of account) constitutes a sophisticated writing process which first focuses on the battle and its sounds and gory details, to then take it out of focus and distance it. This distancing

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is then completed in the following scene, where Macbeth’s reference to Forres relocates the battle, to any audience member aware of Scotland’s geography, some hundred miles from the location of the previous scene. What enables Shakespeare to get away with this is the flexibility provided by the fact that the battle itself is only alluded to rather than being represented. This enables him to maximize the impact of the offstage battle at the beginning of the scene, and then to progressively ‘distance’ it from the audience and from the characters: Macbeth’s exploits in battle are merely a preamble to the real and very different concerns of the play. A simpler but no less sophisticated evocation of a more remote offstage reality by means of a Messenger occurs in Macbeth I, v, which provides an excellent example of how the spatial parameters of the fictional world can be gradually elucidated as the scene progresses. The scene begins with an entrance by Lady Macbeth: ‘Enter MACBETH’S WIFE alone, with a letter.’ There is no spatial information imparted in the letter, but as a letter it constitutes nevertheless a generic reference to the offstage world from whence Macbeth has sent it. The audience will infer from the letter that the stage now stands for Lady Macbeth’s home base, and that Macbeth is away. This is confirmed immediately, when after reading the letter she apostrophizes Macbeth: ‘Hie thee hither, That I may pour my spirits in thine ear’ (25–6). The letter’s evocation of the outside world is then supplemented immediately by a messenger: Enter MESSENGER Lady M. What is your tidings? Mess. The King comes here to-night. Lady M. Thou’rt mad to say it! Is not thy master with him? who, were’t so, Would have inform’d for preparation. Mess. So please you, it is true; our thane is coming. One of my fellows had the speed of him, Who, almost dead for breath, had scarcely more Than would make up his message. Lady M. Give him tending. He brings great news. Exit Messenger. (Macbeth, I, v, 30–38)

It is remarkable how much information about the fictional world is encapsulated in these few lines. Macbeth is indeed away with the King, but is on his way ‘hither’ – and ‘hither’ is to their castle, since Lady Macbeth expects Macbeth to ‘inform for preparation’ if they are about to have a royal guest. A messenger has just arrived, having outpaced Macbeth, and has relayed his breathless news to this ‘Messenger’ – so perhaps this onstage character is in fact a household servant rather than messenger, since he is immediately instructed to give ‘tending’ to the messenger who is presumably catching his breath offstage. The interest is not, however, on the issue of reviving the gasping offstage messenger. Instead the focus is on two more remote characters: Macbeth who is also coming in advance of the royal party, and then Duncan and his court who will arrive later.

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Previous Events Made Present The communication of less immediate elements of the fictional world, whether they be separated by time or by space from the here and now of the performed part of it, plays an important role, particularly in exposition scenes when the audience’s knowledge of the fictional world is close to zero and they are on a steep learning curve. The Italian term for what in English has come to be known as ‘the story so far’ is ‘antefatto’, and in Italian renaissance comedy exposition of the ‘pre-facts’ was sometimes handled in a very awkward way as dramatists, themselves on a steep learning curve, adapted classical models. Some plays from the sixteenth century12 feature an opening scene that involves someone who has been ‘out of circulation’ (in prison, or on pilgrimage to the Holy Land) asking other characters what has been happening in the meantime in their home city. Their replies constitute the expositional basis of the plot which is to follow – and the questioner, his or her thirst for gossip satisfied, exits to be never seen again. Early modern theatre has some such similar awkward dealings with expositional information, but playwrights soon found better and more subtle ways of providing the audience with the contextual information they needed.13 Richard III begins with Gloucester’s famous speech, a direct address to the audience which sets out in three sections of almost equal length the antefatto, the protagonist’s attitude to it, and his plan of action that will constitute the plot of the play. The first 13 lines chronicle the recent history of the kingdom, particularly its move from a warlike state to one of peace. We note however that the tone is not neutral, and that Gloucester is scathingly cynical in listing the changes of attitude and behaviour which have resulted: Glou. Now is the winter of our discontent Made glorious summer by this son of York; And all the clouds that loured upon our house In the deep bosom of the ocean buried. Now are our brows bound with victorious wreaths, Our bruised arms hung up for monuments, Our stern alarums chang’d to merry meetings, Our dreadful marches to delightful measures. Grim-visag’d War hath smooth’d his wrinkled front; And now, in stead of mounting barbed steeds To fright the souls of fearful adversaries, He capers nimbly in a lady’s chamber To the lascivious pleasing of a lute. (Richard III, I, i, 1–13)

See for example La Strega, by Il Lasca (Anton Francesco Grazzini). Neri, fresh from seven months in prison, is updated by Francesco – and is never seen again. 13 Lopez, Theatrical Convention, has an excellent discussion of the early modern theatre’s use of such dialogued exposition scenes, the artificial nature of such expository exchanges, and their potential effect on the audience: pp. 79, 86, 92, 94. 12

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A more detailed analysis of the verse indicates that this section is also foreshadowing what is to come, the deformity of Gloucester. If we look at the first four lines, i.e., the entrance lines which Richard Burbage – for whom Shakespeare wrote the role, and who made it his own over many years14 – would have used to get from the stage door down to the front of the stage, we see immediately that Shakespeare has inscribed the character’s deformity in the verse: instead of regular pentameter, with one unstressed and one stressed syllable to each foot, we have a sequence of ‘limping’ lines which impose on the actor the lopsided physicality required of this character. In a previous chapter we examined the physical resources available on the open air stages of the public playhouses, and this speech indicates another sort of resource (Richard Burbage and his acting skills) for which Shakespeare could write. We might also note that Shakespeare has availed himself of the meteorological resources of the open air stage: as Gloucester comes downstage from under the shadow of the stage cover and into the better-lit downstage area, he moves from ‘the winter of our discontent’ into ‘the glorious summer’ brought on by the son/sun of York, King Edward. It might be objected that such a reading of authorial foresight is overreaching, given the possibility of wind, cloud and rain on any particular day of performance. But this is not an issue, since Gloucester is being profoundly and scathingly sarcastic in his reference to the ‘glorious summer’ – so this is a weatherproof line for all seasons. In the second third of the speech, the next 14 lines, Gloucester ‘descants’ on his deformities, verbally foregrounding what has already been communicated visually on his entrance. If the exposition of the current political climate occupied the first part of the speech, Gloucester now provides the audience with an extended description of his own particular distorted viewpoint: Glou. But I, that am not shap’d for sportive tricks, Nor made to court an amorous looking-glass; I, that am rudely stamp’d, and want love’s majesty To strut before a wanton ambling nymph; I, that am curtail’d of this fair proportion, Cheated of feature by dissembling nature, Deform’d, unfinish’d, sent before my time Into this breathing world, scarce half made up, And that so lamely and unfashionable That dogs bark at me as I halt by them – Why, I, in this weak piping time of peace, Have no delight to pass away the time, Unless to see my shadow in the sun And descant on mine own deformity. (Richard III, I, i, 14–27)

14 C.C. Stopes, Burbage and Shakespeare’s Stage (London, 1913), pp. 116, 184; Martin Holmes, Shakespeare and Burbage (London, 1978), pp. 50–57.

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The third section, of 13 lines, then brings the preceding two sections together, as Gloucester outlines for the audience his plans and his recent stratagems aimed at changing the situation: Glou. And therefore, since I cannot prove a lover To entertain these fair well-spoken days, I am determined to prove a villain And hate the idle pleasures of these days. Plots have I laid, inductions dangerous, By drunken prophecies, libels, and dreams, To set my brother Clarence and the King In deadly hate the one against the other; And if King Edward be as true and just As I am subtle, false, and treacherous, This day should Clarence closely be mew’d up About a prophecy, which says that G Of Edward’s heirs the murtherer shall be. (Richard III, I, i, 28–40)

Anthony Brennan suggests that there are ‘Expository reports in Shakespeare which are designed to reveal character at least as much as to transmit information’,15 and this is a prime example. The speech constitutes a combined exposition of the offstage world of the play, a character self-portrait of the protagonist, and a manifesto and program for the unfolding action. These elements combined provide an important ‘frame’ which enables the audience to quickly begin reading the events which then ensue against this initial agenda. A more traditional exposition of the antefatto occurs in Henry VI part 2, which opens with an emblematic pair of processional entrances: Flourish of trumpets: then hoboys. Enter KING [HENRY], DUKE HUMPHREY [OF GLOUCESTER], SALISBURY, WARWICK, and [CARDINAL] BEAUFORD, on the one side; the QUEEN, SUFFOLK, YORK, SOMERSET, and BUCKINGHAM, on the other. (Henry VI part 2, I, i, 0).

The fact that these two groups are to enter from two different stage doors immediately suggests to the audience that here we have a party arriving at a royal palace, coming before the king. This is confirmed immediately, and articulated in great detail, in the opening speech of Suffolk: Suf.

As by your high imperial Majesty I had in charge at my depart for France, As procurator to your Excellence, To marry Princess Margaret for your Grace; So in the famous ancient city Tours,

Brennan, Onstage and Offstage Worlds, 24.

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In presence of the Kings of France and Sicil, The Dukes of Orleance, Calaber, Bretagne, and Alanson, Seven earls, twelve barons, and twenty reverend bishops, I have perform’d my task, and was espous’d; And humbly now upon my bended knee, In sight of England and her lordly peers, Deliver up my title in the Queen To your most gracious hands, that are the substance Of that great shadow I did represent: The happiest gift that ever marquess gave, The fairest queen that ever king receiv’d. King. Suffolk, arise. Welcome, Queen Margaret. (Henry VI part 2, I, i, 1–17)

Suffolk has been in France to marry by proxy Princess Margaret, on behalf of Henry, and has now returned to the English court to deliver her to her husband. His glowing words of praise of Margaret, along with the transposition of the wedding – usually the final element in plot resolution – to the opening scene, foreshadow the subsequent unravelling of the plot which will end in (among other things) Suffolk’s banishment and death. So this account of the remote background elements of the fictional world provides, as does Gloucester’s opening speech in Richard III, a general historical and contextual frame for the audience, on the basis of which they can then build inferences and interpretations of the events that constitute the subsequent plot of the play. Out of Sight, But Into Mind The preceding examples are concerned with techniques which cause the offstage fictional world to impact on the audience’s perception and interpretation of the events represented onstage. The final technique to be discussed is more conceptual than technical, and is exemplified by the particular case of the ‘lost twins’ plot, in plays such as The Comedy of Errors and Twelfth Night – to name merely two of the many plays derived from classical models such as Plautus’ Menaechmi. In such plays the audience’s consciousness of a particular offstage reality, the ‘other’ twin, is central to the development of plot and themes. Italian sixteenth-century drama features many such plays, both in the commedia erudita and the commedia dell’arte, and Shakespeare and his contemporaries were well aware of this genre.16 16 The case of ‘lost twins’ is an excellent example of the sort of recurrent performance pattern which Lopez in Theatrical Convention terms ‘convention’ – patterns such as disguise, dismemberment, dark scenes and incest motifs: ‘I label the moments I discuss in this chapter “conventions” because each occurs in similar circumstances and accompanied with informational and ideational baggage similar to those other moments of its kind; some moments seem to or obviously do allude to one another: each of these moments would have been recognizable to its original audience as a certain type of moment’ (p. 98).

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That the audience had a familiarity with and significant competence in the ‘lost twins’ genre is suggested by the two Shakespeare plays referred to above. In The Comedy of Errors he takes Plautus’s plot and elaborates it significantly by adding a second pair of identical twins, the two Dromios – a daring ‘variation’ to amaze an audience that we can assume was already only too familiar with the standard single set of twins in other plays.17 The ‘lost twin’ play unfolds for the audience as a series of mistaken identities of the twinned characters, at least one of whom is necessarily offstage at any given moment. This presence/absence of the twinned ‘other’ is the principal plot engine, with the tensions it creates in the onstage characters (as we have seen in Chapter 1 is the case with a confused Adriana) being resolved only in the final scene. In Twelfth Night we see the playwright playing with the genre expectations of a competent audience in regard to this ‘offstage twin’, in a scene which has caused considerable spatial brow-furrowing among critics. For some reason II, ii does not conform to the standard staging pattern for pursuit and overtaking scenes we have seen exemplified in The Merchant of Venice in Chapter 1. John C. Meagher expresses the critical disquiet with the way in which Malvolio ‘overtakes’ Viola: As both are coming from the same place, and motivated to take the swiftest route toward Orsino, they might be expected to enter into this somewhere-en-route space through the same door, Malvolio moving more swiftly and overtaking Viola as they proceed across the stage. But this is precisely what Shakespeare does not do. We do not know why.18

Meagher is correct in his identification of this as a potentially normal ‘overtaking scene’, as is evident from an examination of the whole sequence: Viola (who, like Portia, is dressed as a man, Cesario) is acting as a go-between for Orsino in his wooing of Olivia, and gains an audience with her; but Olivia is not receptive, and sends Cesario away: Oli. Get you to your lord. I cannot love him; let him send no more – Unless (perchance) you come to me again To tell me how he takes it. … Vio. I am no fee’d post, lady; keep your purse; My master, not myself, lacks recompense. Love make his heart of flint that you shall love, And let your fervor like my master’s be Plac’d in contempt! Farewell, fair cruelty. (Twelfth Night, I, v, 279–82, 284–8)

Exit.

17 Brennan, Onstage and Offstage Worlds, characterizes this play as a ‘Virtuoso manipulation of onstage/offstage experiences in which only the audience knows that the incidents recounted are being reported to the wrong twin’ (p. 30). 18 Meagher, Pursuing Shakespeare’s Dramaturgy, p. 121.

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After Cesario’s exit, Olivia confesses she is strangely attracted to the young man, so she sends Malvolio after him to return a ring that she pretends Cesario has just given her on Orsino’s behalf: Oli. How now? Even so quickly may one catch the plague? Methinks I feel this youth’s perfections With an invisible and subtle stealth To creep in at mine eyes. Well let it be. What ho, Malvolio! Mal. Here, madam, at your service. Oli. Run after that same peevish messenger, The County’s man. He left this ring behind him, Would I or not. Tell him I’ll none of it. … Mal. Madam, I will. Exit. Oli. I do I know not what, and fear to find Mine eye too great a flatterer for my mind. Fate, show thy force: ourselves we do not owe; What is decreed must be; and be this so. [Exit.] (Twelfth Night, I, v, 294–302, 307–11)

One might be forgiven for expecting, as Meagher does, that the next or a subsequent scene would have Viola/Cesario enter, en route to Orsino’s, to then be ‘overtaken’ by Malvolio – an iconic representation of one character being caught up by his pursuer as occurs in The Merchant. However as Meagher notes Shakespeare has explicitly organized the subsequent scene differently, and it is significant that this entrance is determined by a stage direction which seems designed to override the normal commonsense pattern that the actors might have expected from other plays, and would have derived from the dialogue. This stage direction reads: ‘Enter Viola and Malvolio at several doors’ (Twelfth Night, II, ii, 0). So instead of a commonsense spatial representation, Shakespeare adopts a formal, artificial, non-iconic portrayal of ‘overtaking’. As with Portia in The Merchant, it would make sense for Viola to enter first, perhaps muse on Olivia’s interest in her, and then be interrupted by Malvolio who enters from the same door, having caught up to her. The fact that the spatial patterns inscribed by the

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playwright do not represent ‘overtaking’ in any way leads critics such as Meagher, (as in the case cited above regarding the horses in The Taming of The Shrew) to infer topography and geography and suggest that Malvolio who knows the streets of Illyria better than the newly arrived Viola, has taken a short-cut to intercept her rather than following and overtaking.19 This might be the offstage spatial reality which the audience was expected to construct, but I suggest there is another explanation altogether and that with a little thought we can ‘know why’ Shakespeare has used this technique. Shakespeare’s deliberate eschewal of a commonsense spatial pattern to represent ‘overtaking’ means that the dialogue must do all the work of signifying that this is indeed – in spite of not looking like it – the overtaking scene we were expecting: Viola confirms to Malvolio and the audience that this scene follows soon after her visit to Olivia, and in the meantime she has been walking back towards Orsino’s: Mal. Were you not ev’n now with the Countess Olivia? Vio. Even now, sir; on a moderate pace I have since arriv’d but hither. Mal. She returns this ring to you, sir. (Twelfth Night, II, ii, 1–5)

The real reason for this unusual pattern lies in the scene which comes between these two scenes – and has to do with the offstage ‘other’ twin. In the intervening scene, for the first time the audience meets Sebastian, Viola’s brother. The audience has known since I, ii that Viola has a brother whom she fears drowned in the shipwreck which cast her up on the shores of Illyria, and in the intervening scene (II, i) they discover that not only is he Viola’s brother but her twin brother – and he, like her, believes his twin drowned just at the moment that he himself was saved by the kindly Antonio, who has since been offering him hospitality, and whom he is now about to leave:

19 Meagher, Pursuing Shakespeare’s Dramaturgy, p.121: ‘It is not patently absurd, since shortcuts are the most efficient way of executing the kind of order Malvolio was given.’

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Ant. Will you stay no longer? nor will you not that I go with you? Seb. By your patience, no. My stars shine darkly over me. The malignancy of my fate might perhaps distemper yours; therefore I shall crave of you your leave, that I may bear my evils alone. It were a bad recompense for your love, to lay any of them on you. Ant. Let me know of you whither you are bound. Seb. No, sooth, sir … You must know of me then, Antonio, my name is Sebastian, which I call’d Rodorigo; my father was that Sebastian of Messaline, whom I know you have heard of. He left behind him myself and a sister, both born in an hour. If the heavens had been pleas’d, would we had so ended! But you, sir, alter’d that, for some hour before you took me from the breach of the sea was my sister drown’d. (Twelfth Night, II, i, 1–11, 15–23)

There is no structural reason why this scene needs to be placed here. It could have been inserted a scene earlier or a scene later, so its ‘splitting’ of the overtaking sequence is probably deliberate and functional. I suggest that its function here is related to the emergence of the ‘twins plot’, and to the audience expectations that would be triggered by this new information. Although they might have expected it from I, ii when Viola mentions a lost brother, the audience is now sure that this is a play in which the physical similarities between the twins will cause confusion among other characters should Sebastian end up, like his twin sister, at Orsino’s court: mistaken identity will at some point come home to roost.20 And (to nobody’s surprise) after explaining to Antonio who he is, Sebastian resolves to go to Orsino’s court. Antonio, after a moment’s hesitation because of the risks he will be running, resolves to follow Sebastian: Seb. I am bound to Count Orsino’s court. Farewell. Exit. Ant. The gentleness of all the gods go with thee! I have many enemies in Orsino’s court, Else would I very shortly see thee there. But come what may, I do adore thee so That danger shall seem sport, and I will go. Exit. (Twelfth Night, II, i, 42–8)

20 Brennan, Onstage and Offstage Worlds: ‘The audience is thus forewarned that there are liable to be ensuing confusions involving the twins but that things are likely to be resolved happily’ (p. 81).

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So in this sequence, the twins’ exit patterns are themselves ‘twinned’ – each of them followed by an overtaker – and we begin to see the reason for the following scene’s ‘Enter at several doors’ instead of a standard overtaking scene which Meagher rightly suggests we should expect: Enter Viola and Malvolio at several doors. Mal. Were you not ev’n now with the Countess Olivia? (Twelfth Night, II, ii, 1)

– or are you (the audience continues) the twin brother we’ve just met? And is this the beginning of the ‘mistaken identity’ plot, with foolish Malvolio the first and entirely appropriate victim? The entrance ‘at several doors’ has one immensely important ramification: it means Viola doesn’t identify herself by speaking first, as she would most likely do in a standard overtaking scene – and it is this silence that enables and engenders the audience’s inferential walk (to employ Umberto Eco’s useful term21) that the entering character is perhaps not Viola at all, but a newly arrived Sebastian, making his first appearance in Illyria to complicate the plot:

Of course Viola (as it is Viola) immediately puts a stop to this inferential walk: ‘Even now, sir; on a moderate pace I have since arriv’d but hither’ (II, ii, 4). Having created a moment of ambiguity which encourages the audience to make a particular inference as to what is about to happen, Shakespeare then signals through Viola’s words that such an inference is premature. Mistaken identity is not yet on the agenda, though he is clearly signalling that it shortly will be. For this one moment Shakespeare and the audience are in complicity: in the intervening scene he has provided information about complexities of personal identity in the offstage fictional world, and this information makes them feel temporarily ahead of the game, ahead of the characters – and hence they anticipate Malvolio mistaking the identity of his interlocutor. The key role of the tiring house wall in early modern performance, the wall which places a complex spatial reality ‘just outside the range of the audience’s vision’, is clear from the examples cited in this chapter, but particularly in this Umberto Eco, The Role of the Reader (Bloomington, 1979), pp. 31–3.

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final example. The wall provides a barrier between the stage and backstage, hiding the workings of performance in the tiring house; but it also serves to create an ‘offstage’ to and from which characters come and go within the whole fictional world. But when characters are out of sight, they are not necessarily out of mind – and it is this audience consciousness of the offstage twin which Shakespeare plays with here.22 Conclusion This chapter began with an articulation of challenges and choices to be addressed by playwrights in regard to the creation of an overall fictional world in performance. These challenges have two dimensions. Firstly, the texts must be structured to make the performances run smoothly from a functional and logistical point of view (the playwright needs to think about the backstage work involved in performance, giving actors time to get into position for their next entrance, for example). But more importantly they need to consider the offstage dimension of performance: they need to construct a fictional world of which the audience sees only a slice (or series of slices) represented onstage. The texts we have examined reveal playwrights acutely aware of this broader fictional world inhabited by their characters, and keen to articulate clearly and concretely for the audience how the unseen parts of that fictional world (the ‘offstage’) relate to the slice of it that we get to see onstage in any one scene. In this first section we have seen playwrights clearly signalling in their texts a highly developed sense of fictional place and its representation in performance; we have examined the resources they seem to have considered would be available to the actors to realize their texts in performance. And in particular we have seen the extent to which their texts show evidence of a keen appreciation of how the ‘offstage’ components of the fictional world can be effectively and eloquently harnessed to the task of creating a coherent sense in the audience of a vital dramatic reality. In the next section we shall focus in more detail on the principal means available to create a sense of onstage place.

22 Anthony Brennan puts this aptly: ‘The absence of characters from the stage on which the play is performed affects the audience watching it’, Onstage and Offstage Worlds, p. 83.

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Part 2 Establishing a Sense of Place and Fictional World

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Chapter 4

Nominating the Place True-wit. Doe you observe this gallerie? or rather lobby, indeed? (Epicoene, IV, v, 310/576–7)

This chapter will examine a range of examples in which characters’ dialogue is the means of establishing where they are speaking that dialogue, or where they have come from, or where they are going (i.e., the place represented by the stage, and other places suggested as being offstage). The usefulness of this means of establishing a fictional place for the onstage action, or for the proximate offstage place or places just out of sight of the audience behind the tiring house wall, derives from its simplicity. A verbal reference by one of the onstage characters is sufficient to specify the place they are in or the particular place or places imagined to be contiguous with it. True-wit’s speech in the sequence from Epicoene discussed in Chapter 2 is a clear example of such: ‘Doe you observe this gallerie? or rather lobby, indeed? Here are a couple of studies, at each end one’: the stage is a lobby or gallery, and the two stage doors are the doors to two offstage studies. Less specific is Macbeth I, vi, where Duncan’s arrival at Macbeth’s castle is accompanied by a verbal reminder for the audience of where the scene is set: ‘This castle hath a pleasant seat’ (I, vi, 1). This assertion that the stage and tiring house wall now stand for a fictional location, a particular building in Scotland, is not strictly necessary since in the previous scene Lady Macbeth has received the Messenger’s news that the King is coming to Macbeth’s castle, has greeted Macbeth who arrives at the same place, and has begun to plot with him Duncan’s death. Duncan’s reference to the environment functions more as dramatic irony than as a location cue. Patterns of Nomination and Inference The extent to which nomination is prevalent as a primary means of establishing location can perhaps best be established by reference to a single and not atypical play. The following table shows, scene by scene, how the place signified by the stage is established, and how (and how often) its offstage counter-places are brought into play. The Comedy of Errors is mostly set in various locations in the streets of Ephesus, but also has a number of scenes set inside Antipholus’s house. In the following table, the various offstage locations have been divided into two opposing ‘poles’ to reflect the ‘in-betweenness’ of the stage-place in respect of the other places mentioned. This division has not been random, but reflects the ‘commonsense’ oppositional patterns discussed in Chapter 1. If, for example,

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in IV, ii Dromio of Syracuse arrives at Antipholus’s house to get the bail money from his desk, commonsense opposition would suggest that when Luciana is sent offstage to get the money, she uses the door opposite that through which Dromio entered: hence the relevant oppositional pattern has the stage representing a room which lies between the town and another more private room in the house where Antipholus keeps his money. It is interesting that such a logical schematization of the offstage places nominated often leads to one of them being univocally focussed, and the other being more generic: if one of the stage doors stands as the door to Antipholus’s house, the other leads more generally to the town: this is the case in III, i, where the stage represents the street outside the house; one way is into the house, the other is to the town – which includes as nominated locations Angelo’s shop, an eating-place known as the Tiger, Angelo’s home, and the Courtesan’s house known as the Porpentine.1 These broad polarities are justified purely on the basis of commonsense, as the simplest means of creating a coherent set of spatial patterns. Such coherence is important in this play, where much of the action depends on characters being mistaken for their twins – and this mistaking depends on one twin returning from the same general direction as his other had previously exited (even though that exit was to a different location within the town). In each case the table indicates whether location is established by explicit nomination, or by justifiable inference from textual indications. Table 4.1  Nomination and Inference in The Comedy of Errors Act/sc I, i

Offstage one way Duke’s palace INFERENCE: By opposition to Egeon’s prison?

Stage space Court of Duke of Ephesus INFERENCE: Procession suggests court. Duke. Merchant of Syracuse, plead no more … by law thou art condemnn’d to die. (3, 25)

Offstage other way Egeon’s place of custody NOMINATION: Duke. Jailer, take him to thy custody. (155)

1 For apposite comments on the doors in this play, see John C. Meagher, Pursuing Shakespeare’s Dramaturgy (Madison, 2003), p. 122.

Nominating the Place Act/sc I, ii

Offstage one way Merchant’s house?

Stage space Street near the mart

INFERENCE: Syr. Ant has met Merchant to retrieve money which had been in his safe-keeping: Mer. There is your money that I had to keep. (8)

NOMINATION: E. Dro. My charge was but to fetch you from the mart. (63)

II, i

Unspecified

II, ii

Eph Ant’s house, dining room NOMINATION: Adr. Come, sir, to dinner; Dromio, keep the gate. Husband, I’ll dine above with you to-day. (206–7)

Ant Eph’s house NOMINATION: Adr. Neither my husband nor the slave return’d … But say, I prithee, is he coming home? Hence, prating peasant! fetch thy master home. (1, 55, 81) Street outside Eph Ant’s house INFERENCE: By opposition to the house and the other locations mentioned.

89 Offstage other way Town, Centaur, mart, Eph Ant’s house NOMINATION: S. Ant. Go bear it to the Centaur, where we host … Till that, I’ll view the manners of the town, Peruse the traders, gaze upon the buildings … (9, 12–13) Mer. I am invited, sir, to certain merchants … Soon at five a’clock, Please you, I’ll meet with you upon the mart. (24, 26–7) E. Dro. The meat is cold because you come not home … I from your mistress come in post … My charge was but to fetch you from the mart home to our house, the Phoenix, sir, to dinner. (48, 63, 74–5) Town, street INFERENCE: Adr. Say, is your tardy master now at hand? (44)

Town, mart, Centaur NOMINATION: S. Ant. The gold I gave to Dromio is laid up Safe at the Centaur, and the heedful slave Is wand’red forth, in care to seek me out. By computation and mine host’s report, I could not speak with Dromio since at first I sent him from the mart! see, here he comes. (1–6)

90 Act/sc III, i

Playwright, Space and Place in Early Modern Performance Offstage one way Eph Ant’s house NOMINATION: E. Ant. But soft, my door is lock’d; go bid them let us in … (30) S. Dro. Either get thee from the door or sit down at the hatch. (33) E. Dro. Master, knock the door hard. Luce. Let him knock it till it ache. (57–8) Adr. Who is that at the door that keeps all this noise? (61) E. Ant. Are you there, wife? You might have come before. Adr. Your wife, sir knave? Go get you from the door. (63–4)

III, ii

Inside Eph Ant’s house INFERENCE: Luc. O soft, sir, hold you still; I’ll fetch my sister to get her good will. (69–70)

Stage space Street outside Eph Ant’s house INFERENCE: By opposition to the house and the other locations mentioned.

Outside Ant Eph’s house INFERENCE: By opposition to the house and the other locations mentioned.

Offstage other way The town, Angelo’s shop, Tiger, Porpentine NOMINATION: E. Ant. Good Signior Angelo … Say that I linger’d with you at your shop. (1–3) Balth. … Be rul’d by me, depart in patience, And let us to the Tiger all to dinner; And about evening, come yourself alone. (94–6) E. Ant. You have prevail’d. I will depart in quiet … I know a wench of excellent discourse … There will we dine … To her will we to dinner. Get you home And fetch the chain by this I know ’tis made. Bring it, I pray you, to the Porpentine, For there’s the house … (107–11, 114–17) Ang. I’ll meet you at that place some hour hence. (122) Town, harbour, mart NOMINATION: S. Ant. I will not harbour in this town to-night. If any bark put forth, come to the mart, Where I will walk till thou return to me. (147–51)

Nominating the Place Act/sc IV, i

IV, ii

Offstage one way Angelo’s goldsmith shop

Stage space A street

INFERENCE: They have been doing business in Angelo’s house. The Merchant has come there with an Officer over money owed him by Angelo. Mer. You know since Pentecost the sum is due … (1) E. Ant. While I go to the Goldsmith’s house, go thou And buy a rope’s end … But soft, I see the goldsmith. Get thee gone, Buy thou a rope, and bring it home to me. (15–16, 19–20)

NOMINATION: E. Ant. To Adriana, villain, hie thee straight … Tell her I am arrested in the street. (102, 106)

Desk in inner room

Inside Eph Ant’s house NOMINATION: Adr. Go, Dromio … and bring thy master home immediately. (63–4)

NOMINATION: S. Dro. Will you send him, mistress, redemption, the money in his desk? (46) Adr. Go, fetch it, sister. (47)

91 Offstage other way Courtesan’s, Eph Ant’s house, rope shop, the town, a bark in the harbour, prison NOMINATION: Ang. Pleaseth you walk with me down to his house, I will discharge my bond, and thank you too. (12–13) Enter Antipholus of Ephesus, Dromio from the Courtesan’s. (13) E. Ant. Go thou And buy a rope’s end. (15–16) E. Ant. I am not furnish’d with the present money; Besides, I have some business in the town. Good signior, take the stranger to my house, And with you take the chain, and bid my wife Disburse the sum on the receipt thereof. Perchance I will be there as soon as you. (34–9) S. Dro. Master, there’s a bark of Epidamium That stays but till her owner comes aboard, And then, sir, she bears away. Our fraughtage, sir, I have convey’d aboard. (85–8) E. Ant. On, officer, to prison, till it come. (108) Town, street INFERENCE: S. Dro’s entrance, dialogue references: S. Dro. He is ’rested on the case. Adr. Go, Dromio, there’s the money, bear it straight, And bring thy master home immediately. (63–4)

92 Act/sc IV, iii

IV, iv

Playwright, Space and Place in Early Modern Performance Offstage one way Courtesan’s house

Stage space A street

NOMINATION: Cour. Will you go with me? We’ll mend our dinner here. (59)

INFERENCE: By opposition to the offstage locations nominated.

Prison?

A street

INFERENCE: E. Ant. on way to prison. E. Ant. Fear me not, man, I will not break away; (1)

INFERENCE: By opposition to the offstage locations nominated.

Offstage other way Town, tailor’s shop, Eph Ant’s house NOMINATION: S. Ant. There’s not a man I meet but doth salute me … Even now a tailor call’d me in his shop, And show’d me silks that he had bought for me. (1, 7–8) Cour. My way is now to hie home to his house, And tell his wife that, being lunatic, He rush’d into my house, and took perforce My ring away. (92–5) Rope shop, goldsmith’s (Eph. Ant’s creditor’s) house, Ant. Eph.’s house, Centaur, harbour NOMINATION: E. Dro. I gave the money for the rope. (12) Adr. Bear me forthwith unto his creditor, And knowing how the debt grows, I will pay it. Good master doctor, see him safe convey’d Home to my house … (118–21) Adr. Go, bear him hence. Sister, go you with me. (130) Adr. Come, jailor, bring me where the goldsmith is. (142) S. Ant. Come to the Centaur, fetch our stuff from thence … Therefore away, to get our stuff aboard. (147, 158)

Nominating the Place Act/sc V, i

Offstage one way Abbey

Stage space Street outside abbey

NOMINATION: S. Dro. Run, master, run, for God’s sake take a house! This is some priory; in, or we are spoil’d. (36–7) Luc. Kneel to the Duke before he pass the abbey. (129) Abb. Renowned duke, vouchsafe to take the pains To go with us into the abbey here, And hear at large discoursed all our fortunes; And all that are assembled in this place, That by this sympathised one day’s error … (394–8)

NOMINATION: Mer. By this I think the dial points at five. Anon I’m sure the Duke himself in person Comes this way to the melancholy vale, The place of [death] and sorry execution Behind the ditches of the abbey here. (118–22) Ang. See where they come; we will behold his death. (128)

93 Offstage other way Eph Ant’s house, Duke’s palace INFERENCE: Adr. Ay me, it is my husband! Witness you, That he is borne about invisible; Even now we hous’d him in the abbey here, And now he’s there, past thought of human reason. (186–9)

In the 11 scenes which make up this play, the place represented by the stage is clearly nominated five times. In the other six scenes it is not so clearly specified, although by inference the audience soon establishes that it stands for a street, sometimes a specific street outside Antipholus’s house. Similarly the door that takes on a specific locational role (to Antipholus’s house, the Courtesan’s house, Angelo’s shop, the room inside Antipholus’s house that has a desk, the Abbey) is nominated explicitly in five scenes; the other five locations suggested above might be inferred by the audience on the basis of indirect references in the dialogue. In one scene this counter-space is not in play at all: in II, i Adriana and Luciana are at home, but their attention is solely on the outside world (from which Antipholus has failed to return for dinner, and from whence Dromio reports on his master’s movements); what might lie behind the other door (which one might presume leads further into the house, where dinner has been prepared) is not canvassed or brought into play at all. There is, then, an even breakdown between nomination and inference as the means by which a sense of place is established for these two poles of the spatial triangle. This does not hold, however, for the other pole: the more generic location of the ‘town’ and its various components is nominated with much greater frequency, in eight out of the eleven scenes. This is not surprising: the plot requires that characters go to, or send their servants to, specific locations within this generic ‘town’ (to the mart, harbour, rope shop, various inns and eating-houses), and it is logical therefore that these specific locations be nominated rather than needing

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inference by the audience.2 However the net effect of such a distribution is that in contrast to this specifically nominated set of locations, the place represented by the stage space is often less clearly defined – a characteristic which Ichikawa has discerned in many plays of the period, and which John C. Meagher also notes.3 An analysis of Othello reveals quite similar patterns, although the ‘fuzziness’ of the place represented by the stage is even more pronounced. The table below sets out this information, providing relevant line numbers where explicit nomination occurs or from which unproblematical inferences can be drawn. Table 4.2  Nomination and Inference in Othello Act/sc I, i

Offstage one way Brabantio’s house

I, ii

NOMINATION 74 The Sagittar

I, iii

NOMINATION 48 Duke’s palace? INFERENCE

II, i

The castle, or citadel

II, ii

NOMINATION 201, 284 The citadel?

II, iii

INFERENCE Othello and Desdemona’s chambers in the citadel NOMINATION 253

Stage space Street outside Brabantio’s house NOMINATION 69 Street outside the Sagittar INFERENCE Duke’s Council Chamber INFERENCE FROM PROPERTIES 0 A vantage point above the harbour in Cyprus INFERENCE

Offstage other way Venice, the Sagittar NOMINATION 105, 158 Duke’s Council Chamber NOMINATION 36, 92 The Venetian fleet, Cyprus, Rhodes, Brabantio’s house, the Sagittar NOMINATION 11, 20, 22, 54, 115 The harbour, seaside, town NOMINATION 25, 36, 53

A public place in Cyprus INFERENCE Somewhere midway in the citadel

The town?

INFERENCE

NOMINATION 30, 120+333, 232+255

INFERENCE Other parts of the citadel, the platform of the watch, the town

2 John C. Meagher puts it as follows: ‘The doors are essentially unspecific modes of passage between offstage and onstage, but capable of being more exactly locale-defined by the dialogue whenever that is dramatically convenient.’ Pursuing Shakespeare’s Dramaturgy, p.123. 3 Mariko Ichikawa, ‘Were the Doors Open or Closed? The Use of Stage Doors in the Shakespearean Theatre’, Theatre Notebook 60/1 (2006): p. 28; Meagher, Pursuing Shakespeare’s Dramaturgy, pp. 121–2.

Nominating the Place Act/sc III, i

III, ii

III, iii

III, iv

IV, i

Offstage one way The private chambers within the citadel INFERENCE 25+43 The private chambers within the citadel INFERENCE (from previous) The private chambers within the citadel, dinner INFERENCE (from previous) 280 The private chambers within the citadel INFERENCE (from previous) The citadel (supper) NOMINATION 262

IV, ii

V, i

Citadel including Desdemona’s chamber, supper INFERENCE, NOMINATION 169–70 Citadel supper, Desdemona’s chamber INFERENCE, NOMINATION 7 Citadel

V, ii

NOMINATON 126 Not specified

IV, iii

95

Stage space Somewhere midway in the citadel INFERENCE

Offstage other way The town

Somewhere midway in the citadel

The harbour, fortifications

INFERENCE (from previous) Somewhere midway in the citadel

NOMINATION 1, 5

INFERENCE (from previous) Somewhere midway in the citadel

INFERENCE (from previous) Cassio’s lodging, Bianca’s house

INFERENCE (from previous) Somewhere midway in the citadel INFERENCE (from previous) Somewhere midway in the citadel

NOMINATION 16, 15+170, 167 Bianca’s house, street, harbour (Venice) NOMINATION 159, 163, 271 Less private areas in citadel beyond door, which is locked INFERENCE 28, 94

INFERENCE

INFERENCE

The town, harbour, fortifications

Somewhere midway in the citadel

Ludovico’s lodging

INFERENCE

INFERENCE 2

The street

Bianca’s house, Ludovico’s lodging NOMINATION 119, INFERENCE 4.1.323–7 Less private areas in citadel, street where fight took place, outer parts of citadel (beyond locked door), Venice INFERENCE, 105 INFERENCE 106–15 NOMINATION 241, 370

INFERENCE 4.1.232–7 Desdemona’s bedroom

PROPERTY 0 NOMINATION 24, 331

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It is interesting that only two scenes out of fifteen – the first and last scenes of the play – clearly nominate the place represented by the stage: I, i is in the ‘street’ outside Brabantio’s house, and V, ii in Desdemona’s bedroom. For the other thirteen it is a question of inference: either from properties brought on (the council table in I, ii creates the council room in Venice), or in the vast bulk of cases from information provided about the offstage counter-places. In nine scenes the places behind the generic stage door are clearly nominated (the harbour, the town, etc.), and in nine scenes what lies behind the more specific door is clearly set out (Brabantio’s house, the more private parts of the Citadel including Desdemona’s bedroom). In contrast to this specificity in regard to what lies offstage, in acts II–V as many as eight scenes in a row are set in a barely specified place somewhere in the Citadel or just outside it. This ‘fuzzy’ and ‘in-between’ place is redefined, sometimes within scenes, to become closer to the most private areas in the citadel, or in the other direction to be closer to the town and harbour. Fuzziness of the Stage Place, Opposition The pattern that emerges from such general analyses suggests that the key element in establishing the place which the stage represents is simply the opposition between it and what is said (or can be inferred) to be behind one or other or both the stage doors. In other words place is conceived relationally; let us look in more detail at a range of particular examples of this relational treatment of place. In Macbeth II, iii, Macbeth’s indication to Macduff that ‘This is the door’ to Duncan’s chamber (II, iii, 51), is a specific and significant place clue for the audience. As Ichikawa correctly indicates,4 this is the door behind which Macduff will find Duncan murdered, and from which he will return to the stage with his horrific news. This reassertion of the door’s fictional significance is necessary, if only to reassure the audience that they know whereabouts in the castle they are. This door is most likely the same stage door through which Duncan last exited (I, vi, 31) and through which the audience may have heard sounds of offstage banqueting (the various dishes and service pass ‘over the stage’ [I, vii, 0] to suggest the offstage banquet); and it is the same door through which Lady Macbeth and Macbeth have both had bloody traffic with and without daggers (II, ii, 13, 54, 60). However in the meantime the entrance of the Porter to the stage (II, iii, 0) has transferred focus to the other door, which stands for the ‘south entry’. This other door too is nominated, but only indirectly: that same knocking has been heard by Macbeth and Lady Macbeth in the previous scene, and she has identified the sound as coming from ‘the south entry’ (II, ii, 62). The Porter must open this other door in response to the insistent knocking of Macduff.5 And since Macduff, having been admitted by the Porter to the castle, is still onstage, the Ichikawa, ‘Were the Doors Open or Closed?’, p. 6. Tim Fitzpatrick, ‘Shakespeare’s Exploitation of a Two-Door Stage: Macbeth’,

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Theatre Research International XX (1995): pp. 207–30.

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audience might harbour a slight suspicion that we are still somewhere else in the castle, remote from Duncan’s chamber. However the reappearance of Macbeth (Macduff sees him, and says: ‘Our knocking has awak’d him; here he comes’, II, iii, 43) and his nomination of the stage door as the entrance to Duncan’s chambers re-establishes for any doubting members of the audience that the door has reverted to its earlier fictional function as the interface which relates a particular offstage place to the ‘in-between’ place represented by the stage. In both these instances the nomination of a place feature, the door, institutes fictional relations between places. But because the two doors nominated in both these instances are relational interfaces, this double nomination can establish two places (almost) at once. The knocking on the back of one door locates the knockers outside ‘the south entry’, so the stage must represent a place which is just inside the south entry; the nomination of the other stage door as leading to Duncan’s chambers means that the stage is transformed to represent a place in the castle just outside Duncan’s chambers. We shall return to this key relational role of the stage doors in a later chapter. A stage door can simply be nominated as the fictional door to a house by an onstage character: Ichikawa’s example from Heywood’s How a Man May Choose a Good Wife From a Bad has a number of characters enter ‘as out of the house’ (Q1, B4r).6 Such a stage direction was probably only of assistance to the actors concerned in terms of which of the two doors they would use, as I have argued elsewhere,7 since for the audience the fictional significance of the door has already been established in the dialogue of an onstage character, who nominates the door as that of his beloved’s house: ‘Here dwels the sacred mistris of my hart, Before her door Ile frame a friuolous walke’ (B4r). Ichikawa provides two further examples in which the fictional role of the stage door is specified by nomination, but also by the use of particular properties: in each case the multiple sign-systems reinforce each other as objects such as keys, tools and lanterns contribute to a clear sense of time and place.8 In the first of these examples, from Middleton’s The Second Maiden’s Tragedy, the Tyrant’s entrance into the cathedral is replete with the tools required to open the tomb, (which he has had procured in the previous scene), and the location which he is now entering – and the time of night – is signified by the explicit dialogue of the Soldier: Sold. What should he make in the cathedral now, The hour so deep in night? (The Second Maiden’s Tragedy, IV, ii, 63–4)

Ichikawa, ‘Were the Doors Open or Closed?’, p. 28. Tim Fitzpatrick, ‘Stage Management, Dramaturgy and Spatial Semiotics in

6 7

Shakespeare’s Dialogue’, Theatre Research International XXIV (1999): pp. 1–23. 8 Ichikawa, ‘Were the Doors Open or Closed?’, pp. 6, 27.

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As I have suggested in an article in Theatre Notebook,9 the soldier is probably an onstage choric figure whose lines facilitate the spatial transition. In The Knight of Malta the stage door stands for the door into the temple, a connection made both via the dialogue and via a key in the open door – a key which as we have seen in Chapter 2 is clearly expected to be a visible property. As the first group of characters (Miranda, Norandine and Collonna) depart in haste, the door and its key are clearly nominated: Colonna. What shall I do wi’th’ Key? Miranda. Thou canst not stir now, Leave it ith’ door: go get the horses ready. Exeunt. (The Knight of Malta, IV, ii, 102–3)

– and the door and its key are noticed by the second group of entering characters: Enter Rocca, Mountferrat, Abdella. With a dark lanthorn. Rocca. The door’s already open, the Key in it. (The Knight of Malta, IV, ii, 104–5)

Other stage resources too can be nominated with a fictional role to create a vivid sense of place. In Romeo and Juliet, Romeo’s ‘But soft, what light through yonder window breaks’ (II, ii, 2), as well as serving the necessary function of throwing the audience’s visual attention from downstage to the upstage gallery where Juliet appears, establishes by nomination that the gallery now stands for a window in the Capulet house. The same play has Balthazar nominate one of the stage posts as a yew tree in the graveyard (‘As I did sleep under this yew tree here …’, V, i, 137). Similarly the trapdoor can be nominated as a door to a dungeon, or which leads to an underground passageway, as occurs in the example from Lust’s Dominion cited in Chapter 2, where Eleazar sends his mistress the Queen and her pages down the trapdoor which gives access to a secret underground passage to the royal chambers. In the opening scene of A Knack to Know an Honest Man, there is a series of nominations which seem to involve just about all the onstage resources, to the point that one suspects the playwright is sharing a metatheatrical moment of complicity with the audience about this particular means of signing fictional place: Enter Coridon and Antimon, and Menalchus, three Shepheards. Cor. Here walke Menalchus on this grassie plaine, And while the wanton lambes feed on these downes, And hide them in the thickets from the Sunne, That shine on Venus stately builded towers, Discourse to aged Antimon and me 9 Tim Fitzpatrick, ‘Playwrights with Foresight: Staging Resources in the Elizabethan Playhouses’, Theatre Notebook 56/2 (2002): pp. 85–116.

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The dolefull historie and that drierie tale, That earst befell in fatall Arcadie, How poore Amintas perisht in his love. (A Knack to Know an Honest Man, I, i, 1–12)

The stage is set as a pastoral location (in both the physical and literary sense, with the reference to Aminta), a ‘grassie plaine’. The shepherds’ lambs, however, are kept offstage like the horses in The Taming of the Shrew: they are either feeding on the downes, or hiding in the thickets out of the sun – both presumably offstage. Venice is somewhere in the middle distance. However this arcadian idyll is interrupted by the arrival of two other characters, and this causes Coridon to urge the other shepherds to conceal themselves, nominating the upstage feature as a ‘thicket’: Enter Lelio and Sempronio to fight. Cor. Stay Menalchus, and hide thee in these thickets, For heere come strangers, who with ireful browes, Threatens some stormie troubles to succeed. (A Knack to Know an Honest Man, I, i, 16–18)

The sketching in of the fictional world is now handed over to one of the entering characters. Sempronius and Lelio have arrived on horseback, but thoughtfully left their horses offstage, a place nominated as a ‘plaine’ where the horses may graze. But more importantly the onstage place is further specified by nomination: Semp. Heere is a place convenient Lelio, Yonder’s a plaine whereon our steeds may graze, Here is a grove backt with cressend hils, But save these trees none else behold our fight. (A Knack to Know an Honest Man, I, i, 19–26)

The ‘trees’ are probably the stageposts as in Romeo and Juliet, but the ‘grove backt with cressend hils’ is potentially more interesting: is this the ‘thicket’ into which the shepherds have just exited, i.e., the upstage central concealment or discovery space? If it is, the possibility that the tiring house wall behind it is being nominated to stand for ‘cressend hils’ is perhaps pertinent to discussion about the configuration of this wall: it might indicate, in addition to the evidence examined in Chapter 2, that this wall was not straight but roughly crescentshaped, following the cants of the polygonal playhouse structure – and was hence being invoked here because of this particular shape, to stand for a crescentshaped hill formation in the fiction. However there are other possibilities: the ‘grove’ might be evoked by a gesture out over the yard, and the curved audience galleries beyond the yard might be being nominated to stand for these ‘cressend hils’. This example illustrates the extent to which this particular technique of nomination is at the forefront of discussion about the relationship between

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signification systems discussed in Chapter 2: since it is so easy simply to ‘nominate’ that a particular object is to stand for a vaguely similar object in the fiction, there will be a range of possible relations between such a nominated signifier and what it stands for. At times it could be argued that it is the act of nomination itself that carries the weight of signification: a stage that can be called a ‘grassie plaine’ or a ‘blasted heath’ is a neutral signifier being used flexibly, without great concern for a detailed iconic correspondence between the signifier and the signified; otherwise it would not be able to be enlisted in both cases. At other times the stage and its features are invoked more specifically (the stageposts enlisted as ‘trees’ in this instance); and at other times again a specific feature is picked out and loaded with a fictional significance (a concealment space is a ‘thicket’ for the shepherds to hide in). The challenge for textual analysis is to understand in each case whether it is a case of semiotic substitution (the words suggest a ‘heath’ because a heath can’t easily be visually signified), or of semiotic complementarity (a ‘door’ is both nominated and represented by a stage door) – and at what point the semiotic process switches from one mode to the other: what degree of difficulty triggers the shift? This problem is not made easier by the fact that playwrights seem to have enjoyed playing with the sign systems – and this may be the case in this early play, where the series of nominations seems to set up detailed correspondence between a range of stage features and places or objects in the fiction – but this systematic set of correspondences is so explicitly foregrounded as to suggest that some metatheatrical complicity between playwright and audience is occurring: their shared competence in these sign games enables them to ‘play’ with them flexibly, without necessarily seeking consistent degrees of correspondence between signifier and signified. The Maid in the Mill also contains a scene which problematizes this question of the relationship between a textual reference to ‘door’ (either singular or plural) and a physical door on the stage. Does such a textual ‘door’ point to an iconic correspondence between a stage door and a fictional door, or is it instead a textual sign to compensate for the lack of such correspondence in cases where just an opening in a hanging must stand for (or, as Peirce would have it, function indexically rather than iconically to signify) a fictional door? This scene points to a sophisticated and playful complicity between playwright, actors and audience in regard to these signification processes, and to the acceptance by all parties of a flexible and ‘sliding’ signification system. Otrante has abducted Florimell and hears that King Philippo and his train are arriving to search his house. He instructs his servant to hide Florimell: Otr. Go lock her up, Lock her up where the Courtiers may not see her, Lock her up closely, sirrha in my closet. (The Maid in the Mill, V, ii, 119–21)

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As the servant exits with Florimell the King and his train arrive and begin their inspection, Philippo indicating various sets of doors and rooms in turn: Phil. What rooms are these? Otr. They are sluttish ones. Phil. Nay, I must see. Otr. Pray ye do Sir, They are lodging-chambers over a homely garden. … Phil. Fit still and hansom; very well: and those? Otr. Those lead to the other side o’th’ house, and’t like ye. Phil. Let me see those. Otr. Ye may, the doors are open. … Phil. This little Room? Otr. ’Tis mean: a place for trash Sir, For rubbish of the house. … Phil. I’faith I will see. Otr. My groom has the key Sir, and ’tis ten to one – Phil. But I will see it: force the lock (my Lords) There be smithes enough to mend it: I perceive You keep some rare things here, you would not show Sir. Florimell discovered. (The Maid in the Mill, V, ii, 130–32, 133–5, 137–8, 142–6)

An assumption of iconic correspondence between stage doors and fictional doors in this case would require four doors: Philippo’s point of entry, the ‘closet’, the doors to the ‘lodging-chambers’ and to the ‘other side of the house’. However it is highly likely that a metatheatrical game is being played here. The ‘lodgingchambers over a homely garden’ possibly refer to the gallery over the stage or to some of the galleries over the yard (with the stage or yard as ‘a homely garden’), and the doors which ‘lead to the other side o’th’ house’ may refer to other galleries around the yard. However a real door into the tiring house must stand iconically for the door to the ‘little Room’ where Florimell is eventually discovered (since it has a key and its lock is forced). But here too there is a metatheatrical joke which involves various deprecatory references to the tiring house: it is ‘small’ and ‘a place for trash … for rubbish of the house’, yet paradoxically as the offstage counterspace to the stage it is also a place of unseen fictional wonders (‘rare things’). This sequence uses a sliding scale of correspondence between the textual signifier ‘door’ and its various scenic signifieds in a context in which the references to the tiring house suggest a broader metatheatrical complicity regarding nomination as signification. The very flexibility afforded by this simple technique affords also a metatheatrical flexibility. When True-wit, well into the sequence from Epicoene discussed in Chapter 2, nominates the stage as a ‘gallerie’, or more precisely as a ‘lobby’, with the two stage doors now to serve as the door to a ‘couple of studies’, he is doing so in

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an overtly metatheatrical context. He characterizes what is to follow as a ‘tragicomoedy’ between Daw and La-Foole, ‘the Guelphes, and the Ghibellines’, with his companions Clerimont and Dauphine to be ‘the chorus’. Metatheatrical moments such as this can be invaluable to the analyst because they overtly lay out the signifying system, as Tiffany Stern has argued.10 However, their very metatheatricality can also prove a trap precisely because they depend on complicity between playwright, actor and audience – and hence may well be simultaneously flaunting and flouting the signifying conventions.

10 For these arguments citing metatheatrical evidence, see Tiffany Stern, Rehearsal from Shakespeare to Sheridan (Oxford, 2000), pp. 65–6 (on actors’ parts), p. 98 (on the absence of references to plots/platts), p. 186 (on the role of the prompter).

Chapter 5

Bringing Properties and Place Onstage Lady M. Why did you bring these daggers from the place? (Macbeth, II, ii, 45)

On one level the answer to Lady Macbeth’s question to Macbeth about the daggers is simply that Shakespeare wanted his audience to see at least some blood as a sign pointing to the murder that has taken place offstage. But that justification holds at the level of dramaturgy, so Macbeth cannot invoke his creator to answer his wife’s question in those terms. His answer would need to be instead at the fictional level, and his failure to provide motivation for this action – and his refusal to return the daggers (II, ii, 47–9) – goes directly to profound flaws in his character. It also leads immediately to further complicity of Lady Macbeth in the murder (‘Infirm of purpose! Give me the daggers’: II, ii, 49–50), and consequently to significant plot outcomes: the need for her to take the daggers back to the crime scene leaves her with blood on her hands – blood which comes home to roost in the sleepwalking scene (V, i). Shakespeare is dealing dramaturgically with the problems which arise once a pragmatic decision is made that the murder will occur offstage to be narrated for the audience, as discussed in Chapter 3. This might entail a loss of immediacy and dramatic impact, although the alternative – the audience’s imaginary construction of the offstage bloodbath, based on the comments and actions of the onstage characters – is of proven effectiveness: it is a feature of European dramaturgy that goes right back to classical Greek theatre. Sophocles’s King Oedipus provides the archetypal example, with the messenger’s horrific account of the offstage suicide of Iocasta and the self-mutilation of Oedipus – complemented and authenticated by the entry of Oedipus with his bloodstained face-mask. Shakespeare deploys this technique in Macbeth: like Sophocles he combines the impact of narrative and stage blood to authenticate and make vivid the offstage scene.1 This chapter will discuss a range of representative instances where properties, either small or large, are pivotal to the creation of a sense of real place – either a sense of the place represented by the stage, or (as is the case in the example from Macbeth) of the offstage place lying behind the stage door. Moveable properties discussed in previous chapters, such as the key called for in The Knight of Malta, or that which True-wit uses to lock up Daw in Epicoene, provide a quick and generally Jeremy Lopez, Theatrical Convention and Audience Response in the Early Modern Theatre (Cambridge, 2003), pp. 81–3, 85, makes incisive comments about the potentially greater effect on the audience of a narrative rather than representational approach to violence, and of the importance of authentication to counter possible inaccuracy in the account. 1

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uncomplicated means of establishing place. Similarly, costume can provide spatial information about where a character is coming from or going to: if a playwright has a character entering ‘in his gown’ (as old Capulet does in Romeo and Juliet, I, i), or ‘making himselfe ready’ (as does Clerimont in Epicoene: F1, Y1v) this indicates an offstage house or chamber. A mixture of costume and properties is suggested in the Quarto of Henry VI part 2, II, i. The Folio simply has the royal hunting party enter, ‘with Falc’ners hallooing’ (probably an offstage sound effect). But the Quarto of 1594 reads (C1v): ‘Enter the King and Queene with her Hawke on her fist, and Duke Humphrey and Suffolke, and the Cardinall, as if they came from hawking.’ The final phrase probably suggests they are dressed for hawking, but the perhaps unique use of a hawk (whether live or stuffed) provides a vivid additional sign of where they have been and the activity they have been engaged in. A similar effect is created by the opening stage direction of Eastward Ho!: Enter Master Touchstone and Quicksilver at several doors; Quicksilver with his hat, pumps, short sword and dagger, and a racket trussed up under his cloak. (Eastward Ho! I, i, 0)

Quicksilver is one of Touchstone’s two apprentices, and is intercepted here by Touchstone as he is leaving his master’s house for a series of social engagements. Touchstone asks him: ‘What loose action are you bound for? … Where’s the Supper? Where’s the rendezvous?’ before uncloaking him to discover the racket: ‘Sword, pumps, here’s a racket indeed!’ (I, i, 17–18). The costume and properties associated with it are indicators for Touchstone and the audience of where Quicksilver is headed and what sort of apprentice he is – in contrast to the other, committed apprentice Golding who is looking after Touchstone’s goldsmith’s shop, ‘walking short turns before it’ (I, i, 0). Dessen and Thompson2 list nearly two hundred small properties and nearly 40 large properties mentioned in stage directions. These latter include most prominently altars, banquet tables, beds, tents, and objects associated with formality and formal processions: chairs of state, canopies, thrones, chariots. Let us first discuss two particular cases – studies and battles – where a sense of place is usually created by small or hand properties, often carried on by the characters involved. We will then discuss the use of larger properties to create a sense of place. Small Properties Studies, where characters typically sit at a table reading a book, are often represented by the deployment of small properties, as the evidence provided in Dessen and Thompson’s dictionary demonstrates. The study can, for example, be offstage but visible – creating the impression of a small space which opens onto 2 Alan C. Dessen and Leslie Thomson, A Dictionary of Stage Directions in English Drama, 1580–1642 (Cambridge, 1999), pp. 263–4.

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the stage, revealed by drawing back curtains. Such studies provide clear examples of ‘discovery’ – more general discussion of which will occupy us in the following chapter. In the context of this chapter, let us look in particular at the role of small properties in such discoveries. The News from Plymouth has: ‘A curtain drawn by Dash (his clerk) Trifle discovered in his study. Papers, taper, seal and wax before him, bell’ (167).3 The study is evoked here by the aggregation of a number of small properties, which combine to create a quite realistic sense of place. This is not uncommon in stage directions, and similar attention to detail is found in The Maid’s Revenge (E3v): ‘in his study furnished with glasses, vials, pictures of wax characters, wands, conjuring habit, Powders paintings’. Characters can then leave this place furnished with a range of appropriate objects and come onto the stage, and when they do so they are often described as leaving the study to enter another room. In Thomas Middleton’s A Mad World My Masters, a stage direction reads: ‘Enter in his chamber out of his study, Master Penitent Brothel, a book in his hand, reading’ (IV, i, 0). Here the stage explicitly signifies a chamber which has a study annexed to it beyond the stage door – and these two contiguous places are established by the transition of the character from one space to the other with one simple hand property, the book. However in other plays the entrance onto the stage from the study in which the character is initially ‘discovered’ seems to involve moving the study – not just the character – onto the stage. In the final scene of The Devil’s Charter Alexander is discovered in his study: ‘Alexander unbraced betwixt two Cardinalls in his study looking upon a booke, whilst a groome draweth the Curtaine’ (V, vi, 0). After a mere eight lines ‘They place him in a chayre upon the stage, a groome setteth a Table before him’. Since Alexander then ‘looketh on a booke’ he would seem, by virtue of the specified properties (table, chair, book – as occurs too in The Swisser, I, ii, 0), to be still in his study; but the study itself has come onstage. However Alexander subsequently finds his original study occupied by the Devil: ‘Alexander draweth the Curtaine of his studie where he discovereth the divill sitting in his pontificals’. If the original setting of the study has been enlarged onto the stage by means of the relevant properties, it now seems to have withdrawn back to its original location. Battlefields are usually kept off stage, and this is for the same practical reasons noted in regard to Duncan’s murder, or the horses in The Taming of the Shrew. Usually, as we have seen in Chapter 3, battles are signified by offstage sound effects. When however they are shown onstage, the sense of place (i.e., the battlefield) is established largely by the properties and costumes of the combatants. They wear armour and have the trappings and weapons (swords, pikes, battleaxes etc.) appropriate to soldiers – a meaningful set of visual markers which Richard and Buckingham use to deliberate effect to create a warlike atmosphere in the Tower scene in Richard III: ‘Richard and Buckingham, in rotten Armour, marvellous illfavoured’ (III, v, 0). Dessen and Thomson, Dictionary, p. 220.

3

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Each of these two cases, studies and battlefields, suggests in its own way that the playwrights were also deploying a particular spatial technique which uses considerable spatial flexibility to solve the logistical problems involved in representing actions and places that would otherwise have to remain offstage. I have termed this technique ‘extrusion’, since it involves pushing the offstage place temporarily onto the stage and then off again; it will be subject to closer examination in the final section of this chapter. Larger Properties Another set of practical logistical considerations comes into play if larger properties are used to create a sense of location. There are three means of introducing large properties: • They can be carried onto the stage by characters or stage hands; • Or they can be ‘thrust out’ of the tiring house onto the stage, through an upstage opening; • Or they can be set upstage behind hangings, and then ‘discovered’ by having characters or stage hands draw back the hangings. There are obviously similarities between the second and third of these techniques. If a bed is ‘thrust out’ through one of the curtained openings, it might involve a parting of the hangings and look very much like a ‘discovery’ – but one which is just a little more three-dimensional than a discovery which remains framed within the upstage opening. There is, however, an important difference: a discovery usually maintains a relational spatial system, so that the place discovered is a place contiguous with the stage-place; a bed which is ‘discovered’ represents a bedroom just offstage, and the stage place is then by opposition a room giving onto that bedroom. However with the second technique the object which is ‘thrust out’ seems to bring with it its offstage location; a bed thrust out often converts the whole stage into a bedroom, and this is another important example of the technique mentioned above of ‘extrusion’ of offstage place onto the stage. This technique is elusive: it is flexible and not easily identified, since it is often unclear whether a bed or a tent is ‘discovered’ by drawing back hangings, or whether it extrudes onto the stage in some way. The rest of this chapter will deal with the first two of these three techniques: firstly the straightforward technique whereby large visual elements are unambiguously moved out onto the stage and off again, and secondly the technique which involves the ‘extrusion’ of large properties (and their offstage place) onto the stage. The third technique, discoveries, which activates a spatial relation between the stage place and the contiguous location which is ‘discovered’ by drawing back the hangings, will be discussed in the following chapter in the context of other means of representing related places onstage (via split staging and setting up onstage observers).

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Carrying Large Properties On and Off the Stage This is a cumbersome technique, since it involves heavy lifting on the stage, and this might have been a factor in the development of the other two techniques which minimize the complications associated with heavy lifting by moving much of it backstage. Nevertheless the effectiveness of the use of large properties as a way of establishing location is attested by the prevalence of thrones, coffins and banquets (tables, chairs or stools, and food) which are ‘set out’ or ‘brought in’ onto the stage proper, and of elaborate processions involving large properties. Processions. These are common in the plays, and some of them are extremely elaborate. A Chaste Maid in Cheapside features a double funeral procession: Recorders dolefully playing: Enter at one Dore the Coffin of the Gentleman, solemnly deck’t, his Sword upon it, attended by many in Blacke, his Brother being the chiefe Mourner: At the other Doore, the Coffin of the Virgin, with a Garland of Flowres, with Epitaphes pin’d on’t, attended by Mayds and Women: Then set them downe one right over-against the other, while all the Company seeme to weepe and mourne, there is a sad Song in the Musicke-Roome. (A Chaste Maid in Cheapside, V, iv, 0)

The coffins here must be real enough and strong enough to accommodate an actor each, since the two ‘dead’ characters are about to be resurrected; the impression that we are in a ceremonial or ritual place for the double funeral is established by the coffins, supported by other aural and visual elements: the recorders (it is unclear if they are onstage or are played in the ‘Musicke-Roome’), the ‘Blacke’ costumes of the men, the weeping and mourning demeanour of ‘all the Company’. Queen Anne’s coronation procession in King Henry VIII is set out in one of the most elaborate and eloquent stage directions in early modern theatre. The scene begins with conversation between two Gentlemen who meet in the street, having come to see the procession on its way from the abbey. Then they and the audience witness the procession in all its glory: 1. A lively flourish of trumpets. 2. Then, two Judges. 3. Lord Chancellor, with purse and mace before him. 4. Quiristers singing. Music. 5. Mayor of London, bearing the mace. Then Garter, in his coat of arms, and on his head he wore a gilt copper crown. 6. Marquess Dorset, bearing a scepter of gold, on his head a demi-coronal of gold. With him, the Earl of Surrey, bearing the rod of silver with the dove, crowned with an earl’s coronet. Collars of Esses. 7. Duke of Suffolk, in his robe of estate, his coronet on his head, bearing a long white wand, as High Steward. With him, the Duke of Norfolk, with the rod of marshalship, a coronet on his head. Collars of Esses.

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8. A canopy borne by four of the Cinque-Ports; under it the Queen, in her robe, in her hair, richly adorned with pearl, crowned. On each side her, the Bishops of London and Winchester. 9. The old Duchess of Norfolk, in a coronal of gold, wrought with flowers, bearing the Queen’s train. 10. Certain Ladies or Countesses, with plain circlets of gold without flowers. 11. Exeunt, first passing over the stage in order and stage, and then, a great flourish of trumpets. (King Henry VIII, IV, i, 37)

The final direction makes it clear that the procession must enter at one door (the stage door is an interface from the abbey), and cross the stage to exit via the other door towards the court, previously ‘York-place’ (94) but now to be called ‘Whitehall’ (97). The most important property, the climactic visual symbol of royalty, is the Queen’s canopy carried by four nobles; but this is merely the largest visual element described. The various characters carry an assortment of maces, rods, and wands; they wear coronets and elaborate collars and robes (in particular the Queen’s train), and their hair is adorned. In addition there is a musical accompaniment, and the procession ‘passes over the stage’ in a solemn manner. The scene thus involves the transformation of the street into the backdrop for a solemn procession, by means of the extravagant use of a range of properties, some of them large and cumbersome. It is significant that in this scene, as we have seen at the beginning of this chapter in regard to the murder scene in Macbeth, both narrative and visual channels are used in counterpoint. Lines 37–55 consist of the two Gentlemen’s running commentary on the procession as its various stages pass them: ‘Who’s that that bears the sceptre? Marquess Dorset, And that the Earl of Surrey, with the rod’ (38–9). Then, after the last of the procession has exited, they are joined by a Third Gentleman who arrives in its wake: he has witnessed the wedding ceremony at Westminster, and now describes the events which have just occurred offstage (62–93). This account of the ceremony involves descriptions of the characters who have just crossed the stage, so it also provides the audience with an opportunity to retrospectively re-process the ‘visuals’ they have just seen. The scene ends with the three Gentlemen exiting to join the feast at court (115), returning the street to its normal function. Altars. Sometimes altars are ‘discovered’, and at other times they are ‘set forth’, and the different spatial arrangements depend on different dynamics in the respective scenes. Two instances in Heywood’s Iron Age part 2 illustrate this difference: at E1r the stage direction reads: King Priam discovered kneeling at the Altar, with him Hecuba, Polixena, Andromache, Astianax: to them enter Pyrhus, and all the Greekes, Pyrhus killing Polytes Priams sonne before the Altar. (Iron Age part 2, E1r)

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The scene in question is part of the sequence in which the Greeks, having infiltrated the city in what Pyrhus calls the ‘deep vast bulke’ of the horse (E1r), set upon the unprepared Trojans. Here, the group of Trojans gathered around the altar are ‘discovered’, and the Greeks enter from elsewhere to attack the Trojan forces. In this case, then, the altar in the discovery space serves as the visual focus which establishes a particular sense of place: we see its group of devotees as sheltering in a confined space, to be then threatened by outside forces. In contrast, at K2v the altar serves a different function, and in this case it is ‘set foorth’ on the stage proper, now serving – probably centre-stage – as the visual focus for an elaborate wedding procession: An Altar set foorth, Enter Pyrhus Leading Hermione as a bride, Menelaus, Ulisses, Diomed. A great trayne, Pyrhus and Hermione kneele at the altar. (Iron Age part 2, K2v)

In both cases, however, the appearance of the altar sets the scene for what is to follow. This setting of the large property on the stage, as distinct from the logistically simpler ‘discovery’ of an altar just off the main stage, would clearly involve stage hands (or stage hands portraying attendants) to carry the property onto the stage. Marston demonstrates a keen sense of the logistical implications in Sophonisba: Cornets and Organs playing full musick. Enters the solemnity of a sacrifice, which beeing entred whilst the attendance furnish the Altar. (Sophonisba, III, i, 177)

This suggests that the procession, accompanied by music, enters and moves around the stage – and meanwhile (‘whilst’) the attendants have time to set out and furnish the altar. Banquets. These are treated similarly to altars: they are usually ‘set forth’ or ‘brought in’ onto the stage proper. A clear-cut instance is provided by Shakespeare in The Taming of the Shrew, V, ii: Enter Baptista, Vincentio, Gremio, the Pedant, Lucentio, and Bianca; [Petruchio, Katherina, Hortensio,] Tranio, Biondello, Grumio, and Widow; the servingmen with Tranio bringing in a banquet. (The Taming of the Shrew, V, ii, 0)

The characters, in a more or less formal procession, are arriving at Lucentio’s house; the location is established by nomination (‘Welcome to my house’) and by the appearance of the banquet which is brought onto the stage. This banquet must involve a table laden with food, and chairs or stools for the guests, so it presents a considerable logistical task for Tranio and the servingmen. It is not coincidental that Shakespeare gives Lucentio 10 lines before he invites his guests to sit down:

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Luc. Feast with the best, and welcome to my house. My banket is to close our stomachs up After our great good cheer. Pray you sit down, For now we sit to chat as well as eat. (The Taming of the Shrew, V, ii, 8–11)

The stage pattern probably therefore involves these characters entering at one stage door; as they process around the stage the banquet can be brought in from the door opposite their entrance, and be set centre-stage in time for the guests to sit down. We would expect banquets to connote a large table to cater for a number of guests, and this is possibly the reason why banquets are almost always set out on the stage proper. There is one instance where the banquet is ‘discovered’ by drawing a curtain, but it is not completely clear-cut. In Dekker’s Westward Ho, there is a stage direction for a banquet which involves only two characters: Whilst the song is heard. The earle drawes a Curten and sets forth a Banquet: he then Exit, and Enters presently with Parenthesis attird like his wife maskt: leads him to the table, places him in a chaire, and in dumbe signes, Courts him, til the song be done. (Westward Ho, IV, ii, 52)

The use of a curtain would normally suggest that the banquet is being ‘discovered’ rather than ‘set forth’, so the use of ‘set forth’ here may involve the Earl bringing the ‘discovered’ banquet ‘forth’ onto the stage proper. The scene between Parenthesis and the Earl then proceeds for a considerable time, and involves subsequent entrances from Servingmen and Citizens, so it is not improbable that this banquet is indeed ‘set forth’ on the stage proper after having been set up backstage behind the curtain. The setting of banquets often also sets up differential spatial relationships with offstage. In The Revenger’s Tragedy4 an elaborate dumb show is presented in a series of stage directions: In a dumb show, the possessing of the young Duke, with all his Nobles; then sounding music. A furnished table is brought forth; then enters the Duke and his Nobles to the banquet. A blazing star appeareth. … Enter the masque of revengers, the two brothers, and the two Lords more. … The revengers dance; at the end, steal out their swords, and these four kill the four at the table in their chairs. It thunders. (The Revenger’s Tragedy, V, iii, 0; 39; 42)

The Revenger’s Tragedy, R.A. Foakes (ed.), London (1966), pp. 121–3.

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This banquet involves a table and four chairs on the stage proper; the phrase ‘brought forth’ suggests that the banquet is set from the same direction as the entrance of the Duke and Nobles, whereas the masquers enter from another direction, intruding on the banquet: one of the Nobles says ‘The masque is not far off’ (12), another claims to ‘hear ’em coming’ (40). Councils. Similar to banquets, insofar as they involve tables and chairs, are councils. King Henry VIII serves to provide an explicit stage direction: A council-table is brought in with chairs and stools, and placed under the state. Enter Lord Chancellor, places himself at the upper end of the table on the left hand; a seat being left void above him, as for Canterbury’s seat. Duke of Suffolk, Duke of Norfolk, Surrey, Lord Chamberlain, Gardiner seat themselves in order on each side. Cromwell at lower end, as secretary. (King Henry VIII, V, ii, 35)

This council involves a table and eight chairs which need to be brought out onto the stage, a task that would take considerable time for the stage-hands or attendants to accomplish. This scene also features a fluid use of the stage space which will be discussed more fully in the following chapter, but for our purposes here we need merely note that the setting of the table and chairs brings about a mid-scene change of location. At the start of the scene, the stage represents a place outside the council chambers: there are characters already onstage and in the gallery above it, and in particular Cranmer, the Bishop of Canterbury (who would normally be in the place at table which the stage direction specifies is to be marked by an empty chair) is waiting ‘without’ to appear before the council. The setting of the council table and chairs while Cranmer remains onstage effects a change of location for at least part of the stage, which now stands for the council chamber. This council-table is then occupied by its seven members (and a chair for the missing Canterbury), and Cranmer is subsequently admitted to the council. Presumably at this point he moves towards centre-stage: ‘Cranmer approaches the council-table’ (V, i, 42). Three comments are appropriate to conclude this discussion of instances in which heavy properties are carried onto the stage to effect changes of location. Firstly, processions can easily accommodate large properties, since they normally involve participants whose role is clearly established as ‘carriers’ of those properties, eliminating the need to utilize stage hands for this purpose. The procession also normally and naturally exits the stage, so there is no need for stage hands to ‘clear’ the stage of the large properties before the next scene. Secondly, if other types of scenes such as banquets, councils and religious ceremonies require ‘setting’ and ‘striking’ of properties by stage hands or characters such as servants, these scenes do not necessarily entail fictionally ‘dead’ time that will risk inducing audience inattention. The setting of large properties establishes the location in which the next scene will take place, and this activity, however cumbersome and time-consuming it might be, is inevitably part of

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the performance. The characters or stage hands who bring on the large property are not merely setting the scene: they are bringing the new place on stage, and the audience’s attention and inference-making activity is triggered by this establishing of a new fictional location as much as it is by the subsequent action that is framed by that location. At the first sight of the properties the audience will begin to hypothesize about the scene being set and what might occur in it; and then the ‘striking’ of properties provides the audience time to re-process the action that has just involved those properties, and to hypothesize about the location of the next (property-less) scene. As such, these inter-scene gaps are not fictionally ‘dead’, and the time taken to set and strike the properties does not compromise the fictional and functional ‘continuity’ of the performance which Andrew Gurr rightly identifies as a desideratum.5 Thirdly, this technique of establishing a sense of place often involves the use of the stage doors merely as functional interfaces with the backstage area where the properties are stored, rather than as interfaces with fictional offstage places. It often matters little, in other words, where the properties have come from in a fictional sense – they are merely being ‘set’ on the stage to establish the scene. However it can be argued that in some instances when a table is brought on, the property is not merely arriving from backstage: rather an offstage fictional place (a banqueting hall or council chamber) is being brought onstage with and through the property. This temporary ‘extrusion’ of offstage place onto the stage will occupy us in the following section. Extrusion When Viola, disguised as Cesario on a mission from Orsino, arrives at Olivia’s house in Twelfth Night, III, i, she is invited by Sir Toby into the house: ‘Will you encounter the house?’ (74). Were she to exit with Sir Toby, this would have the unfortunate effect of rendering the private encounter between Viola and Olivia invisible to the audience – so her exit is forestalled by Olivia coming out of the house into the garden, giving rise to Viola’s comment: ‘We are prevented’ (82). Viola is thus ‘prevented’ from going into the house, and the ensuing intimate scene is played in the garden. Privacy therefore needs to be ensured by some means other than by having the exchange take place in a private location. So Shakespeare has Olivia give orders for Sir Toby and the others to go inside and shut the door which gives from the house onto the garden: ‘Let the garden door be shut, and leave me to my hearing’ (94). This elaborate set of arrangements is required to enable an intimate and private encounter to take place believably in a less than private place, and is clearly awkward. It is probably this sort of problem which tempted playwrights to employ an atypical but effective alternative spatial strategy, which I have called ‘extrusion’. 5 Andrew Gurr, ‘Doors at the Globe: the Gulf between Page and Stage’, Theatre Notebook 55/2 (2001), p. 64.

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So far we have dealt with the relational or oppositional establishing of place. Entering characters are generally understood to be coming to a particular (onstage) place from another related and contiguous offstage place; similarly exiting characters are leaving one place to go to another place. Early modern staging enables these onstage and offstage places to change from one scene to the next, and it is perhaps for this reason that the texts are often very clear about location – since the setting of a new ‘scene’ involves not merely ‘re-locating’ the stage space, but reassigning the relationships between this new onstage place and its offstage counter-places. If in one scene we are in a house, with one door leading into a bedroom and the other out to the street, the re-setting for the next scene might involve establishing that we are now in the street, with one door leading into an abbey and the other leading to the bay or market or both. Not all scenes of course will necessarily activate all three poles of this relational spatial triangle. In some scenes it might simply be a question of what lies inside the door to a house, in others the point of spatial focus might be purely on one door as the focus of a perceived external threat. But generally the three poles of the triangle are activated:6

However Mariko Ichikawa notes insightfully that ‘It is sometimes almost impossible to decide whether the scene takes place indoors or outdoors’.7 She goes on to observe that in Romeo and Juliet II, vi, when Juliet meets Romeo at Friar Lawrence’s cell, ‘it is by no means clear whether the dialogue takes place inside or outside the cell’,8 and suggests this is one example of not a few in Shakespearean Mariko Ichikawa, Shakespearean Entrances (Basingstoke/New York, 2002), p. 88, correctly identifies the incompleteness of the triangulation in some scenes; this is not however a flaw in the system, since actors are quite capable of dealing with a triangular spatial relation which in some scenes is not fully activated. 7 Mariko Ichikawa, ‘Were the Doors Open or Closed? The Use of Stage Doors in the Shakespearean Theatre’, Theatre Notebook 60/1 (2006), p. 28. 8 Ichikawa, ‘Were the Doors Open or Closed?’, p. 28. 6

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and contemporary plays ‘where the location changes from outside the house to inside without a clearing of the stage’.9 I believe that this lack of spatial clarity is apparent rather than real, and this because the playwright is creating a sense of place in a very different way. I would argue that this ‘fuzziness’ is the result of the use of a particular and quite different – and underestimated – means of establishing place on the early modern stage. This technique temporarily suspends the ‘relational’ counterpoint between the offstage and onstage places, and actually brings the offstage place onstage with the entering characters. It involves the temporary ‘elasticising’ or ‘extrusion’ of fictional place within a scene, so that what was offstage suddenly becomes onstage and the inwards private space itself is brought forward onto the stage.10 I term this technique ‘extrusion’ to denote the way in which an offstage fictional space behind one of the stage doors is temporarily extruded through the door onto the stage by having the characters enter the stage space. In this way they bring their offstage location with them: they are therefore still in the place where they were before they entered, but that place is now made visible to the audience. Alan Dessen11 discusses this technique briefly; his term for what I call ‘extrusion’ is ‘dramatic economy’, for the obvious reason that it quickly and economically moves the fictional place onstage in view of the audience. He discusses the Banquet scene in Romeo and Juliet, and this is indeed a very explicit use of this technique which enables the masquers to be brought into the feast without them having to exit the stage into the Capulet household and then re-enter with the other guests at the feast. When the masquers come onto the stage, arriving at the Capulets’ at the start of I, iv, the other guests have already arrived, since in the previous scene a Servingman has summoned Lady Capulet: ‘Madam, the guests are come, supper serv’d up’ (I, iii, 100). After their dialogue the masquers ‘march about the stage’ (I, iv, 115), ‘And Servingmen come forth with napkins’ (I, v, 0), and then Capulet enters with the other guests and welcomes the Masquers to the feast. But they do not exit the stage to go ‘in’ to the feast; instead the feast has extruded itself out onto the stage with the Servingmen, Capulet and the other guests.12 The most common (and indeed perhaps archetypal) example of extrusion occurs with beds being ‘thrust out’ onto the stage and then ‘pulled in’ again at the end of the scene: with the bed comes the person in it and other characters who are Ichikawa, ‘Were the Doors Open or Closed?’, p. 28. This technique is involved in a number of the examples, including A Midsummer

9

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Night’s Dream, I, i, which John C. Meagher brings forward in his insightful discussion of flexible space within scenes: see John C. Meagher, Pursuing Shakespeare’s Dramaturgy (Madison, 2003), pp. 107–8. 11 Alan C. Dessen, Elizabethan Stage Conventions and Modern Interpreters (Cambridge, 1984), pp. 86–8. 12 Some other notable examples of this ‘shifting’ of the onstage space occur in the ‘Jerusalem Room’ scenes in Henry IV part 2, IV, v; in the council scene in Henry VIII, V, ii; and in Julius Caesar, IV, ii, Brutus’s tent.

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now out on the stage but are still in the bedroom that has come through the door with the bed. One of the more explicit examples is provided by Davenport’s A New Trick to Cheat the Devil, where the bed is pushed out onto the stage with Anne in it. There are four other characters in the scene, and they might be involved in pushing out the bed (some at least of them seem to be involved in then pulling it back in through the doorway, as Anne directs them to at the end of the scene): Enter Anne in Bed, Mistris Changeable, Lord Skales, Treatwell and Geffery. … An. I told you of’t before hand: I would sleepe: Hand in my bed, Ile turne to the wall, and try if I can Sleepe, so good night all. The Bed pull’d in Wi. So, softly as you can; some little rest Will bring her to her temper. (A New Trick to Cheat the Devil, I4r, v)

The extrusion of offstage place onto the stage by pushing or bringing in large properties such as thrones, tables, etc. (and then presumably withdrawing the extrusion by drawing or taking them back into the tiring house) is probably at the root of this spatial convention. The council scene from King Henry VIII discussed above is one such example, with the stage location being divided into two as the council chamber is extruded onto the stage. This extrusion of place via the relevant properties seems to have been extended to other scenes which do not require large properties. As we have seen above, in The Devil’s Charter a small hand property effects the extrusion: ‘Alexander cometh upon the stage out of his study with a book in his hand’ (IV, i, 7 G1r). Here the stage is a stage, i.e., it is not identified relationally, as say a chamber with study contiguous with it, but becomes the study as Alexander enters. More commonly, the stage directions simply indicate something like ‘Enter Alexander out of the studie’ (The Devil’s Charter IV, ii, 3): in each of these cases, then, a character appears or is discovered in the doorway, with properties that would suggest that he is ‘in his study’. He then comes out onto the stage, bringing with him the property (the book he has been reading) and hence

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the study as well. This extrusion of the study onto the stage enables the action to be moved downstage for greater audibility, as well as for greater possibilities for character interaction than would be provided within the cramped space in the doorway or the so-called ‘discovery space’. It also enables the access-point to the ‘study’ subsequently to be neutralized (since the study to which it provided access has now come onto the stage) and it can therefore be used for other purposes later in the scene. I believe this is what occurs in The Devil’s Charter, IV, i, where various devils enter and exit at different points, using both stage doors, before the door originally nominated as ‘the study’ is used again by Alexander, as he exits and takes his ‘study’ offstage with him. Extrusion provides a resolution of the pliable location of a scene which Ichikawa finds mystifying. In Romeo and Juliet, II, vi, Romeo and the Friar enter, awaiting the arrival of Juliet; they are at the Friar’s cell, but the Friar sees Juliet coming in the distance: ‘Here comes the lady. O, so light a foot’ (16). This suggests they are outside, and they seem to exit into the cell at the end of the scene. Ichikawa suggests this as an example where it is ‘almost impossible to decide whether the scene takes place indoors or outdoors’.13 The ambiguity which she finds here is immediately dissolved by treating the scene as an instance of extrusion. The stage is not standing ambiguously for ‘inside’ or ‘outside’; instead the ‘inside’ has come ‘outside’. The cell has been temporarily extruded onto the stage with the characters’ entry – and then disappears back ‘inside’ with them at the end of the scene, as they retire with Juliet to perform the marriage ceremony offstage: Friar L. Come, come with me, and we will make short work, For by your leaves, you shall not stay alone Till Holy Church incorporate two in one. (Romeo and Juliet, II, vi, 35–7)

As Tiffany Stern has acutely observed, it is often the self-conscious and even metatheatrical uses of particular techniques which provide evidence of their broader use. Othello features a fascinatingly ambiguous instance where it is possible that Shakespeare is playing on and playing with the audience’s assumption that a particular scene is an instance of spatial extrusion. In this scene there is a definite suggestion of an extrusion of a private space onto the stage, but this is abruptly negated by an entrance from the public sphere. It is the scene in which Cassio seeks audience with Desdemona, asking her to intercede on his behalf with her husband. III, i ends with Cassio being admitted into the private spaces of the citadel by Emilia, and then III, ii begins with Othello coming from the citadel, involved in public affairs. He gets Iago to deliver letters to the pilot before going to inspect the fortifications:

Ichikawa, ‘Were the Doors Open or Closed?’, p. 28.

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Oth. These letters give, Iago, to the pilot, And by him do my duties to the Senate. That done, I will be walking on the works; Repair there to me. Iago. Well, my good lord, I’ll do’t. Oth. This fortification, gentlemen, shall we see’t? Gentlemen. We’ll wait upon your lordship. Exeunt. (Othello, III, ii, 1–6)

These explicit place and (implied) time references lead the audience to expect that Othello will be gone for some time, providing ample opportunity for Cassio to talk to Desdemona within. The next entrance involves Desdemona, Cassio and Emilia re-emerging from the private space, well into a discussion of the issues which Cassio has raised. However after a mere 25 lines Othello and Iago re-enter, catching Cassio as he makes a hurried and furtive exit. There are two indications that there has been a time lapse since the exit of Othello, Iago and the Gentlemen. Apart from the fact that the various tasks Othello had nominated seem to have been accomplished, in the meantime Cassio has clearly made his case to Desdemona and she has agreed to intercede. The scene between them begins in medias res, her opening line making it clear that the issues have already been thoroughly discussed in the offstage time-lapse and she has agreed to help: ‘Be thou assur’d, good Cassio, I will do All my abilities in thy behalf’ (III, iii, 1). The audience might therefore form the impression that their business has been more or less concluded, and Desdemona and Emilia are now accompanying Cassio back out of the private spaces into the liminal space between private and public. However, this impression is negated by the fact that there is nothing in their dialogue to suggest that Cassio is already leaving – until they see Othello and Iago enter. It is possible, in other words, that Shakespeare expected his audience to read Desdemona’s entrance not as signifying that she is coming out of the private space with a departing Cassio, but as bringing the private space onto the stage to enable the audience to be privy to the conversation (they are still where they were in private; their entrance has merely moved the private onto the stage) – as a case, in short, of spatial extrusion. But if that is indeed the case, then Shakespeare abruptly derails such a spatial reading. When Othello and Iago return, they seem to be coming back to their point of departure – so what the audience might have thought was the private space of the Desdemona-Cassio interaction (however innocent their interaction might be) is suddenly rendered public as its location is redefined as closer to the public arena by the unexpected return of Othello. This sudden redefinition of the fictional place might well leave the audience as shocked as Cassio. Perhaps the most important instance of extrusion occurs in battle scenes. It can be suggested that the individual skirmishes seen on stage, which alternate with offstage sound effects, are best understood as temporary extrusions of the battlefield onto the stage. Such a perspective involves an important shift in emphasis, bestowing greater importance on the offstage effects than on the brief

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interludes which are seen by the audience. Dessen and Thompson point to the elaborate nature of such sound effects, which imply the capacity to create an offstage spatial differential between noises that are close at hand and those that are more distant.14 Anthony Brennan has written with great perception on the management of battle scenes. He points out the obvious structural principles which underlie the staging of battles: In such sequences we usually have a large number of actors shuttling on and offstage in a mosaic of short segments which signify battle in a judicious apportioning of physical and verbal components.15

Brennan identifies the key role often played by onstage observers of offstage battles, which enables the audience to register ‘the reactions to the ebb and flow of battle in the eyes of those onstage to events that are entirely offstage’. He goes on to note that ‘Shakespeare’s handling of battle is usually a complex weave of actions and reactions, of actual fights and reports of fights’.16 This summary omits the important function of offstage sound effects as a key component in the presentational mosaic, though Brennan does mention them elsewhere.17 The problem of getting the action of the battle onstage is often addressed by representing the entrance of characters as a temporary retreat from the field, the stage standing for a place for regrouping to return to the fray, or as a transitional point for a later departure to the camp or elsewhere. In some plays where battles are extremely elaborate (Troilus and Cressida, for example) it is clear that both stage doors need to be used. Sometimes battles are explicitly binary, with the forces entering at separate doors. Coriolanus I, viii specifies as much: ‘Alarum, as in battle. Enter Martius and Aufidius at several doors’. The battle of Philippi in Act V of Julius Caesar is a case in point, with the armies dispatched to different parts of the field. Sieges, which often involve the tiring house wall standing for the town walls, are a particular case to be discussed in Chapter 7. But the most common arrangement of battle scenes involves the battlefield being located – initially at least – behind one rather than both the stage doors, from whence we hear the complex range of offstage sound effects of battle.18 The field then intermittently extrudes itself onto the stage through this doorway interface with the entering characters, to then recede offstage with them as they return to the fray. Such a simple pattern, with various groups of characters in turn entering from and returning to the battlefield, might seem to present a Dessen and Thomson, Dictionary, p. 2. Anthony Brennan, Onstage and Offstage Worlds in Shakespeare’s Plays (London,

14 15

1989), p. 131. 16 Brennan, Onstage and Offstage Worlds, p. 133. 17 Brennan, Onstage and Offstage Worlds, p. 184 (the siege of Harfleur in Henry V) and p. 246 (Julius Caesar, I, ii). 18 Dessen and Thomson, Dictionary, pp. 3, 21.

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logistical problem, since all the entrances and exits will be through just one stage door. However this is dealt with in two ways. Firstly, the threat of congestion (as various subgroups of combatants extrude themselves onto the stage before returning to the battle proper via the one stage door) is minimized by the offstage sound effects of alarums, retreats and so on: it is a simple matter to fill with appropriate sound effects the time-gap between the exit of one group to the field and the entrance of the next group from the field. This pattern suggests that the evocative use of offstage effects was a highly developed art, considered as an at least adequate substitute for the onstage representation of the battle itself. A second means of overcoming the potential limitation of a one-sided battle location is to gradually expand the battle, so that both stage doors are involved, and we see both these techniques at work in Shakespeare’s Henry IV part 1, which has an extended battle sequence of this type, stretching over two scenes and some 220 lines (V, iii–iv). Brennan notes that the battle of Shrewsbury ‘is composed as much of a rapid sequence of entrances and exits as it is of actual fighting’,19 and that ‘Much of the battle depends on the rapid sequence of episodes punctuated by the frequency of exit and entrance’.20 Brennan correctly identifies the logistical problems associated with such a presentational structure, and his analysis of the sequence demonstrates that in most of the battle segments ‘there are never more than 4 characters onstage at one time and … no more than 2 actors are ever required to enter or exit together’.21 Brennan’s analysis elucidates the extent to which the text incorporates a complex of logistical decisions and strategies employed by the playwright to minimize congestions on entrance and exit: The battle of Shrewsbury … does indicate that varied physical activity could be used if it was judiciously spaced out, and if exits and entrances were worked out in serial additions and subtractions of one or two at a time so that large numbers were rarely required to clear the stage in a short period.22

This underestimates the role of offstage sound effects in managing congestions at the stage doors, as the analysis below will indicate. In fact the battle offstage begins with one of these sound effects, ‘Alarm to the battle’ (V, iii, 0), and at least for the initial part of the sequence the repeated use of the ‘Alarm’ sound effect serves to separate exits from entrances through the interface to a battlefield which is contained behind one door. It seems, however, that as the battle becomes fiercer both doors are employed: there are two sets of exit/entrance (marked in bold below) which would demand the use of both doors, so the battlefield seems to have extruded itself backstage as well, to now take up all the backstage area behind both stage doors. This is best seen in tabular form: 21 22 19 20

Brennan, Onstage and Offstage Worlds, p. 148. Brennan, Onstage and Offstage Worlds, p. 150. Brennan, Onstage and Offstage Worlds, p. 150. Brennan, Onstage and Offstage Worlds, p. 153.

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Table 5.1  Battlefield Traffic in King Henry IV part 1 V, iii, 0 1 13 29 29 30 39 55 61 V, iv, 0 1 16 24 24 38 43 57 57 75 77 77 110 128 157–60

Alarm to the battle. Douglas and Blunt enter from the field and fight. Douglas kills Blunt, believing him to be the King; Douglas is joined by Hotspur, who uncovers Blunt’s identity. They leave the stage to return to the battle in search of the King. Alarm. [separates exit of Douglas and Hotspur from next entrance] Falstaff enters. Prince enters, needing to re-arm. Prince exits again. Falstaff exits. Alarm. Excursions. [separates exit of Falstaff from next entrance] Entrance of King, Prince, Lancaster and Westmoreland. Lancaster and Westmoreland exit to the battle. Prince exits. Douglas enters, and fights with the King. Prince returns. Douglas flees. King exits. Hotspur enters and fights with the Prince. Falstaff re-enters. Followed by Douglas who fights with Falstaff. Falstaff feigns death and Douglas exits as the Prince mortally wounds Hotspur. The Prince exits and Falstaff revives himself. Prince and Lancaster enter. A final retreat is sounded and they return ‘to the highest of the field’, followed by Falstaff.

This table shows that the three sequences, of increasing complexity, which constitute these two scenes, are punctuated by ‘Alarms’ or ‘Alarms. Excursions’.23 which enable entrances and exits to be made at one door. This door thus provides the initial interface through which the battlefield is extruded onto the stage, as more and more characters enter from the field in search of their respective foes or (in the case of the Prince and Falstaff) allies. However the exits and entrances marked in bold at V, iv, 24 and 57 would seem to require the use of both doors to avoid hostile characters meeting each other, and this would suggest that the sound effects and onstage interactions between the warring parties become increasingly intense as the battle reaches its climax and spreads acoustically and visually onto the stage from the two openings in the tiring house.

23 Dessen and Thompson, Dictionary, p. 84, suggests that an excursion probably involved soldiers entering, fighting and re-exiting.

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Conclusion The preceding section has suggested that some particular offstage locations, whether they be battlefields, bedchambers or banquet halls, might have been represented onstage by means of a technique of extrusion rather than by a manipulation of relational space as occurs in the vast bulk of scenes. Such a technique might have been derived from the medieval convention of ‘mansion staging’. This enabled a range of locations, and actions associated with those locations, to be represented on the stage by the simple technique of playing the action in front of the appropriate ‘mansion’. This has an effect not dissimilar to that described above, as the action appropriate to a particular offstage place (within the mansion) is played outside it, on the stage proper. The possibility of such a staging tradition being carried over into early modern performance practice is supported from the other end of the temporal spectrum, by an otherwise anomalous play by Thomas Nabbes, Covent Garden. By the 1630s, Nabbes’s play suggests, the Cockpit playhouse for which he wrote it had three stage doors. Covent Garden overtly uses three entrances, identified by Nabbes as the right, the middle and the left ‘scoenes’. In Acts I and III the stage-space stands for a single place (Covent Garden), and this place is counterposed to offstage places that are contiguous with it, represented as being beyond the various doors: the middle door or ‘scoene’ stands for Worthy’s house, the left ‘scoene’ for the Tavern, and the right is used for entrances and exits from and to elsewhere. However we should note immediately the inherent inflexibility of a system which ties two of the exit-points irrevocably to a particular location for an act at a time. Such inflexible long-term commitments to fictional ‘identities’ for the doors contrasts markedly to the flexibility of early modern staging as we have seen it working in previous chapters, with its capacity for, and indeed its reliance on, ‘wiping and resetting’ the offstage locations (and therefore what the doors stand for) from one scene to the next, so that the playwright is never locked into long-term and inflexible correspondences between doors and fictional offstage signifieds. This inflexibility becomes Nabbes’s albatross in the other acts of the play. In Acts II and V the stage stands for the interior of Worthy’s house; since this house has been signified by the central opening from the start of the play, Nabbes has all entrances and exits in these acts through the central door. This has the effect of blurring any sense of spatial differentiation: all characters, whether inhabitants of the house or visitors to it, whether coming from or going to other parts of the house or the outside world, use the central door. The same holds for the Tavern in Act IV. John C. Meagher has made some analogous perceptive comments in regard to suggestions that the doors in The Comedy of Errors might have been similarly ‘locked in’ to one location: ‘It would be not only uneconomical but irresponsibly prodigal to freeze one of the doors in a particular location.’24 Meagher, Pursuing Shakespeare’s Dramaturgy, p. 124.

24

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This is essentially a revisitation of medieval mansion staging. For these extended periods Worthy’s house and the Tavern are extruded onto the stage from within, and the stage – or that part of it in front of the relevant door – signifies a particular place that would otherwise be offstage: the interior of the house or tavern. Nabbes’s experiment, while it sired no progeny, may itself be descended from medieval staging via the technique of extrusion which we have discussed above.

Chapter 6

The Divided Stage: Observers and Discoveries Hamlet. How now? A rat? Dead, for a ducat, dead! (Hamlet, III, iv, 23)

In Hamlet III, iv Polonius hides himself behind the arras when Gertrude hears her son arriving from offstage, and this simple action provides the audience with a complex stereoscopic experience in performance. As we watch the interaction between Hamlet and his mother, we also ‘read’ it through the onstage but unseen eyes of the onlooker. We assess how Polonius might be interpreting the words he overhears, and make inferences about when and how he might intervene in the light of the impressions he gains. We probably also make inferences about what might happen if his presence is detected by Hamlet. So when Gertrude cries for help, we will not be altogether surprised at Polonius’s or Hamlet’s reactions: we have already processed the various possibilities that stem from the spatial and interpersonal set-up the playwright has provided by invoking the technique of the onstage observer. The use of an onstage observer – whether secreted like Polonius in a concealment space, or visible to the audience but mysteriously unseen by other characters – is a very old theatrical technique. It was much-used by Plautus, and by the Plautusinspired playwrights responsible for the scenarios of the commedia dell’arte – playwrights who in turn influenced Shakespeare and his contemporaries.1 The Italians refined the use of a character unseen by other onstage characters to the point that in many commedia dell’arte scenes, it is routine for an entering character to address the audience on plot detail (what, for instance, he will do if he meets a particular character) – before ‘seeing’ that very character already onstage, and beginning an interaction with him. This technique, which I have called ‘slowsightedness’,2 on the one hand simplifies the flow of plot information to the audience by means of economical direct address, but on the other hand adds complexity since it places the audience in a privileged position from which they – unlike the characters onstage – can see everyone and begin inferring what might happen next. This chapter will discuss three related means of creating this divided vision by dividing the stage. First we will examine the quite common technique exemplified See the editor’s appendix to Scenarios of the Commedia dell’Arte: Flaminio Scala’s Il Teatro delle favole rappresentative, Henry F. Salerno (ed.) (New York, 1967), pp. 395–411. 2 Tim Fitzpatrick, The Relationship of Oral and Literate Performance Processes in the Commedia dell’Arte: Beyond the Improvisation/Memorisation Divide (Lewiston/ Queenston/Lampeter, 1995), pp. 131–3. 1

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above, the onstage observer (whether that observer be hidden behind curtains, in the gallery above the stage, or hiding perhaps behind a stage post on the main platform). Next, we will look at a number of instances where the main stage is separated into two discrete fictional places: in this technique various parts of this ‘split’ stage signify different locations, often to the end of foregrounding not just the spatial, but also the power relationship between them. And finally we will examine the particular case of ‘discoveries’, which provides a different way of dividing up the performance space. Onstage Observers In some cases onstage observers are clearly visible to the audience, in others they might effectively disappear behind a hanging – though in either case they are clearly intended to remain in the audience’s mind: the playwrights often take steps to remind the audience of the latent unseen presence. This presence will be factored in as the audience make cognitive calculations about what will happen next, as they plot the interpersonal parameters involved, gauge the impact that the onstage events might have on the hidden characters, or infer developments that might result from the information that the unseen observers are gaining by overhearing other characters in conversation. We have seen in Chapter 2 that there is evidence for two sorts of upstage hangings: there is little doubt that there was a central feature with hangings, but there is also evidence that there were curtains hung in the two lateral doorways, since plays such as Cupid’s Whirligig require two sets of hangings for two sets of characters. If, as argued there, the upstage central feature did not involve an opening into the tiring house, it would have been useful only for characters who leave the stage to conceal themselves temporarily. We have seen one such case, from Ben Jonson’s Volpone, which involves the central character spying unseen on the others. Volpone instructs Mosca on how he should deal with the interested visitors who are coming to monitor Volpone’s state of health; meanwhile he will get up ‘Behind the curtain, on a stool, and hearken; Sometime peep over, see how they do look’ (V, ii, 84–5). This connotes a curtain with enough space behind it for someone to stand on a stool and peep over, and probably refers to an upstage centre concealment space. Jonson seems keen to remind the audience of the presence of Volpone, as he subsequently writes a stage direction to ensure Volpone is seen: ‘Volpone peeps from behind a traverse’ (V, iii, 8). This peeping over would be possible at the upstage central feature if the tiring house wall was configured as that at the Rose playhouse: if the wall is angled, following the cants of the polygon, there will be a gap between the angled wall and a curtain hung in front of it. If this concealment space offers no exit/entrance point, it is only useful for characters who, like Volpone here or Clerimont and Dauphine in Epicoene, take concealment from onstage and then return to the stage.

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However it is a different matter for characters who are coming from offstage and spend some time ‘concealed’ before they enter the stage. If they used the curtains which seem to have been hung in the open doorways to effect their observation of the onstage events, then techniques other than ‘peeping over’ the curtain would be necessary to alert the audience to their presence prior to entering the stage to take part in those events. One of the easiest ways for such characters to be seen, or have their presence signalled to the audience (but at the same time believably not be seen by at least some onstage characters) would be to have such characters move, part, or gesture through the curtains behind which they are concealed. This involves a sort of ‘pre-entrance’ which brings the hidden character into play before he or she completes his or her entrance. In such cases onstage characters who ‘see’ an approaching character before their point of entrance can do so believably if there is a gap in the hangings though which – from an audience perspective – the onstage character can seem to see something that we cannot. The actual point of entrance is the doorway, but characters can ‘enter’ into the action before they cross that threshold: they move the hangings or gesture through them so as to be partly seen by the audience, or an onstage character sees them through a gap in the hangings (whether the actor playing that character actually sees the offstage actor, or merely pretends to have line-of-sight through the gap in the hangings). In Chapter 2, we have noted an important instance of this, where a character first enters the action while being concealed behind the hangings in one of the lateral doorways, and only subsequently enters the stage: in William Davenant’s The Wits, as Lucy leaves the stage via one door, Young Pallatine ‘beckens Lucy from between the Hangings’ (B5v) in the other doorway, and then enters the stage to talk to Lucy. Similarly in Albovine, Davenant has an onstage character interact with a character whom he believes to be in the marriage bed, offstage behind hangings. Paradine calls on his beloved Valdaura to speak, and is answered by a hand which appears in the gap in the hangings. However when he provokes an entrance by pulling on the hand, he discovers to his dismay that it belongs to Queen Rhodolinda, who has taken Valdaura’s place in Paradine’s bed: Parad. Kind Valduara, speake! A hand is thrust out betweene the Arras. Parad. See, a new day breakes in her hand! These are The rosie fingers of the Morne! Pulls in Rhodolinda. Hah! the Queene! Valduara! Bride, where art thou? Lookes in. (Albovine, G2v)

This is a surprise entrance, and the audience is then left to process retrospectively what adulterous acts have happened offstage; but given what has previously occurred in the play, the first appearance of the unidentified hand will alert the alert audience member that a surprise entrance is in store, and they will already be inferring forward that the hand might not in fact belong to Valdaura.

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Hamlet has two scenes in which, instead, it is the central hangings covering the concealment space which come into play. The most notorious is the case discussed above, where Polonius dies behind the arras (III, iv). But some scenes prior to this is a scene that foreshadows Polonius’s final predicament. In III, i Polonius hides in the same concealment space, when he and Claudius stage-manage a scene between Hamlet and Ophelia to gauge the extent to which the former’s behaviour is prompted by love of the latter. Ophelia is to walk up and down reading a book (III, i, 42–3) while Claudius and Polonius ‘bestow’ themselves (III, i, 32, 43): they will ‘withdraw’ (III, i, 54) to observe unseen. The King explains the stratagem to Gertrude: King. For we have closely sent for Hamlet hither, That he, as ’twere by accident, may here Affront Ophelia. Her father and myself, We’ll so bestow ourselves that, seeing unseen, We may of their encounter frankly judge, And gather by him, as he is behav’d, If’t be th’affliction of his love or no That thus he suffers for. (Hamlet, III, i, 29–36)

After Hamlet’s scene with Ophelia, the two who have been ‘seeing unseen’ return to the stage to assess and decide what must now be done. Since they do not exit the stage via this curtained feature, we can assume it involves the central concealment space rather than either of the lateral doors, as is clearly the case in Epicoene. However there are two comments to be made. It has been suggested, without any real basis, that Hamlet’s sudden question to Ophelia about Polonius’s whereabouts (‘Where’s your father?’ III, i, 129) indicates his realization that he is under observation.3 Such a reading, and what might flow from it in terms of Hamlet’s subsequent behaviour, is open to discussion and objection, but what is beyond doubt is that the primary function of this line is to remind the audience – despite Ophelia’s reply that Polonius is ‘At home, my lord’ (III, i, 130) – that Polonius is hovering nearby assessing Hamlet’s behaviour. The comment might also be ‘read’ retrospectively by the audience some scenes later, when Polonius, again behind the central hangings, comes under real and indeed fatal physical threat from Hamlet. Secondly, there is a broader question of how much of Hamlet’s behaviour is in fact encompassed by the offstage observation. The last lines of his soliloquy (or, more precisely, direct address to the audience) recognize the presence of Ophelia on the stage (‘Soft you now, The fair Ophelia’, 87–8), so it may be that 3 See Andrew Gurr and Mariko Ichikawa, Staging in Shakespeare’s Theatres (Oxford, 2000), p. 107; in contrast, the editor’s note in the Arden edition of Hamlet, Harold Jenkins (ed.) (London, 1982), p. 283.

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the previous 87 lines were intended to be performed downstage (which in any case on a thrust stage is the logical location for direct address), and that despite the fact that Polonius hears Hamlet approaching (III, i, 54), this initial part of the scene does not involve Hamlet really being in the same place as Ophelia and the offstage watchers. Hamlet’s ‘To be or not to be’ may therefore be an instance of ‘slowsightedness’, an independent scene which acts as a preamble to his interaction, overhead by Claudius and Polonius, with Ophelia. Onstage observers can, of course, be located elsewhere, in full view of the audience, if the conditions are right: if, for example, it is dark and therefore believable that they are not seen by other characters. In Barnabe Barnes’s The Devil’s Charter, the playwright specifies the use of one of the stage posts as a visual barrier behind which a character can remain unseen by other participants in the scene. In III, iii the ruffian Frescobaldy is engaged by Caesar Borgia, one of the pope’s sons, to assist in the murder of Caesar’s brother the Duke of Candy, and in III, v arrives at the appointed place, at the appointed time: Fresco. This is the black night, this the fatall hand: These are the bloudy weapons which must be Witnesse and actors of this Tragedy. … Now could I combate with the divill to night. (The Devil’s Charter, III, v, TLN 1591–4, 1598)

As Frescobaldy rehearses his swordplay, he is observed by an entering character: ‘Enter Henrico Baglioni looking earnestly upon Frescobaldi’ (III, v, TLN 1616), an example of onstage observation where the observer remains unseen simply by virtue of the fact that his object is self-absorbed. Baglioni then engages Frescobaldy in conversation, and after some 100 lines departs, leaving Frescobaldy alone onstage to await the arrival of Candy. The earlier dialogue references to the dark night are now reinforced by an offstage sound effect, as the clock strikes: The clocke strikes eleven. Fresco. This is mine hower appoynted; this the place, Here will I stand close till th’allarum call. He stands behind the post. (The Devil’s Charter, III, v, TLN 1740–45)

Caesar Borgia then enters with Candy, and a Page ‘with a torche’ (TLN 1746); but Caesar orders the torch be put out and sends the Page away, leaving the scene in fictional darkness. Whether the torch was in fact lit is an interesting question: a lit torch would not make a strong statement on the open air stage lit by sunlight, so this may have simply been an unlit torch standing for a lit torch, and when the Page ‘putteth out the torch’ (TLN 1755) this action is merely mimed. In either case the darkness is re-established in a visually underwhelming manner (either by extinguishing a flame in sunlight, or by miming such), and fictional darkness

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therefore requires verbal confirmation from Candy, who says ‘Tis very darke, good brother goe before’ (TLN 1760). For the ensuing 25 lines, which reinforce the danger to Candy and his growing unease, the audience becomes increasingly aware of the threat to Candy posed by his brother and the still-lurking Frescobaldy behind the stage post. Caesar then trips his brother and utters the ‘watchword’, Frescobaldy’s signal to emerge from his hiding-place; they both stab Candy and throw him in the Tiber. For our purposes it is important to note that the scene is punctuated by a series of alternations of visibility/darkness: Frescobaldy’s initial dialogue establishes that it is dark, but it must be light enough for Baglioni to be able to see Frescobaldy practising his swordplay. The darkness is then both reinforced and its effects negated by the entrance of the Page with a torch, and it is re-established when the Page puts out the torch and exits. The torch poses a brief threat to the onstage observer, but the principal focus of the scene is not on whether he will be seen but on when he will be called into action from his hiding-place. The other obvious location for onstage observers is the gallery above the stage, and in the following section we will see this location used in tandem with another technique, split staging, to create a complex scene in King Henry VIII. Splitting the Stage The early modern public stages were large in relation to the playhouse as a whole. The stage at the Fortune, for example, was 43 feet across in a square courtyard that was only slightly wider at 55 feet across. The audience in the yard and by extension in the galleries was therefore concentrated close to the stage, surrounding it on three sides or more. This proximity meant that for even the most distant audience member, it was difficult to take in the full stage in a single glance: spectating would inevitably have involved selective attention and head-turning to focus on the changing points of key interest throughout a scene – switching focus in Romeo and Juliet II, ii, for example, from Romeo downstage to Juliet in the upstage gallery as their dialogue unfolds. At the Globe and other smaller public playhouses such as the Rose, wherever you were in the auditorium, the stage would have extended laterally well into the periphery of your field of vision and forced you to select a particular point of focus from one moment to the next by turning your head. This would have engendered very different attention patterns from those triggered by the scenic stage of the Restoration and after, framed as it is by the proscenium arch and explicitly designed to give the audience a single ‘synoptic’ view. But this earlier non-synoptic stage offered other opportunities: playwrights and actors could capitalize on the fact that the audience were forced to ‘split’ the stage into a number of points of alternating focus. This meant that playwrights too could ‘split’ the stage into discrete fictional locations, and this technique could be used without the audience finding the

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resultant performance unnatural or forced in its dealings with place and space. Let us examine two examples of this technique. In the previous chapter we discussed, in the context of the setting of councils by bringing on a council chamber, a scene from King Henry VIII. If we return to that scene, we see the simultaneous employment of two of the spatial techniques we are discussing: onstage observers and the splitting of the stage. In this scene Cranmer enters, having been called before the council. The text suggests that he enters by one door and attempts to open the other to gain access to the council chamber. He tries the door, finds it locked, and calls to the offstage doorkeeper: ‘All fast? What means this? Ho!’ (V, ii, 3). The Keeper opens the door and enters, but refuses to give Cranmer admittance, making him wait onstage. At this point Dr Butts enters, notes Cranmer’s predicament, and exits (presumably he, unlike Cranmer, has an ‘access all areas’ pass, and goes to tell the King what is transpiring). Some ten lines later, Butts and the King appear in the gallery above the stage, the former showing the King Cranmer on the stage below, forced to wait amongst ‘pursuivants, Pages, and footboys’ (V, ii, 23–4). The King, incensed at the treatment of Cranmer, instructs Butts to draw the curtain (a curtain which the playwright obviously expected to be available in the gallery over the stage) so they can watch unseen the rest of the scene: King. By holy Mary, Butts, there’s knavery. Let ’em alone, and draw the curtain close; We shall hear more anon. (King Henry VIII, V, ii, 33–5)

Once the curtain is closed, the King is no longer visible, but remains for the audience a potent if unseen presence: he will enter the stage proper some 120 lines later, clearly having ‘overheard’ what has transpired there in the meantime. More interesting in terms of spatial techniques is, however, what happens to the location signified by the stage: it now becomes, thanks to the extrusion of the council table and chairs onto the stage, the council chamber from which Cranmer has been excluded; and the members of the council then take their places at the table in a carefully articulated pecking order: A council-table is brought in with chairs and stools, and placed under the state. Enter Lord Chancellor, places himself at the upper end of the table on the left hand; a seat being left void above him, as for Canterbury’s seat. Duke of Suffolk, Duke of Norfolk, Surrey, Lord Chamberlain, Gardiner seat themselves in order on each side. Cromwell at lower end, as secretary. (King Henry VIII, V, ii, 35)

It is clear therefore that while at the start of the scene the stage represents a place outside the council chambers, the setting of the council table and chairs while Cranmer remains onstage extrudes this ‘council chamber’ location onto at least part of the stage. The council-table is then occupied by its seven members (and a chair for the missing Canterbury) in the manner represented below. It is interesting

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that this stage direction seems to specify by means of its references to ‘upper end’ etc., that the table be set lengthwise on the stage, not across it as we would expect on a proscenium arch stage (this has important ramifications for issues of ‘point-of-view’ and privileged places on the thrust stage, which will concern us in a later chapter). The table is probably centre-stage and Cranmer (still ‘without’) has been arbitrarily assigned a downstage-left position. Cranmer is subsequently admitted to the council, and presumably at this point moves towards centre-stage: ‘Cranmer approaches the council-table’ (V, ii, 42):

Fig. 6.1

A split stage in King Henry VIII.

By this point it is probable that the division of the stage has been superseded, since all the onstage characters are now in the one place, the council chamber – the periphery to which Cranmer had been previously consigned is now no longer relevant to the scene. After some hundred lines the King then enters the chamber, and it is clear from his demeanour that he has indeed been following the onstage action from his vantage-point in the gallery: ‘Enter King frowning on them; takes his seat’ (V, ii, 148). The question of where precisely the King ‘takes his seat’ is not spatially insignificant; the most obvious suggestion would be that he takes the empty seat at the head of the table (the empty chair which the stage direction has previously assigned to the absent Canterbury). If so this would constitute a powerful spatial underlining of the King’s sympathy with Cranmer’s position.

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The spatial techniques here are best summarized by reference to the playwright’s original source for this sequence, John Foxe’s Acts and Monuments (1597).4 The three events narrated there – Cranmer’s being made to wait outside the council, Butts’ recounting of Cranmer’s predicament to the King, and the council itself – take place in three different places. However the playwright has decided, unusually for Shakespeare, not to consign any of these events to the offstage (to then bring them into the play by merely having them recounted onstage). Instead he has used two techniques – observers in the gallery, and splitting of the stage into two locations – to enable all three events and locations to be represented on stage – and for the audience to ‘graze’, attending to (by directing visual focus to) whichever of them seems most pertinent from one moment to the next. A splitting of the stage space into two contiguous places occurs in The Famous Victories of Henry V, and a careful reading of the text provides a clear sense of what is going on in terms of the relationship between the stage space and the places it stands for. Prince Harry, onstage with his cronies, directs them to ‘stand aside’ prior to a royal entrance, and the scene then exploits patterns of counterpoint between two different locations. On hearing offstage sound effects signifying the arrival of Henry IV, Harry ‘stage-manages’ his knights into position: Hen. 5. Gog’s wounds sirs, the king comes, Let’s all stand aside. Enter the King, with the Lord of Exeter. (The Famous Victories of Henry V, C2r)

However despite the trumpets announcing his arrival, this not a ceremonial entrance. King Henry IV is coming into a private place, and after talking to Exeter about Prince Harry he then laments the ruin of England for eight lines – before breaking into tears: He wepeth (C2r). Then Oxford enters into this private place to notify the King that Harry is waiting outside to speak to him. But this ‘outside’ is not offstage: Harry and his friends are still onstage. It is clear that the staging envisaged by the playwright involves a split stage, with one part representing the private chamber where the king is, and the other representing a different, less private location where Harry waits to be admitted to speak to the king: Enters Lord of Oxford. Ox. And please your grace, here is my Lord your sonne, That commeth to speake with you, He saith, he must and wil speake with you. … Hen. 4. Well let him come, But looke that none come with him. He goeth. (The Famous Victories of Henry V, C2r, C2v) 4 See the appendix to William Shakespeare, King Henry VIII, R.A. Foakes (ed.) (London, 1986), pp. 183–215.

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However Oxford’s ‘goeth’ does not involve an exit from the stage; he goes ‘out’ to speak to Harry simply by moving to another part of the stage: Oxf. And please your grace, My Lord the King, sends for you. Hen. 5. Come away sirs, lets all go together. Oxf. And please your grace, none must go with you. … Hen. 5. Well sirs then be gone, And provide me those Noyse of Musitians Exeunt knights. Enters the Prince with a dagger in his hand. Hen. 4. Come my sonne, Come on a Gods name … (The Famous Victories of Henry V, C2v)

Having dismissed his knights, Harry ‘enters’ into the king’s presence, once again by simply moving to another part the stage:

Fig. 6.2

A split stage in The Famous Victories of Henry V.

The illustration above offers the suggestion that these two places might have been situated on either side of the stage. There is nothing in this scene to suggest explicitly that the playwright was thinking in terms of a third central opening of high status for a ceremonial entry, to be used as Andrew Gurr suggests along the lines proposed by Robert Weimann,5 and nor is there any sense of opposition between an upstage-centre ‘locus’ or authority position and a peripheral ‘platea’. Indeed, one must ask whether the intimate soul-searching of Henry IV would Andrew Gurr, ‘Doors at the Globe: the Gulf between Page and Stage’, Theatre Notebook 55/2 (2001), p. 64. Robert Weimann, Shakespeare and the Popular Tradition in the Theater: Studies in the Social Dimension of Dramatic Form and Function (Baltimore, 1978), Chapter 6. 5

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really be better staged upstage centre, as far away as possible from the vast bulk of the spectators, rather than downstage.6 The comments made above regarding the audience’s selective attention patterns, patterns necessitated by their proximity to a very large stage, are relevant to another sort of splitting of the stage: that which occurs when some onstage characters observe a play within the play, as occurs in A Midsummer Night’s Dream or in Hamlet. In both these cases, there is significant counterpoint between the performance by the Mechanicals or the Players and the comments by the onstage audience. Such counterpoint is facilitated by the spatial arrangement of performers and onstage audience, who can easily be arranged onstage in such a way that their interactions can remain believably quarantined from each other. This is particularly pertinent in Hamlet, where some of Hamlet’s comments are clearly for Ophelia’s ears only (not heard, that is, by the other onstage characters, though clearly audible to the audience), or more importantly for Claudius’s ears only: King. Have you heard the argument? is there no offense in’t? Ham. No, no, they do but jest, poison in jest – no offense i’ the’ world. King. What do you call the play? Ham. ‘The Mouse-trap.’ Marry, how? tropically: this play is the image of a murther done in Vienna. (Hamlet, III, ii, 232–9)

It is difficult to stage this scene on a ‘synoptic’ proscenium arch stage without having Hamlet’s taunting of Claudius obvious to the whole court assisting at the Players’ performance. However on the thrust stages of the early modern public playhouses the onstage audience can easily be grouped at the downstage corners and along the sides of the stage, providing the Players with an ample centre-stage performance space to play with, and good access to the stage doors for entrances and exits. Hamlet can then taunt Claudius in one of the downstage corners without involving all the other onstage audience – and without going back on his proposal to be subtle in getting the confirmation he needs of the Ghost’s words. On the thrust stage at the Globe his ‘talk of the pois’ning’ (III, ii, 289) can believably cause a reaction from Claudius that both Hamlet and Horatio (‘I did very well note him’ [III, ii, 290]) – but not necessarily the rest of the court – notice. Hamlet’s flippant mention of poison (‘they do but jest, poison in jest’) first makes Claudius hastily change the subject (‘What do you call the play?’), and Hamlet’s answer (‘The Mouse-trap’) must then provoke a non-verbal reaction from Claudius. He has a moment of realization, probably betrayed by a facial expression, that Hamlet’s ‘talk of the pois’ning’ is not coincidental, and Hamlet has deliberately set a trap for him. Both Hamlet and Horatio later agree they have seen Jeremy Lopez, Theatrical Convention and Audience Response in the Early Modern Theatre (Cambridge, 2003), p. 72, also problematizes Weimann’s upstage/downstage distinction in regard to a multi-focal scene, III, ii in The Family of Love: ‘If we imagine this scene on stage, Weimann’s upstage/downstage distinction becomes somewhat too simple’. 6

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this visible symptom of guilt (III, ii, 287–90), a moment of emotional transparency as the ‘mousetrap’ snaps on Claudius. This non-verbal reaction can be inferred from Hamlet’s response to it: ‘Marry, how?’ His question implies that he has noted Claudius’s expression, but pretends to read it as mere mystification rather than guilt. So he provides a ‘helpful’ explanation of the play’s title – but his following line, ‘tropically’, with its pun on ‘trap’, confirms to Claudius that the choice of play is not coincidental, and that Hamlet is aware of his guilt. Hamlet’s second ‘talk of the pois’ning’, ‘A poisons him I’ th’ garden for his estate’ (III, ii, 261), is merely the final nail in the coffin, triggering Claudius’s dramatic, but by no means unexpected, exit. For our purposes what is important is that this intense interaction at close quarters, as the two protagonists ‘read’ each others’ reactions, can be effected without creating an obvious ‘scene’ which involves the whole court. Claudius does understand the hidden agenda of the ‘mousetrap’ – and understands that Hamlet understands his guilty reaction – but the underlying motive for his sudden exit is understood by Hamlet and Horatio only, not by the other members of the court. This ‘private’ interaction within the frame of a ‘public’ occasion is possible due to the spatial configuration of the early modern playhouses with their thrust stages and close-at-hand audiences, who can see the interactions of various groups within the same fictional place as having a degree of spatial autonomy and hence privacy. Discoveries In this section we shall consider a number of examples of ‘discoveries’, the technique whereby a temporary use is made of a small piece of space which is normally just offstage, i.e., the space at and just behind one of the upstage openings. This space stands temporarily for a bedroom, a chamber, a study or a tent and so on, and it is ‘discovered’ to the audience usually by having the curtains which hang in the opening drawn back to reveal a tableau involving one or more characters. These characters are thus represented as being in a place which can be identified by means of relevant properties, and they then often come out of the opening onto the stage, so that the stage either represents a place contiguous with the discovered place, or can become that place by the technique of extrusion – as we have seen in the previous chapter in relation to the representation of studies. The particular issue that will inform this discussion has emerged in previous chapters, and will be addressed in detail later in this book: it is the lack of any substantial evidence for an upstage central feature that opened into the tiring house and could therefore serve for discoveries (which need to be set from backstage), and would also provide a third entrance- and exit-point. Appendix 1 demonstrates not only the flimsiness of the iconographical and textual evidence for a third central opening, but also the unsatisfactory nature of the inferences from entranceand exit-patterns made by some scholars to bolster the slender textual evidence. The lack of evidence for a third access-point to the tiring house suggests instead

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that the central feature was merely a concealment space that provided temporary shelter but no access to backstage. The inescapable conclusion of such a line of investigation is that discoveries would therefore need to be effected in one or other of the lateral stage doorways, by drawing back the curtains which some plays clearly expected to be available there.7 Mariko Ichikawa’s consideration of Massinger’s The Little French Lawyer prompts her to suggest that the central feature (which she calls the ‘discovery space’) might have been equipped with both hangings and doors;8 the evidence we have examined in earlier chapters suggests that the central feature was instead a curtained concealment space, and that if there was indeed some confluence of doors and hangings on the early modern stage, it was in the flanking doorways and not in the central feature. If that is the case, then discoveries which involved thrusting furniture onto the stage or revealing a tableau by drawing back curtains would have to have been done by means of hanging curtains in one of the two doorways. The examples discussed below bring these issues to the foreground insofar as they offer clear textual evidence of movement patterns which connote the use of the lateral doors, not the central feature, for discoveries. Our first example is from Peele’s Edward I, a scene in which not one but two royal ‘discoveries’ take place, implicating the doorways rather than the central feature. This instance occurs in the ‘pavilion’ scene, a sequence which begins with an elaborate christening and marriage procession (‘they pass over …’, H3v). After the procession Gloster proposes a visit to the King and Queen, and all on stage process to the King’s pavilion – at which point the King, surrounded by his pages, is discovered in one of the openings which represents the royal tent: Gloster let us now goe visite the King and Queen, and present ther Maiesties their yong sone, Edward Prince of Wales. Then all passe in their order to the kings pavilion, the king sits in his Tent with his pages about him. Bishop. Wee represent your hignes most humblie, with your young sonne Edward of Carnarvan Prince of Wales. Sound Trumpets. Omnes. God save Edward of Carnarvan prince of Wales. (Edward I, H4r)

The King then proposes they all visit the Queen, and now the augmented procession marches to the Queen’s chamber, where the Queen is discovered in her bed: Longsh.

Kisses them both Edward Prince of Wales God blesse thee with long life and honour, welcom Iong countesse of Gloster, God blesse thee and thine forever. Lords let us visite my Queene and

7 The issue of the location of ‘hangings’, ‘curtains’, ‘arras’ has been canvassed in Chapter 2. 8 Mariko Ichikawa, ‘Were the Doors Open or Closed? The Use of Stage Doors in the Shakespearean Theatre’, Theatre Notebook 60/1 (2006), pp. 6, 25.

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wife, home we wil at once present with a Son and daughter honoured to her desire. Sound Trumpets, they all march to the Chamber. Bishop speakes to her in her bed. Wee humblie present your Maiestie with your yong sonne Edward of Carnarvan Prince of Wales. Sound Trumpets. Omnes. God save Edward of Carnarvan prince of wales. Queen Elinor she kisses him. (Edward I, H4r)

The fact that the Queen is explicitly in her bed, a large property normally discovered or thrust out from the tiring house through one of the openings, is enough to lead to the suggestion that the two pavilions where first the King and then the Queen are discovered must be in the two flanking doorways, and this is supported by an earlier instance of the Queen being discovered in her bed: ‘King Edward, Edmund, and Gloster, going to the Queenes Chamber. The Queenes Tent opens, shee is discovered in her bed, attended’ (F4r). So the movement pattern around the stage, envisaged and predetermined by the text, seems clear: the procession moves first to the King’s pavilion, and after the presentation of the Prince of Wales the King immediately then leads the procession to the Queen’s chamber (‘they all march’), where she lies in her bed as she has done previously:

The textual patterns here suggest strongly that the playwright is envisaging the staging in terms of a lateral juxtaposition of two balanced features on the stage, and since discoveries are explicitly involved, this would seem to lead inexorably to the suggestion that the playwright foresaw these two pavilions/chambers/tents being located at the two flanking doors. Those who would argue for a central opening – and that it would have been, by virtue of its centrality, a high-status location – would suggest that the King’s tent would be better located there; but it is premature to assign to a central alcove ‘iconic power’ (as does Andrew Gurr9) when the very existence of a third opening is thrown into doubt by a range of texts. Even if there were a third opening used for discoveries in this way, it would still Gurr, ‘Page and Stage’, p. 69.

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leave one of these two discoveries to be located in a lateral door, so it seems more logical to suggest that hangings in both the lateral doors were deployed in this case, with the two discoveries being symmetrically located. A passage from King Henry VIII makes it look very much as though the playwright was under the impression that discoveries took place within one of the two lateral doorways rather than in a third opening. The play has one explicit stage direction for a discovery – one which is effected not by servants or stage hands drawing back the curtains: King Henry VIII effects his own discovery. But of more importance is the fact that the spatial relationship between the ‘discovered’ king and the movement patterns of the other characters indicate that the discovery should logically take place at one of the two lateral doors rather than in any central opening. The scene begins with the entrance of the Lord Chamberlain; that he has just come from the king and is now going elsewhere is clear from an exchange with the Dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk, who subsequently enter to him on their way to see the king: Enter to the Lord Chamberlain the DUKES OF NORFOLK and SUFFOLK. Nor. Well met my Lord Chamberlain Cham. Good day to both your graces. Suf. How is the King employ’d? Cham. I left him private, Full of sad thoughts and troubles. … Nor. Let’s in, And with some other business put the King From these sad thoughts that work too much upon him. My lord, you’ll bear us company? Cham. Excuse me, The king has sent me otherwhere. Besides, You’ll find a most unfit time to disturb him. Health to your lordships. Nor. Thanks, my good Lord Chamberlain. Exit Lord Chamberlain; and the King draws the curtain and sits reading pensively. (King Henry VIII, II, ii, 12–15, 55–61)

The binary spatial patterns are patently evident here: the Lord Chamberlain has been offstage with the King and has entered the stage on his way to wherever he has been sent by the King. In contrast Norfolk and Suffolk are arriving from elsewhere, intent on seeking an audience with the King. But instead of their exiting the stage via the doorway though which the Lord Chamberlain has entered (and thus rendering invisible to the audience their meeting with the king), the King ‘discovers’ himself in his study, and the scene can then be enacted in sight of the audience. This being the case, a strong case can be made that the most logical place for the king to ‘discover’ himself is in the doorway from which the Lord Chamberlain has entered. The scene continues, with Suffolk and Norfolk being joined by Wolsey, Campeius and Gardiner, so clearly the King must at some

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point come out onto the stage proper. It is difficult to justify a configuration that would instead have the discovery occurring at the third entrance point dedicated to discoveries,10 since this would lose altogether the spatial continuity between the place the Chamberlain has come from and to which Norfolk and Suffolk are heading, and the place where the King discovers himself (and from which he then enters the others’ space to speak to Norfolk and Suffolk). We can see below the significant differences in spatial patterns and spatial logic involved in the two arrangements. In the first (Fig. 6.3), which uses the doorway for the discovery, the spatial logic is continuous: Norfolk and Suffolk intend to leave the stage in the direction from which the Lord Chamberlain has entered – only to be ‘prevented’ (to recall a similar pattern in Twelfth Night, discussed in an earlier chapter) by the King revealing himself:

Fig. 6.3

A spatially logical two-door discovery in King Henry VIII.

If instead the King’s discovery is located in the central curtained feature, both the entrance of the Lord Chamberlain (who has just received orders from the King) and the proposed exit of Norfolk and Suffolk (who are on their way to seek audience with the King) lose all spatial logic (see Fig. 6.4). The Lord Chamberlain’s marked exit ‘otherwhere’ seems designed to keep the door from which he previously entered free for the imminent discovery of the King. Furthermore the stage direction indicates that the King draws the curtain himself: a clue that the hanging within the doorway was behind, rather than in front of, the tiring-house wall, since otherwise the action of opening it might well be awkward. Gurr, ‘Page and Stage’, p. 70. A similar pattern is observable the Whitefriars plays discussed by Jean MacIntyre, ‘Production Resources at the Whitefriars Playhouse, 1609– 1612’, Early Modern Literary Studies 2/3, 1996: http://extra.shu.ac.uk/emls/emlsjour.html, paragraphs 17, 21. 10

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A spatially illogical three-door discovery in King Henry VIII.

One particular feature which is often explicitly ‘discovered’ is a tomb. This is to be seen as a family sepulchre or mausoleum which contains one or more coffins. It is discovered by drawing back hangings or opening doors: characters intent on robbing the tomb are therefore equipped with hand properties to do so, such as the mattock and the wrenching iron that Romeo and Balthasar bring on in Romeo and Juliet, V, iii. This is also the case in The Second Maiden’s Tragedy. Prior to the scene in which a tomb is discovered in one of the openings to the tiring house, the Tyrant has organized a troop of soldiers to equip themselves with ‘lanthorns and a pickaxe’ (IV, ii, 45) to rob the tomb, and has exited the stage with them, going to the cathedral to do so. After their exit there is a linking speech of 11 lines, but its speaker is not specified by a speech-heading: What strange fits grow upon him! Here alate His soul has got a very dreadful leader. What should he make in the cathedral now, The hour so deep in night? All his intents Are contrary to man, in spirit or blood. He waxes heavy in his noble minds; His moods are such, they cannot bear the weight, Nor will not long, if there be truth in whispers! The honourable father of the state, Noble Helvetius, all the lords agree By some close policy shortly to set free. (The Second Maiden’s Tragedy, IV, ii, 61–71)

The lack of a speech-heading in the manuscript means the identity of this reflecting character is in doubt: one modern editor11 notes the reference to the lords’ conspiracy to free Helvetius, and suggests on that basis that the words are spoken by Memphronius, who would be in a position to be privy to this information – but The Second Maiden’s Tragedy, Anne Lancashire (ed.) (Manchester, 1978), p.206.

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there is no prior entrance marked for Memphronius, and no reason why he would be present in this scene. Andrew Gurr suggests instead that these lines are exactly what the text suggests, and are simply the continuation of a prior speech by one of the soldiers before he follows the Tyrant and his comrades towards the tomb.12 In either case, as this character exits via one door the Tyrant and other soldiers re-enter by the other door, now arriving at the cathedral to rob the tomb: ‘Enter the Tirant agen at a farder dore, which opened, bringes hym to the Toombe where the Lady lies buried; The Toombe here discovered ritchly set forthe’ (IV, iii, 0). The speaker must follow the Tyrant and other soldiers through the same door they have used – just as they re-enter (now coming into the cathedral) via the other door. And since both lateral doors are required for this sequence of entrances and exits, Gurr uses this as evidence for a fully functioning central opening, a ‘discovery space’ where the tomb can be set from backstage and revealed.13 Below is a representation of Gurr’s reading of the three-door spatial dynamics of the scene:

The Tyrant and soldiers exit via one door, are followed by the Soldier, and after a backstage cross then ‘Enter the Tirant agen at a farder door’ – the adjective ‘farder’ thus being interpreted as indicating opposition between the door used for the exit and that for the re-entrance. The scene certainly could be staged in this way, but it should be pointed out that this arrangement is not completely unproblematic, since it involves the Soldier who has had his exit delayed by the final speech having little or no time to hot-foot it across backstage to re-enter with the Tyrant and his comrades. But it is possible to do this scene logically and fluidly with only two openings (one of which must stand for he tomb). If we assume that the reflective speech does indeed belong to one of the soldiers, it is possible that this ‘reflective’ Soldier does not exit the stage at all after his ‘linking’ speech (there is no exit marked for him See Gurr, ‘Page and Stage’, p. 71. Gurr, ‘Page and Stage’, p. 65: ‘An exit by one door is followed by this stage

12 13

direction: Enter the Tirant agen at a farder dore, which opened, bringes hym to the Toombe where the Lady lies buried; The Toombe here discovered ritchly set forthe. Both flanking doors were used here at the same moment for an exit and an entry, so the tomb that is “discovered” could not have been set up in either of those doorways.’

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in the manuscript). He simply remains on stage – where he is joined by the Tyrant and company as they re-enter the stage space, now coming into a new fictional place which has already been ‘nominated’ in the preceding speech (‘What should he make in the cathedral now, The hour so deep in night?’). If he does not leave the stage, then the Tyrant and soldiers have eleven lines in which to leave by one door, cross backstage and re-enter via the other (‘farder’) door. They can do this – and at the same time the ‘discovery’ can be set up in the doorway through which they have just exited – because the soldier’s eleven reflective lines provide sufficient time for both those offstage processes to occur and for the audience to accept the change in signification of the exit-door. The staging patterns would thus be as below. Note that the stage-right door, though marked ‘Tomb’, initially signifies merely a door through which the Tyrant and soldiers exit; it is only ‘wiped and reset’ to stand for the tomb after they have re-entered into the new fictional place via the other door:

This scenario provides a satisfactory explanation for the unusual explicitness of the stage direction: ‘Enter the Tirant agen at a farder dore, which opened, bringes hym to the Toombe where the Lady lies buried.’ Since a character from the previous scene (having momentarily assumed a reflective choric role) is still on stage, then it needs to be underlined that the location has suddenly changed under his feet and we are now in the cathedral, just in time to see the Tyrant and his soldiers arriving at their previously announced destination. The explicitness of the stage direction in its ‘nomination’ of tomb might therefore have been intended to reinforce the new location that has already been ‘nominated’ in the preceding speech (‘What should he make in the cathedral now, The hour so deep in night?’). This proposed reading of the text provides sufficient time for three things to occur: the exiting actors (the Tyrant and soldiers) have ample time to cross backstage to the other door: ‘Enter the Tirant agen at a farder dore’; the audience is given time to accept that the location has now changed to ‘the cathedral’, and that the door through which the Tyrant and soldiers last exited now stands for ‘the Toombe where the Lady lies buried’; the stage-hands have time, as soon as the exiting actors clear the door and while they are crossing backstage to re-enter, to prepare the tomb for the discovery: ‘The Toombe here discovered ritchly set forthe’.

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This staging pattern involves two particular features: a character who modulates into and out of a temporary choric role, and a re-entrance at a ‘farder door’ signifying a change of fictional location. Both such techniques are evidenced in other plays such as Titus Andronicus and The English Traveller,14 and it only remains to point out that if such is the case The Second Maiden’s Tragedy does not provide watertight evidence for the need for a third opening in the tiring house wall, a central opening where discoveries were done. Like the two previous examples, it demonstrates the possibility or indeed the probability that the lateral doors were heavily involved in discoveries. This sequence can be done logically and economically by invoking spatial conventions current in other plays, and using a maximum of two openings into the tiring house. The shortcomings of this sort of inferential evidence adduced by scholars to bolster the argument that there must have been three, not just two, openings to facilitate staging will be addressed in Appendix 1. As in this case, there is usually another explanation that does not require a third opening at all. Whether or not there was a third opening, it is nevertheless accepted that the bulk of entrances and exits were via the two lateral doors, and we shall now address in more detail the way in which these two key opposed signifiers, the lateral doors, were used to create a pervasive sense of relational space in the plays.

14 At the end of Act 1 of Titus Andronicus Aaron remains onstage, reflecting chorically on the preceding events; he then participates in the first scene of Act II (located in a different fictional place to Act I), intervening in the dispute between the entering Chiron and Demetrius. An exit at one door immediately followed by an entrance at the other door is used as an explicit signal of a change of fictional location in Thomas Heywood’s The English Traveller (IV, iii), where a stage direction for Young Geraldine specifies: ‘He goes in at one doore, and comes out at another.’ This is clearly designed to establish a change of location: he exits through one door towards his chamber, but then re-enters the stage immediately via the other door to create the impression that he has moved through the rooms of the house and is now in a new fictional place, outside his wife’s chamber.

Chapter 7

Stage Doors as Opposed Signifiers Adr. Ay me, it is my husband. Witness you That he is borne about invisible; Even now we hous’d him in the abbey here, And now he’s there, past thought of human reason. (The Comedy of Errors, V, i, 186–9)

In the passage from The Comedy of Errors with which we began our discussion of relational place in Chapter 1, Adriana is suffering from a spatially bipolar condition. Her conflicting polarities are mapped onto the two stage doors: ‘here’ is the door to the abbey through which Antipholus has disappeared, and ‘there’ is the offstage which lies beyond the other door – somewhere else altogether, from where that same Antipholus now seems to be threatening harm to all and sundry. The techniques we have then gone on to discuss (nomination, the use of properties, and dividing the stage in a range of ways) all involve – with the exception of ‘extrusion’ – aspects of this relational spatial system in early modern performance. In this chapter we will examine the two most potent signifiers in this system, the stage doors. These key interfaces between offstage and onstage, precisely because there are two of them, are the key to setting up easily identifiable binary spatial oppositions such as those which trouble Adriana. The ‘here’ of the stage can be opposed to one or more offstage ‘theres’, and these offstage ‘theres’ can be opposed to each other: this enables a triangular spatial relationship between the offstage places evoked as lying beyond the doors and the ‘in between’ place represented by the stage. This chapter’s examination of textual evidence will point strongly to the existence of a broad spatial system based on two stage doors, a system that adds significant additional weight to the evidence discussed in earlier chapters that the two stage doors so often invoked spatially were in fact the only available entry-points from backstage. The evidence for binary patterns is so strong and generally pervasive that it suggests the public playhouses were equipped with stage configurations that provided only two openings from backstage – a configuration which the playwrights were taking for granted as they structured their texts to ‘project’ eventual performance. The chapter will conclude with a detailed discussion of two playtexts which provide the strongest indications that the playwrights in question were foreseeing two – and only two – entrancepoints from backstage, were structuring their texts to cope with this limitation, and were even exploiting it to create specific theatrical effects – thus turning a constraint into an advantage. This evidence has not been hitherto considered in such a broad-based systematic perspective. In general scholars have focussed on

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case-by-case analysis, and have possibly in the process missed the wood for the trees. Appendix 1 will address the most commonly adduced ‘trees’, the slender but ambiguous textual evidence or inferential speculation from particular textual cruces that scholars have focussed on to bolster the argument for a three-door configuration in the public playhouses. Evidence for Inwards-outwards Patternings In open air performance, where the direction of exits and entrances cannot be hidden from the audience, the direction of an entrance or an exit is prone to become laden with meaning for the audience. This occurs by a reasonably simple spatial semiotic process. If there are two entrance doors onto the stage, these two doors provide the performers and by extension the audience with clear and simple signifiers that can stand for opposed directions for exits and entrances – so entrances and exits via one door rather than the other can come to be meaningful. The plays of the period, as we have already seen and will now see in greater detail, seem to inscribe in the dialogue an entrance-exit system based on spatial commonsense, which works by establishing in most scenes a spatial ‘triangulation’ between the place represented by the stage space and a number of other unseen fictional places represented by the offstage spaces behind the two stage doors. The place represented by the stage space is ‘in between’ these other places, and the underlying system of opposition between the offstage places is simply the opposition between ‘further inwards’ or ‘nearby’ or ‘more private’, and ‘further outwards’ or ‘distant’ or ‘more public’.

This pattern has not escaped notice by other scholars,1 and can be represented by the above diagram. 1 Analyses in these terms of some brief sections of text have been done, for example, by: David Bradley, in David Bradley, From Text to Performance in the Elizabethan Theatre: Preparing the play for the stage (Cambridge, 1992), pp. 32–3 (a section of Richard II);

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This is a relational spatial system: it is not so much a question of where we are, but of where we are not, or where we are between. This provides a stable basis on which the frequent changes of location, so typical of early modern theatre, can be rung. From one scene to the next, both the place represented by the stage space and the signification of the two doors leading to offstage places can change in synchrony, but the underlying principle of inwards-outwards triangulation remains constant – with the doors providing clear and concrete interfaces between different sets of places (often to the point of actually signifying fictional doors to houses, rooms etc.). The principal attraction of a two-door system lies in its potential to generate simple, flexible and powerful spatial meanings with a limited number of terms which can fruitfully be brought into binary opposition: if you have an onstage space, two doors and two offstage spaces behind the doors, these can signify various and flexible sets of places in the fiction: here (onstage) can be opposed to there (behind one of the doors) or some other there (behind the other door); the two theres can be fictionally opposed to each other and to the onstage here, etc., – three terms yield a set of six possible oppositional relationships, three binary (a:b, a:c, b:c), and three ternary (a:bc, b:ac, c:ab). Because of this limited range, the playwright will probably be obliged (and the audience will readily accept such a practice) to periodically ‘wipe’ the signifying relationships and ‘reset’ them – in other words the very limitation imposed by only two doors engenders flexibility,2 since the limited number of possible oppositional relationships between onstage and offstage makes it necessary, possible and acceptable to ‘wipe and reset’ the fictional content of such relationships from one scene to the next (and even, as will be argued below, within a scene): what was an interface between a camp and a battlefield can in the following scene be an interface between that battlefield and a castle interior, and so on. Similar oppositions using three stage doors quickly become very complex: the stage plus three different offstage spaces behind the doors – i.e., four terms – yield exponentially more combinations: six binary (a:b, a:c, a:d, b:c, b:d, c:d) twelve ternary (a:bc, a:bd, a:cd, etc.) and seven quaternary (a:bcd, b:acd, c:abd, d:abc, ab:cd, ac:bd, ad:bc). Twenty-five potential spatial oppositions are more likely to lead to confusion than to meaning. Conversely, having three doors might well lead to the temptation of ‘locking down’ the spatial significance of one or more of the doors for the duration of the play (as we have seen occurs in Nabbes’s Covent Garden in Chapter 5) – rather than the fluid and temporary ‘wipe and reset’ signifying system which might well impose itself as a virtual necessity with two doors. John Orrell, ‘The Polarity of the Globe’s Stage’ (a paper delivered at the first ISGC conference held at the Globe Education Centre, Easter 1995: the opening scene of Hamlet); and Brian Gibbons, ‘The Question of Place’ (a paper given at the same conference: Ben Jonson’s Every Man In His Humour). 2 See Gay McAuley, Space in Performance (Ann Arbor, 1999), p. 30.

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To this point we have considered quite a large range of textual examples to illustrate a number of different aspects of relational space. Let us now briefly go back over that corpus to reconsider the spatial patterns in the light of this broader and more generally pervasive inwards-outwards system. In Chapter 4 a tabular summary demonstrated the various means by which location is established in The Comedy of Errors. If we now review it to focus instead on the location of the scene and what is established or at least implied as the offstage counterplaces, we see immediately that in almost every scene both offstage poles are clearly marked, and can be easily identified as either ‘inwards/nearby/private’ or ‘outwards/remote/public’. Table 7.1  Between ‘inwards’ and ‘outwards’ in The Comedy of Errors Ref

Summary

Inwards

Stage place

Outwards

I, i

Duke of Ephesus gives Egeon a temporary stay of execution

Duke’s palace

Court of Duke of Ephesus

Egeon’s place of custody

I, ii

Syr. Ant has met Merchant to retrieve money which had been in his safe-keeping; met by various other characters

Merchant’s house?

Street near the mart

Town, Centaur, mart, Eph Ant’s house

II, i

Adriana awaits her husband’s return for dinner

Unspecified

Ant Eph’s house

Town, street

II, ii

Adriana mistakenly invites the wrong Antipholus into the house for dinner

Eph Ant’s house, dining room

Street outside Eph Ant’s house

Town, mart, Centaur

III, i

Antipholus arrives at his house for dinner, and finds himself locked out

Eph Ant’s house

Street outside Eph Ant’s house

The town, Angelo’s shop, Tiger, Porpentine

III, ii

Syr. Ant and Dromio Inside Eph leave Adriana’s house Ant’s house

Outside Eph Ant’s house

Town, harbour, mart

IV, i

Characters coming Angelo’s from various remote goldsmith locations meet outside shop Angelo’s shop

A street

Courtesan’s, Eph Ant’s house, rope shop, the town, a bark in the harbour, prison

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IV, ii

Dromio comes to Eph Ant’s house to seek bail money

Desk in inner room

Inside Eph Ant’s house

Town, street

IV, iii

Syr. Ant. and the Courtesan have an exchange outside her house

Courtesan’s house

A street

Town, tailor’s shop, Eph Ant’s house

IV, iv

Various characters meet in the street as Eph Ant is taken towards prison

Prison?

A street

Rope shop, goldsmith’s (Eph. Ant’s creditor’s) house, Ant. Eph.’s house, Centaur, harbour

V, i

Syr Ant and Dromio take refuge in the Abbey; Egeon’s execution procession arrives

Abbey

Street outside abbey

Eph Ant’s house, Duke’s palace

We need initially to note a number of details. Firstly, in some scenes the stageplace is only barely specified; in others, one of the offstage places is not specified or called into play: in II, i, the inwards door would logically lead further into Adriana’s house, but it is irrelevant to the scene. In contrast it is of high relevance in IV, ii, since it is there that is kept the money Dromio needs. Secondly, we note that while the ‘inwards’ door leads to a single place, it is opposed to a range of different places which are all more remote and generally in the same direction, so are best signified as all lying beyond the ‘outwards’ door. (From this point on the two doors will be referred to without the inverted commas.) Indeed this play depends on these locations all being grouped behind one entrance but differentiated by offstage ‘forks in the road’, since much of the confusion of identity stems from one of the twinned characters entering the stage from the same general direction – but from a different offstage location – in which his twin has previously exited. The same sorts of patterns are manifested in Othello; once again, if we revisit the table which established the prevalence of ‘nomination’ as a means of scenesetting in Chapter 4, we can see that the offstage places which are nominated in relation to the stage-place can be more generally characterized and categorized as inwards-outwards.

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Table 7.2  Between ‘inwards’ and ‘outwards’ in Othello Ref I, i

I, ii

I, iii

II, i

II, ii II, iii

III, i

III, ii

III, iii

III, iv

Summary Iago rouses Brabantio with news of his daughter’s marriage Iago and Othello meet two parties: one from the Duke and then Brabantio Council considers news of the wars against the Turks, and then the issue of Othello’s marriage Various gentlemen greet the arrivals of Desdemona, Iago and Othello in Cyprus A Gentleman reads Othello’s proclamation The guard, drinking, Cassio wounds Montano Cassio seeks admission to Desdemona to request her intercession Othello and Iago leave to inspect fortifications and deliver letters to the port Desdemona agrees to intercede; Othello returns and Cassio leaves hurriedly; Iago works on Othello Othello questions Desdemona about the handkerchief; Bianca speaks with Cassio

Inwards Brabantio’s house

Stage place Street outside Brabantio’s house

Outwards Venice, the Sagittar

The Sagittar

Street outside the Sagittar

Duke’s Council Chamber

Duke’s palace?

Duke’s Council Chamber [possible extrusion]

The castle, or citadel

A vantage point above the harbour in Cyprus

The Venetian fleet, Cyprus, Rhodes, Brabantio’s house, the Sagittar The harbour, seaside, town

The citadel?

A public place in Cyprus

The town?

Othello and Desdemona’s chambers in the citadel The private chambers within the citadel

Somewhere midway in the citadel

Other parts of the citadel, the platform of the watch, the town The town

The private chambers within the citadel

Somewhere midway in the citadel

The harbour, fortifications

The private chambers within the citadel, dinner

Somewhere midway in the citadel [or private chambers extruded]

The town, harbour, fortifications

The private chambers within the citadel

Somewhere midway in the citadel

Cassio’s lodging, Bianca’s house

Somewhere midway in the citadel

Stage Doors as Opposed Signifiers Ref IV, i

IV, ii

IV, iii

V, i

V, ii

Summary Iago works on Othello; Desdemona arrives with the Venetian ambassador; Othello strikes her Othello questions Emilia, then Desdemona; she seeks Iago’s help Return from supper; Desdemona prepares for bed Roderigo attacks Cassio; Cassio and Roderigo wounded, carried to citadel Othello kills Desdemona in her bed, and kills himself; Iago brought to justice

149

Inwards The citadel (supper)

Stage place Somewhere midway in the citadel

Outwards Bianca’s house, street, harbour (Venice)

Citadel including Desdemona’s chamber, supper Citadel supper, Desdemona’s chamber

Somewhere midway in the citadel

Less private areas in citadel beyond door, which is locked

Somewhere midway in the citadel

Ludovico’s lodging

Citadel

The street

Bianca’s house, Ludovico’s lodging

Not specified

Desdemona’s bedroom

Less private areas in citadel, street where fight took place, outer parts of citadel (beyond locked door), Venice

In this play we should note the sequence of eight scenes (II, iii–IV, iii) in which the stage place needs no further specification apart from its offstage polarities. It does not matter where precisely each scene is set, and whether they are in the same room or corridor in the citadel: what is important is that the location lies somewhere between the more private zones of the citadel and the more public spaces of Cyprus. A second point of interest is that in the final scene, V, ii, there is no place specified behind the inwards door. All entrances and exits are logically and smoothly done from outwards, which suggests the distinct possibility that the inwards door is occupied by the bed on which Desdemona lies: it has been thrust out through the inwards doorway rather than through a central opening. The Comedy of Errors and Othello are by no means anomalous, as can be seen by a brief re-examination of all of the playtext examples already discussed for other purposes in Chapters 1 to 6. These instances also provide typical examples of this general inwards-outwards pattern, and illustrate a number of more specific regularities which flow from such a relational spatial conception of early modern performance and its underlying dramaturgical principles. The inwards-outwards pattern is instantiated by a range of commonly used specific patterns involving standard locations such as houses, palaces, rooms and streets. There are six such common arrangements.

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Table 7.3  Arrangement 1: a room between rooms The stage-place is a room, flanked one way by a room or rooms further inwards (more private), and the other way by rooms further outwards (more public). Ref

Summary

Inwards

Stage place

Outwards

Macbeth, V, i

Lady Macbeth’s sleepwalking scene Volpone watches as Mosca speaks to his visitors

Lady Macbeth’s bedroom Further inside of Volpone’s house

Outside Lady Macbeth’s bedroom A room in Volpone’s house

Other parts of the castle

Hamlet comes to speak to his mother, kills Polonius and drags off the body Claudius and Polonius conceal themselves to overhear Hamlet’s words to Ophelia

The ‘neighbour room’ where Hamlet will hide the body

Gertrude’s chamber (with Polonius in concealment space)

The court, from where Claudius etc., enter at start of scene, and where Gertrude is then sent Duncan’s chambers

A room or passageway in the castle, with concealment space upstage

Volpone, V, ii

Hamlet, III, iv

Hamlet, III, i

Macbeth, II, ii

Lady Macbeth and Macbeth complete the murder arrangements

Outside Duncan’s chambers

Other rooms in the house, leading to outside, the front door Other parts of the castle, from where Hamlet arrives Further outwards to where Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are sent to talk with Hamlet (Hamlet then enters from there) The other bedrooms, including the Macbeths’

A close examination of the hundreds of scenes in early modern theatre quickly reveals how endemic is this indoor setting, with its two opposed indoor offstage polarities: drama of the period is largely composed of interactions played out in indoor locations characterized by a network of related rooms such as those exemplified above. Alternatively, as a spatial variation, there are many such scenes in which there is at least the suspicion of ‘extrusion’ as discussed in Chapter 5. In these examples it is possible that the room which lies behind the inwards door is extruded out onto the stage with the entering characters, to be then withdrawn with them as they exit at the end of the scene. The other stage door continues instead to function relationally in regard to other more remote offstage rooms. The examples which follow illustrate this ‘e’ (for ‘extrusion’) subset of the first category of spatial patterning.

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Table 7.4  Arrangement 1(e): a room extruded, with rooms outwards The stage-place is a room, flanked one way by a room further inwards (more private) which is extruded onto the stage, and the other way by rooms further outwards (more public). Ref The News from Plymouth, 167

A Mad World My Masters, IV, i, 0 Sophonisba III, i, 177

Macbeth, I, v

A New Trick to Cheat the Devil, I4r, v

Summary Topsaile, then Scarcrow, Zeale, Pratle come to see Trifle; shown in by his servant Dash Master Penitent tormented by devil Syphax intent on having his way with Sophonisba is tricked into with-drawing. Sophonisba pretends she needs to make sacrifice but in Syphax’s absence drugs the slave and escapes down trapdoor Lady Macbeth receives a range of news about Duncan’s imminent arrival Anne on her sickbed, attended by family

Inwards Trifle’s study, discovered by Dash drawing back curtain

Stage place A room in Trifle’s house [possible extrusion]

Outwards Further out, from where Dash comes with news of ‘clients’ waiting.

Master Penitent Brothel’s study Unspecified, but Syphax’s bed is in doorway

A room near the study [possible extrusion] The king’s bedroom [possible extrusion initially], equipped with trapdoor to escape vault

Rest of house, ‘next room’ from where Jesper comes Outside, to where various characters withdraw on request for privacy, and from where they (e.g., Syphax) return: ‘Enter Syphax ready for bedd’ E1r

Further inside Macbeth’s castle

Macbeth’s castle [possible extrusion]

The servants’ quarters, the outside world from which the Messenger, Macbeth arrive

Anne’s bedroom

Anne’s bedroom [extrusion]

Other, more public parts of the house, from where Changeable later enters

Each of these examples, with the exception of the final one which features a bed ‘thrust out’, can equally convincingly be interpreted as instances of the previous simple relational pattern, without recourse to ‘extrusion’ to explain what is going on spatially.

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A second category also concerns instances in which the drama is played out inside a building; except that stage-place is closer to – and indeed contiguous with – the outside world which lies beyond the walls of the building. In the following examples the outwards pole is an exterior location, and characters enter from there into the building of which the stage-place forms part; it is a room close to the street door, for example, or those who enter it are clearly intruders into the private spaces of house or palace. Table 7.5  Arrangement 2: a room between rooms and outside the house The stage-place is a room, flanked one way by a room or rooms further inwards (more private), and the other way by locations outside the building (the public sphere). Ref Epicoene, III, iv

Summary After Morose’s wedding, at his house

Inwards Further into Morose’s house

Stage place A lobby in Morose’s house

The Maid in the Mill, V, ii

The King and company arrive unexpectedly at Otrante’s house, looking for Florimell Lady Ample’s house

The ‘little room’ where Florimell is locked up

Otrante’s house

Further into Lady Ample’s house

Outside her front door

Priam and family take refuge in prayer, attacked by intruding Greeks The banquet scene after the weddings

Altar, place of worship

A room in Lady Ample’s house Priam’s palace

Interior of Lucentio’s house, where banquet has been prepared The Duke’s palace

Banquet room in Lucentio’s house

The other houses, the town

Banquet hall

Outside, where masquers are heard coming from

More private rooms in Clerimont’s house

A room in Clerimont’s house

Outside, where True-wit, Dauphine come from; Morose’s house

The Wits, B4r–B6r Iron Age part 2, E1r

The Taming of the Shrew, V, ii The Revenger’s Tragedy, V, iii Epicoene, F1, Y1v

Banquet involves Duke and nobles. Masquers enter, dance, kill them Clerimont ‘comes out making himselfe ready’, Truewit and then Dauphine arrive

Outwards Outside: the courtyard, the garden, Otter’s house Outside, where King comes from

Troy, the wooden horse, etc.

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Ref The Devil’s Charter, IV, ii, 3

Summary Caesar comes to speak with Alexander after the death of Candy

Inwards Alexander’s study

Stage place A room in the house

Iron Age part 2, K2v

Altar set forth, wedding ceremony enters. Greek attackers break in Two parties arrive at the temple of St John where Oriana is entombed The Tyrant and his party arrive at the cathedral to open the tomb Paradine discovers he has slept with Rhodolinda rather than Valduara

More private areas, from which wedding procession arrives

Room in palace, with altar

Outwards The outside world, the city of Rome, from where Caesar comes with news of Candy’s murder Outside, from where Greeks attack

Oriana’s tomb

The temple of St John

Outside the temple

The tomb

The cathedral

Bedroom behind curtains, where Paradine later exits, Rhodolinda ‘hangs about his necke whispering’ Further into the castle, Duncan’s chambers

A chamber contiguous with bedroom

Outside, from where the Tyrant and soldiers gain access to rob the tomb Outside world, from where Valdaura later enters

Somewhere in the castle

The south entry

The court, the King

Somewhere outside the court

London, including the tower

More private areas in the palace, from where the King arrives

Somewhere in the palace

Further outwards, from where characters arrive seeking audience with king

The Knight of Malta, IV, ii

The Second Maiden’s Tragedy, IV, iii Albovine, G2v

Macbeth, II, iii

Richard III, I, i The Famous Victories of Henry V, C2r, C2v

The Porter opens the south entry to Macduff and Lennox Gloucester bemoans the state of the kingdom Harry is admitted to the presence of Henry IV

154 Ref King Henry VIII, II, ii

Playwright, Space and Place in Early Modern Performance Summary Suffolk and Norfolk cross with Lord Chamberlain; they to king, he sent ‘otherwhere’; the king then discovered

Inwards The king’s chambers, from where the Chamberlain enters on an errand for the king

Stage place Somewhere in the palace

Outwards Further outwards, from where Suffolk and Norfolk arrive with business for the king

The stage-place in a number of these examples is sometimes only sketchily indicated, since what is important is the polarity between the two offstage places: on the one hand there are more public places from where characters enter into this place, and on the other there is the more private place behind the other, inwards door. There is also an ‘e’ subset of this category which involves possible extrusion: in these cases the place behind the inwards door seems to be extruded onto the stage, so that characters entering from the outside world are brought into immediate contact – under the gaze of the audience rather than within the unseen part of the fiction world – with characters from within the private places. Table 7.6  Arrangement 2(e): a room extruded, and outside the house  The stage-place is a room, flanked one way by a room further inwards (private) which is extruded onto the stage, the other way by locations outside the building (public). Ref King Henry VIII, V, ii, 35 The Taming of the Shrew, IV, iii The Devil’s Charter, IV, I, 7, G1r The Maid’s Revenge, E3v The Devil’s Charter, V, ii, 0

Summary Council of state, Cranmer defended by the King Petruchio resolves to go to Padua

Inwards Seat of power, King’s apartments

Stage place Council chamber [extrusion]

Further inside Petruchio’s house (?)

Alexander discovered in his study, comes onto stage, beset by devils and ghosts Sharkino practising his medicine

Alexander’s study

Petruchio’s house [possible extrusion] A room outside the study [possible extrusion]

Alexander’s death at the hands of the Devil

Alexander’s study

Sharkino’s study

A room near the study [possible extrusion] A room near the study [possible extrusion]

Outwards Outside, from where Cranmer and Butts enter, coming to court Long-lane end, the road, the horses Other rooms in the house, the apothecary’s shop Outside, whence patients come to visit Sharkino City of Rome, St Peter’s, where body to be taken

Stage Doors as Opposed Signifiers Ref Westward Ho, IV, ii, 52

Henry VI part 2, I, i

Summary ‘The earle drawes a Curten and sets forth a Banquet: he then Exit, and Enters presently with Parenthesis attird like his wife maskt’ Suffolk presents the new Queen at court

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Inwards Not specified, but banquet probably pre-set there, to be ‘set forth’ by Earl

Stage place Banquet room [possible extrusion]

Outwards Outside, from where enter: Earl, Servingmen; Parenthesis; and Citizens

The court, from where King enters to meet Suffolk (?) The council chamber, the King’s quarters

The royal court [possible extrusion]

France, from where Suffolk has brought the Queen Further outwards, from where Cranmer and Butts enter seeking admittance to more private places Outwards, Orsino’s palace, to where Viola returns followed by Malvolio

King Henry VIII, V, ii

Cranmer comes to appear before the council; Henry observes then enters to the council

Twelfth Night, I, v

Olivia sends Viola back to Orsino, rejecting his suit, but then has him pursued by Malvolio Sebastian leaves Antonio’s house for Orsino’s court; Antonio follows

Further inside Olivia’s house (?)

Olivia’s house [possible extrusion]

Further inside Antonio’s house (?)

Antonio’s house [possible extrusion]

Outwards, Orsino’s court

Macbeth, I, vi

Lady Macbeth welcomes Duncan to Macbeth’s castle

Further into Macbeth’s castle

Macbeth’s castle [possible extrusion]

Romeo and Juliet, I, iv

The banquet scene, and arrival of the masquers The Friar and Romeo await Juliet

Further inside Capulet’s house

Capulet banquet hall [extrusion]

Outside, where Duncan has come from to arrive at the castle The street, from where the maskers arrive

Friar Laurence’s cell

Friar Laurence’s cell [extrusion]

Twelfth Night, II, i

Romeo and Juliet, II, vi

Outside council chamber, then inside chamber [extrusion]

Outside, the town, the Capulet house from where Juliet arrives

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Once again, many of these examples can be read alternatively as instances of the previous relational system, rather than as examples of extrusion. This inwards-outwards pattern does not merely work for scenes that feature indoor fictional locations such as rooms in a range of buildings: a sense of inwardsoutwards can also be achieved even in the fictional open air, where the stage-place is a location such as a street with a house fronting onto it, or the space outside a castle, or an open space near some sort of enclosed space. This can be seen in the following examples. Table 7.7  Arrangement 3: exterior, between a building and outside world The stage-place is an exterior location such as a street or churchyard, flanked one way by a building (a house, a tomb) further inwards (more private), and the other way by the other exterior locations (the public sphere). Ref King Lear, II, ii, 1–4 Romeo and Juliet, I, ii

Eastward Ho! I, i, 0

Richard III, III, v

A Knack to Know an Honest Man, I, i

Summary Kent meets Oswald at Gloucester’s house Characters arrive to stop the fighting between Capulets and Montagues

Inwards Gloucester’s house

Stage place Outside Gloucester’s house

Outwards The road, Oswald’s horses

Capulet’s house

The street

Golding tends Touchstone’s shop, Quicksilver leaving house for tennis intercepted by Touchstone Richard, Buckingham meet the Mayor, who then exits to tell the citizens of Hastings’ execution The shepherds talk, Lelio and Sempronius enter and fight, Hermit takes wounded Sempronius to his cell

Touchstone’s house

Street before Touchstone’s shop and house

The rest of the town, the Montague house, Prince’s palace, etc. London

The inner parts of the Tower

The Tower walls

London, the Guildhall, Baynard’s Castle

A hermit’s cell

A ‘grassie plaine’

Venice, a ‘plaine’ where the horses can graze

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Ref Romeo and Juliet, I, ii

Summary Romeo speaks to Juliet at her window

Inwards Capulet house, window above

Stage place Street outside Capulet’s house

Outwards Verona, the streets

Twelfth Night, III, i

Olivia gives Viola audience in her garden

Olivia’s house

Olivia’s garden

Romeo and Juliet, V, iii, 1–7 Coriolanus, I, iv

Paris enters the churchyard on his way to the tomb Coriolanus and his army besiege the city of Corioles

The tomb

The churchyard

The town, Orsino’s court from where Viola has come Outside the churchyard

The city, its walls

Outside the city

The Roman camp

These patterns are characterized by the stage-space representing an exterior location, but a location that is specifically contiguous with a nearby inwards location such as a house, castle, cell, tomb or besieged town. It is also possible to exploit the inwards-outwards pattern where the inwards location does not necessarily lie just behind the stage door, as the following examples show. Table 7.8  Arrangement 4: exterior, between close and distant locations The stage-place is an exterior location, with one door leading to a feature nearby (but in some sense inwards and private), the other leading to other more remote exterior locations. Ref King Henry VIII, IV, i, 37 Macbeth, I, ii The Taming of the Shrew, IV, v

Summary The wedding procession, having left the Abbey, proceeds towards Whitehall Duncan receives reports from the battlefield

Inwards Westminster Abbey

Stage place A street near the Abbey

Outwards Whitehall

Duncan’s camp (?)

The battlefield

Petruchio threatens to turn back and not proceed to Padua

Padua, and the road towards it (the horses have been led ahead)

Near Duncan’s camp [extrusion?] Somewhere on the road

The road along which they have come

Almost all the examples from the preceding six chapters are captured in one of the four (plus two ‘extrusion’) pattern classifications above. There remains a handful of exceptions in two final categories.

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Table 7.9  Arrangement 5: stage or one offstage location unspecified Either the stage-place or one or other of the offstage locations is not specified. Ref King Henry VI part 2, III, ii, 385–411 Antony and Cleopatra, I, ii, 75–84 King Henry VI part 2, II, i

Summary Queen and Suffolk part forever as he goes into exile Antony is unable to repress his desire for news from Rome Royal party returns from hawking

The Merchant of Venice, IV, i, 437–53

Portia attempts to get Bassanio’s ring

The Devil’s Charter, III, v

Frescobaldy waits in ambush behind a stage post to kill Candy

Inwards The King, the seat of royal power

Stage place Unspecified

Outwards Suffolk’s place of exile

The private chambers in Cleopatra’s palace

Somewhere in Cleopatra’s palace, unspecified

Where the royal party will ‘repose’ ‘this night’ Unspecified

Unspecified

Unspecified

A street in Rome, near the Tiber (trapdoor used to dispose of Candy and then Frescobaldy?)

The outside world, Rome (source of messenger’s news) The Warwickshire countryside, St Albans Venice, including Shylock’s and Antonio’s houses. Off to Borgia’s ‘chamber’, or ‘lodging’? Not clearly specified

In the court of law

In such cases what is significant is the spatial polarity between the places that are specified: it is simply not relevant where the Queen and Suffolk are at the moment of their definitive parting (the important thing is that they are parting), or where precisely Borgia is leading Candy (the important thing is that Candy has arrived at the scene of the ambush). A final category is constituted by a small number of exceptions in which the triangular relationship is suspended in favour of an ‘emblematic’ entrance which brings about a flat opposition between the two entrance-points and the characters entering through them (or, in one case, are discovered in them).

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Table 7.10  Arrangement 6: non-spatialized, ‘emblematic’ patterns The two doors are simply used for ‘emblematic’ opposed entrances. Ref Twelfth Night, II, ii

A Chaste Maid in Cheapside, V, iv

Edward I, H4r

King Henry IV part 1, V, iii–iv

Summary Malvolio ‘overtakes’ Viola, but entrances not spatially signified Funeral processions enter separately, all characters exit together out

Inwards Where Viola is headed, Orsino’s palace (?)

Stage place The street between Olivia’s and Orsino’s

Outwards Where Viola has come from, Olivia’s house

Not specified, but one procession enters from here

The town, from where two groups enter later; at end of scene all exit out to dinner at Goldsmiths Hall

Procession visits first the king and then the queen (discovered) Battle scene

One royal tent

Church, scene begins with two symmetrical processions, one from each door. Somewhere before the royal tents Somewhere not at the centre of the battle

The centre of the battle

Another way back to the battle

Another royal tent

This flat binary use of the doors occurs very rarely, and is used for entrances such as the example from Twelfth Night, which are clearly ‘marked’ (as we have seen in a previous chapter) as overriding normal inwards-outwards patterns. The elaborate processions in the other examples are also clearly an exceptional case. (In A Chaste Maid there are in fact two processions, a most unusual feature.) The battle scene in Henry IV part 1 is one of a small number of battle scenes which seems to require two doors for the offstage action to flow onto the stage. Battles are treated in a range of ways. The most common pattern has the battlefield outwards, and the camp or camps inwards; this sometimes requires the two armies to cross the stage in sequence from inwards to outwards as they go to the field (though there are instances in which the two armies enter and exit the stage to the battle from different doors).3 The battle is normally perceived to be taking place behind the outwards door, and the indexical segments of the battle which extrude themselves onto the stage do so from there. However in some large battle sequences such as that exemplified in Henry IV part 1, or in Troilus and Cressida, both doors appear to be used: in the latter play there is traffic also to and from the Greeks’ camp. Many battle scenes involve sieges, in which case the tiring-house wall signifies the walls, and the inwards door the city gates. In such instances the attackers’ camp is remote (i.e., beyond the See for example Shakespeare’s King John, II, I, 294, 298, 334.

3

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outwards door), and they come inwards to attack the town. In some cases (Henry VI part 1, II, i) the tiring-house wall is scaled with ladders, in others (Henry V, III, iii) the city gates are opened and entered. Summary of These Patterns The information presented in tabular form above, for two complete plays (The Comedy of Errors and Othello) and for individual scenes from a variety of authors which range across the early modern period, comprises over 80 scenes in total. It demonstrates how overwhelmingly constant is the spatial specificity of the offstage places, but in contrast how often the stage place is poorly defined: its significance lies in the fact that it is an intermediate ‘in-between’ place, whose main role is to be ‘here’ rather than ‘there’, somewhere and somehow distinct from one or other or both of the offstage places. The scenes categorized above have not been chosen as scenes which best illustrate the pervasive presence of the inwards-outwards topography. They certainly do that, but are merely scenes which have so far served us for examples of other space-related issues; however they clearly also manifest this deeper pattern. Molly Mahood has noted this spatial hypothesis and argued along similar lines. She suggests two-door patternings with an ‘almost unconscious distinction between ‘outward’ and ‘inward’ entrances and exits, especially in interior and urban scenes’,4 although her discussion of Macbeth5 does not suggest a fully developed intuitive grasp of the relational nature of space in early modern performance. It is easy to claim, as I do, that it is not particularly difficult to develop a heightened spatial sensitivity and to begin visualizing the place of each scene in relation to its offstage counter-places – and that any reader will be able to go to his or her favourite text and examine it in the light of this conceptual frame – but in reality it does take some time and effort to develop such a relational sense. This is partly due to the fact that the spatial visualization of a dramatic text is more complex than what was expected of the original audiences: they were merely asked to absorb and interpret the visual stage patterns they viewed in performance. The task of the modern reader is closer to that of the original actors, who needed to be able to respond in rehearsal (such as it was) and in performance to the spatial cues in their parts. The actors, however, had two added advantages: they were part of a performance tradition which inculcated itself as practical knowledge as they reproduced it; and their practical task was to convert the cues into physical patterns, itself a mnemonic process which facilitated assimilation of spatial information. The prevalence of a binary spatial system dependent on the two stage doors, and the almost total absence of evidence for a system predicated on three openings (Nabbes’s Covent Garden, from after the Jacobean period, is the only example), 4 Molly Mahood, ‘Shakespeare’s Sense of Direction’, in Grace Ioppolo (ed.), Shakespeare Performed (Cranbury/London/Mississuaga, 2000), p. 34. 5 Mahood, ‘Shakespeare’s Sense of Direction’, pp. 38–9, discussed in more detail below.

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encourages the suggestion that this is a direct result of playwrights who expected only two openings to the backstage area, and were writing for this constraint. Let us conclude this chapter with two detailed case studies where the structure of the text betrays a playwright working with this two-door pattern in this way, and making such a constraint blatantly obvious. One Door Standing for a Tomb: Constraint and Response in The Knight of Malta In Fletcher and Field’s The Knight of Malta, close attention on the part of the playwright(s) to the resources available makes it a simple matter to list precisely the staging resources foreseen as available – resources which (we can therefore argue) they ‘inscribed’ pragmatically into the text so as to predetermine the staging patterns. The list of resources which this play presupposes as available for a particular scene in Act 4, is as follows: • two and only two doorways, wide enough to enable large properties to be brought through them (so each probably fitted, as shown in De Witt, with a set of double doors rather than a single door); • one of these doorways to be wide enough to serve as discovery space: it is to represent a tomb with a coffin placed in it (the discovery presumably to be effected either by opening the doors from onstage or by drawing back, from offstage, hangings within the open doorway); • a coffin, large and strong enough to hold a (live) body, to be positioned in the doorway which represents the tomb; • the other door or set of doors fitted with a lock, and this door or set of doors having a keyhole for this lock in its offstage face; • a key to fit the keyhole; • this door or set of doors hinged to swing open out onto stage (not into tiring house) so that by so opening they reveal to the audience the key in the lock; • a ‘hooded’ lantern, i.e., one which the audience can distinguish from another familiar property (not used here): a ‘normal’ lantern. As outlined in Chapter 2, the stage-place represents the Temple of St John where the heroine Oriana, falsely presumed dead, is buried in her family’s monument. Two parties enter the Temple: the evil Mountferrat and his servant Rocca are brought there by the maidservant Abdella, but their arrival is pre-empted by the noble knights Miranda and Norandine, who come to pray at the Temple with Miranda’s servant Collonna. The knights enter the church under cover of darkness: Collonna has acquired the key, and opens the stage door with it so they can enter the Temple. He is then immediately sent back out to the offstage horses: Collonna. Here sir, I have got the Key, I borrowd it Of him that keeps the Church, the door is open. Miranda. Look to the horses then, and please the fellow. (The Knight of Malta, IV, ii, 1–3)

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Miranda and Norandine then hear the awakening Oriana moaning from inside the tomb (the coffin, rather than being beneath a trapdoor, must be in a tomb represented by one of the doors since the moaning is attributed by one of the characters to ‘a devill in the wall’ (IV, ii, 33). Having discovered the tomb, the knights quickly remove Oriana from her coffin and replace the cover (the ‘crust’). Miranda recalls Collonna and gives instructions for Norandine, once the body has been carried out, to remain on guard at the church while he and Collonna will take her body to the safety of the fort: Miranda. Softly good friend, take her into your arms. Norandine. Put in the crust againe. Miranda. And bring her out there when I am a horseback: My man and I will tenderly conduct her Unto the Fort; stay you, and watch what issue, … Collonna. What shall I do wi’th’ Key? Miranda. Thou canst not stir now, Leave it ith’ door: go get the horses ready. Exeunt. (The Knight of Malta, IV, ii, 94–8, 102–3)

The text clearly directs Collonna to leave or re-insert the key in the visible keyhole of the open door as they exit. Then, almost simultaneously with this exit, the other group arrives to implement their plan to steal the ‘body’. If the stage had three openings, with the tomb discovered at the central opening assumed to have been dedicated to ‘discoveries’ of effects set from backstage and revealed by drawing back hangings, it would be logistically simple to have the two parties arriving at the tomb enter from each of the two lateral doors in order to maintain their spatial autonomy, as illustrated in Fig. 7.1. However it does not seem to have occurred to Fletcher, the playwright believed responsible for this section of the play,6 to write with such an three-door resource set in mind, since he provides dialogue which makes it patently clear that the two groups must use the same door. Firstly, the second group finds and mentions the key which the exiting knights have just left in the open door: Enter Rocca, Mountferrat, Abdella. With a dark lanthorn. Rocca. The door’s already open, the Key in it. (The Knight of Malta, IV, ii, 104–5)

But the playwright then provides further dialogue for the second-entering group to defuse possible audience scepticism as to why the two groups did not bump into each other offstage: this group has seen enough with their ‘dark lanthorn’ to be aware that they have indeed just passed the other group (and their offstage horses) in the exterior darkness, but they themselves have escaped notice by the exiters: 6 See George Walton Williams’s modern critical edition in The Dramatic Works in the Beaumont and Fletcher Canon (Cambridge, 1992), vol. 8, pp. 347–9.

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Fig. 7.1

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A three-door staging, The Knight of Malta.

Mountferrat. What were those past by? Rocca. Some scout of Souldiers, I think. Mountferrat. It may well be so, for I saw their horses, They saw not us I hope. Abdella. No, no, we were close, Beside they were far off. (The Knight of Malta, IV, ii, 106–9)

Abdella’s final speech is the playwright’s pre-emptive response to a potentially sceptical audience. It establishes that, despite the actors having crossed close to each other in the tiring house, the two groups were sufficiently separated in fictional space not to trigger mutual recognition: just beyond the stage door lies a fictional ‘fork in the road’ that has separated them. The detail of the ‘dark lanthorn’ is crucial. As a stage signifier it serves to reinforce the fact that it is dark enough outside for the exiting group not to have noticed those entering; but by its very existence as a lantern it could in fact have betrayed them – hence it is explicitly characterized as ‘dark’ or hooded. The spatial pattern projected in this text is therefore as shown in Fig. 7.2. The playwright clearly foresaw – and addressed in his text – the logistical problem inherent in having the two groups use a single stage door in close succession. And the most obvious explanation for such an inscribed pattern is that there was a particular performance constraint foremost in his mind: there were only two – not three – entrance points regularly available in the playhouses, and the other one would be taken up by the tomb. This text is predicated on two and only two entrance-points from backstage. If one doorway must serve as discovery space to represent a tomb with a practicable coffin in it, the other doorway must serve as an overworked entrance and exit. It has a door (or doors) fitted with a lock and key which the two different parties, arriving and leaving in rapid succession, explicitly mention. The dialogue provides all this detail in its attempt to justify why the two groups of characters have not

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Fig. 7.2

A two-door staging, The Knight of Malta.

seen each other clearly, despite the fact that the actors must have passed close to each other in the confined space of the tiring house. A playwright who was writing for a set of performance resources which included a central discovery space for the tomb, and therefore with two doors available for entrances and exits, would not have felt the need to provide such detail in the dialogue. One Door Standing for Two Things: Macbeth If The Knight of Malta demonstrates Fletcher’s clever solution to a particular constraint by the provision of dialogue to answer a sceptical audience, Macbeth shows Shakespeare going considerably further to capitalize on the physical constraint of only two entrance-points to wring an extraordinary additional theatrical effect, a double-barrelled coup de théâtre, from the entrance of the Porter. The textual structuring of this scene is the most potent indication that Shakespeare was writing explicitly for the limitations of a two-door stage, and turning a constraint to significant advantage. This is a scene in which, unlike almost every other scene in plays of the period (as we have seen by our sampling of scenes above), there are three – not two – opposed offstage locations. After the killing of Duncan, the playwright needs three fictional offstage places (Duncan’s chamber, the corridor leading to the other bedchambers, and the ‘South entry’), but he has organized things so that the exits and entrances to and from these three locations will run smoothly even if there are only two stage doors through which to access them. One stage door is clearly marked as the door beyond which lies Duncan’s chamber. Banquo has left him there after the banquet, bringing the jewel Duncan has asked be given to Lady Macbeth; Macbeth has gone there to murder him, returned from there with the daggers, and refused to go and put them back (‘I’ll go no more’, II, ii, 47); Lady Macbeth has taken the daggers back there, and returned

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detailing her tampering with the crime-scene; Macbeth has shown Macduff where to find Duncan (‘This is the door’, he says II, iii, 51), and Macduff has then returned to recount the horrors he has discovered beyond it; and everyone has rushed in to view the murder scene. So one door is tied down for this entire sequence as the door leading to Duncan’s apartments. In contrast to Duncan’s offstage chambers is another offstage place: the other bedrooms where the Macbeths and Duncan’s retinue are housed: it is there that Banquo and Fleance retire to bed; that Macbeth and Lady Macbeth go to don their nightgowns, and that Banquo, Malcolm, Donalbain are roused at the news of Duncan’s death.7 However there is a third offstage fictional location which must be accommodated. It is outside ‘the south entry’, from where Macduff returns from his night-time mission to report to Duncan: he is given access to the castle by a Porter, and then shown into Duncan’s chamber by Macbeth. This scene would therefore seem to constitute strong evidence of the need for three entrance-points, one corresponding to each offstage location. Let us label such a staging, which depends on a oneto-one correspondence between three doorways and three offstage locations, as ‘Plan 3D’; it is a straightforward plan that needs no detailed articulation, except for one loose end: it does not automatically account for an entrance-point for the Porter (an issue that will be shown to be central to this sequence). But when we proceed to examine what the text actually involves, another distinct possibility emerges. It seems that the text has been structured to enable the sequence to be done with only two doors, in a way which the audience will not find too confusing: let us call this ‘Plan 2D’. In Plan 2D, as in Plan 3D, the coming and going of so many characters from and to Duncan’s location means that one door must maintain the same signification for the whole sequence, as the door behind which Duncan has been killed. If there are only two stage doors, the inescapable and seemingly constraining conclusion is that the other stage door will have to work overtime (as we have seen occurring in Jonson’s Epicoene discussed in Chapter 2), cycling between being ‘the door to the other chambers’ and ‘the south entry’, and back again. This would seem to create an immediate and insuperable logistical problem: an exit through the door to the bedrooms, immediately followed by an entrance through the same door as ‘the south entry’, will either confuse or – more damagingly – amuse the audience. If Macbeth and Lady Macbeth use this door to exit to their chamber after the murder, and Macduff enters immediately from 7 Molly Mahood, ‘Shakespeare’s Sense of Direction’, p. 38, suggests that ‘To conceive of bedrooms on both sides of the intermediate space, as Fitzpatrick would have us do, is an abandonment of the dominant in-out orientation’. This is not the case. The ‘intermediate space’ signified by the stage can be located between two offstage ‘anywheres’, provided those two ‘anywheres’ can be differentiated in some way in terms of inwards and outwards. If it can be accepted that Duncan’s chambers are the most private/inwards/central part of the castle, all other bedrooms can then logically be outwards from there.

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that same door which now stands for the ‘south entry’, something more than The Knight of Malta’s defusing dialogue and ‘dark lanthorn’ will be required to smother audience scepticism. How did Macduff not see Macbeth and Lady Macbeth offstage, as they exited and he entered? If he is using this door to enter the castle, where were they going as they exited at that same door? The solution which Shakespeare adopts is remarkably simple. If you have these exits and entrances that are in the same space (the same door) but in different fictional places, you can separate them in another way: in time. In other words, it is possible to create a time-gap between the exit and the entrance, so that the audience can accept that in the meantime the location signified by the door has changed. This would obviously require some ‘covering’ dialogue to separate the exit/entrance events so that the audience will accept that the preceding fictional signification of the door has, in Ichikawa’s terms, been ‘neutralized’.8 Between Macbeth and Lady Macbeth’s exit (prompted by the ominous knocking at ‘the south entry’ to put on their night attire) and the entrance of Macduff and Lennox at ‘the south entry’, there are 20 or so lines of direct address to the audience by the Porter. He is a purely functional character whose only task is to unlock the ‘south entry’ to admit Macduff, but his celebrated direct address serves a number of functions: it provides a respite from the dramatic tension (only to increase it by delay), enriches a number of the play’s thematic threads, and (most importantly) in stagecraft terms creates a time-lapse that will enable the audience to accept that when Macduff and Lennox are finally admitted through the ‘south entry’, the stage door has been neutralized from its previous fictional association with the Macbeths’ chambers.

Then, after Macduff’s entrance, there is another 20 lines of inconsequential dialogue between the Porter and Macduff until the latter finally comes to the point and asks if Macbeth is stirring. He is, and he now reappears in the same doorway – which at this point, having been again neutralized by the intervening dialogue from its previous fictional association with the ‘south entry’, signifies again the doorway leading to the Macbeths’ chambers: 8 Mariko Ichikawa, ‘Were the Doors Open or Closed? The Use of Stage Doors in the Shakespearean Theatre’, Theatre Notebook 60/1 (2006): p. 14.

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It has been suggested that these two blocks of text are merely to give Macbeth time to change costume, and he certainly needs some time to do that. However until the 1950s these passages were routinely abbreviated in performance because the costume change did not take that much time – and also because of their crudity, taken as evidence that they were actors’ interpolations. There is no textual editing basis for such a view (the Arden edition is a landmark in this regard9), and I suggest that in fact these passages are there because the playwright himself wrote them, realizing they were necessary. Twenty lines between the exit/entrance events would be enough, he seems to have assessed, to enable the audience to accept the shift in signification of the door: it stands for the door to the other bedrooms, then for the ‘south entry’, and then back again for the door to the bedrooms. This is the outline of Plan 2D, which must needs manage in considerable detail the double use of one of the doors, in a similar operation to Jonson’s in the sequence from Epicoene discussed in an earlier chapter. It can of course be argued instead that this is a playwright who had both Plan 3D and Plan 2D in mind. His preferred option, Plan 3D is for the three doors that critics such as Andrew Gurr consider the ‘optimal’ staging projection,10 but he also develops a fall-back Plan 2D in case only two doors are available. Plan 3D might be for playhouses in London that had three entrance-points, Plan 2D for playhouses such as the Swan which according to De Witt had only two, or in case the company were on tour in the provinces, and found that the guild halls they used for performance tended to only have two usable entrance-points. This is possible, but the problem with such a view is that Plan 2D is actually better than Plan 3D, and can, I believe, be demonstrated to be really the primary plan. I suggest this because if we look more closely we see that performing this

9 See the editor’s introduction to William Shakespeare, Macbeth, ed. Kenneth Muir, (London, 1951): xxvi–xxxiv. 10 Andrew Gurr, ‘Doors at the Globe: the Gulf between Page and Stage’, Theatre Notebook 55/2 (2001): p. 59.

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sequence with only two doors brings additional performance bonuses – effects that are simply not achievable with the luxury of three doors. The key, I believe, lies in the one reservation voiced above to Plan 3D, and something that Plan 2D also needs to address: the entrance-point of the Porter. If Macbeth and Lady Macbeth exit through one door to change costumes, and Macduff is then admitted to the castle through the ‘south entry’ at that same door, then where does the character who admits him to the castle come onto the stage? Of course the Porter could emerge from the trapdoor, but the most likely scenario would have him enter the stage by one or other of the stage doors, like all the other characters. In Plan 2D it is inescapable that he must enter the stage from the door behind which Duncan has been murdered (an entrance through the other door would then entail him having to unlock the very door through which he himself has entered, to admit Macduff). The Porter’s entrance through Duncan’s door looks contradictory and inappropriate, but it is arguable that Shakespeare, faced with this apparent contradiction, actually used it to create an added theatrical and metatheatrical effect for his audience. As Macbeth follows his wife off the stage to change costume, he apostrophizes the source of the knocking: ‘Wake Duncan with thy knocking, I would thou couldst!’ (II, ii, 71) – and almost simultaneously someone stumbles onto the stage from Duncan’s door. So for one terrible moment the audience goes into a frenzy of inferential walks, suspecting that Macbeth’s wish to turn back the clock has been fulfilled: has Duncan been woken by the knocking? What has been going on out there? Are we not to trust the information both Macbeth and Lady Macbeth have provided? What of the blood-stained daggers? Has Duncan just been badly wounded? It seems that by this coup de théâtre Shakespeare is inviting the audience, at least momentarily, to entertain the possibility that Duncan may have somehow survived the murder attempt, and is now fulfilling Macbeth’s wish by being ‘woken’ by the knocking.11 It turns out, of course, to be only the Porter, so drunk that he is blissfully unaware of the offstage bloodbath. But this reading is strengthened – and this is the second aspect of this theatrical and metatheatrical coup de théâtre – by the consideration that quite possibly the Porter bears an uncanny resemblance to Duncan, since it is the same actor doubling the roles (in this long-standing tradition he also usually plays one of Banquo’s murderers). The conundrum carries within it the seeds of its own resolution: the audience’s methatheatrical processing enables the realization that since this is a new character, the Porter, Duncan must indeed be dead – since his actor has now been recycled. The metatheatrical potential of this ambiguous entrance is striking, and suggests 11 See Jeremy Lopez, Theatrical Convention and Audience Response in the Early Modern Theatre (Cambridge, 2003), pp. 81–2, on the issue of possible inaccuracy in accounts of what has occurred offstage: ‘The frequency with which such scenes end up surprising us with an inaccuracy or an outright lie in the reporting keeps us from becoming complacent in our reactions and makes the play seem always one step ahead: always capable of providing us with more than we bargained for.’

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a playwright deliberately flaunting the constraints of a two-door stage and taking delight in wringing additional metatheatrical spatial effects from them. To summarize then, if we follow a two-door hypothesis to the hilt in this passage, then two pieces of text that have raised critical eyebrows in terms of inappropriateness reveal themselves to be pivotal to a two-door staging – they suddenly become functional as ‘spacers’ wedged between the exits and entrances to provide a time-lapse that makes the ‘flips’ in signification of the door acceptable; and this staging provides an additional performance outcome – a surprise ‘entrance’ by a dead character – that that would not be available if there were three doors to play with. I would argue that the availability of only two entrance points and the consequent need to ‘cycle’ one of the doors to signify alternately the interface with two different offstage locations is what has primarily and immediately triggered this particular structuring of the text. I believe therefore that what I have called Plan 2D is in fact the primary plan, rather than a mere backup for performance venues that do not have the ‘optimal’ configuration of three entrance points. The solution of bringing on the Porter, having him talk to the audience for 20 lines before opening the door, and then indulging in small-talk with Macduff for a further 20 lines, flows directly and immediately from the playwright’s awareness that there are only two doors to play with. This is not a backup plan, and nor is it simply a clever twentieth-century ‘directorial solution’: it is a playwrighterly solution inscribed in and transmitted via the text. The necessity of a non-flexible assigning of a particular signification to one of the doors for an extended section of the play, as happens here with Duncan’s door, creates a critical need for frequent wipe and reset techniques on the other door, and the Porter’s scene enables the rhythm of these wipes and resets not to exceed some unspoken norm of acceptability. What emerges is not only that you can do this section of the play with only two entrance doors; nor is it just that the text seems to have been structured the way it is to deal with this limitation (as occurs in The Knight of Malta); but there is actually a potential performance bonus: it seems that Shakespeare has managed to wring from the constraints of just two doors an additional theatrical effect by creating momentary confusion in the audience. Had the playwright been writing primarily for three doors, he would probably not have even considered a Porter’s scene: after Macbeth and Lady Macbeth’s exit he could simply have had Macduff and Lennox emerge with the Porter from the third door – the Porter, having already admitted them to the castle at the ‘south entry’ that is somewhere remote offstage, is now bringing them to Duncan’s door. This exceptional scene which requires three offstage locations paradoxically ends up pointing to a two-door imperative in staging: a careful examination of the role of Shakespeare’s dialogue here indicates that he was writing with considerable foresight about how the performance would and should unfold in the specific theatrical space and time, and with the available resources, of the public playhouses. The table below summarizes the two-door polarities relevant to this whole sequence, Macbeth I, v to II, iii, beginning

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with Lady Macbeth’s letter-reading scene. In the initial scenes the stage space represents a generic ‘in between’ place, but the key to its functioning lies in the more specific oppositional polarities brought into play in II, ii and II, iii. In these scenes there is a significant shift in the relevant polarities (marked in bold): Table 7.11  Shifting Polarities Between Onstage and Offstage Places in Macbeth I, v

Lady Macbeth reads the letter, Messenger and Macbeth arrive

Further into the castle

I, vi

King and court arrive, welcomed by Lady Macbeth Banquet crosses stage; Macbeth and Lady Macbeth come forth from banquet, return Banquo comes from King’s chambers/ banquet, Macbeth goes to kill King Macbeth returns with daggers, Lady Macbeth plants them; they exit to change costume Porter admits Macduff and Lennox at the ‘south entry’ Macbeth shows Macduff to Duncan’s door, Macduff discovers murder and wakes castle

Further into the castle

I, vii

II, i

II, ii

II, iii a

II, iii b

Generically ‘in between’ (possible extrusion) Generically ‘in between’

Outside the castle, servants’ quarters Outside the castle

Banqueting hall, Duncan’s chambers

Generically ‘in between’

Kitchens, servants’ quarters

Banqueting hall, Duncan’s chambers Duncan’s chambers

Generically ‘in between’

Other chambers

Outside Duncan’s chambers Inside the south entry

Further into the castle Duncan’s chambers

Other chambers

Outside Duncan’s chambers

Outside the south entry Other chambers

This table demonstrates the flexibility inherent in a relational two-door system: in all these scenes the offstage polarities are clearly set out, but from I, v to II, i the stage space represents a non-specific ‘in between’ place. However in II, ii and II, iii the stage space is in a sense tugged to and fro according to the shifting of the relevant offstage polarities: they ‘relocate’ the stage space relationally as they change from one scene to the next. In II, ii the relevant polarity is that the stage represents a place outside Duncan’s chamber; in the first part of II, iii (the Porter’s scene) it represents a place inside the south entry; and with Macbeth’s

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re-entrance the relevant polarity switches back to Duncan’s chamber. It is the generic flexibility inherent in a relational spatial system that enables this very specific manipulation of space and of the audience’s reaction in the Porter’s scene. Conclusion The overwhelmingly binary patterns evidenced in this chapter trace a topography of the fictional world that is communicated relationally to the audience. If these two plays, in addition to Epicoene discussed in an earlier chapter, seem predicated on just two doors, we need to address the question of whether the standard configuration in the public playhouses was two doors rather than three. This will concern us in an appendix, but we must now address an important additional possibility: that these fictional inwards and outwards offstage locations were represented in the same configuration in each performance. If inwards always lay behind one door, and outwards always lay behind the other door, this would no longer simply constitute a fictional geography for the audience: it would then also provide a stage-management system of a sort, since the actors would have clear indications from their dialogue not only of the fictional direction of their exits (into the house), but of the functional stagecraft direction of their exits (into the stage-right door, which represents houses). This will be discussed in the following chapter.

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Part 3 A Spatially-based Stage-management and Meaning-making System

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Chapter 8

Stage Doors and Stage Management Rav. What noise is that? Perhaps some that pursue you, hide your selves, Her’s an inner roome. Puts them into another roome. (The Bride, D4r, D4v) Merchant. [within.] Are you within sir, Maister Merri-thought? Jasper. It is my maisters voyce, good sir go hold him in talke whilst we convey our selves into some inward roome. (The Knight of the Burning Pestle, V, iii, 67–9)

The Bride and The Knight of the Burning Pestle offer two explicit examples of the inwards-outwards patterns articulated in the previous chapter. In each case onstage characters, at the arrival of hostile forces from outwards, leave the stage-place (a room in a house) for the safety of a more inwards room. Relationality is explicit in both the terms used: ‘inward’ is overtly directional since it means ‘towards in’, and ‘inner’ is a comparative (more ‘in’). The actors who have to respond to the stage directions embedded in the dialogue must decide in which direction to exit the stage. They might more easily decide where to exit if ‘inwards’ was always in the same direction, i.e., if one of the stage doors was regularly marked as the inwards door. Of course in both these cases their decision making would be assisted by the direction from which the offstage sound effects are heard, and they would naturally exit in the other direction. However this merely displaces the decision making to backstage: it is then the backstage actors, the source of the sound effects, who would need to decide where to locate themselves and speak, call or knock as required. Their decision, too, would be simplified if the direction of ‘outwards’ were similarly standardized as always lying behind one rather than the other stage door. This chapter considers the implications of this possible further level of signification, and examines the implications of this startling but simple insight: what might happen if one of the stage doors is always marked as ‘inwards’, and the other always ‘outwards’. This would be one way of ensuring that both groups of actors, those onstage and those threatening to enter, would automatically know where to go. It involves going beyond a spatial subdivision of the fictional world to suggest there might also have been a standard way of staging that subdivision: one door always leads inwards, the other always outwards. A similar set of issues arises in Rider’s The Twins. Charmia enters, clearly coming into a private space where she can soliloquize in peace about her incestuous love for Fulvio, her husband Gratiano’s twin brother: ‘Enter Charmia in her night gown, with a prayer Book and a Taper, boults the door and sits down’ (F2v).

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This stage direction begs the immediate question of why she only bolts one door: as in the two quotations above, it would seem that threats to privacy are taken to be unidirectional, coming from outwards; this pattern is evident too in Othello V, ii, where Montano exits with Gratiano, enjoining him to ‘guard the door without’ (V, ii, 241), and in these cases too the actors’ movement patterns would be unproblematical if ‘the door without’ – the door through which an onstage character might escape, or through which an external threat might materialize – were always the same stage door. One further recurring textual pattern elucidates the potential usefulness of such a standardized arrangement. Many entrances are preceded by an utterance from an onstage character, who throws focus from downstage onto the upstage entrance by uttering something like Macduff’s ‘Here he comes’ (Macbeth, II, ii, 43). Such a technique would not be advisable if it risked having the downstage character throw focus to the wrong door and provoke an unintended comic reaction, so the fact that it is so commonly used suggests that playwrights did not consider this a risky textual strategy. They seem instead to have assumed that the actors – both the onstage and entering actors – could be relied on to pick the right door without risk of audience distraction or laughter at inaccurate focus-throwing or a dislocated entrance. Given that by modern standards early modern rehearsal times were risibly limited, it is unlikely that these focus-throwing utterances depended on punctilious ‘blocking’ of the onstage action in rehearsal, but relied instead on the actors accessing a standardized spatial system. They seem to imply actors who were able to predict that a character entering from his house would appear at one door, whilst a messenger arriving from a remote location would appear at the other – and so were able in the case of the enterer to appear in the correct doorway; and in the case of the focus-thrower, to throw accurately. There are other ways of organizing entrances and exits that would solve this focus-throwing problem, but this chapter argues that dramatists expected each of the two stage doors to be ‘loaded’ with a standard fictional meaning in terms of the directions in which they led. In the rapid repertory system of the Globe, stage management must have been a high priority, and we shall consider evidence that simplicity and economy of effort was best achieved by exploiting the binary fictional spatial arrangement outlined in the previous chapter to stage manage entrances and exits. Let us therefore examine what such a system might have looked like and what characteristics would have made it useful, the textual evidence which points to its existence and to how it might have functioned, and some of the corollaries of such a standardized system – a system that depended on and in turn reinforced the spatial logic of the play.1

1 These issues were first raised in Derek Peat and Tim Fitzpatrick, ‘Macbeth in Performance’, Sydney Studies in English, 8 (1982–83): pp. 89–99.

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Characteristics of a Stage Management System The potential usefulness of a stage-management system governing entrances and exits flows in part from what we know of early modern rehearsal practices. Carol Rutter’s analysis of Henslowe’s papers indicates that in a ten week period in 1595 the Admiral’s Men did 57 performances of 20 different plays, 4 of which were new to their repertory.2 We can deduce from such figures that the companies had little time in which to rehearse, and Tiffany Stern’s ground-breaking volume on historical rehearsal in this period shows that ‘rehearsal’, such as it was, involved activities that were solitary or entailed a master-apprentice relationship rather than the group activity which we associate with performance preparation.3 A rapid turnover of plays in repertory, and limited ‘rehearsal’ in the modern sense of the word, would suggest that the companies might have developed some shorthand techniques to help the actors and book-holder to work out quickly and effectively the skeleton of the performance (where entrance- and exit-points were to be, for example). There is one aspect of outdoor performance, as exemplified at the Globe and the other public playhouses in London, which is pertinent: audiences sitting and standing in natural light are different from audiences gathered in a hushed and darkened auditorium with a battery of lights to focus their attention. Audience attention can wander elsewhere during breaks in the performance, so it makes good dramaturgical sense to minimize ‘dead time’, pauses between segments of action. If continuity of performance is a high priority it is logical to suggest that actors, book-holders and playwrights in early modern playhouses might have developed a stage management system that privileged and enabled such continuity. A startingpoint would have been the critical points of discontinuity between scenes, as one group exits at the end of one scene and another enters for the start of the next scene. (Indeed, this momentarily ‘clere’ stage was the basis of the scene breaks which came to be marked in texts.) So a first characteristic that would render useful a system governing entrances and exits would be the capacity to achieve continuity between scenes by separating spatially the exit from the entrance, to avoid congestion at one door into an already congested tiring house. This can be simply achieved by having one group of actors exit the stage through one door, while the next group enters more or less simultaneously from another door. Such ‘alternation’ patterns could have been arranged mechanically (as, we shall see, has been suggested), or made on a caseby-case basis between the actors and the book-holder. But they would have been more economically handled if they were systematically inscribed in the texts in some way. If there is textual evidence of such a system to be found, it might consist of textual patterns (and statistical prominence of such patterns) which betray playwrights thinking carefully about the direction of end-of-scene exits and 2 Carol Rutter, Documents of the Rose Playhouse (Manchester, 1984), p. 91; see also pp. 22–4 for more general figures relating to Henslowe’s companies. 3 Tiffany Stern, Rehearsal from Shakespeare to Sheridan (Oxford, 2000), pp. 121–2.

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the direction of the first entrance in the following scene, or of ways of minimizing possible congestions at one stage door, for example by staggering exits. A second characteristic of a putative system to manage staging derives from a need for simplicity: any system developed to streamline decision making is more likely to emerge from a simple and limited set of decision-making parameters. Domenico Pietropaolo has discussed this important theoretical consideration in relation to the performance of Commedia dell’Arte scenarios,4 and it holds in a different way for early modern performance in London: the more limited the available choices, the less likely it is that actors will make the wrong choice – and therefore the easier it is to make the choices meaningful by incorporating them into a system. A limited choice is a simplified choice, and this is one means of assuring manageable cognitive loads for the participants in the complex task of putting on a play.5 It can therefore be argued that if such a system did in fact evolve, this is more likely to have occurred within the specific context of a simple stage configuration, with only two stage doors rather than three – since a binary choice regarding entrance- and exit-points involves reduced cognitive overheads for the actors. In earlier chapters we have seen that there is strong textual evidence for simple binary spatial patterns (with the stageplace acting as a mediating middle term between two offstage opposites), and have discussed evidence that suggests the central discovery space did not in fact provide a third access-point from the tiring house. If such a spatial scheme was deployed to manage exits and entrances, and has left no textual trace in stage directions, it must have been simple and straightforward. It is therefore more likely to have emerged from a limited number of actual entrance-points onto the stage. Thirdly, any such system would have had to be inscribed in the dialogue of the plays. There is no explicit evidence for its existence in stage directions or ancillary texts (although we will see in the following chapter that there may well be some important indications that playwrights or book holders were inscribing this system in the playhouse copy via one particular type of stage directions). It is not fanciful to suggest that appropriately targeted analysis of the actors’ dialogue might reveal textual traces of such a system in terms of indications that their character is exiting in a particular direction, or indications of where their character has entered from. Given the absence of detailed stage directions in early texts, the heavy duties of the bookholder, the rapid turnover of plays and consequent short rehearsal times, cognition would have had to be ‘distributed’ to use Evelyn Tribble’s useful term,6 and it is logical therefore to expect direct distribution of this information into the dialogue of those to whom it was immediately relevant. If the only textual information the actors had access to was their written parts, playwrights’ directions to them would be Domenico Pietropaolo, ‘Improvisation as a Stochastic Composition Process’, in Domenico Pietropaolo, ed., The Science of Buffoonery: Theory and History of the Commedia dell’Arte (Toronto/Ottawa, 1989), pp. 167–76. 5 Evelyn Tribble, ‘Distributing Cognition in the Globe’, Shakespeare Quarterly, 56/2 (Summer 2005), pp. 135–55. 6 Tribble, ‘Distributing Cognition in the Globe’, p. 139. 4

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most effective if embedded there. This question has usually been considered only in general terms or on points of detail,7 but it can be suggested that such an oral tradition or set of performance conventions, whereby the actors were cued by implicit stage directions in their dialogue, would have been both useful and possible.8 The spatial cues involved are essentially those we have already examined more generally, only rendered of more immediate practical import by a standardizing of the functions of the two opposing doors – a standardizing which enabled the actors to arrive quickly at decisions about which door to use when entering and exiting. A fourth characteristic of any system to manage entrances and exits derives from the discussion which has been the subject of this book thus far: if the texts suggest that playwrights and audience shared and exploited at least a rudimentary concrete spatial commonsense that would have partings represented by divergent exit patterns and so on, then any attempt to manipulate entrances and exits for pragmatic stage management purposes would be more likely to exploit and build on such commonsense spatial conventions, rather than deploy another separate system for managing the practicalities. Synergy between fictional and functional patterns would be more likely than the separate development of a schematic, mechanical rule-of-thumb which Bernard Beckerman has suggested might have been used to separate spatially entrances from exits and achieve economy of effort.9 Beckerman’s ‘waiter’s doors’ system proposes that all entrances be from one door, all exits from the other.10 However even brief reflection leads to the conclusion that the indiscriminate application of such a mechanical system would lead to unintentionally comic spatial patterns in some cases: think for example of the trajectory of Macduff in Macbeth 2.2: he leaves the stage via one door to see Duncan, returns via the other to report his murder, and re-exits via the first door to show Macbeth the body. Alternatively, one would have to treat such an instance as an exception and deal with it on the basis of concrete spatial commonsense (Mariko Ichikawa has enumerated ten particular exceptional patterns11). It seems more I. Smith, ‘Their Exits and Re-entrances’, Shakespeare Quarterly 18 (1967), pp. 7–16; Peter Thomson, Shakespeare’s Theatre, 2nd edn. (London, 1992), pp. 136–60. 8 For an excellent discussion of the place of the text in broader oral systems in the playhouses, see Alan Dessen, ‘Recovering Elizabethan Staging: a Reconsideration of the Evidence’, in Edward Pechter, ed., Textual and Theatrical Shakespeare: Questions of Evidence (Iowa City), 1996, p. 50. 9 See Bernard Beckerman, ‘Theatrical Plots and Elizabethan Stage Practice’, in W.R. Elton and William B. Long, eds., Shakespeare and Dramatic Tradition (Newark, 1989), pp. 109–24. In contrast David Bradley, From Text to Performance in the Elizabethan Theatre: Preparing the Play for the Stage (Cambridge, 1992), pp. 32–3, argues from an implicit spatial logic; and Mariko Ichikawa, in Chapter 6 of her recent book Shakespearean Entrances (Basingstoke, 2002), modifies Beckerman’s rule by means of a series of necessary exceptions based on spatial logic similar to that argued here. 10 Beckerman, ‘Theatrical Plots and Elizabethan Stage Practice’. 11 Ichikawa, Shakespearean Entrances, pp. 73–88; see also Andrew Gurr and Mariko Ichikawa, Staging in Shakespeare’s Theatres (Oxford, 2000), pp. 97–104. 7

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likely that a useful and manageable system would have been one based entirely rather than only partially on the sort of concrete spatial commonsense which we have canvassed extensively in an earlier chapter, and which Ichikawa invokes to complement or substitute for Beckerman’s schematic and mechanical proposal.12 T.J. King took account of three of these four characteristics in his attempt to trace the entrance and exit patterns of Twelfth Night.13 He assumed the need to avoid congestion between scenes, that the stage had only two entrance doors, and that meetings and separations would be represented in a spatially concrete way by split entrances and exits. The innovation of the present argument over work such as King’s is merely the positing of a simple binary system embedded in the actors’ dialogue which ‘loads’ the two stage doors with standardized fictional significance. A commonsense spatial arrangement such as the inwards-outwards polarity of offstage fictional places can be transformed into a system by the simple adoption of a regularity: if the stage stands for a space between two other unseen offstage spaces, one of which is further inwards and the other further outwards, then it is simply a question of establishing the convention that one of the two stage doors always lead inwards, the other door always lead outwards. There is further evidence, which we shall examine below, that it was the stage-right door which led inwards and the stage-left door led outwards. Such a system can then be deployed to separate entering from exiting characters and ensure continuity of performance; it can exploit more general patterns of spatial commonsense rather than overriding them by a mechanical system; and its binary nature ensures simplicity and viability without the need for complex stage directions such as would be required with more than two entrance-points as signifiers for fictional spatial directions. This further pragmatic dimension to the fictional spatial patterns already discussed will then engender a clearer consciousness (in playwrights, actors and audience) of those general spatial patterns, serving to reinforce them. This will not have involved a linear development from fictional spatial oppositions to a practical application for stage management purposes, achieved by assigning specific directionality to each door. It was more likely that complementary processes fed into and off each other: the very presence of two stage doors – as two functional entry-points – would have been fundamental in the initial development of patterns of spatial opposition, since the availability of suitable binary signifiers is crucial in the development of any spatial semiotic system that might link them to particular opposed signifieds. An evolved system, which standardized the representation of the inwards-outwards relational spatial system by having one door always inwards and the other always outwards, would have been at once fictional and functional, with its dual aspects reinforcing each other every time they were evoked in performance. A regularized rule-of-thumb, based on a spatio-logical opposition of fictional places rather than on Beckerman’s 12 John C. Meagher, Pursuing Shakespeare’s Dramaturgy (Madison, 2003), 120–21, has also criticized Beckerman’s system. 13 T.J. King, Shakespearean Staging, 1599–1642 (Cambridge, MA, 1971), pp. 97–9.

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mechanical and arbitrary system, would thus simplify decisions about which door to use, and would in turn reinforce the spatial coherence of the fictional world. We can therefore assume that if such a functional system developed, it did so in synergy with the fictional binary system, by trial and error over an extended period in the performance practice. It came to be encoded in the texts written for that practice; this set of spatial conventions was assimilated into audience competence through their exposure to performances; and audience competence was then something the playwright could take for granted and work with to make meanings. We shall discuss below some historical factors which might have shaped such a gradually developing conventional understanding of movement patterns, and in a subsequent chapter we shall discuss instances in which this regularity of physical patterning in performance provides the audience with significant information and can be exploited by the playwright to enrich the thematic inferences the audience will draw as they watch and interpret the performance. As we shall see below, an examination of a large number of texts (the Shakespearean canon along with a number of other early modern plays) provides strong statistical evidence to suggest that playwrights were working to a stage management system and privileging continuity between scenes by alternating the doors used for exit and entrance. Textual analysis which highlights spatial cues reveals not only consistent patterns of inwards-outwards spatial triangulation discussed in earlier chapters, but also gives a high percentage of between-scenes continuity or ‘alternation’ patterns. The texts suggest that playwrights, to achieve maximum fluidity between scenes, manipulate the spatial logic so that exiting and entering characters are spatially separated: if characters end a scene by leaving via the inwards door, they have the entering characters in the next scene coming from the outwards door. The prevalence of such a pattern has caused David Bradley to justifiably liken the characters’ movements to those of the figures on a German town-hall clock.14 There are, however, limitations to continuity, and we need to consider them in some detail before considering the statistical data from the plays. Two Doors, Continuity and Congestion-as-Punctuation Despite the justifiable emphasis on continuity, it seems that Shakespeare and other playwrights might also have deliberately created at certain points between-scenes congestion at one or other of the stage doors so as to break the rhythms of the performance – either to build suspense or to signify a change of fictional location or a time-lapse between the scenes. Such dramaturgical structuring, interrupting the flow of performance to signify time or location shifts, is an instance of semiotic signification by opposition: the continuity achieved by the normal or ‘default’ alternation pattern between scenes can have its ‘significant other’ (signifying systems begin with deployable binary oppositions). If the exit and entrance are Bradley, Text to Performance, p. 23.

14

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via the same door, simple logistics dictates that congestion will be created behind that door while the exiting characters clear the door to enable the new group’s entrance. This causes a slight pause with empty stage, and this pause can itself serve as a signifier of a location change or time-lapse between the fictional scenes: this is a not insignificant dramaturgical resource. If you have a system in place in the dialogue that helps the actors work out which door to enter and exit by and that keeps the performance flowing from one scene to the next, then you also have a way of controlling the rhythm of the performance: you can deliberately decide to punctuate the performance, to break it by not following the normal

continuity pattern. In other words the stage management system can also serve as a dramaturgical system – i.e., it can provide the playwright with a capacity to structure and segment the performance by orchestrating its rhythms through manipulation of entrance and exit patterns. Such dramaturgical punctuation of the performance would seem to be active in two sets of cases if there are only two entrance-points: if two characters enter ‘severally’ at the start of a scene, or if two characters leave the stage by separate doors at the end of a scene. An arrival of two or more characters coming from different places will create congestion patterns with the previous exiters; a fictional parting of the ways will do likewise for the next enterers. The length of the pauses created by such instances of congestion, and the extent to which they will significantly impede the flow of performance (and hence run the risk of audience disaffection), is an important issue – and one which has been raised to question the viability of a two-door configuration on the stages of the early modern playhouses. The logistical problem which arises from the conflict between a desire for continuity of performance and the constraints of only two openings is a real one. Clearly the fewer the entrance-points onto the stage the more problematical continuity between scenes becomes, and Andew Gurr is correct to point to this problem and the attendant dangers of audience distraction if it leads to too many gaps in performance. He suggests a third door would have been

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vital to avoid unnecessary congestions at one or both doors, as exiting characters crossed with those entering for the next scene. He cites a number of instances from the Queen’s Men’s plays, and wonders whether Elizabethan players could afford to leave the stage empty for significant periods of time: In the instances cited from the Queen’s Men’s plays, for instance, the two-door theory has to presume a gap in time with an empty stage between the entries, and hence a generally slower mode of production.15

However a ‘generally slower mode of production’ is not by any means an automatic corollary of just two entrance-points. There may indeed be, as Gurr suggests, cases where the availability of a third opening would resolve some congestion patterns inherent in a two-door arrangement, but there is textual evidence that playwrights, when they created a congestion pattern, were also deliberately employing a range of techniques to limit its negative effects. In the first place, if the playwright can minimize the logistical problem posed by bodies on collision courses in one stage doorway, such congestion might not in fact ‘leave the stage empty for significant periods of time’. In the plays examined, there is a significant category of what I have termed ‘minimal’ congestions: cases in which there is only one entering or exiting character. The width of the flanking doors would minimize logistical problems when just one exiting character crosses with one or more entering characters (or vice versa), provided there is no fictional impediment to such proximity. Indeed there are many cases where the texts seem to be patterned so as to stagger exits and achieve just such a ‘minimal’ outcome: if a group is leaving the stage, one character remains behind briefly for an inconsequential tag line, as does Hortensio at the end of The Taming of the Shrew, IV, v: Exeunt [all but Hortensio]. Hor. Well, Petruchio, this has put me in heart. Have to my widow! And if she [be] froward, Then hast thou taught Hortensio to be untoward. Exit. (The Taming of the Shrew, IV, v, 77–9)

Another instance in which staggered exits may to come into play is the parting of Suffolk and the Queen, in Henry VI part 2, as discussed in Chapter 1; though it might be argued that a pause would in fact be appropriate at the end of such an intense exchange. At the end of Othello IV, iii, Desdemona and Emilia must exit by separate doors – since Desdemona has been explicitly directed (IV, iii, 8) to dismiss Emilia before going to bed. They are each given a final rhyming couplet which, as well as serving to mark off this section from the succeeding climactic sequence, provides them each with an exit line (Emilia first, then Desdemona) with which to move upstage to their respective doors: 15 Andrew Gurr, ‘Doors at the Globe: the Gulf between Page and Stage’, Theatre Notebook 55/2 (2001): p. 64.

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Emil. Then let them use us well: else let them know, The ills we do, their ills instruct us so. Des. Good night, good night. [God] me such uses send, Not to pick bad from bad, but by bad mend! Exeunt. (Othello, IV, iii, 102–5)

Since the next entrance (Iago and Roderigo in the street, preparing to ambush Cassio) is from outwards, congestion between an exiting Emilia and an entering Roderigo-Iago will be minimal. These patterns have the effect of keeping any congestion to a minimum as the second character then leaves the stage alone, and their prevalence may well constitute evidence of conscious dramaturgical structuring to avoid congestions – indicating in turn a widespread playwrighterly expectation of a lesser rather than greater number of entrance and exit points. Similarly, staggered entrances would create the same effect in reverse. One such example might be the Folio text of Henry VI part 1, Which reads ‘Enter, several ways … half ready and half unready’ (II, i, 40). Another means of minimizing between-scenes gaps in performance is evidenced in numerous instances in which such pauses are covered by sound effects. This occurs in battle scenes, where the noises of offstage battle that alternate with the short onstage ‘samples’ the audience sees directly should be treated as the ongoing fabric of performance rather than as mere additional effects linking the onstage segments. Gurr suggests that Selimus and King Lear present problematical entrance patterns,16 but these examples can be dismissed immediately: in both there are clear indications of offstage sound effects (‘Alarum’ and ‘Storm still’) to create continuity across any pauses which might occur between scenes due to constraints on entrance-points. This use of sound effects to cover a pause created by a logistical bottleneck can be viewed in a number of ways: as minimizing the problem by providing an offstage auditory focus to maintain audience interest; or as a means of deliberately ‘marking’ a fictional time-lapse or location-change between the scenes. And hence we arrive at a second category which should be discounted in any consideration of how problematical two-door congestions might be for performance continuity. While the argument for the systematic use of two doors is posited on the need to avoid such congestions, there are many examples which suggest that while continuity between scenes was indeed a priority for the playwrights, attempts to minimize congestions go hand-in-hand with a counter-strategy which seems to deliberately ‘mark’ the break in continuity. The playwrights seem often to have deliberately created a congestion so as to segment the performance and create a natural break for the audience. If, for instance, a split exit at the end of one scene is followed by a split entrance at the start of the next, then it is obvious – unless we are prepared to entertain the possibility of four doors – that the playwright is foreseeing and predetermining performance patterns that actually involve a brief pause. In Timon of Athens at the end of III, iv Timon sends his Steward to invite his friends to the banquet which he and the cook will provide: Gurr, ‘Page and Stage’, pp. 62, 64.

16

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185

Tim. Go, I charge thee, invite them all, let in the tide Of Knaves once more: my cook and I’ll provide. Exeunt. (Timon of Athens, III, iv, 116–17)

Even without consideration of any broader two-door theory, if we make a commonsense assumption that their exits will be in opposite directions (one has been sent out to do the inviting, the other leaves to do the cooking) then the scene ends with a split exit. The next scene then begins with the stage direction: Enter three SENATORS at one door, ALCIBIADES meeting them with ATTENDANTS. (Timon of Athens, III, v, 0)

This split entrance will create congestion problems at at least one door (and at both doors if there are only two). These instances usually correspond to timelapses in the fictional scheme and/or changes of location (in this case from Timon’s house to the Senate), leading to the suggestion that the playwrights were deliberately ‘marking’ the point of fictional segmentation – structuring their texts to predetermine staging patterns. One instance of what seems to be a deliberate use of a congestion pattern to mark off a scene as temporally or spatially distinct from the preceding and following scenes occurs in the only scene in Romeo and Juliet which is not set in Verona: Romeo’s scene with the Apothecary in Mantua (V, i). It begins with Romeo’s arrival outside the Apothecary’s (an entrance from outwards) and ends with his departure from the Apothecary’s to return outwards to his lodgings. His entrance from outwards clashes with a preceding outwards exit (the musicians leaving the aborted feast at the Capulets’ at the end of IV, v) and his outwards exit clashes with the succeeding entrance from outwards (Friar John arriving to speak to Friar Laurence in V, ii). There are two ramifications of such a strategy: the inevitable pause between scenes serves to cue the audience to a location-change or time-lapse between the scenes, and secondly it affects the audience’s perception of the overall performance by structuring its flow – punctuating it into ‘blocks’ rather than letting it run on continuously. (It is perhaps not coincidental that the scene from Timon of Athens ends with a rhyming couplet, perhaps another technique to ‘mark off’ the division of time and place between the scenes.) Gurr provides an instance from Peele’s James IV17 which is a case in point: if there are only two doors, the entering characters must cross with one of the exiting groups – but there is a change of fictional place between the two scenes (from the woods to a scene at the Countesse’s palace). Once the issues above (the capacity to minimize congestion by staggering exits etc., and the seemingly deliberate deployment of ‘marked’ congestions to punctuate performance) are taken into consideration, the question remains: how prevalent are Gurr, ‘Page and Stage’, p. 62.

17

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the instances where having only two available doors would create significant logistical problems and would result in Gurr’s ‘generally slower mode of production’? Data gathered from an exhaustive study of 50 plays suggests that the problem is simply not extensive enough to warrant the positing of a third opening to solve it. Textual Analysis for Flow and Punctuation Patterns Analysis of a large number of texts in the light of a particular hypothetical framework – the assumption of only two stage doors and of a particular spatial logic which might have developed from and in turn determined their usage – reveals that almost always there are cues in the dialogue which would indicate to the actors which door to choose. The methodology involved in this analysis is that of classical induction: on the basis of initial evidence from Macbeth and Othello a hypothesis is erected and then tested over a wide range of phenomena. To the extent that convergence occurs (and any obvious exceptions can be rationally accounted for) the hypothesis is validated and strengthened; to the extent that exceptions proliferate or are unaccountable, the hypothesis is damaged and, if not completely demolished, needs to be modified or circumscribed in its applicability.18 The results presented below are fruit of such an inductive textual strategy: a broad range of texts has been analyzed to see the extent to which such a two-door system might be sustainable without leading to major problems of performance continuity at the crucial points between scenes where exiting and entering characters might collide. The research involved preparing a table for each play to show inferred entrance and exit patterns and the relevant dialogic indications from which that inference has been drawn. Full tables for Macbeth and Othello have already published,19 and tables for all 50 plays (and others analyzed subsequently) are accessible electronically as pdf files through the Sydney eScholarship Repository of the University of Sydney Library.20 Below is a sample table covering the first two acts of Othello.

18 This is therefore not a ‘speculative’ stage management and signifying system, but an attempt to explain certain textual features: it stemmed initially from a particular textual configuration (the Porter’s scene in Macbeth) and was then tested and refined against a large number of texts. The supposition of only two doors seemed the best explanation for what had otherwise been a much-contested piece of textual organization and a set of broader patterns in other texts: it was invoked as an a posteriori explanation, not as fruit of any a priori attitude of ‘minimalism’ and ‘negativism’ (Gurr, ‘Page and Stage’, p. 59). 19 See Tim Fitzpatrick, ‘Shakespeare’s Exploitation of a Two-Door Stage: Macbeth’, Theatre Research International 20 (1995): pp. 207–30, and ‘Stage Management, Dramaturgy and Spatial Semiotics in Shakespeare’s Dialogue’, Theatre Research International 24 (1999): pp. 1–23. 20 See Sydney eScholarship Repository, University of Sydney Library, ‘Spatial Analyses of 80 Elizabethan and Jacobean Plays’: http://hdl.handle.net/2123/7136.

Stage Doors and Stage Management

Table 8.1 Key: G: gallery Act /sc I, i

Inwards-outwards Patterns in Othello, Acts I and II Enter from inwards m Exit inwards j

Door Entering in characters Roderigo, Iago

Space-time indication ROD. Tush, never tell me! (1)

Brabantio

ROD. Is all your family within? (84)

jG

Brabantio

BRAB. Call up all my people! (141)

Iago

m

k

Brabantio Roderigo, Brabantio

I, ii

Door out l

l Enter from outwards k Exit outwards

mG

m

187

k

Othello, Iago, Attendant

j

Cassio, Officers Othello

m

Othello Brabantio, Roderigo, etc.

l

l

IAG. Lead to the Sagittar the raised search; And there will I be with him. (158–9) BRAB. Gone she is. (160)

Commentary and notes They enter together, continuing their conversation. Brabantio enters ‘at a window’, using the bay of the gallery (G) above the inwards door. Brabantio goes back into the house to check. Iago exits outwards to the inn (Sagittar).

Comes out of the house to report Desdemona missing. BRAB. Pray lead me They too depart on, at every house I’ll outwards to search call … (181) for Desdemona. OTH. Though in the They enter together, trade of war … (1) continuing their conversation. Location established as the Sagittar by Iago (I.i.159), he has done a backstage cross (time lapse). OTH. What lights come Cassio, etc., arriving yond? (27) from outwards. OTH. I will but spend a Goes into (or word here in the house perhaps only to the … (48) door of) the inn. IAG. Captain, will you Returns immediately. go? (53) CASS. Here comes Backstage loop, another troop … (54) coming to the inn from outwards.

Playwright, Space and Place in Early Modern Performance

188 Act /sc

I, iii

Door Entering in characters All

m

j

Door out k

Duke, Senators, Attendants

Space-time indication OFF. The Duke’s in council, and… . your noble self I am sure sent for. (92–3) DUKE. There is no composition in these news … (1)

Sailor

l

[Sailor]

[k]

Messenger

l

[Messenger]

[k]

Brabantio, Othello, Cassio, Iago, Roderigo, Officers Attendants, Iago

l

SEN. Here comes Brabantio and the valiant Moor. (47)

k

Iago, Desdemona

l

DUKE. Fetch Desdemona hither. (120) OTH. Here comes the lady. (170)

Duke, Senators, Officers Othello, Desdemona

OFF. A messenger from the galleys. (13) OFF. Here is more news. (32)

DUKE. Good night to every one. (288) k

Roderigo

k

Iago

k

OTH. Come Desdemona. I have but an hour of Love … (298–9) IAG. Go to, farewell. (380) IAG. … Must bring this monstrous birth to the world’s light. (402)

Commentary and notes They all exit outwards towards the Duke’s Council Chamber. They enter together from within, continuing conversation. Reports news from without. (no exit marked for Sailor) Echoes Sailor’s entrance. (no exit marked for Mess) Echoes other entrances from without. Iago sent back to the inn to bring Desdemona. Iago returns from whence he exited, bringing Desdemona. Dismisses them, goes back within. They return whence they came. Ditto. He follows in the direction taken by Othello and Desdemona.

Stage Doors and Stage Management Act /sc II, i

Door Entering in characters Montano, m 2 Gents

j

j

3rd Gent

l

Cassio

l

Messenger

l

2nd Gent

k

2nd Gent

l

Desdemona, Iago, Roderigo, Emilia Othello, Attendants Othello, etc.

l

Attendant

k

m

l

Roderigo Iago

II, ii

Door out

k

Gentleman Gentleman

k

189

Commentary and notes MON. What from the Triangulation cape can you discern at continues: they arrive sea? (1) from the citadel (inwards) expecting news from the seashore (outwards). 3 GEN. News, lads! He arrives from Our wars are done. (20) outwards with news. CASS. I have lost him Cassio has landed, on a dangerous sea! and arrives from the (46) shore. MESS. … on the brow More news from o’ th’ sea Stand ranks of outwards. people, and they cry ‘A sail!’. (53–4) CASS. I pray you, sir, More news sought go forth And give us from outwards. truth who ’tis that is arrived. (59) CASS. Now, who has News arrives. put in? (65) CASS. The riches of Now the party the ship is come on arrives. shore! (83)

Space-time indication

CASS. Lo, where he comes. (181) OTH. I prithee, good Iago, Go to the bay and disembark my coffers. Bring thou the master to the citadel … (207–9) IAG. Do thou meet me presently at the harbor. (213) IAG. … meet me by and by at the citadel … (278) IAG. … I must fetch his necessaries ashore. (279) GENT. It is Othello’s pleasure. (1) GENT. Heaven bless … (10)

And finally Othello arrives. Othello, Desdemona, etc., enter the citadel, Iago having been sent to the bay. Attendant sent ahead by Iago to the harbour. Roderigo sent by Iago to the citadel. Iago returns to port to unload Othello’s coffers. Enters from citadel, makes proclamation. Exits elsewhere to repeat it in the town. Serves to signify time lapse.

Playwright, Space and Place in Early Modern Performance

190 Act /sc II, iii

Door Entering in characters Othello, m Desdemona, Cassio, Attendants Othello, j Desdemona

m

Door out

Space-time indication OTH. Good Michael, look you to the guard to-night. (1)

Iago

l

Cassio

k

Cassio, Montano, Gents Cassio

l k

Roderigo Roderigo

k

Cassio, Roderigo Roderigo

l k

OTH. Come, my dear love. The fruits are to ensue … (8–9) CASS. Welcome, Iago. We must to the watch. (12) CASS. Where are they? IAG. Here at the door; I pray you call them in. (41–2) IAG. But here they come. (57) MON. To th’ platform, masters … IAG. You see this fellow that is gone before. (113–14) Enter RODERIGO IAG. How now, Roderigo? I pray you after the lieutenant, go! (129–30) Enter CASSIO, driving in RODERIGO IAG. Go out and cry a mutiny! (148)

m

Othello, Gents

OTH. What is the matter here? (154)

m

Desdemona

OTH. Look if my gentle love be not raised up! (241)

Commentary and notes Coming from inwards, from the citadel. They go back inwards to the citadel. Simultaneous midscene entrance/exit. Cassio and Iago meet, greet: Iago returning from port. Cassio exits outwards to get gallants reported by Iago. Cassio returns with gallants. Cassio previously ordered by Othello to set guard; exits outwards to do so. Roderigo belatedly arrives from the citadel. Roderigo crosses to exit after Cassio. They return immediately. Iago orders Roderigo to go back out and raise the alarm. Othello roused by the alarm bell ringing. Her pattern echoes Othello’s.

Stage Doors and Stage Management Act /sc

Door Entering in characters Montano j

j

j

Door out

OTH. … myself will be your surgeon. (245)

Othello, all except Iago, Cassio Cassio

k

Roderigo

l

Roderigo

k

Iago

Space-time indication

OTH. Iago, look with care about the town … Come, Desdemona. (247, 249) IAG. Good night, lieutenant; I must to the watch. (324) IAG. How now, Roderigo? IAG..go where thou art billeted. … Thou shalt know more hereafter. (370–71) IAG. My wife must move for Cassio. I’ll set her on. Myself the while to draw the Moor apart. (373–5)

191 Commentary and notes Montano led off inwards to be treated, to Othello’s quarters. They go back within, to bed. Iago salutes Cassio who is going off to bed. Roderigo returns from raising the alarm, resolute to return to Venice. Iago persuades Roderigo to persevere, sends him off to bed, suggesting he will follow. He exits inwards, not to set watch (as he told Cassio he would), but to speak to Emilia and put his plans in place.

An application of this stage management system to Othello as a whole results in the last exit in almost every scene (whichever door it uses) being followed by a next-scene entrance from the other door: of the fourteen scene-breaks, all but two present these continuity patterns. Further, the deployment of such a system ensures that of the 71 re-entries of the six main characters, only 4 (or 6 percent) involve the actors crossing backstage to re-enter subsequently from the alternate door to their previous exit – so it clearly has other practical advantages: once an actor exits, he usually re-enters the stage from the same door. Macbeth is a prime example of a text which seems constructed to deal with the constraints of a two-door stage, as has been suggested in the previous chapter. An examination of key sections of this text demonstrates the implications of applying an inwards-outwards perspective. It shows a substantial presence of continuity or alternations patterns between scenes, and little congestion: congestions at the stage doors between entering and exiting characters seem to have been deliberately minimized by textual strategies.21 See Fitzpatrick, ‘Shakespeare’s Exploitation’.

21

192

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Statistics Based onTextual Analysis The following statistics are derived from an analysis of entrance and exit patterns in 50 plays by creating and then analysing detailed tables in the format exemplified above for Othello.22 The analysis is based on a number of assumptions: only two doors; the employment of an inwards-outwards spatial logic and stage management system as articulated above; and discounting congestions which are either minimal, minimized or deliberately ‘marked’. Given these assumptions, how many problematical congestions remain? The table below indicates that they cause no major complication at all. This analysis indicates that: 1. Some sort of congestion occurs at one third of the scene-breaks (34%); 2. Half of these congestions are minimal or minimized (17%); 3. Most of the others are deliberately marked congestions (14%); 4. A small residue present logistical challenges that make them problematical (3%); 5. Nearly three plays out of four (72% of them) are free of such problematical congestions; and of the fourteen that do have them, only three plays have more than one or two such problem congestions. Table 8.2  Congestion Patterns in 50 Plays Play

Author

Sc brks

Tot cons

Macbeth Twelfth Night The Comedy of Errors Love’s Labour’s Lost The Winter’s Tale The Taming of the Shrew Othello Much Ado about Nothing King Henry V Romeo and Juliet Cymbeline Richard III

Shakespeare Shakespeare Shakespeare

28 18 9

2 7 3

Tot cons as % 7% 39% 33%

Shakespeare

8

0

Shakespeare

14

Shakespeare

Min cons

Mkd cons

Prob cons

1 5 2

1 2 1

0 0 0

Prob cons as % 0% 0% 0%

0%

0

0

0

0%

3

21%

1

2

0

0%

13

1

8%

1

0

0

0%

Shakespeare Shakespeare

14 16

2 4

14% 25%

1 2

1 2

0 0

0% 0%

Shakespeare Shakespeare

29 26

8 6

28% 23%

5 5

3 1

0 0

0% 0%

Shakespeare Shakespeare

27 24

11 6

41% 25%

6 5

5 1

0 0

0% 0%

22 These 50 plays are a subset of a larger group, all of which are accessible as pdf files: see Sydney eScholarship Repository, University of Sydney Library, “Spatial Analyses of 80 Elizabethan and Jacobean Plays”: http://hdl.handle.net/2123/7136.

Stage Doors and Stage Management

Play

Author

Sc brks

Tot cons

Julius Caesar Measure for Measure The Tempest The Merchant of Venice King Henry VI part 2 Titus Andronicus A Midsummer Night’s Dream The Revenger’s Tragedy The Devil’s Charter Eastward Ho!

Shakespeare Shakespeare

17 16

8 4

Tot cons as % 47% 25%

Shakespeare Shakespeare

8 19

1 6

Shakespeare

23

Shakespeare

The Second Maiden’s Tragedy The Jew of Malta Hengist, King of Kent Edward the Second Hamlet Q1 The Battle of Alcazar Orlando Furioso A Chaste Maid in Cheapside Antonio and Mellida Antonio’s Revenge The Knight of Malta The English Traveller

193

Min cons

Mkd cons

Prob cons

7 2

1 2

0 0

Prob cons as % 0% 0%

13% 32%

0 2

1 4

0 0

0% 0%

9

39%

7

2

0

0%

14

4

29%

2

2

0

0%

Shakespeare

8

4

50%

4

0

0

0%

Middleton

19

4

21%

1

3

0

0%

Barnes

27

6

22%

5

1

0

0%

Jonson Chapman Marston Middleton

16

7

44%

3

4

0

0%

11

7

64%

3

4

0

0%

Marlowe

20

8

40%

4

4

0

0%

Middleton

20

6

30%

3

3

0

0%

Marlowe

24

7

29%

3

4

0

0%

Shakespeare Peele

16 17

3 9

19% 53%

1 2

2 7

0 0

0% 0%

Greene

9

6

67%

3

3

0

0%

Middleton

16

6

38%

3

3

0

0%

Marston

9

3

33%

3

0

0

0%

Marston

11

4

36%

2

2

0

0%

Fletcher, Field Heywood

18

3

17%

2

1

0

0%

15

11

73%

6

5

0

0%

194

Playwright, Space and Place in Early Modern Performance Sc brks

Tot cons

Shirley

13 16

7 8

Tot cons as % 54% 50%

Shakespeare

39

16

Shakespeare Kyd

28 22

Shakespeare Shakespeare Shakespeare

Min cons

Mkd cons

Prob cons

7 6

0 2

0 0

Prob cons as % 0% 0%

41%

7

8

1

3%

10 5

36% 23%

4 1

5 3

1 1

4% 5%

21 19 18

5 4 6

24% 21% 33%

1 0 1

3 3 4

1 1 1

5% 5% 6%

Chapman

14

7

50%

6

0

1

7%

Jonson Marlowe

13 18

6 8

46% 44%

4 2

1 4

1 2

8% 11%

Marlowe

17

3

18%

1

0

2

12%

Shakespeare

22

13

59%

4

6

3

14%

D’Avenant Webster

17 17

9 8

53% 47%

3 2

3 2

3 4

18% 24%

Jonson

6 879 Sc brks

3 297 Tot cons

50% 34% Tot cons as %

1 152 Min cons

0 121 Mkd cons

2 24 Prob cons

33% 3% Prob cons as %

Play

Author

The Cardinal A Knack to Know an Honest Man Antony and Cleopatra Coriolanus The Spanish Tragedy As You Like It Hamlet King Richard II The Widow’s Tears Catiline Tamburlaine the Great, part 2 Tamburlaine the Great, part 1 All’s Well that Ends Well The Distresses The Duchess of Malfi The Alchemist TOTAL

When a standardized door system is applied to a broad sample of plays there is clear evidence of triangulation of fictional spaces in about 90 percent of scenes, but more importantly for our purposes here, in two scene-breaks out of three such a system passes the important ‘alternation test’ to ensure continuity, and most instances of congestion are either minimized or deliberately marked. The very low statistical presence of problematical congestions (only 24 in a total of nearly 900 scene breaks – roughly one in 40) gives the lie to the assertion that two doors must inevitably connote slower production rhythms. These statistics do not of themselves prove the validity of the inwards-outwards system, but they do illustrate at least that it is possible to develop one hypothesis for managing entrances and exits

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on a two-door stage that leads to negligible problems of congestion and pacing. There may be another two-door system, or a refinement of the one I have proposed, which would give even better results – but in any case the problematical congestions do not represent a major logistical complication that would require for its solution the positing of a third opening. If you had such an opening, it might solve a number of these problematical congestions, but such a gain would be so slight that it does not of itself constitute an argument for the existence of such an opening. The evidence from these plays is predominantly of patterns of alternation between scenes when this system is used, and this is unlikely to be fortuitous. Then, where there is a between-scenes congestion pattern, in virtually all of such cases there is evidence of either minimizing or marking strategies. This suggests that it is possible that the playwrights, as they wrote, were writing for an oral stage management system and its staging implications, and were therefore inscribing spatial indications in their texts to facilitate such processes – spatial indications which might be clear even to modern readers who interrogate the texts with such practicalities in mind. An early play such as Ralph Roister Doister has a simple binary system: its single location (outside Ralph’s mistress’s house) requires only two entrances: from elsewhere, and from the house. However this does not constitute of itself a system that can handle the serial representation of multiple locations: the genesis of a system that can coherently and systematically represent multiple locations lies in the realization that the inwards-outwards binary so clearly evident in plays such as Ralph Roister Doister can simply be mapped over each location as the play progresses diachronically, so that however often the location changes, the basic inwards-outwards template is reproduced. From there it is a reasonably simple matter to manipulate final exits and initial entrances to ensure a high proportion of alternation patterns between scenes. Conclusion The argument mounted thus far for the existence of a stage management system that was a functional application of the triangular division of the fictional world into ‘here’, ‘outwards’ and ‘inwards’, has involved a particular sort of textual analysis of the playtexts, resulting in clear spatial patterns and significant statistical clusterings of alternation patterns between scenes. This analysis focuses on the functional logistics of the texts: it reads them as would an actor, concerned with the practical ‘traffic management’ issues of moving characters on and off the stage. This provides evidence of a rehearsal shorthand which would enable the actors to find their way in any play, however unfamiliar, simply by heeding the spatial directions in their dialogue. The fact that there seems to be no evidence of such a system in stage directions does not constitute evidence that it did not exist. Theatre processes, even those based on full scripts, are collaborative and oral – so it is not impossible that there was a system in place that left no documentary evidence simply because it was so

well-known and simple that it required no literate articulation. Conventions, insofar as they constitute ‘the normal way of doing things’, do not need to be written down. Is it the case, however, that there is no written evidence at all in stage directions? Potentially significant spatial information would most likely have been encoded in the dialogue since that is where it was needed, given that all the actors had was their written parts. But there is a corroborating argument to be made from a group of anomalous stage directions which have not received the attention they deserve. These stage directions possibly indicate that such a system was in operation, since they suggest that playwrights occasionally also inscribed the dialogue-based system into their stage directions to provide additional spatial information to the book-holder. Alternatively it is possible, if a particular text derives from a playhouse copy, that it was the book-holder himself who inscribed this information in the copy. This evidence will be the subject of the Thisprompt page has been leftnew blank intentionally following chapter.

Chapter 9

Stage Directions and Stage Management Bedford brought in sick in a Chair. (Henry VI part 1, III, ii, 40) Bedford dies, and is carried in by two in his Chair. (Henry VI part 1, III, ii, 114)

In their invaluable Dictionary of Stage Directions in English Drama1 Alan Dessen and Leslie Thomson note the substantial presence in the texts of the familiar verbs ‘enter’ and ‘exit’ to indicate movement onto and off the stage. These two English verbs derive from the Latin: ‘enter’ is from ‘introire’, which in turn consists of the prefix ‘intro-’ (in, into) and the verb ‘ire’ (to go). Even more directly, ‘exit’ is simply the third person singular of ‘exire’, composed of a prefix ‘ex-’ (out) and ‘ire’ (to go). It is perhaps not surprising, as Dessen and Thomson also note,2 that another set of verbs appears in stage directions such as that above from Henry VI part 1: verbs which paraphrase the Latin-based forms ‘enter’ and ‘exit’. Indeed ‘paraphrase’ is a precise description, for these are more typically English constructions known as ‘phrasal verbs’: constructions made up of verb + preposition, such as ‘come in’, ‘go out’, ‘carry in’, ‘run away’. It seems then that early modern stage directions sometimes used a Latin ‘enter/exit’ system, and at other times, even within the same text, employed an alternative and what might be termed a ‘Latinate’ phrasal construction, since ‘come in’ and ‘go out’ are simple translations or derivatives of ‘enter’ and’ exit’. A Confusion of ‘ins’ and ‘outs’ That, it would seem, might be the end of the matter; however Dessen and Thomson point out that there are many instances which puzzlingly contradict such a correspondence.3 Sometimes characters ‘come out’ onto the stage, and their exit is notated as ‘goes in’. Similarly, properties are often ‘thrust out’ onto the stage rather than being ‘brought in’. It is possible therefore that playwrights were not always working from a generic Latinate system when they were writing the stage directions, and that another conceptual framework generated these ‘reverse’ stage directions. Such a conceptual frame might have derived from the open air nature 1 Alan C. Dessen and Leslie Thomson, A Dictionary of Stage Directions in English Drama, 1580–1642 (Cambridge, 1999), pp. 84–5. 2 Dessen and Thomson, Dictionary, pp. 54, 101. 3 Dessen and Thomson, Dictionary, p. 120.

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of early modern public performance, where the stage was ‘outside’ in the open air courtyard at the centre of the playhouse, and the backstage or tiring house was ‘inside’ the fabric of the building; hence the act of leaving the stage might be conceived as going ‘in’ to the tiring house, and the act of entering the stage could be seen as coming ‘out’ of the tiring house, and properties stored inside were ‘thrust out’ onto the stage, to be then ‘drawn in’. Such a framework might then be termed ‘architectural’, insofar as it refers to the architecture of the playhouse. There are myriad examples of the former (Latin and Latinate) system in the ‘enter’ and ‘exit’ stage directions and their phrasal equivalents which punctuate the texts. Similarly there are many references to offstage sound effects occurring ‘within’ (i.e., offstage, within the tiring house) to support the notion that the latter architectural spatial conceptualization was also current. The use of ‘in’ as an entrance in the quarto of King Lear, when Gloucester is hauled before Goneril and Regan, might be seen as exemplifying the Latinate system: ‘Enter Gloucester brought in by two or three’ (III, vii, 27); and in The Widow’s Tears (1612) we see ‘out’ denoting an exit: ‘Lysander stamps and goes out vex’d, with Cynthia’ (C4r). In contrast however is a single stage direction from The Spanish Tragedy (1592), where ‘in’ denotes an exit and ‘out’ an entrance: ‘She, in going in, lets fall her glove, which Horatio, coming out, takes up’ (B4v). This would seem to involve the tiring house or architectural system, and clearly contradicts the Latinate system in its sense of ‘in’ and ‘out’. Such a flat contradiction – any such architectural or tiring house system will always directly contradict the Latinate system because it simply reverses the spatial polarities – has the potential to generate rather than alleviate confusion, and Dessen and Thomson wonder why and how two such contradictory systems persisted even in closely related stage directions4 – as occurs in Shakespeare’s Henry VI part 1 and Henry VI part 3 respectively: Bedford brought in sick in a Chair … Bedford dies, and is carried in by two in his Chair. (Henry VI part 1: III, ii, 40, 114) Enter Warwick, Somerset, and the rest, bringing the King out in his Gown. They lead him out forcibly. (Henry VI part 3: IV, iii, 27, 57)

If Bedford comes ‘in’ onto the stage, why is he then carried ‘in’ rather than ‘out’? If the King enters ‘out’ onto the stage from the tiring house, why does he then exit ‘out’ rather than back ‘in’ to the tiring house?

Dessen and Thomson, Dictionary, p. 120.

4

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199

An Alternative Explanation The presence of stage directions such as those quoted above, where both forms are used in close proximity to each other, makes it tempting to suggest that something else might be going on, and to suggest that such apparent contradictions might be resolved if considered in the light of the fictional space-based system proposed in the previous chapter. Can we analyse these stage directions in such a way as to establish the possibility that they provide further evidence of a spatial system operating in the minds of some playwrights as they wrote their dialogue and stage directions (or in the minds of book-holders as they annotated the texts for performance5)? I suggest that the playwrights or book-holders were indeed treating such entrances and exits in terms of fictional space rather than functional theatrical space: the choice of ‘in’ or ‘out’ or their equivalents was determined not by contradictory views of the ‘insideness’ and ‘outsideness’ of the stage and tiring house, but by the fictional direction the characters were going in the play. If a character was going to or coming from a house, or a private room in a house, or a town, then they would ‘go in’ to and ‘come out’ of that offstage place. If on the other hand they were coming from and going to the street, to a place of execution, to the battlefield, or the wider world in general, then they would ‘go out’ to and ‘come in’ from that offstage place. If we consider the stage directions in this light, it is immediately easy to see why a character such as Bedford in the quotation above can be brought ‘in’ and then taken ‘in’: the scene is before the city of Rouen, the English are attacking from ‘without’ and the French are ‘within’ and on the walls, as the same stage direction specifies. Bedford is brought ‘in’ from the English camp somewhere further out in the field, and is subsequently taken ‘in’ to the city (which the English have stormed in the meantime). Similarly King Edward in the other example: he is

5 Throughout this discussion I have adopted the convention of attributing the stage directions to the playwrights, though the status and provenance of many stage directions is a complex question. The debate about whether particular stage directions are attributable to the playwright or some other participant in the production process is long-standing and complex. Alan Dessen and Leslie Thomson’s introduction to their Dictionary of Stage Directions stresses the common language shared by seasoned playwrights in their stage directions (pp. viii–x), and how little we know about playhouse processes that might have impacted on the wording of such directions. This chapter argues that despite everything we don’t know about who was actually responsible for each of the stage directions on which it draws, nevertheless they do seem to reflect the same sort of spatial organization previously evidenced in the dialogue (that, clearly, the domain of the playwright). So if the stage directions reflect the dialogue-based scheme, and if it is possible that some of those stage directions are not the playwright’s but have been inserted or modified by other participants in the production process, this is in fact corroborating evidence for a set of spatial conventions shared not only by playwrights but also by those responsible for organizing specific performances of the playscripts.

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Playwright, Space and Place in Early Modern Performance

brought ‘out’ from somewhere further inwards (his tent) and then taken ‘out’ (on his way to custody in York). Analysis of a significant sample of phrasal verb stage directions corroborates the thesis argued in the previous chapter, with important implications in terms of the practical use of the lateral stage doors that are the primary interfaces between the fictional places signified by the stage and the relevant counter-spaces taken to lie just behind them in many scenes. Four Groups of ‘Fictional’ Stage Directions To establish the viability of the hypothesis of a fictional spatial system working along these lines and manifesting itself in these directions, we would hope to find evidence, in the deployment of these phrasal verbs, of four basic groups of ‘fictional’ stage directions: 1. characters come in, from somewhere that is outwards (e.g., from out in the street) 2. characters go out, to somewhere that is outwards (e.g., out to a place of execution) 3. characters come out, from somewhere that is inwards (e.g., out of a house) 4. characters go in, to somewhere that is inwards (e.g., into a bedroom) The analysis which follows is based on around six hundred instances of phrasal verb stage directions from some three hundred plays, derived mainly from the Dessen & Thomson Dictionary. The verbs used to indicate movement ‘in’ and ‘out’ are listed below; the same verb in combination with ‘in’ or ‘out’ (or an equivalent) can refer to either an entrance or an exit. Also included are some nouns commonly linked to the relevant words (which in such cases are prepositions rather than having an adverbial function to modify the verbs). Table 9.1  Common Phrasal Verbs bring, bear, beat, break, bring, carry, come, conduct, convey, creep, drag, draw, drive, fetch, follow, go, issue, lead, march, pluck, pull, pursue, put, run, rush, send, serve, set, shut, steal, take, thrust, tug, usher chamber, house, study answer, choir, horn, knock, noise, shouts, sounds, voices

in

out, forth, off, away

into within

out of without

The following data does not restrict itself to instances referred to by Dessen and Thomson, since their Dictionary must necessarily limit itself to providing representative samples of the multitude of instances they have catalogued in its preparation. However, their detailed and punctilious scholarship provides a generous sampling in the Dictionary, and a significant number of the 600 instances investigated derives from it. Here are some prime examples of the four patterns listed above, quoted with the relevant dialogue to indicate the sort of reasoning and spatial sense on which the following statistical analysis is based.

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Group 1: Comes In, and From ‘Outwards’ Chapman’s Gentleman Usher (1606) has a character run ‘in’ from offstage to knock at the other stage door, the door to a house: ‘Enter Pogio running in and knocking at Cynauche’s doore’ (E4v). Chamberlain’s Swaggering Damsel (1640) has the following exchange between two onstage characters in a room, followed by a stage direction to ‘let in’ the offstage knocker: Bett. – they knocke. Sab. They’re come I vow, runne to the doore. She runnes to doore and lets them in. Enter Valentine. (D3r)

Dekker’s Wonder of a Kingdom (1636) has a similar scene, with the supplicant ushered in from without: 4. Gal. There’s one without, before your Excellence Desires accesse. … Usher him in Pare and ragged. (D3v)

Davenport’s City Nightcap (1661) features a scene in which a bed is thrust out, and then two characters come to it from outside, one leading in the other: A bed thrust out: Lodovico sleeping in his cloaths: Dorathea in bed: Enter Clown leading in Francisco. Fran. Softly sweet Pambo: are we in the Chamber yet? Clown. Within a yard of my Lady. (B3r)

Group 2: Goes Out, and To ‘Outwards’ Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet has the following stage direction at the end of Juliet’s ‘death’ scene. Since the stage represents her bedroom, the reference to the other characters going ‘forth’ has clear fictional significance: ‘They all but the Nurse go forth, casting Rosemary on her and shutting the curtains’ (IV, v, 95). A similar opposition between a bed/bedroom and ‘out’ or ‘forth’ is found in the anonymous Battle of Alcazar (1594): ‘Enter the Moore and two murdrers bringing in his unkle.… they draw the curtains and smoother the young princes in the bed … and then goe forth’(A2v). Greene’s Tu Quoque (1614) by John Cooke, has a character beaten ‘away’, where it is clear from the dialogue that they are being beaten out of the house: Pend. Out you swaggering Rogue, Zownds Ile kicke him out of the roome. Beates him away. (C3r)

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Banishment and execution are strongly associated with being cast ‘out’, as the two following examples illustrate. Marston’s The Malcontent (1604) involves the banishment of the Dutchess, who is led ‘away’: Men. We banish thee for ever. … Prepasso and Guerino lead away the Dutches. (G1r)

In Heywood’s Edward IV part 2 (1600), the sentencing of Rufford involves him being taken ‘away’ (as the dialogue specifies), and led ‘out’ to execution: Glo. Away with him Lovell and Catesbie, go, Commaund the Sheriffes of London presently, To see him drawne, and hangd, and quartered, Let them not drinke before they see him dead. Hast you againe. Lovell and Catesbie lead out Rufford. (L4v)

Dekker’s Match Me in London (1631) has a domestic leading ‘away’, and the dialogue makes clear it is in a fictionally outwards direction: Tormiella is being led outside to the coach: Enter Tormiella, maks’d, and in other Garments, the Gentlewomen with her, and Gentlemen leading her away. Torm. Farewell Omn. to coach, away. (E3r)

In the anonymous The Taming of a Shrew (1594), the closing of the ‘frame’ play involves two characters entering, and then going back ‘out’. This ‘out’ is in clear fictional contrast with the movement pattern of the other character in the scene, the Tapster. As the two characters go ‘out’ through one stage door, back to an unspecified remote location, the Tapster comes out of the inn (which must be represented by the other stage door, from which he is hastening ‘abroad’), and finds Slie lying again in the road where he left him the night before: Then enter two bearing of Slie in his Owne apparrell againe, and leaues him Where they found him, and then goes out. Then enter the Tapster. Tapster. Now that the darkesome night is ourepast, And dawning day apeares in cristall sky, Now must I hast abroad: but soft whose this? (G2r)

Group 3: Comes Out, and From ‘Inwards’ At the beginning of the same play, The Taming of a Shrew, Slie and the Tapster enter from this same fictional offstage place, the tavern, where Slie has become drunk. Again we must assume the stage door stands for the tavern, and they come ‘out’ of this fictional inwards place onto the stage (road): ‘Enter a Tapster, beating

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out of his doores Slie Droonken’ (A2r). Middleton’s A Chaste Maid in Cheapside (1630) is one of many plays in which beds are ‘thrust out’, bringing with them ‘out’ onto the stage the inwards place of the bedroom for which they stand: ‘A bed thrust out upon the stage, Allwit’s Wife in it’ (E4r). Wilson’s Cobbler’s Prophecy (1594) features movement into the offstage area and back out, couched in clearly fictional terms as Raph goes into the house and is then pursued back out: Du. Well, Godameercie fellow, go thou in. Ex. Raph. … A cry within help, murther, murther, Raph comes running out, Ennius after him with his dagger drawen. (F2r)

Day’s Humour out of Breath (1608) involves a siege scene, where the town is clearly inwards. The ladies have previously left the stage to go ‘within’ to get shields: ‘Princess, we have, within there our shields’ (H1r), and now issue forth as the walls are being scaled: ‘As they are scaling the walls the ladies come forth’ (H1v). Massinger’s Renegado (1630) has a scene in which a discovery is effected by an onstage character opening one of the stage doors with a gilt key. This enables his prisoner Paulina to come ‘forth’ out of the place where she had been ‘mewde up’: plucks out a guilt key. … Asambeg opens a doore, Paulina discouerd comes forth. (E3r, E3v)

Heywood’s Four Prentises of London (1615) has a scene involving characters on the walls of Jerusalem (presumably in the gallery above the stage), referring to the besieging Christians on the stage below: Sol.

Why swarme these Christians to our Citty wals? Looke (forreiners) do not the lofty Spires, And these cloud-kissing Turrets that you see, Strike deadly terrour in your wounded soules? (I1r)

An order is then given to torture some Christian prisoners in sight of the besieging army, and the prisoners are brought ‘forth’ from their doubly inwards fictional place – within a prison within the city – out onto the walls: Tur. Send for some prisoners, martyre, torture them Euen in the face of all the Christian Hoast. Sol. It shall be so Moretes, bring them forth. … Enter some bringing forth old Bullen, and other prisoners bound. (I1v)

Many of the fictional stage directions which rely on inwards-outwards polarities are concerned with houses: both the outside of the house, and in regard to rooms within the house. There are many cases where characters who come onto the stage

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from inside a house (a house that is behind one of the stage doors) are described as coming ‘out’ onto the stage. Munday’s Fedele and Fortunio (1585) has, for example, ‘Enter Crackstone out of Victoriaes house’ (E3r), and ‘Enter Crackstone out of Victoria’s house and enter Pedante disguised, coming forth out of Victoria’s house’ (E4v); Heywood’s Silver Age (1613) has: ‘All the servants run out of the house affrighted’ (F1v). The anonymous play Sir John Oldcastle (1600) has a character come out of the house, with the more private fictional place established by his ‘private’ costume: ‘Lord Cobham comes out in his gowne stealing’ (I2r). Shakespeare’s Timon of Athens features servants waiting onstage for Timon to come ‘out’ of his house: ‘Enter Varro’s two Servants, meeting other Servants of Timon’s creditors, to wait for his coming out’ (III, iv, 0). Within the house, certain rooms seem to be more inwards or private than others. Invariably characters come onto the stage ‘out’ of their studies, as in Suckling’s Goblins (1648): ‘As out of his Study’ (IV, i, 32). In Nabbes’s The Bride (1640) an offstage sound effect signals a threat from outside, and two onstage characters are sent further ‘in’ to hide in a room explicitly referred to as ‘inner’ or private – and once the threat has passed come ‘forth’ again: A noise within. Rav. What noise is that? Perhaps some that pursue you, hide your selves, Her’s an inner roome. Puts them into another roome. … Theo and Bride come forth againe. (D4r, D4v)

This inwards-outwards geography of the house is clearly intuited in a scene from Middleton’s No Wit like a Woman’s (1657): Weatherwise has already brought the Widow into his house, but she has not yet come in so far as the room signified by the stage, which is now set as the dining room. She is still further out, looking at his clock, and he will bring her further in immediately, once the servants have set the table they have brought out from further inwards. They exit, and he goes back outwards to ‘fetch in’ the Widow: Enter Weatherwise the Gull, meeting two or three bringing out a Table. Weath. So, set the Table ready, the Widow’s i’th’next room, looking upon my Clock with the days and the moneths, and the change of the Moon: I’ll fetch her in presently. [he exits and] [servants] Exeunt Enter Weatherwise with the Widdow, Sir Gilbert Lambston, Mr Pepperton, Mr. Overdon. Weath. Welcome sweet Widow to a Batchelors house here, a single man; I, but for two or three Maids that I keep. (C1v)

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Group 4: Goes In, and To ‘Inwards’ An excellent example where the fictional inwards is clearly in evidence both in the dialogue and the stage direction is from Heywood’s The English Traveller (1633): Reig. Take this drunkared hence, and to bestow him elsewhere. They carry him in. … Y. Lio. But whither? But into th’ selfesame house That harbours him; … Reig. I will make That Prison of your feares, your Sanctuary; Goe get you in together. Y. Lio. To this house? … Reig. Will you in? … Ile stand a Champion for you all within. (D3v)

Shirley’s The Gentleman of Venice (1655) is one of many plays in which an exit into the more inwards parts of the house represents a retreat from an external threat (as we have seen above in the example from Nabbes’s The Bride). The play begins with Malipiero knocking from offstage at his uncle Cornari’s house. A servant opens the door to admit him, and after being kicked runs further in – as much to avoid more violence as to fetch Cornari for his nephew: Enter Malipiero, who knocks at a Doore, to him a Servant. Mal. Where is my Uncle sirra? Ser. Not within. Mal. Come hither, tell me truth. Ser. Hee’s gone abroad. Mal. He has commanded your officious rogueship To deny him to me. Mal. Kicks him. Ser. What do you mean sir? Mal. To speak with my Uncle sirrah, and these kicks Shall fetch him hither. Ser. Help. He runns in. (A4r)

Marlowe’s Tamburlaine part 2 (1590) has Tamburlaine’s young sons run ‘in’ to their tent at the sounds of battle from offstage: ‘Alarm, and Amyras and Celebinus run in’ (F3r). Celebinus, the less brave of the two, is later fetched back ‘out’ by Tamburlaine: ‘He goes in and brings him out’ (F4r). The spatial opposition between the safety of the tent (inwards) and the threat of the battlefield (outwards) is clear from Amyras’ speech of intercession to Tamburlaine: ‘Good my lord, let him be forgiven for once, And we will force him to the field hereafter’ (F4r). Most often the inwards spatial pole is a bedroom or a study: Marston’s The Malcontent features a scene in which the spatial opposition is very clear. Freneze is ‘convayed in’ to the bedroom, whereas the pages accompanying him are ‘sent away’:

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Playwright, Space and Place in Early Modern Performance Enter Mendoza with a sconce, to observe Frenezes entrance, who whilest the Act is playing: Enter unbraced two pages before him with lights, is met by Maquerelle and convayed in. The pages are sent away. (C4v)

Alexander, in Barnabe Barnes’s The Devil’s Charter (1607), exits ‘into the studie’ (G2v); similarly beds, which are either ‘thrust out’ or have characters ‘enter’ in them, are ‘pull’d in’ at the end of the scene – as occurs in Davenport’s New Trick (1639): Enter Anne in Bed. … An. I told you of’t before hand: I would sleepe: Hand in my bed, Ile turne to the wall, and try if I can Sleepe, so good night all. The Bed pull’d in. Wi. So, softly as you can; some little rest Will bring her to her temper. (I4r, I4v)

The two lines of dialogue after the bed is pulled back in are probably provided so that the characters who remain onstage can cross and exit via the other door, i.e., leave the bedroom. Heywood’s Iron Age part 2 (1632) has a fascinating example of the inwardsoutwards polarity implicit in siege scenes. The siege in question is that of Troy, and involves the entrance by stealth into the city of Ulysses and his men through the breach made to admit the wooden horse. They are about to rendezvous with Pyrhus and the other Greeks secreted in the horse: Ulis. Now with a soft march enter at this breach But give no token of a load Alarme, Till we have met with Pyrhus and the rest, Whom the Steedes bulke includes. They march softly in at one doore, and presently in at another. Enter Synon with a stealing pace, holding the key in his hand. Syn. Soft, soft, ey so, hereafter Ages tell, How Synons key unlockt the gates of Hell. (D4v)

The stage direction is unusual: Ulysses and his soldiers enter through one stage door, cross the stage and exit through the ‘breach’ (the other stage door) into the city. But they must then cross backstage to re-enter immediately through the door they first used (it is specified as ‘another’ door – i.e., not the one they have just exited through). This is therefore a sort of ‘spiral’ spatial pattern, with both exit and re-entrance being inwards – both, that is, standing for the action of ‘moving further into the city’ – since they have met up with Synon while crossing backstage. He has, having convinced the Trojans to admit the wooden horse, gained access to a key to enable Ulysses’ company to pass through other, inner defences – presumably by unlocking the stage door for them.

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Statistical Analysis of Stage Directions How, then, are these four groups of fictionally directional stage directions represented in the 600 analyzed? Table 9.2 shows that mostly the ‘in’ or ‘out’ aligns with an inwards-outwards spatial relationship between the stage place and its offstage counter-place/s, but sometimes the stage directions contradict such a scheme or are ‘indeterminate’. When a phrasal verb is used, the last two columns show that 67 percent to 79 percent of the time (depending on how you view the statistics) it is consonant with the fictional system. Table 9.2  The ‘in’/‘out’ Directions and Fictional Inwards/Outwards Categories of stage direction

Comes in, and from ‘outwards’ Goes out, and to ‘outwards’ Comes out, and from ‘inwards’ Goes in, and to ‘inwards’ Comes in, but from ‘inwards’ Goes out, but to ‘inwards’ Comes out, but from ‘outwards’ Goes in, but to ‘outwards’

Consonance or contradict’n

Latinate system consonant with fictional

Archit system consonant with fictional

Latinate system contradicts fictional

Archit system contradicts fictional

Instances

Latinate Archit subtotal

Cons. or contr. subtotal

As % of total

As % of det. total

126 255 129 400 = 67%

79%

105 = 18%

21%

97 145 48

38 77 39

12 28 16

Latinate

indeterminate 

50

Architectural

indeterminate 

45

 

 

600

95 600

95 = 16% 600

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This result is not what we would expect to find if there were no fictional system operating. If the playwrights were not invoking any fictional space-based system, but were instead either using ‘comes in’ and ‘goes out’ as paraphrases of the generic Latin-derived ‘enter’ and ‘exit’, or were thinking architecturally and using ‘comes out’ and ‘goes in’ in reference to the tiring house’s interiority in contrast to the stage’s openness – if that were the case we would expect to find the instances of these phrasal verb forms evenly distributed in terms of any possible attribution of inwards-outwards directionality. A character who ‘goes out’ would be just as likely to be going to a fictionally inwards place as to a fictionally outwards place; there would be no reason why ‘comes out’ would be used more often in situations where a character is coming from an inwards place than from an outwards place; no reason why ‘goes in’ would be used more in cases where the character is going to a fictional inwards location when they leave the stage – since either way they are just coming ‘out’ of or going ‘in’ to the tiring house. However these 600 stage directions indicate that where the Latinate phrasing (come in/go out) is used it tends by a large margin of probability to be in cases where characters are coming in from and going out to a more outwards or public location (see column 4: 255 consonant instances, only 77 contradicting the spatial scheme). Conversely, where the architectural locution is used (come out/go in), it tends to be in cases where characters are coming out from and going in to a more inwards or private location (145 consonant instances, only 28 contradicting the spatial scheme). The total number of instances where the stage direction is consonant with the spatial scheme is 400 (column 5), compared with only 105 contradictory directions. The data therefore does not by any means provide the 50–50 breakdown we would expect if the phrasal verbs were simply reflecting one or other of the two generic systems. When phrasal verbs are employed, the ‘in-ness’/‘out-ness’ implicit in them corresponds in most cases with the fictional inwards-outwards system. Stage Directions Which Contradict Such Patterns The examples discussed above, where the in/out prepositions reflect the inwardsoutwards division of the fictional world articulated in the dialogue, represent the vast majority of the instances analyzed; not all the cases are as clear as some of those cited above, and indeed from the discussion of some of these instances it is obvious that an elucidation of the spatial scheme implicit in the stage directions often involves fine-grained understanding of what is going on in the scene involved, or indeed in the broader scheme of the play. Further complicating the enterprise is the fact that there is a definite minority of stage directions in which there is a contradiction between the in/out preposition and the fictional world articulated in the dialogue. Here are some examples of contradictory stage directions. Davenant’s The Wits (1665) involves a chest which is brought out onto the stage, but despite the fact that the dialogue specifies that it is ‘within’, it is not drawn ‘out’, but ‘in’:

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Engine. Draw out the chest within, that’s big enough To hold you. They draw in a Chest. (E1r)

Barnabe Barnes’s The Devil’s Charter has a scene in which Lucretia enters the stage in her nightgown (presumably from the more private, inwards bedroom). She brings a chair; but brings it ‘in’ rather than ‘out’: ‘Enter Lucretia alone in her night gowne untired, bringing in a chaire’ (C1r). In Chapman’s Caesar and Pompey (1631) Cato invites two other characters to dinner: ‘In meane time come sup.’ This would be an exit inwards to dine, but the stage direction then specifies: ‘Cato going out arme in arme between Athe. and Statilius’ (H2r). Similarly in Marston’s Antonio’s Revenge (1602), ‘Mellida swoons’, and Piero orders the ladies to ‘Convey her up into her private bed’; but the stage direction does not reflect this inwards fictional sense: ‘Maria, Nutice, and the Ladies bear out Mellida, as being swooned’ (H2r). Troublesome Reign of King John part 1 (1611) has an interesting scene in which Hubert sends his attendants offstage to wait in ambush just behind the stage door: Hubert.

Therefore in briefe, leave me, and be readie to attend the adventure: stay within that entry, and when you hear me crie, God save the King, issue suddenly forth, lay hands on Arthur. (F1v)

Hubert then calls forth his prisoner Arthur, for some fresh air – and the attendants issue forth as directed: ‘They issue forth’ (F1v) This ‘forth’ is in contradiction to a fictional scheme, since it would be Arthur who would be coming ‘forth’ from a fictional inwards (his prison) to take some fresh air; the attendants therefore would be coming ‘in’ from outwards rather than ‘forth’. The fictional spatial sense invoked here it is not the generic inwards-outwards one, but a more limited sense of an offstage hiding place (‘within that entry’), from which the attendants erupt onto the stage. Heywood’s Edward IV part 2 (1600) has a similar scene involving fresh air for a prisoner; in this case, however, the spatial contradiction involves the prisoner himself, who is brought ‘in’ rather than ‘out’ into the fresh air: Enter mistris Blage & her two men, bringing in Shoare alias Floud, in a chaire, his arme bleeding apace. Bla. So, let him here a while, where is more aire. (K1v)

In the first quarto of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, Paris has been visiting the Capulet household and prepares to leave; however, the stage direction does not follow a fictional logic that would have him go ‘out’: ‘Paris offers to go in and Capulet calls him again’ (Q1: G2v, III, iv,11).

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A Small Number of Indeterminate Stage Directions These instances of ‘contradictory’ stage directions are complemented by another, final category: among the stage directions analyzed there is a small number of indeterminate directions, where it has been impossible to intuit any spatial directionality in the scene or in the exit or entrance involved. Perhaps this is due to shortcomings in the analyst, or perhaps the playwrights involved were not as spatially explicit as some of their colleagues; but such directions need to be factored into the statistical analysis. It can be argued that we should take a hard line with the data, and insist on including these 95 ‘indeterminate’ directions in any statistical breakdown: a thesis which argues that there are determinate fictional spatial directions embedded in these stage directions is as damaged by indeterminacy as it is by directions which directly contradict its fictional scheme. If we include these indeterminate stage directions, the consonant directions are still 67 percent (column 6). The counter argument, that the indeterminate stage directions should be excluded, would point out that in any case these phrasal verb directions represent a rather small subset of all stage directions which refer to entrances and exits: there are many thousands of indeterminate directions that simply use the Latin forms ‘enter’ and ‘exit’, and the playwrights who were indeterminate with their use of the phrasal verb forms were no better or worse than those who restricted themselves to the non-directional classical usage of ‘enter’ and ‘exit’. If we eliminate these ‘indeterminate’ directions from consideration, nearly 80 percent of the remaining 500 or so where the spatial sense is clear are consonant with the fictional geography (column 7). Depending on point of view, then, the consonant directions represent somewhere between two thirds and four fifths of the phrasal verb stage directions analyzed. Among these cases of consonance between stage direction and fictional geography, there is a higher consonance in cases where characters or objects ‘come out’ or are ‘thrust out’ onto the stage (97 instances against just 12 contradictory directions). Beds probably account for the higher consonance in this category, since objects such as beds loom large in the plays, and will be described as being moved ‘out’ whether the playwright is thinking fictionally or in terms of the tiring house (there are no known cases of beds being ‘thrust in’ onto the stage!). Broader Implications of These Stage Directions A further motive for theorizing a system based on fictional place is that the other explanations (translation into phrasal verb form of the Latin ‘enter’ and ‘exit’, or invoking the ‘insideness’ of the tiring house to explain ‘comes out’, etc.) are not specific in terms of providing the actors with information about the precise point of their entrance or exit.

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The stages of the public playhouses were fitted with two access doors through which most entrances and exits were made – as is conceded by even the strongest supporters of a central discovery space that might (they argue) have provided a third entrance and exit point in special circumstances.6 As we have seen in earlier chapters it is generally accepted that the doors were used to create commonsense oppositional patterns for entrances and exits: characters meeting enter at different doors, characters parting leave the stage through opposed doors, etc.7 But neither the Latinate nor the architectural systems provide any clue to the actors or the book-holder as to the specific direction of any particular entrance or exit; they merely indicate movement from the stage to the tiring house or vice versa. These are both simple binary systems which counterpose onstage and offstage, whether conceived in Latinate or architectural terms:

By contrast, if the fictional spatial system derived from dialogue indications which has been the subject of this book can now also be discerned in these stage directions, this suggests that in addition to a broader import based on commonsense and ‘thematic’ oppositions it did indeed have the pragmatic stage management function articulated in the previous chapter. It would logically map onto the two stage doors as the most obvious stage signifiers of the contrasting inwards and outwards offstage segments of the fictional world which these stage directions seem to invoke, directing the actors in their entrances and exits. In place of the limited binary schema above, these phrasal verb stage directions work in a more complex and useful way, replacing the functional spaces of stage and tiring house with their triangulated fictional alternatives:

See Andrew Gurr, ‘Doors at the Globe: the Gulf between Page and Stage’, Theatre Notebook 55/2 (2001): pp. 59–71, 65–6; and Mariko Ichikawa, ‘Were the Doors Open or Closed? The Use of Stage Doors in the Shakespearean Theatre’, Theatre Notebook 60/1 (2006): p. 5. 7 See also Mariko Ichikawa, Shakespearean Entrances (Basingstoke, 2002), pp. 78–9. 6

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Such a system would serve two related purposes. Firstly, as we have seen in previous chapters, it would articulate for the actors and audience alike the onstage/ offstage ‘geography’ of the fictional world with its multiple sets of contrasting offstage areas which change from scene to scene: it would enable the geography of the fictional world (the onstage and offstage fictional ‘signifieds’) to be ‘read’ and understood through the actors’ movements into and out of the two opposed entrance doors (the performance signifiers of this fictional geography). Secondly, the standardized use of the doors serves a functional or logistical purpose, providing the actors and others involved in the performance with immediately useful performance information as to where precisely they should exit and enter the stage. Such a consistent ‘marking’ of the two stage doors would therefore constitute a rudimentary stage management system that would both signify and reinforce in functional terms the fictional division of the world of the play, and would provide the actors with a simple rule of thumb for their entrances and exits – facilitating the preparation process by reducing the number of decisions to be made. The arguments made in previous chapters on the basis of indications in the dialogue are now reinforced by the evidence adduced above in relation to phrasal verb stage directions. This new evidence strengthens in particular the argument for the second, functional role for such a system – since the stage directions in the book-holder’s copy of the play constituted a major resource in terms of the logistics of performance. If the playwrights’ lexical choices in a statistically significant number of stage directions reflect the inwards-outwards geography of the fictional world evidenced in the dialogue, then this constitutes – precisely because of the pragmatic, functional, stage management import of stage directions – potentially important corroborative evidence for the dialogue-derived system which I have posited. If characters entering are sometimes told to ‘come in’ and sometimes to ‘come out’ – and characters exiting the stage are sometimes directed to ‘go out’ and sometimes to ‘go in’ – these contrasting locutions would usefully signal to the

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actors and the book-holder an entrance or exit through the outwards or stageleft door, or an entrance or exit through the inwards or stage-right door. This suggests that the phrasal verbs were usually being employed to provide specific information about the fictional and hence functional direction of entrance or exit, and that this system based on fictional space was in fact the underlying motive for such a notation. Conclusion Analysis of a large number of directions in a broad range of texts indicates that authors continued to use the generic Latin-derived ‘enter’ and ‘exit’ in stage directions, forms which are non-specific in terms of fictional direction. When they use phrasal verbs instead, in a small number of cases the stage direction is spatially indeterminate, providing no more explicit information about the direction of the entrance or exit than would the Latin-derived form. And a relatively small number of these phrasal verb directions actually contradict the fictional inwardsoutwards scheme evidenced in the dialogue. But in a substantial majority of cases the phrasal verb directions strongly support the existence of spatial patterns based on fictional geography, patterns that ascribed contrasting spatial significance to the two lateral doors, and that provided actors with directional information about their point of entry or exit. The overwhelming persistence of the generic Latin-derived forms ‘enter’ and ‘exit’ would explain at least in part why the phrasal verb forms do not always reflect the fictional spatial system (the 96 ‘indeterminate’ instances), and sometimes directly contradict it (the 102 ‘contradictory’ instances): playwrights used to the indeterminate ‘entrance’ and ‘exit’ forms might not always have considered specificity in the stage directions to be important, and might therefore have been using these phrasal verbs as simple ‘indeterminate’ variants of the classically derived Latin forms. Further, it might well be the case that the spatial sensitivity of individual playwrights differed markedly, leading them to use these phrasal verbs imprecisely and even erroneously. This would explain some of the ‘contradictory’ stage directions noted above, as well as the small group of ‘indeterminate’ directions. The flat contradictions between the uses of ‘come in’ and ‘come out’ for an entrance, and ‘go out’ and ‘go in’ for an exit, are not satisfactorily explained by invoking an uneasy cohabitation of two contrasting binary systems, the Latinate and the architectural. A more satisfactory explanation, supported by this analysis, is that a generic Latinate scheme (enter/exit, paraphrased as come in/go out), initially adopted from classical models, was then made more specific over time with the emergence of an inwards-outwards fictional spatial scheme. Once the stage doors were employed as two opposed signifiers for fictional inwards and outwards, this then generated ‘come out’ and ‘go in’ to specify activity at the inwards door, and

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‘come in’ and ‘go out’ was restricted to mean something more specific than it had previously: it now signalled activity at the outwards door. The directions ‘come out’ and ‘go in’, to signify activity specific to the inwards door, may have continued to be used by some playwrights – whether in ignorance or deliberate vagueness – to refer to the tiring house in general (particularly regarding beds and other large properties) rather than a specifically inwards fictional location. Linda McJannet8 has an excellent discussion of these verb forms and, basing her conclusions on a smaller data sample than that discussed above, suggests that initially phrasal verbs were commonly used. Fairly soon, however, the two-word translations (‘come in’, ‘enter in’, ‘Go out’) yielded to the more efficient ‘Enter’ and ‘Exit’/‘Exeunt’.9 The instances quoted above are of course from published plays, and they may reflect much earlier manuscripts; nevertheless there are instances of phrasal verbs in our sample texts consistently right up to the 1630s. It is beyond the scope of this data, however, to calculate the relative frequency of phrasal verbs to Latin or Latinate forms at any one point in the historical continuum, and hence to plot changes in such relativity over time. While it can be argued that spatial indications in the dialogue might merely be to provide the actors and audience with some generic fictional spatial ‘background’ for the action, evidence of a similar articulation of space in the stage directions – in those very textual instruments aimed at controlling the functional stagecraft of performance – suggests that this went beyond the generic to the practical and particular. It seems instead to have been a widely accepted system that worked at the functional as well as the fictional level to ensure the smooth running of performance and to facilitate performance preparation, enabling the playwrights to encode spatial information into their texts – to write with performance ‘foresight’.10 Only with a range of such strategies and systems in place would it have been possible for Henslowe’s company and the other acting companies to cope with the logistical demands of a tight production schedule, and a theatre industry that required of them a repertory system that turned over plays in rapid succession.

Linda McJannet: The Voice of Elizabethan Stage Directions (Newark/London,

8

1999).

McJannet, The Voice, p. 144. Tim Fitzpatrick, ‘Playwrights with Foresight: Staging Resources in the Elizabethan

9

10

Playhouses’, Theatre Notebook 56/2 (2002): pp. 85–116.

Chapter 10

Stage Doors and Ramifications Oli. Good morrow, fair ones. Pray you (if you know) Where in the purlieus of this forest stands A sheep-cote fenc’d about with olive-trees? (As You Like It, IV, iii, 75–77)

The previous chapters have outlined evidence from both dialogue and stage directions for a broadly accepted stage management system based on fictional space. Such a system would only be of practical use to the actors if it generated a sufficiently strong sense of regularities of spatial patterning that the faintest spatial cue in the dialogue would be correctly read without adding to the considerable cognitive load they carried, performing as they did with limited rehearsal time.1 This chapter will consider this issue, examining the ramifications, for some of the most commonly used fictional locations, of a system based on just two entrypoints. This discussion will illustrate the extent to which such regularities would help sensitize both actors and audience to spatial hints in the dialogue. For instance, the location of the ‘sheep-cote’ in As You Like It is, on close inspection, clearly signalled in the dialogue, despite the fact that this is a ‘forest’ setting – a setting that might not at first sight seem amenable to a system based on inwards-outwards triangulation. But it is also perhaps an indication of one further aspect of such a system that requires discussion: which door leads inwards, and which outwards? Which Door is Which, and Why: East and West In the previous chapter’s table for Othello, the stage-right door has been specified as the inwards door, and this is based on two complementary lines of evidence. The first of these relates to the orientation of the Globe playhouse in Southwark, which the most reliable evidence suggests had its stage on the southern or southwestern side, so that the actors looking out from the stage over the yard were facing roughly north.2 Some references in Shakespeare’s texts to east-west orientation in 1 This important issue has been raised by Evelyn Tribble, ‘Distributing Cognition in the Globe’, Shakespeare Quarterly, 56/2 (Summer 2005): pp. 143–4; this chapter constitutes an argument against her dismissal of such a system as involving excessive cognitive overloads for the actors. 2 Wenzel Hollar’s sketch of the second Globe which features as the cover illustration to this book shows a massive stage cover on the southwest side of the playhouse. We can justifiably assume that the second Globe’s stage was oriented as had been the first’s, since the most recent archaeological evidence is that the second playhouse was built on

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the fiction may also be referring metatheatrically to the orientation of the stage at the first Globe. This evidence might then be a basis on which to posit a playhousespecific system, but a second line of evidence to be discussed in the following section might suggest that there was a more general basis for the use of the stageright door as inwards. If there were any consistency of these fictional east-west patterns, it might corroborate the inwards-outwards two-door theory which has been exemplified thus far, and would underline the initial premise, at least as far as the first Globe is concerned, that original staging conditions are of prime importance for a rich understanding of the texts. It is possible that Shakespeare was conscious of, and occasionally reminded his audience of, the orientation of the stage: on a number of occasions he might be aligning the east-west axis of the fictional space with the east-west axis of the stage – a metatheatrical effect which foregrounds the orientation of the theatre building in which they are watching the performance. The metatheatrical underlining of the convergence between fictional and performance orientation is probably linked to the outdoor nature of performance: in the open air the audience is more likely to retain its sense of orientation than if in an indoor theatre. An analogous correspondence of fictional to performance orientation is generally accepted in regard to classical Greek theatre – as outlined, for instance, by Michael Ewans.3 However, the positioning of the theatre of Dionysos in relation to the centre of Athens means that the inwards-outwards pattern (city/inwards/skene-left, country/outwards/skeneright) is the opposite to that being proposed here for the Globe playhouse. The Shakespeare concordances show a number of entries featuring ‘east’ and ‘west’ (also ‘north’ and ‘south’, but a quick examination of them discounts them from our purposes). However, most of these east-west entries are either simply meteorological (rising and setting of the sun as a time-indicator, direction of wind), refer to all points of the compass generally (as a depiction of extent, etc.), or refer to generic directions of very distant events (armies gathering in the east, etc.). There is, however, a short list of potentially significant indications worthy of individual discussion. the foundations of the first: see Julian Bowsher and Pat Miller, The Rose and the Globe: Playhouses of Tudor Bankside, Southwark: Excavations 1988–91 (London, 2009), p. 127. This configuration would have put the audience entry-points (to the yard and, via the external stair turrets visible in Hollar’s sketch, to the galleries) to the northeast so as to best funnel audience into the playhouse: most audience would have crossed London Bridge and walked west along Maids Lane which ran on the north side of the playhouse. The Rose, on the northern side of this thoroughfare, had its stage to the north – probably for similar reasons. For more discussion of these issues see Tim Fitzpatrick, ‘Reconstructing Shakespeare’s Second Globe using CAD design tools’, Early Modern Literary Studies, March 2004 (special edition, ed. Gabriel Egan, of online journal: http://extra.shu.ac.uk/ emls/si-13/fitzpatrick/index.htm). 3 Michael Ewans (ed.), The Oresteia (London, 1995), p. xxxviii n: ‘Reflecting the actual topography of Athens, these [the parodoi] represented entry either from the downtown district of the place in which the action is located (skene-left), or from the country and from other cities (skene-right).’

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First let us examine half a dozen examples where fictional ‘west’ would align with the stage-left door as leading outwards. The strongest piece of evidence occurs in the garden scene in Twelfth Night, III, i. Viola has come to visit Olivia; the Clown informs her that Olivia is ‘within’ (56), and then Sir Toby invites Viola inside: ‘Will you encounter the house? My niece is desirous you should enter’ (74–5). But as they about to go in, Olivia forestalls them by coming outside, causing Viola to say ‘we are prevented’ (83). Olivia then asks the others to go inside and close the door, leaving her and Viola alone in the garden: ‘Let the garden door be shut, and leave me to my hearing’ (92–3). When, some 40 lines later, she decides the meeting has been a waste of time, she sends Viola on her way: Oli. There lies your way, due west. Vio. Then westward ho! (Twelfth Night, III, i, 134)

Viola is certainly being sent back outwards, so if Shakespeare is capitalizing here on a correspondence between fictional and performance orientation, the outwards door must lie to the west, or stage-left. It is significant that the Arden edition’s note explicitly links Viola’s exclamation with local topography, noting that ‘Westward ho!’ was ‘The Thames watermen’s call for passengers from the City to Westminster’.4 The boatmen’s calls may well have been audible to the audience in the Globe playhouse, so this possible metatheatrical effect would rely not only on the audience’s sense of the orientation of the playhouse in the cityscape, but also on auditory reinforcement. As You Like It has a similar passage where the fictional place marker may involve a metatheatrical reference to Southwark, as well as providing an excellent example of how inwards-outwards can function in forest scenes. In IV, iii Oliver seeks from Celia and Rosalind directions to their cottage: Oli. Good morrow, fair ones. Pray you (if you know) Where in the purlieus of this forest stands A sheep-cote fenc’d about with olive-trees? Cel. West of this place, down in the neighbour bottom, The rank of osiers by the murmuring stream Left on your right hand, brings you to the place. (As You Like It, IV, iii, 75–80)

The stage place is somewhere within the forest, but the offstage cottage is not a nearby inwards location. Instead it is some distance away: there is a pleasant walk to be had to get to it, and it is in fact not in the forest, but in the purlieus (or ‘lands J.M. Lothian and T.W. Craik (eds), Twelfth Night (London, 1975), p. 82. This passage also struck Hotson, who believed it to be a reference to the orientation of the stage doors – though he was talking about Olivia’s and Orsino’s ‘houses’ in the great hall at Whitehall, where he believed the play was first performed: Leslie Hotson, The First Night of ‘Twelfth Night’ (London & New York, 1954), p. 139. 4

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bordering on a forest’) – in other words it, along with the road to civilization and the village, is further off than what lies behind the other, inwards door: the forest proper where Oliver has met snakes, lionesses and the Duke. For most of this play the proximate/inwards/nearby/private place is the centre of the forest where the Duke has taken up residence; all the other visitors arrive from remote locations (except for Oliver, whom we don’t see until after his encounter with the forest). While Orlando and Adam join the foresters, the Ladies have retreated to the convenience of the cottage, but still meet with the other characters at that in-between place in the forest represented by the stage.5 This would make the cottage an outwards location, and if it were indicated as lying beyond the stageleft door, this would align the fictional topography with that of London, with the nearby Thames as ‘the murmuring stream’. The Two Gentlemen of Verona also presents a forest location in which inwards and outwards are clearly counterposed in a similar manner. The outlaws enter, having captured Silvia in the ‘thicket’. One of them is then instructed to take her to their Captain, Valentine, while the others go back into the thicket to try once more to capture her companion: 3. Out. Go thou with her to the west end of the wood; There is our captain. We’ll follow him that’s fled – The thicket is beset, he cannot scape. (The Two Gentlemen of Verona, V, iii, 9–11)

This would suggest that the outlaws enter from inwards (the ‘thicket’, the densest part of the forest), and then re-exit inwards back to the thicket – while Silvia is escorted off outwards towards the ‘west end of the wood’. However while this example clarifies the workings of inwards-outwards patterns in forest scenes, it does not feature the possible metatheatrical dimension of the preceding examples. An example from Henry IV part 2 is similarly corroborative only: the scene involves a group of characters (Archbishop of York, Mowbray, Hastings, Lord Bardolph etc.) in Gaultree Forest. A messenger enters to them (presumably from outwards), to report:

5 Andrew Gurr, ‘Doors at the Globe: the Gulf between Page and Stage’, Theatre Notebook 55/2 (2001): p. 60 has criticized as impractical the inwards-outwards stage management system I have posited, maintaining it loses shape in outdoors scenes: ‘Even the outward and inward functions for the two flanking doors get lost in plays all set in outdoor locations.’ I believe that a careful reading of my article, ‘Stage Management, Dramaturgy and Spatial Semiotics in Shakespeare’s Dialogue’, Theatre Research International, 23/1 (1999), pp. 42–57, would suggest otherwise: even in outdoor scenes there are usually clear indicators of spatial polarities between the place represented by the stage-space (a clearing in the forest) and opposed offstage places (inwards: deeper into the forest contrasted to outwards: the countryside, the town).

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Mess. West of this forest, scarcely off a mile, In goodly form comes on the enemy. (Henry IV part 2, IV, i, 19)

This would again align ‘west’ and outwards, though it could well be argued that there need be no necessary cross-reference between the orientation of a forest in Yorkshire and a stage-space in London. The same holds for Richard III, where in IV, iv Ratcliffe enters with news (so from outwards), reporting what has been happening in the west: Rat. Most mighty sovereign, on the western coast Rideth a puissant navy. (Richard III, IV, iv, 433)

Three final examples which might suggest a real/fictional convergence between east and inwards, are more telling. In Julius Caesar Casca deliberately uses his sword in a gesture which creates a heliological map that would line up the Capitol (an inwards location) with the rising sun: Casca. You shall confess that you are both deceiv’d. Here, as I point my sword, the sun arises, Which is a great way growing on the south, Weighing the youthful season of the year. Some two months hence, up higher toward the north He first presents his fire, and the high east Stands as the Capitol, directly here. (Julius Caesar, II, i, 105–11)

Romeo and Juliet also features a famous reference to the rising sun, and as with Casca, perhaps Romeo is alluding to real orientations: Rom. He jests at scars that never felt a wound. [Enter JULIET above at her window.] But soft, what light through yonder window breaks? It is the East, and Juliet is the sun. Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon. (Romeo and Juliet, II, ii, 3)

The ‘above’ in the stage direction is an eminently justifiable inference by the modern editor, and the identification of Juliet at the window with the rising sun would be reinforced if that part of the gallery used for window scenes is the bay directly above the inwards door into the house, which was the practice in the Commedia dell’Arte,6 and which in any case would be spatially logical. 6 See Tim Fitzpatrick, The Relationship of Oral and Literate Performance Processes in the Commedia dell’Arte: Beyond the Improvisation/Memorisation Divide (Lewiston/ Queenston/Lampeter, 1995), pp. 124–34, 222–3.

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If Juliet is identified with the east, this identification has its counterweight. In the opening scene of the play Benvolio, reporting to the Montagues that he has seen Romeo before dawn, specifies the location: Ben. Madam, an hour before the worshipp’d sun Peer’d forth the golden window of the East, A troubled mind drive me to walk abroad, Where, underneath the grove of sycamore That westward rooteth from this city side, So early walking did I see your son. (Romeo and Juliet, I, i, 118–23)

In pre-emptive contrast to the inwards of Juliet’s chamber (in the east) Romeo is here associated with outwards (‘abroad’, outside the city walls) and ‘westward’. This is by no means a large corpus of evidence, but it is perhaps significant that there do not seem to be any counter-cases in the Shakespearean canon. It may therefore have some corroborative impact, particularly if taken together with a number of references of a different kind that we shall now examine. Which Door is Which, and Why: Heaven and Hell The possible metatheatrical dimension to east-west references in Globe plays would not hold for the Rose, which clearly had its stage on the north side of the building.7 There is, however, the possibility that a more general pre-existing pattern informed the choice of the stage-right door as inwards and stage-left as outwards, no matter what the playhouse: it is the locations of Heaven and Hell on the medieval stage. Biblical references to the day of judgement have the elect on the right hand, and the damned, cast into ‘outer darkness’, on the left. This schema is reproduced in representations of the last judgement,8 and also on the medieval stage.9 In Othello IV, ii, Othello orders Emilia to leave the stage and stand guard outside the stage door which provides access from outwards into the chamber: Oth. Leave procreants alone, and shut the door; Cough, or cry ‘hem,’ if anybody come. (Othello IV, ii, 28–9)

7 See Julian Bowsher, The Rose Theatre: An Archaeological Discovery (London, 1998), pp. 31, 45. 8 See Matthew 25:31–6. For instance, consider Michelangelo’s The Last Judgment in the Sistine Chapel. For representations from the medieval stage, see ‘The Martyrdom of St Apollonia’ 1452–1460 by Jean Fouquet in the Musee Conde Chantilly and the stage used in the Valenciennes Passion Play, 1547, BNF Paris. 9 For a discussion of the position of heaven and hell, see Francis Edwards and George Tuckwell, Ritual and Drama: The Mediaeval Theatre (London, 1976), pp. 97–8.

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Clearly Emilia must leave the stage via one of the two doors, and close and (at least fictionally) lock it from offstage. She is later called back into the chamber by Othello: Oth. You, mistress, Enter EMILIA That have the office opposite to Saint Peter, And keeps the gate of hell! You, you! ay, you! (Othello IV, ii, 90–92)

If the door through which Emilia exits and then re-enters – the door which leads further outwards and must be guarded against intruders – is the stage-left door, then it corresponds to the medieval Hellmouth, thematically opposed to stage-right as St Peter’s gate to Heaven – and this would seem to be the explicit connection Othello (and Shakespeare) is making (though Othello’s ‘hell’ is of course on stage). Exactly the same pattern is evident in the scene which began this line of inquiry and which has been discussed in detail in the previous chapter: Macbeth’s Porter, ‘turning the key’ to admit Macduff and Lennox to the stage through the outwards door, explicitly links his role and function to that of a ‘devil-porter’ at ‘Hell Gate’ (II, iii, 2, 17). A third example is provided by a passage from Thomas Heywood’s Iron Age part 2 discussed for other reasons in the previous chapter. As the siege of Troy reaches its climax, with the wooden horse in place the traitor Synon appears in the gallery (on the walls of Troy) to signal with a torch to the Greeks that they should now enter the city. This scene involves a split stage, since Agamemnon, Menelaus and Ulysses and their soldiers are already on stage awaiting the distant signal; but they are not so close as to hear Synon’s direct address, the function of which is to explicate to the audience his role and actions: Syn. this bright and flaming brand Which I so often gire about mine eares, Is signal for the Armies quick returne, And make proud Ilium like my bright torch burne. (Iron Age part 2, D4r)

The onstage army, in response to Synon’s signal, ‘march on’ (D4v) and enter the city. This involves them exiting the stage via one door (presumably the inwards door representing the ‘breach’ which Ulysses identifies); they then, however, do a backstage cross to re-enter the stage immediately via the other door.10 This exit and re-entry pattern effects a change of location, as we have seen exemplified in Chapter 6 in relation to The Second Maiden’s Tragedy, and when they re-enter they have joined up with Synon who is facilitating their progress by opening the gates with the key to which he refers explicitly as the key to the ‘gates of Hell’: 10 This passage is discussed by George Reynolds, The Staging of Elizabethan Plays at the Red Bull Theater 1605–1625 (London, 1940), p. 113.

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Ulis. Now with a soft march enter at this breach But give no token of a load Alarme, Whom the Steedes bulke includes. They march softly in at one doore, and presently in at another. Enter SYNON with a stealing pace, holding the key in his hand. Syn. Soft, soft, ey so, hereafter Ages tell, How Synons key unlockt the gates of Hell. (Iron Age part 2, D4v)

This spiralling movement (exit inwards, backstage cross, re-entrance from outwards) would therefore identify the stage-left or hellmouth door as the outwards door. It can be argued that the stage-right door, identified in Othello as ‘Saint Peter’s gates’ and semiotically opposed to the ‘gates of Hell’, might therefore have been invested with symbolic meaning as a locus of authority, power and royalty on the early modern stage. It is possible that this was the ‘high status’ door, reflecting the practice of the medieval stage, and countering arguments for the need for symmetry and therefore for a central opening for royal entrances.11 If it were used more often by elevated characters such as Kings and Queens entering from their private chambers, and also served for their deathbeds and tombs – while lower characters and clowns used the stage-left door – then this would add yet another connotative dimension to the standard patterning suggested. This status imbalance is supported by the Jonson frontispiece discussed in Chapter 2 (see Fig. 2.3, p. 58): the hanging ‘stage-right’, behind (high-status) Tragedy, is ornately embroidered, counterposed to the plainer one ‘stage-left’ behind (lower-status) Comedy. This also matches John Orrell’s notes on the tradition of stage decoration which goes back at least as far as Inigo Jones’ Cockpit-in-Court. Orrell suggests that traditionally the statue of Melpomene, the muse of Tragedy is stage-right, and Thalia, muse of Comedy, stage-left.12 This asymmetrical location of the seat of power might also go some way towards an explanation of certain telling asymmetries in the English theatre. Why, for instance, is the royal box close to the stage, stage-right, rather than at the perspective point as it is on the continent?13 Why is stage-right generally accepted by professional actors to provide a stronger entrance-point than stage-left? Is it possible that these theatre practices go back to early modern staging? See Gurr, ‘Page and Stage’, pp. 69–70. John Orrell, ‘The Polarity of the Globe’s Stage’: paper delivered at the first ISGC

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conference held at the Globe Education Centre, Easter 1995. 13 In contrast to Richard Hosley’s belief that the lords’ room was in the gallery behind the stage (see ‘Shakespeare’s use of a Gallery over the Stage’, Shakespeare Survey 10 [1957]: pp. 77–89), Gabriel Egan has adduced evidence that ‘The Lords Room was in the lowest gallery at the side of the stage’ (‘The Situation of the “Lords Room”: A Revaluation’, The Review of English Studies, 48/191 [1997]: p. 308). The positioning of high-status spectators at the side of the stage is indicative. On privileged playgoers and the Lords Room, see Ann Jennalie Cook, The Privileged Playgoers of Shakespeare’s London, 1576–1642 (Princeton, 1981), pp. 119, 150, 182, 188.

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Status and Laterality Positing the need for a central high-status opening to symbolically link symmetry to authority might instinctively seem justified, but performance patterns that would validate such a hypothesis are not easy to identify. It can be pointed out that in any case a royal procession that enters by the upstage central opening must necessarily fall into asymmetry as soon as it reaches the downstage line. (The King at that point must turn either left or right.) In addition, one can question just how visibly striking the symmetry of an upstage centre entrance would be for the majority of spectators: a large percentage of the audience was located to the sides of the stage, and for these spectators any exploitation of a central axis of symmetry would not have been powerful, since such an axis would have been running more or less obliquely across them. The plays do indeed sometimes seem to prescribe symmetrical entrance- and exit-patterns, but these involve simultaneous entrances or exits at the two lateral doors rather than a central entrance.14 The Chorus of Romeo and Juliet would seem to prefigure symmetrical patterns of this sort: ‘Two Households, both alike in dignity, In fair Verona, where we lay our scene’ (I, o, 1–2). This leads Andrew Gurr to suggest that in 1.1 the central opening ‘was where the Duke of Verona would enter to quell the riot between the Montague servants who came onstage by one flanking door while the Capulets used the other’.15 The implicit assumption here is that the two flanking doors stand for the Capulet and Montague households respectively, as the Chorus would seem to suggest. But if that is the case, why is it only Old Capulet who seems to enter the stage from his house, ‘in his gowne’ (I, i, 74)? The Chorus may have set up the warring parties as symmetrical, but the play itself is asymmetrical in these terms: no scenes are set in the Montague household. It seems more likely that in 1.1 one door stands for the Capulet household, and the Montagues enter from the other door (from elsewhere in Verona) – as then does the Duke. The outwards door serves, as we have seen it serve in other plays such as The Comedy of Errors, as an interface with a range of more remote locations outwards from the stage place: the Montague house, the Ducal palace and so on. A set of meaningful oppositional patterns relating to status and power (a ‘high-status’ door opposed to a ‘low-status’ one) does not necessarily depend on the existence of a central opening loaded with royal connotations: if one of the two flanking doors were to be so loaded by the early modern performance tradition’s continuity with medieval staging patterns, then the need for a high status entrance-point would be satisfied, though not by a central opening. It is in fact not inconceivable, if we broaden our focus to include medieval staging patterns which still had currency in the early modern performance tradition, that one of the two lateral doors might have been seen as having higher status than the other. 14 We have seen such instances in earlier chapters: the ‘overtaking’ scene in Twelfth Night, and exits of two onstage armies to the battlefield in King John, II, i. 15 Gurr, ‘Page and Stage’, p. 64.

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The image of a stage ‘biased’ in this way also impacts on questions about the optimum audience viewpoint. A perceived need for symmetrical stage patterns presupposes an audience ‘out front’, but as we have noted above the architecture of the playhouses meant that many spectators viewed the stage from the side. The consideration that royal entrances were normally through the inwards door further complicates this, since a stage biased towards patterns of lateral opposition suggests a privileging of the audience at the sides of the stage, and a possible synergistic tendency on the part of the audience to locate themselves on the sides rather than in front of the stage. A stage direction in The Second Maiden’s Tragedy is possibly significant: Enter the Tirant agen at a farder dore, which opened, bringes hym to the Toombe wher the lady lies buried; the Toombe here discovered ritchly set forthe; (The Second Maiden’s Tragedy, IV, iii, ms1725–7)

The use of ‘farder’ to describe one of the two stage doors would seem to place it in spatial opposition to a ‘nearer door’, and indeed the stage direction may refer to a such a ‘nearer’ door: it specifies that ‘here is set out’ the tomb – although this ‘here’ could be a temporal rather than spatial reference. These contrasting adjectives might be seen to support an inwards-outwards polarity in the entranceand exit-patterns, but more importantly the wording may also betray a conceptual viewpoint that is to one side of the stage instead of ‘out front’ in the De Witt position. A playwright who describes the doors as ‘nearer’ and ‘farther’ seems to be visualizing the stage from the side. The ‘farther’ might then refer to the door which is both ‘farther’ away from such a lateral viewpoint, and also the door which leads to and from ‘farther’ or more remote outwards locations. Such a wording is consonant with the terms of the Fortune contract, which does not describe the dimensions of the stage from an ideal frontal or proscenium arch viewpoint (De Witt’s position), but from this lateral viewpoint: instead of describing the stage, as we would expect, as 43 feet wide and in depth to extend to the middle of the yard, the contract states it is to be ‘in length Fortie and Three foote … and in breadth to extende to the middle of the yarde’.16 The work of Alan Dessen and Leslie Thomson indicates also a number of stage directions which refer to one ‘end’ (rather than ‘side’) of the stage,17 and which might therefore betray the same ‘sideon’ viewpoint. This is significant as it counters an argument for a central opening based on notions of symmetry from a front-on viewpoint (i.e., which conceives the main central axis of the stage in proscenium arch terms, as running from upstage centre to downstage centre). If instead the central axis of the stage was conceived as running (in our terms) from one side of the stage to the other, then arguments that an upstage centre opening would provide symmetry are vitiated: 16 The contract is reproduced in Gurr, The Shakespearean Stage 1574–1642, 3rd ed. (Cambridge, 1992), p. 137 (emphasis added). 17 Alan C. Dessen and Leslie Thomson, A Dictionary of Stage Directions in English Drama, 1580–1642 (Cambridge, 1999), p. 83.

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Front-on and side-on: issues of symmetry.

It should be stressed that the side galleries are demonstrably closer to the major points of focus on the stage (the entrance doors, centre-stage, the downstage corners) than is the ‘front on’ De Witt position on the other side of the yard. It is therefore possible that it was this part of the gallery beside the stage, rather than where De Witt sat on the other side of the yard, that offered optimum viewing. This might be supported by evidence from Blackfriars. As Peter Thomson has noted: A particularly striking point here is that, whilst the penny-paying groundlings stood closest to the actors at the Globe, it was the costliest seats that abutted the Blackfriars stage (not to mention the on-stage stools where fashionable young men delighted to display themselves). If this caused difficulties of adjustment for the actors, we hear nothing of them.18

The expense of the galleries beside the Blackfriars stage, and the much-deplored insistence of audience members at the indoor theatres to sit on the side of the stage, are possibly not merely the result of the inherent possibilities they offer for self-display. Perhaps the spectators in these galleries and on stage are also replicating the desirable seating arrangements they had experienced in the side galleries at the Globe – and in the process turning the endstage configuration of a theatre like Blackfriars into a miniature Globe thrust stage arrangement so that the performance in fact needs no ‘adjustment’ to deal with the change to such an endstage configuration. If, as the analysis of the 50 plays suggests, kings and royal court scenes tend to enter the stage from the stage-right door (arriving at a place of public audience in the royal palace, having come from more private chambers), such patterns would reinforce the higher status of the stage-right door bestowed by an earlier, and very different tradition. This might then explain the location of the royal box in the English theatre, and actors’ preference for entering stage-right. High status Peter Thomson, Shakespeare’s Professional Career (Cambridge, 1992), p. 98.

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audience might well have wanted to be located as near as possible to that side of the stage, a location that would also give them a very close view of discoveries executed in the inwards doorway by drawing back the curtains there. Corollaries: the Inwards Door Flowing from these sorts of considerations would then be a set of corollaries, a series of more generally perceivable regularities which the actors and the audience would have grown accustomed to in the course of their respective theatre-making and theatre-going careers. If the doors’ initial public-private polarity were then complemented by other polarities such as low status-high status, a range of significant meaning-making possibilities comes into view. The deliberate use of these patterns by the playwright could thus constitute a shorthand technique to facilitate performance-making and performance-reading. This generic patterning would enable the audience to make assumptions, simply on the basis of the direction of the entrance, about what sort of offstage location a character was coming from; this would counter John C. Meagher’s assertion that the doors are only locationally significant if specified in the dialogue: Most of the entrances in Shakespeare’s plays are from an unspecified somewhere/ anywhere, rather than from a dramatically meaningful specific place, and further specification, if any is to be understood, must usually wait for some definition arising from the dialogue.19

If instead these standardized ‘meanings’ become available via the deployment of a system such as that described, then the doors are ‘pre-loaded’ with these potential sets of meaning, both for audience and actors. Indeed, if we consider this from the point of view of the actor, it is possible to suggest the existence of a number of common and recurring patterns that would be taken as ‘given’, thus reducing the cognitive load associated with decision-making about entrance- and exit-points. This is in fact a case of cognition being ‘distributed’ onto the stage and its features to assist the actors in their task. Let us look first at a range of offstage locations, in addition to the chambers of a royal or noble palace, that would regularly be behind the inwards door. Houses, Tents, Pavilions, Rooms, Prisons We have seen a range of examples in earlier chapters where one stage door signifies the door of a house facing the street (signified by the stage-space). Apart from Nabbes’s late and unique play Covent Garden, there are no instances in which the two lateral doors signify the doors of two differentiated buildings. Instead the most common pattern is to have a house or building at or behind one door, with other locations (including other houses) indicated as being somewhere more remote John C. Meagher, Pursuing Shakespeare’s Dramaturgy (Madison, 2003), p. 121.

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beyond the other door. Then, if in another scene one of those locations becomes an onstage focus, it too is represented in its turn as lying behind the inwards door. This means that if in the course of a play a range of such houses or buildings are to be represented, they will be temporally rather than spatially distinguished.20 In this system the first location signified by the stage and inwards door is wiped and reset as a new fictional place, and temporal cues in the dialogue enable the audience to imagine and accept the passing of fictional time between such scenes (‘then we were outside Antipholus’s house, now we are outside the Abbey’). The fact that such a flexible staging-system evolved at all in early modern theatre is in fact one of the more powerful indicators that the playwrights and performers were working with a constrained set of resources. With three doors it might be tempting to structure the text and performance on the basis of three more permanently assigned locations (as does Nabbes in Covent Garden); with two that would be impossible and more flexible solutions would need to be developed. Like houses, tents and pavilions would also be normally inwards.21 There are exceptions: in the opening acts of Love’s Labour’s Lost the ladies’ tents are some distance off in the park, outwards, and we shall see in the following chapter that this spatial dislocation has thematic significance. In some exceptional cases there is instead a binary system operating – as we have seen in Chapter 6, where the procession in Peele’s Edward I visits first the King in his tent or pavilion, and then the Queen in her chamber. The fact that this is exceptional is marked by the explicitness of the overriding stage direction. The association of the space behind the inwards door with a private place means that when the stage-space signifies a room in a house, this door is then taken to lead to a more private room within the house, as we have seen set out clearly in the two examples from The Bride and The Knight of the Burning Pestle with which we began Chapter 8. On some occasions there are clear textual indications of multiple offstage fictional places behind this inwards door. One such occurs in Othello, III, i–iii, where Cassio’s exit inwards to Desdemona’s presence is followed immediately by an entrance from inwards by Othello and Iago, going off to inspect the fortifications. Since there are no indications that the characters (unlike the actors in a cramped tiring house) have come into proximity with each other, the audience must infer a multiplicity of fictional rooms and corridors behind the door. Such spaces are clearly differentiated in The Alchemist, where the various arrivals are shown into specifically named different areas of the house, all behind the inwards door.22 The anxiety deriving from their potential to meet each other there is an important source of comedy.

20 See Tim Fitzpatrick, ‘Stage Management, Dramaturgy and Spatial Semiotics in Shakespeare’s Dialogue’, Theatre Research International 24 (1999): pp. 9–10. 21 Pericles, V, i; Coriolanus, V, ii–iii; Love’s Labour’s Lost, V. 22 Ben Jonson, The Alchemist: the ‘back way’ (I, ii), ‘chamber’ (II, iv) and ‘chamber above’ (IV, i) are all inwards.

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Prisoners emerge from the inwards door, sometimes bringing their prison onto the stage with them by extrusion; gaolers and visitors come to them there, and occasionally liberate them into the outwards world. This is well-illustrated by Richard III, I, iv: Clarence and the Keeper enter from inwards, and are visited by Brakenbury and then the two Murderers. Beds, Discoveries, Tombs, Monuments All these, associated as they are with privacy and enclosure, would logically be at, in or behind the inwards door. In a subsequent chapter we shall see a number of examples in which the spatial association between these quite different places acquires a thematic significance in Romeo and Juliet and Much Ado About Nothing. We have discussed above the ‘serial’ use of the inwards door to represent a succession of houses in different scenes. A similar serial use of the same space to represent different deathbeds occurs in Henry VI part 2, III, ii, and III, iii, where first Duke Humphrey and then Cardinal Beauford are murdered. The ‘bad’ quarto of 1600, The First part of the Contention betwixt the two famous Houses of Yorke and Lancaster – however degraded its dialogue might be – has extraordinarily explicit and apposite stage directions that suggest one of its sources may have been a marked-up playhouse document. The two relevant directions read as follows: Then the Curtaines 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. (The First part of the Contention, E2r) Enter King and Salsbury, and then the curtaines be drawne, and the Cardinall is discouered in his bed, rauing and staring as if he were mad. (The First part of the Contention, F1v)

This repeated use of the same place to signify two different deathbeds in quite close succession might be seen as awkward. However these two events are separated by over 400 lines of verse, and the end of III, ii features the split exit and rhyming couplet with which the Queen and Suffolk part forever – a clear marker, as we have seen previously, of locational and temporal discontinuity at the end of the scene which neutralizes the previous fictional function of the door. Ladies The analysis of the 50 plays in the light of a hypothetical two-door system shows that female characters tend to come and go via the inwards door (to and from internal domestic spaces rather than outwards). By contrast, the outwards door leads to the male domain: battles are fought out there, messengers arrive from there bringing news of the predominantly male world of war, strife and other disasters.

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It can be argued that such repeated patterns would not only provide a default setting for the actors playing female roles, but might also set up a gender bias on the stage. Such a bias might then itself become significant: it might for example increase the impact of Rosalind’s and Celia’s going out and away from the court to the outside world in As You Like It, or Desdemona’s re-entrance from outwards with the Venetian ambassador in Othello (IV, i, 240), when Othello himself and the audience expect her to maintain the established pattern of exit and re-entrance from her cloistered inwards locations. The potential for such spatial patterns to have thematic import will occupy us in the following chapter: Love’s Labour’s Lost is significant in this regard, since it begins with (and in the course of the play resolves) the anomalous position of the Princess and Ladies, forced to camp out due to the King’s exclusion of women from his retreat. Corollaries: the Outwards Door The outwards door is, as we have seen in the previous chapter, in general not so clearly and distinctly localized as is the inwards door. It represents a physical door relatively rarely, and is more often a generic interface with the outside world. It is common within the same scene for multiple destinations to be articulated behind the outwards door, encouraging the audience to visualize a ‘fork in the road’ with different parties arriving from or departing for different locations. An interesting case in point, where this ‘fork in the road’ is suggested in the dialogue, is provided by the opening scene of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The scene is set in an unspecified room in Theseus’s palace, and draws to a close with Lysander and Hermia, having resolved to flee Athens together the following night, leaving the palace. Presumably they exit, each to return to their homes to make preparations for their flight – and since custom decrees they should not see each other before their wedding-in-elopement, we might expect them to leave the stage in different directions. They could indeed do just that in productions which have an abundance of exit-doors, but Shakespeare seems to have foreseen a logistical difficulty in the case where only two doors are available, and dealt with it in the dialogue. With only two doors, one would be committed to signifying ‘further into the palace’: it has been marked thus by the previous exit of Theseus to ‘confer’ (I, i, 125) with Egeus and Demetrius, and will be re-marked thus by Helena’s exit there, in search of Demetrius, at the end of the scene. Hermia and Lysander will both therefore have to exit via the other door, outwards to the city. Here is how Shakespeare has structured their exits: Her. Keep word, Lysander; we must starve our sight From lovers’ food, till morrow deep midnight. Lys. I will, my Hermia. Exit Hermia. Helena, adieu; As you on him, Demetrius dote on you! Exit Lysander. (A Midsummer Night’s Dream, I, i, 222–5)

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This deliberate staggering of the two exits creates a ‘temporal parting’ of the two characters which can either complement or substitute for a ‘spatial parting’ which would not be an option with only two stage doors. This textual pattern seems to betray a playwright who is at the very least hedging his bets: foreseeing performance conditions where the stage is only equipped with limited exit-points, Shakespeare creates a textual pattern which enables the audience to accept that if the two actors do have to exit through the same door, these (staggered) exits can still adequately stand for exits to two distinct offstage destinations, in keeping with the explicit requirements of the fiction. Despite this possibility that the outwards door is often used as a more generic interface to a range of different outwards locations within one scene, nevertheless it is often to be identified with particular outwards locations which recur sufficiently often in the plays analyzed to warrant the suggestion that the mere mention of such locations would be sufficient to cue the actors into pre-set patterns, reducing their cognitive load. Executions These represent a polar opposite of the prison cell behind the inwards door: the executioner often arrives from outwards to take away the prisoner to be executed; or, as is the case of the execution of Ratcliffe, Rivers, Grey and Vaughan in Richard III, III, iii, the procession crosses the stage from inwards to outwards. In Henry VI part 1, the scene in which Joan of Arc is to be executed begins with York’s order: ‘Bring forth that sorceress condemn’d to burn’ (V, iv, 1), which suggests Pucelle will be brought onto the stage from inwards. He then orders the guard to ‘Take her away’ (V, iv, 34), and again ‘Away with her to execution’ (V, iv, 54). The repetitions of ‘away’ are complemented by Pucelle’s request to the guard to ‘lead me hence’ (V, iv, 86), all of which suggest an exit to a more remote outwards location counterposed to the place of imprisonment from which she has been brought ‘forth’. Battlefields As we have seen in relation to Henry IV part 1 in Chapter 5, battles are most often located behind the outwards door, often in opposition to the camp which is inwards. Alternatively the battle takes place onstage as the army besieges the town, with the gates signified by the inwards door and the battlements by the gallery. This pattern is clearly exemplified by a quaint sequence in Henry VI part 3. In V, i, as King Edward and his forces stand before the walls of Coventry, (Warwick is ‘upon the walls’ in the gallery above the stage), the rebel forces in the city are reinforced by the arrival of three armies: those of Oxford, Montague, and Somerset, respectively at lines 58, 67, 72. In each case some five lines of dialogue by the onstage observers are provided for each army to cross the stage from the outwards door and enter the ‘gates’ – and then for the actors to cross backstage (possibly changing helmets?) and re-enter as the next army under their next commander. The supernumeraries are probably also recycled to serve then as Clarence’s army, which joins the King at line 76.

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There are exceptions to these ‘triangulated’ battlefield patterns, which involve instead a binary use of the doors: in Act V of Julius Caesar the double-barrelled battle of Philippi (Antony vs Cassius and Brutus vs Octavius) would seem to require both doors ‘in parallel’. The stage direction which prefaces the sea battle in Antony and Cleopatra III, x suggests a similar set of parallel patterns: CANIDIUS marcheth with his land army one way over the stage, and TAURUS, the Lieutenant of Caesar, the other way. After their going in, is heard the noise of a sea-fight. (Antony and Cleopatra, III, x, 0)

The mother of all battles, the fall of Troy in Troilus and Cressida, is of daunting proportions in terms of staging. It is unthinkable that this sequence could be handled via one door only, and there are indications that enable tentative patterns of spatial logic involving both doors to be established. Messengers The arrival of a messenger bringing news from outwards of offstage events is extremely common, a necessary result of a dramaturgy which relies so heavily on offstage events and their reporting. A typical example has been discussed in Chapter 3, where Lady Macbeth learns (via letter, messenger and then Macbeth) of the imminent arrival of Duncan. A contrasting pattern – but one that would cause no confusion to actors or audience – is provided in V, v. With all the focus on the imminent attack from outwards, Seyton must go inwards to investigate the offstage sound effect (‘A cry within of women’, V, v, 7); he will then return from there to report the news of the death of Lady Macbeth: ‘The Queen, my lord, is dead’ (V, v, 16). Another exceptional, but entirely logical pattern, is in play in orchard or garden scenes. If the stage represents an orchard or garden attached to a house, it follows that news of the outside world can come either from outwards or from inwards: the messenger might come in directly from the garden gate, but can also (having arrived at the house) come out into the garden. The former pattern is exemplified by an early scene in Julius Caesar, which is explicitly set in Brutus’s orchard: ‘Enter BRUTUS in his orchard’ (II, i, 0). Cassius, Casca and Cinna are admitted via the gate, as Brutus indicates to Lucius: ‘Go to the gate, somebody knocks’ (II, i, 60). After the visitors exit, Portia then comes out of the house. This is obvious from Brutus’s curt question as to why she has gotten up so early: ‘Wherefore rise you now?’ (II, i, 234). He then sends her back into the house at the noise of more knocking at the gate: ‘Hark, hark, one knocks! Portia, go in a while’ (II, i, 304). Portia’s exit is marked by a stage direction at line 309, and simultaneously Lucius returns with Ligarius from the gate. The simultaneous exit back into the house and entrance from the gate makes the offstage topography clear. The alternative pattern is exemplified in Much Ado about Nothing, II, iii, where the orchard location and its relation to the house is explicitly specified by nomination:

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Playwright, Space and Place in Early Modern Performance Bene. Boy! [Enter BOY] Boy. Signior? Bene. In my chamber-window lies a book; bring it hither to me in the orchard. (Much Ado about Nothing, II, iii, 1–4)

Subsequent traffic is from the house: Don Pedro, Leonato and Claudio come and go from and to inwards, and so too does Beatrice, sent against her will to invite Benedick ‘in to dinner’ (II, iii, 248). However in Twelfth Night it is not only the inhabitants of the house who come out to the garden or orchard. In III, iv Olivia is with Maria in the garden, and it is clear that Viola arrives via the house (rather than from outwards/westwards as we have seen she has done in III, i). A servant reports to Olivia that Viola (Cesario) has returned, and Olivia responds by exiting with the Servant: Serv. Madam, the young gentleman of the Count Orsino’s is return’d. … He attends your ladyship’s pleasure. Olivia. I’ll come to him. (Twelfth Night, III, iv, 57–60)

That this exit is into the house (which in any case would be the logical place for a conversation between Olivia and Viola) is confirmed by a later utterance by Viola. When Olivia and Viola, their exchange finished, come out into the garden, it is clear that Viola, despite having arrived at the house by its front door, is now being accompanied out of the house to leave by the garden gate. That is where Sir Andrew has been positioned to accost Viola/ Cesario: in the meantime Sir Toby has directed him to ‘Scout me for him at the corner of the orchard’ (III, iv, 176–7). Now Olivia takes her leave of Viola and exits back into the house (III, iv, 216–17), and as Viola prepares to leave outwards she is stopped by Sir Toby and Fabian. On hearing from them that Sir Andrew is waiting ‘at the orchard-end’ (III, iv, 223). Viola proposes a tactical retreat that validates the entrance- and exit-patterns outlined so far, and in particular the location of her first arrival: she proposes to go back again into the house: ‘I will return again into the house and desire some conduct of the lady’ (III, iv, 241–2). Particular Patterns There are some particular patterns which are worthy of comment, insofar as they either nuance the normal patterns, or provide important variations on them. Farewells, Binary Meetings, Mid-scene Location Changes Farewells may occur onstage, but often the departing character is accompanied further (i.e., offstage) by their fareweller. This can be logistically economical, and

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can serve to restrict unnecessary dialogue (the final scene of Love’s Labour’s Lost is an important case in point, as we shall see in the next chapter). Some instances of binary rather than triangulated representation of some battle scenes have been discussed above. There are rare occasions in which such binary patterns seem to come into play in other situations as well. A case in point is Twelfth Night, II, ii, discussed in Chapter 3, in which Malvolio overtakes Viola to return Olivia’s ring. This overtaking is not represented spatially (in which case Viola might enter and speak some lines before Malvolio enters from the same door as if in pursuit). Their entrances are instead ‘at several doors’, providing a less spatialized and more ‘emblematic’ pattern. An example of a location change occurring during a scene rather than at the normal place, between successive scenes, has been discussed in an earlier chapter: with only two doors in play, the Porter’s scene in Macbeth must involve a midscene wipe and reset of one of the doors. Initially it leads off to the Macbeths’ and others’ bedrooms; then it serves as the ‘south entry’; and then reverts to the door from which Macbeth returns, having changed into his night attire. A similar shift occurs in the Induction of The Taming of the Shrew: if there are only two doors the inwards door must first serve as the door to the tavern out of which Sly is ejected, and later must stand for the door to the Lord’s house, into which the unconscious Sly is removed. As in the case of Macbeth, where the Porter’s dialogue enables the door changes, in The Taming of the Shrew the dialogue facilitates this ‘wipe and reset’ of the fictional location of the inwards door: after the Hostess has come out of the tavern door with Sly, she does not reinforce the meaning of the inwards door by going back into the tavern. Rather she goes off to bring in the forces of law and order, since Sly has broken some glasses: ‘I must go fetch the [thirdborough]’ (I, o, 11). This exit outwards enables the inwards door to be spatially ‘neutralized’23 so it can later serve as the door to the Lord’s house. Conclusion This chapter has dealt with a range of instances that indicate how a fictional spatial system might have mapped onto the two stage doors, how it might manifest itself in terms of pre-existing patterns (east-west, heaven-hell, high status-low status), and how it might in turn generate regularities that would facilitate the actors’ reading of spatial cues in their dialogue, serving to ‘distribute’ some of the cognitive load onto the theatre building and its various features so as to assist the actors in the complex task of performing. In the following chapter we shall examine a range of examples which suggest that playwrights were taking this system further so as to deliberately create spatial meanings out of such regular patterns.

23 Mariko Ichikawa, ‘Were the Doors Open or Closed? The Use of Stage Doors in the Shakespearean Theatre’, Theatre Notebook 60/1 (2006): pp. 9, 10.

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Chapter 11

Space, Place and Meanings Lady M. Hark, more knocking. Get on your night-gown. (Macbeth, II, ii, 66–7) Wash your hands, put on your night-gown. (Macbeth, V, i, 62–3)

The suggestion that there is a spatial system encoded in and decodable from the texts of the plays is potentially important for an understanding of the sorts of original meanings the playwrights and actors might have been making spatially for their audiences in the public playhouses. Such a spatially based meaningmaking system is not, of course, as complex and rich in meanings as the verbal system which has survived in the texts, but we have seen sufficiently compelling examples in previous chapters to suggest that it might nevertheless be significant and reward further investigation. If there is a system which encodes regular spatial patterns into performance, it could then be used – and there is evidence that the playwrights do use it – to generate layers of complex meaning by manipulating the spatial memory of their audience. If, for example, in different scenes the same part of the stage is used for two related or contrasted events, as occurs in the two blood-related scenes in Macbeth featured above, there is the possibility of spatial connotation or spatial ‘echoes’ enriching the audience’s perception of what is going on thematically.1 This chapter will examine three such examples, before proceeding to analyse two other instances of spatial meaning-making that depend on standard patterns for female characters. Spatial Echoes The spatial system which has been the subject of this book depends to a significant degree on audience ‘amnesia’: the rapid changes of location from one scene to the next depend on the audience being able to ‘wipe and reset’ the spatial connotations of the stage and its doors as a new location for the action is established at the start of a scene. Mariko Ichikawa has correctly pointed out – and we have had cause to argue just this point in relation to the Porter’s scene 1 The instances drawn on in this chapter resonate with the reflections of Marvin Carlson on ‘ghosting’ in theatrical performance. See Marvin Carlson, The Haunted Stage (Ann Arbor, 2001).

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in Macbeth – that even within a scene the ‘meaning’ of a door can be ‘neutralized’ to enable it to serve another purpose.2 As a counterweight to this ‘throw-away’ sense of space it is possible that such a system, precisely because it depends on multiple ‘meanings’ being generated in succession for one or other of the stage doors, has the potential then to be exploited by the creation of diachronic spatial patterns of contrast between such meanings. The general and consistent ‘loading’ of the doors with inwardsoutwards connotations might serve to ensure that this general background spatial meaning does not fade altogether, and might thus remain available for re-activation if required. If, for instance, two events occur on the same part of the stage or at or near one of the two doors, then the playwright might be able to activate in the second instance spatial ‘echoes’ of the first. Our experience as audience tells us that in performance the stage location of a particular action and its connotations can later be re-activated, triggering a cognitive connection between the two events. To do this, the playwright might plant in his text spatial ‘reminders’ for the audience, to override in particular cases the normal ‘spatial amnesia’ and re-activate previous spatial connotations to enrich the meaning of a particular chain of events. Echoes of Blood: Macbeth After the murder of Duncan in II, ii Macbeth returns to the stage – but unfortunately brings the incriminating daggers with him. He refuses to go back to the scene of the crime, Duncan’s chambers behind the inwards door, so Lady Macbeth returns the daggers – an action which, as has been pointed out in an earlier chapter, leaves her with both real and metaphorical blood on her hands. When she returns, she responds to the ominous offstage knocking ‘at the south entry’ and takes charge, shepherding her unnerved husband off to change into their night attire so as not to arouse suspicion. Since Macbeth has already refused to go back to the murder scene, their exit must involve crossing the stage to exit via the other door (the outwards door), this cross signalling Lady Macbeth’s capacity to take the initiative and do what must be done to conceal their guilt. In the sleepwalking scene (V, i) the textual references to blood, water, nightgowns, bed, and the knocking, make clear that this is a nightmare replay of the earlier scene. Lady Macbeth’s soliloquy is a random sampling of the dialogue from II, ii:

2 Mariko Ichikawa, ‘Were the Doors Open or Closed? The Use of Stage Doors in the Shakespearean Theatre’, Theatre Notebook 60/1 (2006): pp. 9, 10.

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Table 11.1  Textual Echoes in Macbeth Lady M. My hands are of your color; but I shame To wear a heart so white.

Out, damned spot! out, I say! look not so pale. (V, i, 35, 63)

(Knock.) I hear a knocking At the south entry. Retire we to our chamber.

To bed, to bed; there’s knocking at the gate. (V, i, 66)

A little water clears us of this deed;

What, will these hands ne’er be clean? (V, i, 43)

How easy is it then! Your constancy Hath left you unattended. (Knock.) Hark! more knocking.

What need we fear who knows it, when none can call our power to accompt? Fie, my Lord, fie, a soldier, and afeard? (V, i, 37) One – two – why, then ’tis time to do’t. (V, i, 36)

Get on your night-gown, lest occasion call us And show us to be watchers. Be not lost So poorly in your thoughts. (II, ii, 61–9)

Wash your hands, put on your night-gown; (V, i, 62) No more o’ that, my lord, no more o’ that; you mar all with this starting. (V, i, 43–5)

However there is one fundamental difference between the stage movement patterns in these two scenes: whereas in II, ii Lady Macbeth is able to take action to get Macbeth off through the outwards door, in V, i she is locked in an obsessive loop. The Gentlewoman describes her actions to the Doctor: Gent. Since his Majesty went into the field, I have seen her rise from her bed, throw her night-gown upon her, unlock her closet, take forth paper, fold it, write upon’t, read it, afterwards seal it, and again return to bed; yet all this while in a most fast sleep. (Macbeth, V, i, 4–8)

The Gentlewoman makes clear that Lady Macbeth comes out of her bedroom, but then goes back in there, returning to bed. An inwards-outwards system would predict that Lady Macbeth’s bedroom – despite the fact that it is in an altogether different fictional place – would lie behind the same inwards door behind which the murder was done. The obsessive returning to the ‘scene of the crime’ evidenced in the dialogue would thus also be signified by the spatial patterning.3 Instead of crossing the stage to exit with Macbeth, Lady Macbeth is now locked into a loop from the door to her bedchamber and then back though the same door:

3 Anthony Brennan, Onstage and Offstage Worlds in Shakespeare’s Plays (London, 1989), p. 17, makes this point of visual contrast more generally.

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So the inevitably downwards plot spiral of Macbeth is signified not only by the words, but also by the contrast between these two entrance-exit patterns. The irony of such an overlapping of fictional places onto the same stage space cannot have been lost on the original audience, as they picked up ‘echoes’ of the earlier scene’s movement patterns and drew thematic conclusions by contrast. Examples such as this lead to the suggestion that Shakespeare was deliberately inscribing such movement patterns and semiotic connotations in his texts: by utilizing a system of implicit spatial stage-directions in the dialogue to regularize and regulate the movement patterns of the actors he could ensure not only the smooth running and dramaturgical punctuation of the performance, but could also invest the resultant spatial patterns with connotative thematic import for the audience. Love and Death: Romeo and Juliet The repeated linking of love and death, of marriage-bed and tomb in Romeo and Juliet, are important thematic elements in the play. On two occasions Juliet explicitly links the tomb to the marriage bed. In 3.5 she links her bridal bed to the Capulet family monument where her cousin Tybalt now lies: Juliet. O sweet my mother, cast me not away! Delay this marriage for a month, a week, Or if you do not, make the bridal bed In that dim monument where Tybalt lies. (Romeo and Juliet, III, v, 198–201)

Then, as she considers her own planned sojourn in the tomb, her concerns at awaking there are couched, as critics have noted, in erotic language: Juliet. How if, when I am laid into the tomb, I wake before the time that Romeo Come to redeem me? There’s a fearful point! Shall I not then be stifled in the vault, To whose foul mouth no healthsome air breathes in, And there die strangled ere my Romeo comes? (Romeo and Juliet, IV, iii, 30–35)

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This imagery is picked up by Romeo when he finds Juliet in the tomb, describing her as death’s lover: Romeo. Ah, dear Juliet, Why art thou yet so fair? Shall I believe That unsubstantial Death is amorous, And that the lean abhorred monster keeps Thee here in dark to be his paramour? (Romeo and Juliet, V, iii, 101–5)

These references gain added significance from – or, it might be argued, actually derive from – any spatial arrangement which would have Juliet’s bed (where she ‘dies’ in IV, iii) and the tomb in exactly the same place on stage. This would hold if they were both located in the discovery space, but in the two-door system these would both be at the inwards door. Death and Rebirth: Much Ado About Nothing A more striking instance involving a tomb and (in this case a successful) rebirth from it occurs in Much Ado About Nothing. Hero, overcome by Claudio’s insults, has swooned (IV, i, 109). The Friar suggests she be ‘secretly kept in’ (IV, i, 203), and that Leonato and his family behave as if she were dead: Friar. Maintain a mourning ostentation, And on your family’s old monument Hang mournful epitaphs, and do all the rites That appertain unto a burial. (Much Ado About Nothing, IV, i, 205–8)

A subsequent scene (V, iii) takes place at the monument: Enter CLAUDIO, Prince [DON PEDRO], and three or four with tapers. Claud. Is this the monument of Leonato? [A] Lord. It is, my lord. (Much Ado About Nothing, V, iii, 1–3)

The monument in which the ‘dead’ Hero supposedly lies is clearly Leonato’s family tomb and, as suggested for analogous cases in earlier chapters, will be signified by the inwards door. So in this scene the mourners must enter the graveyard from outwards; Claudio reads the Epitaph and as his dialogue indicates (‘Hang thou there upon the tomb’ [V, iii, 9]) fixes the scroll to the closed inwards door (see Fig. 11.1). The mourners then exit back outwards.

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Fig. 11.1

Much Ado About Nothing: the mourners visit the tomb, fix the scroll.

The first entrance in the next scene respects the alternation rule, since fictionally it must be from the inwards door: the characters are coming out of Leonato’s house, as Leonato and his family are expecting a visit from the Prince and the repentant Claudio (V, iv, 12). This means that they will enter via the very door which has just signified Hero’s tomb. Since the group includes the very much alive Hero, this is to some extent at least a resurrection. It is perhaps significant that Hero’s function is merely visual or iconic, and as such constitutes a small coup de théâtre: she has no dialogue (reminiscent of Hermione’s hundred-line silence in V, iii of The Winter’s Tale), so it is her physical presence, token of her ‘rebirth’, that is pertinent. Once displayed to the audience, she is immediately sent back inside with the other ladies: ‘Withdraw into a chamber by yourselves’ (V, iv, 11). If the transition between these scenes is managed in this way, what happens to the scroll which must have been left pinned to the inwards door in the previous scene? Perhaps, in a stage management coup de théâtre, the scroll simply disappears from view: the door is flung open wide by the entering characters, hinged back against the tiring house wall (as is indicated by other plays considered in earlier chapters), to conceal the scroll from the audience’s view (see Fig. 11.2). The stage door is now the door of Leonato’s house, but still bears on its now hidden face the scroll. It is therefore still vestigially ‘marked’ as Hero’s tomb – so as Hero enters through it, she is reborn from her ‘tomb’. Women, Place and the ‘Natural’ Order There are two plays in which the ‘gendered’ bias of a two-door stage seems to be exploited to make more general connotational meanings about the ‘place’ of women on the stage. One involves a single incident, the other more extensive biased patterns.

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Fig. 11.2

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Much Ado About Nothing: Hero is reborn, and the scroll disappears.

Putting Women in their Place: Othello If the patterns outlined in the previous chapters are the norm, then ladies’ entrances and exits from the outwards door might be seen as potentially significant exceptions,4 and such movement patterns can have a devastating effect. In Othello IV, i, Othello and Iago are onstage, Othello enraged over the handkerchief which he believes Desdemona has given to Cassio (IV, i, 10). When Desdemona enters Othello strikes her and sends her into the citadel (IV, i, 260). The main motivation for his behaviour is unquestionably his obsession with the handkerchief, but there is perhaps another reason: Desdemona, who has spent much of the play ‘enclosed’, consistently coming and going through the inwards door, suddenly enters from an unexpected quarter. She has been to the port to welcome the Venetian Ambassador, Lodovico: ‘Enter LODOVICO, DESDEMONA and ATTENDANTS’ (IV, i, 213), so this entrance will be from outwards. Perhaps Othello, like the audience, is taken aback by her unexpected arrival from the public sphere, because since the arrival at Cyprus Desdemona has regularly come from and gone to the private spaces of the citadel. The actor playing Desdemona has had to cross backstage to enter from this door, so Othello’s anger may reflect in part his realization of his inability to cloister his wife within the confines of the citadel. An entrance from outwards may in this case bespeak independence from marital control and enclosure; it is almost certainly not by accident that it is Iago who points out to Othello that Desdemona is out and about in the company of men: ‘’Tis Lodovico – This comes from the Duke. See, your wife’s with him’ (IV, i, 214–15).

4 In As You Like It, I, iii, the ladies decide to disguise themselves and go ‘out’; in Macbeth, Lady Macbeth’s use of inwards and outwards doors early in play gives way to a more restricted ‘inwards’ pattern in Act IV.

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The ‘Natural’ Order: Love’s Labour’s Lost It seems that the point being made in Acts I–IV of Love’s Labour’s Lost is that the King and nobles have usurped the inwards female place, have excluded women from it, and put them ‘out’ of their lives. The men therefore have exclusive use of the inwards door – and the ladies, coming inwards on an embassy from the Princess’s father, are lodged ‘out’ in the park. This represents a significant overturning of the normal stage pattern (and, perhaps Shakespeare is suggesting, of the ‘natural’ order). This pattern may even extend to IV, iii, where despite Berowne’s statement that the King is ‘hunting the deer’ (IV, iii, 1) the King then enters (like all the others) from inwards with his paper – the point being that Berowne is wrong: the King may well have been outwards hunting deer, but he has since returned to the court to prepare his love sonnet. The volte face by the men at the end of IV, iii thus restores the ‘natural’ order and the normal stage pattern: their artificial world has been overturned by the force of Berowne’s rhetoric. They therefore do not go back inwards to the court to prepare themselves for the masque, but on the contrary now cross over to exit the outwards door, to accompany the ladies back to their tents where they will only subsequently entertain them with the masque. The proposal is initially put in terms of warlike metaphor: King Saint Cupid, then! and, soldiers, to the field! Berowne Advance your standards, and upon them, lords; Pell-mell, down with them! but be first advis’d, In conflict that you get the sun of them. (Love’s Labour’s Lost, IV, iii, 363–6)

The battlefield references of course evoke general connotations of their going ‘out’ to the field to conquer the ladies, but the lines immediately following are even stronger. They are a good deal more specific and explicitly practical, suggesting an unavoidable exit outwards to the park: Long. Now to plain dealing; lay these glozes by: Shall we resolve to woo these girls of France? King And win them too; therefore let us devise Some entertainment for them in their tents. Berowne First, from the park let us conduct them thither; Then homeward every man attach the hand Of his fair mistress. In the afternoon We will with some strange pastime solace them. (Love’s Labour’s Lost, IV, iii, 367–74)

This is a practical project, no longer a metaphorical conquest: they are going out to the park to accompany the ladies to their tents, wooing them as they go; they will then leave them there and retire to prepare an entertainment for them in the ‘afternoon’. Once they have crossed to exit outwards, the normal

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inwards-outwards and female-male pattern is re-established, and the subsequent scenes have flawless alternation patterns: in V, i Holofernes, etc., start the next scene from inwards (coming out from ‘dinner’ (V, i, 2), a marker that the ‘afternoon’ of the entertainment has arrived); then, in response to Armado’s news, they exit outwards to their ‘sport’ (V, i, 155). Next, in V, ii, the Princess and ladies enter from inwards. The location has now shifted to near their tents; they been conducted there by the men, who have since gone to prepare the ‘strange pastime’. The ladies’ tents are now close-by behind the ‘inwards door’: at the news the men are returning the Princess enjoins the ladies to ‘Whip to our tents’ (V, ii, 309), and then when Boyet is sent to retrieve the ladies (V, ii, 314) it only takes him 20 lines to return with them (V, ii, 336). The ‘natural’ order and the normal stage pattern are thus restored: the wooers enter from the outwards door, coming in to the ladies; so too the clowns for their performance (this pattern is similar to that present in the final act of A Midsummer Night’s Dream). The final exit is particularly eloquent in terms of the restoration of the ‘natural’ order, as it clearly illustrates the significance of exit patterns and thematic opposition between the offstage places beyond the doors. This exit also actually determines the final meaning: just how unhappy is the ‘unhappy ending’ which makes the King and nobles wait for a year before the ladies will accept their suits? The final act takes place near the ladies’ tents where they and their suitors (the King and nobles), who have come to visit them there, are entertained by a performance involving Armado and the other comic characters. Then a messenger arrives with news of the Princess’s father’s death, which news necessitates the departure of the ladies. So the play ends with an exit of all the characters, and the Folio’s final speech has Armado stage-manage the exits: ‘You that way; we this way’ (V, ii, 931). The Arden editor suggests this is an addition ‘by the stage-manager to ensure a tidy Exeunt’,5 and this may be the case. But if it is, what are the two groups, since there are three obvious groupings on the stage: the ladies, the men, the clowns? If this scene is at the tents as suggested above, then one would expect the King’s group to exit outwards back to the court; so too Armado and company. But do the Princess and ladies go outwards too (to return home), or retire inwards to their tents to prepare for their departure? A commonsense logic (and the final Folio line) would suggest the latter, particularly as the Princess has already sent Boyet off (presumably to the tents, inwards) to prepare their things: ‘Boyet, prepare: I will away to-night’ (Love’s Labour’s Lost, V, ii, 727).

R.W. David (ed.), Love’s Labour’s Lost (London, 1951, 1992), p. 187.

5

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This inwards exit for the ladies is subsequently confirmed, but not so the outwards exit for the Men – who instead accompany the ladies inwards. When the Princess begins leave-taking, she is contradicted by the King: Prin. Ay, sweet my lord, and so I take my leave. King. No, madam, we will bring you on your way. (Love’s Labour’s Lost, V, ii, 872–3)

This would suggest that the ladies and men are to leave the stage together, via the inwards door back towards the tents (it would make no sense if the double exit were the other way around, with ladies and men leaving outwards, and then clowns inwards towards the tents). The previous sending of Boyet off to the tents to pack the bags thus becomes a crucial marker: if he has gone that way, then it is logical for the ladies too (and the men with them) to do the same – with the understanding they will take their partings at, and leave from, the tents:

This exit pattern has two added advantages: firstly it avoids the necessity for formal leave-taking by each couple on the stage. This would be a time-consuming exchange of speeches if their previous exchanges are any indication, but something that would surely be required if these two groups are to exit separately. Secondly their processional exit together will foreshadow in its physical pattern the deferred happy ending that the audience is expecting to take place after the year of mourning, when the ladies will definitively take the men once they have proved their constancy.

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Conclusion The suggestion that original performance conditions and their use by playwrights might lead to such ‘meanings’ having been made available to the original performance is not to suggest that later productions should restrict themselves to, or defer to, such original meanings. Modern directors might well take issue with a particular Shakespearean directorial initiative (and its concomitant meanings) expressed in or derived from the text; they should be free to deliberately subvert it to create another meaning altogether – by creating, for example, a less optimistic ending than that suggested above for Love’s Labour’s Lost. The aim of the theatre and performance historian is to attempt to recover such original meanings, so as to add to, rather than restrict, the range of meanings available to modern practitioners. This places on historians a heavy burden of responsibility not to misread, ignore or deliberately subvert the clear textual indications to suggest that the playwright is actually intending something else altogether.6 In performance the communication is not just by the words of his characters, but by all the sign-systems, particularly the movement patterns on the stage. If we were to revisit Descartes’s aphorism ‘I think, therefore I am’, which encapsulates the moment of coming-to-self-awareness of individual human consciousness, we might point out that such a maxim does not include the social, communicative dimension of human existence, a dimension which is mirrored in the interactions of theatrical performance. Perhaps just as significant is another moment of selfawareness which might be expressed as ‘I mean, therefore I move’ – the moment at which the thinking-feeling-embodied entity registers awareness that thoughtsfeelings-meanings can be signified kinetically to another person. And this, of course, is the key contribution of semiotics: unlike Descartes’s articulation of thought’s relation to individual and solitary consciousness, sign-making re-frames thought as social, communicative and interactive. For this reason the proposition must imply its mirror response from the interlocutor, from the sign’s interpreter: ‘You move, therefore you mean’. The result is a shared awareness of movement as a manipulatable element in a meaning-making system. The entrance-exit and other movement patterns evident in the playtexts suggest that Shakespeare and other playwrights of this period were exquisitely aware of the meaning-movement binary as a shared, bi-directional competence; their structuring of the texts evidences a sensibility to the dialogic and interactive nature of meaningmaking between performer and audience, and a realization that theatre performance is a laboratory for human interaction and meaning-making more generally, precisely because it is one of the places where we learn how movement patterns can be made meaningful. This is the real significance of Hamlet’s admonition to the actors to ‘Suit the action to the word, the word to the action’ (Hamlet, III, ii, 17), and the real import of Jacques’s ‘All the world’s a stage’ (As You Like It, II, vii, 139). 6 Andrew Gurr, ‘Doors at the Globe: the Gulf between Page and Stage’, Theatre Notebook 55/2 (2001): p. 70.

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Appendix 1 ‘Three doors’, ‘Three ways’ and ‘In the midst’: Inferring a Third Opening Enter three in blacke clokes, at three doores. (The Four Prentices of London, I, i, 0) Enter three several ways the three Brothers. (The Travels [or Travails] of the Three English Brothers, Q1, H4v)

The opening stage direction of The Four Prentices of London contains one of the handful of references to three doors on the early modern English stage. The fact that it is an initial stage direction may be relevant, as we shall see, but at least it refers explicitly to three doors. Not so, however, the stage direction from The Travels [or Travails] of the Three English Brothers, which is somewhat more ambiguous. It would be possible for characters to enter ‘three several ways’ through two doors – or at pinch even through one door – by staggering the entrances and having the actors disperse in different directions on entry. ‘Three several ways’ might thus refer more to the ‘ways’ the characters go once they have become visible to the audience, rather than to different offstage fictional locations they are supposed to have come from. This book has argued that early modern playwrights, actors, and audience shared a sophisticated sense of space and place in performance. It has examined the principal ways in which a sense of fictional location is created, and in particular has elucidated the roles of the stage doors as pivotal interfaces between a range of places – many of which remain unseen offstage – that make up the fictional world of the performed play. Quite apart from the specific evidence adduced in the course of this exposition to suggest that the upstage central feature might have been merely a temporary concealment space rather than offering a third entrypoint from the tiring house, the wide-ranging extent and systemic nature of the spatial system outlined – predicated as it is on two opposed entrance- and exitpoints – constitutes in itself the most powerful argument that this was in fact the case: playwrights were writing with foresight, and what they foresaw was two and only two entrance-points. Nevertheless there remains considerable scepticism about the viability of a twodoor economy. This is sometimes framed as concern about the logistical problems of getting characters on and off the stage with only two available entrances. As we have seen in Chapter 8, such concerns do not seem to be well-founded when detailed analysis of a large corpus indicates that congestions at one or other of

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the stage doors appear to be being carefully managed – either by deliberately minimizing their impact or ‘marking’ them to punctuate the performance. Another line of argument that would disqualify two doors as the norm, and hence discount any system based on two entrance-points, might be based on punctilious examination of the early modern corpus to identify instances in which three doors are explicitly named or implicitly suggested, as occurs in the two stage directions quoted above. Such an approach could with some degree of justification be described as an exercise in casuistry if it were merely based on the amassing of individual ‘cases’. To escape such criticism it would need to then transcend these individual cases to provide a general theory for how the three doors were used – a theory, that is, that would be more than the sum of these individual microscopic ‘cases’. If a variety of hints and indications can be brought together to prove the general existence across most of the London playhouses of a three-door stage architecture as the ‘optimal’1 resource set for which the playwrights were writing, these cases should also throw light on how such a stage architecture might have been deployed systematically by the playwrights and acting companies in the work of producing performance with limited rehearsal time. An initial reservation in regard to a three-door position might be justified if, unlike the two-door system outlined above, it provided no broader justification for itself by articulating a practical generalized usage pattern for the three entrances. A second reservation would be justified if the evidence which this exercise amasses is not actually very substantial, and this is prima facie a substantial reservation. The force of some of this evidence is overstated: hints such ‘three ways’ are taken automatically (and problematically) to connote ‘three doors’. And in its entirety the evidence is statistically insignificant: a score of stage directions or dialogue indications out of tens of thousands of such, from thousands of plays, might merely point to some exceptional playhouses rather than to a general architecture. This last aspect is best illustrated by the startling realization that the supposed central opening is never referred to in any of the texts as an independent entrancepoint, except for Nabbes’s Covent Garden, a post-Jacobean ‘medieval throwback’ play discussed in an earlier chapter. There is no stage direction from the Elizabethan or Jacobean period which says ‘Enter at the central door’. Nabbes’s Caroline play was explicitly designed for a three-door stage – but if three doors were the norm throughout the whole of the earlier key period, why do we have to wait until the 1630s for such a configuration to appear in stage directions? To account for this textual ‘absence’ Andrew Gurr has argued that the central opening was substantially ‘off limits’ – reserved for a particularly restricted range of entrances, those of royalty and clowns.2 It might be objected that this would make Andrew Gurr, ‘Doors at the Globe: the Gulf between Page and Stage’, Theatre Notebook 55/2 (2001): p. 59. 2 Gurr, ‘Page and Stage’, pp. 69–70; see also Andrew Gurr, ‘Staging at the Globe’, in J.R. Mulryne and Margaret Shewring (eds), Shakespeare’s Globe Rebuilt (Cambridge, 1997), pp. 159–68. 1

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of the central feature a deliberately under-utilized resource, and one could wonder how and for how long such a ‘taboo’ status imposed on an available entrance might survive pragmatic production pressures. An alternative and possibly more justifiable explanation for the massive textual lacuna is that this upstage central opening simply did not exist except perhaps in a few marginal playhouses. This appendix will consider in turn the limited and indirect iconographic evidence called on to argue for a three-door architecture, and will then proceed to work systematically through the potentially relevant textual evidence to assess the extent to which its force and extent might have been overstated. Iconographic Evidence for a Central Opening Analysis of the playtexts in search of three-door minutiae is an indispensable tool in any argument for three doors, for the simple reason that other types of evidence for a third opening are at best inconclusive. There is no anecdotal evidence such as descriptions of performance which nominate such a feature; there are no archaeological remains that would support a three-door architecture, and the only iconographic evidence of the inside of a public playhouse, De Witt’s sketch of the Swan, shows incontrovertibly two rather than three stage doors. Whatever might be said about the reliability of De Witt as witness, and his expertise (and that of his copyist Arend Van Buchell) as artist, it is difficult to see how they might have combined to omit a detail that would have constituted the central feature of the sketched building, its place usurped by an annotation signalling that behind the blank wall lies the tiring house: ‘mimorum aedes’. In the face of De Witt’s sketch, some scholars have relied instead on the Inigo Jones plans for a hall theatre that may have been the Cockpit in Drury Lane. Jones’s hall theatre drawings constitute pictorial evidence that is at best of oblique relevance, and mounting an argument that uses the drawings as evidence for the public playhouses, as Andrew Gurr does, involves therefore buttressing this iconography with textual evidence and vice versa: We know…that the hall theatres had a frons scenae with a third opening, as did Inigo Jones’s indoor theatre design. So did at least some of the amphitheatres, as it seems from stage directions used at the Rose and the Red Bull.3

Gurr, ‘Page and Stage’, p. 61. George Reynolds, in his historic but still relevant study The Staging of Elizabethan Plays at the Red Bull Theater 1605–1625 (London, 1940), arrives at a different conclusion. Using the term ‘rear stage’ current at the time to signify a third central opening, he states: ‘It is hardly sound to assume, as practically all students seem to be doing, the existence of such a permanent rear stage at all the public theaters, and, specifically, at the Red Bull’ (p. 134). He favours instead a temporary curtained structure (pp. 135–6), a ‘removable curtained enclosure’ (p. 162) not unlike the concealment space I have proposed. 3

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This argument draws on and combines three separate sets of evidence, and only one of them is iconographic: this drawing of a hall theatre. Gurr’s generalization of a third opening in the hall theatres (as distinct from the public playhouses or ‘amphitheatres’) is based on a stage direction in Eastward Ho! (a Blackfriars play): he suggests that this piece of textual evidence and Jones’s drawing corroborate each other for the hall theatres. He then proceeds to draw similar conclusions from stage directions in plays staged at some other outdoor playhouses (the Rose and the Red Bull). We will discuss below this evidence from stage directions, but let us isolate first the Jones designs on which Gurr relies so heavily, since he returns repeatedly to this key piece of evidence,4 counterposing it to De Witt: Jones’s plans stand as the best view we have of what the best professional designers expected a good new theatre in the early seventeenth century to look like. … It is far less suspect as a design for a stage than the copy of De Witt’s Swan.5

The significance of the Jones drawings is more ambiguous than Gurr would suggest. In his 1985 book John Orrell argued that these designs dated from around 1616,6 and that they were plans for Beeston’s adaptation of a cockpit into a hall playhouse – an interpretation which Gurr shares: ‘Jones designed a pair of narrow square-lintelled single doorways for the flanks of his frons scenae in his version of the Cockpit’.7 Gurr proceeds to argue that if these designs date from around 1616 and were plans for Beeston’s adaptation of a cock-fighting pit into the Cockpit in Drury Lane, as John Orrell suggested,8 they have a sort of retrospective architectural significance. The three doors evident in Inigo Jones’s 1616 drawings reflect three doors at its prototype, Blackfriars; and if Blackfriars had three doors then so would have the Globe when it was re-erected from the timbers of the Theatre in 1599 – since the King’s Men would have found it inefficient to be doing productions in two playhouses with different stage resources.9 However, even a cursory glance at the drawings is sufficient to suggest a genealogy that has nothing to do with Blackfriars: the planned hall theatre bears a remarkable similarity to Palladio’s Teatro Olimpico at Vicenza (or more precisely in the frons scenae which Vincenzo Scamozzi subsequently added to it). Both designs feature two ‘square-lintelled’ doorways flanking a larger, arched central doorway, with niches between them for statuary. The Jones drawings may then Gurr, ‘Page and Stage’, pp. 61, 62, 66 (four references) Gurr, ‘Page and Stage’, p. 66. 6 John Orrell, The Theatres of Inigo Jones and John Webb (Cambridge, 1985), 4 5

pp. 39–45. 7 Gurr, ‘Page and Stage’, p. 66. 8 Orrell, The Theatres of Inigo Jones, pp. 42–64. 9 See Andrew Gurr, ‘Stage Doors at the Globe’, Theatre Notebook 53/1 (1999): pp. 8–18; and Tim Fitzpatrick and Wendy Millyard, ‘Hangings, Doors and Discoveries: Conflicting Evidence or Problematical Assumptions?’, Theatre Notebook 54/1 (2000): p. 21.

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derive from his extended visit to Italy in the years immediately prior to Orrell’s suggested date of his production of these drawings.10 However, there is a more crucial weakness in an argument that would seek to make of the Jones drawings a pivotal point from which a genealogy can be traced back to the first Globe: Orrell’s identification of this untitled sketch as belonging to 1616–18, and therefore for the conversion of a cockpit into a hall playhouse for Beeston, is questionable. Jean Wilson notes serious disagreement on the subject,11 preferring the opinion of Jones specialists: John Harris and Gordon Higgott maintain that the drawings must stylistically be assigned to the late 1630s, and that the theatre in question must therefore have been William Davenant’s projected playhouse in Fleet Street. This was planned in 1638–9, ran into difficulties, and was postponed by the Civil War.12

Gordon Higgott has since modified his views, and now believes the drawings are by John Webb and date from the 1660s.13 They are presumably of a Jacobean playhouse, but their connection to the Gurr’s supposed prototype, Blackfriars, is rendered even more tenuous. Whoever did these plans, and whether they date from the late sixteen-thirties or the sixteen-sixties, their pivotal role and significance as reflectors and determinants of playwrights’ conceptions of ‘optimal’ performance resources for the key period 1590–1610 are notably diminished. To argue, as Gurr does, that these drawings give us a good idea of the resources playwrights would have expected early in the seventeenth century might therefore overstate considerably their importance. Textual Evidence for a Third Opening The tenuous nature of this iconographic evidence means that the weight of the argument needs to be carried instead by textual analysis. Many scholars have interpreted the texts as relying on the existence of an upstage-centre opening that provided a third access-point from the tiring house onto the stage, and was the location for ‘discoveries’,14 beds and monuments such as Hero’s in Much Ado About Nothing. This book has adopted a strategy of detailed and systematic examination of spatial patterns in a large textual corpus, combined with a statistical analysis of the patterns which such a study elucidates. That analysis has revealed spatial patterns Fitzpatrick, ‘Hangings’, p. 21. Jean Wilson, The Archeology of Shakespeare (Stroud, 1997), p. 142. 12 John Harris and Gordon Higgott Inigo Jones: Complete Architectural Drawings 10

11

(London, 1989), pp. 266ff. 13 Higgott is seen discussing on video the drawings: http://video.google.com/video play?docid=273236535539220056. 14 Andrew Gurr, ‘Staging at the Globe’, pp. 161–2.

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to suggest that the texts were constructed on the assumption of only two doors – which would mean that discoveries would have to be located at the inwards door, and not in the central feature. Let us now proceed to read back this resultant alternative stage configuration into a number of textual ‘cases’ that might suggest three openings – two doors and a separate discovery space. How does it inform our reading of these particular cases? Does it cope with the supposed problems, does it even perhaps throw light on otherwise confusing patterns? For the sake of clarity, before we proceed to examine the ‘cases’ brought forward by scholars in support of three openings, let us list this alternative resource set which has emerged from the analysis so far: • there were two double doors, providing two openings each about 6 feet wide: wide enough, that is, for beds, etc., to be ‘discovered’ or ‘thrust forth’; • they opened out onto the stage, not into the cramped tiring house, and hinged back flat against the tiring-house wall; • they were closed and opened either by entering and exiting characters, or stage-hands, but were only closed when they signified fictional doors – so they were often left open; • tiring-house privacy was therefore usually provided by curtains hung in the tiring house behind the doorways, to cover them when the doors were open (curtains which could therefore be opened and closed from either onstage or offstage for discoveries); • the doors were probably also equipped with a lattice or grate for offstage characters to speak through, and to enable offstage actors in the tiring house to follow what was going on onstage; • there was also a concealment space upstage centre for onstage characters to hide in temporarily, but it provided no access to and from the tiring house; • it involved a curtain on a rod, that might have been about 3 feet clear of the tiring-house wall at the centre (if the wall was angled, following the cants of the polygonal playhouse structure); between this angled wall and the curtain hung clear of it, one or more characters could hide or, as Volpone does, ‘peep over’ the curtain (Volpone V, ii, 80–85); • This space would therefore be of limited use for discoveries: only for those that could be pre-set before the performance. However discoveries that required backstage set-up during performance would have to be done at the inwards door. These are the assumptions that guide the following discussion – a discussion in which various ‘cases’ have been grouped in terms of the explicitness of the textual reference. Do they mention ‘three doors’, or ‘three ways’? Does an entrance ‘in the midst’ connote a central entrance-point? What are the logistical implications of characters entering or exiting ‘severally’? Do the movement patterns which some scholars have deduced from the texts really require more than two openings?

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Bernard Beckerman referred sagely and indeterminately to the ‘place in the middle’.15 There is no doubt that there was some upstage central feature, and it has been suggested in earlier chapters that it might have been a concealment space for onstage characters, involving curtains hung against (or slightly forward of) the wall, but providing no access to and from the tiring house. As such, this feature might have been temporary, with the curtains hung only if required by a particular play – which might account for its absence from de Witt’s sketch.16 However Andrew Gurr has argued that in some playhouses this central curtained feature might have been more permanent, providing a third point of access to the stage: ‘Other early amphitheatres and later hall theatres had a third opening, if we are to credit the Rose and Red Bull stage directions, stage directions in plays written for the Blackfriars’.17 But despite Gurr’s assertion that selected stage directions from the Rose, the Red Bull and Blackfriars constitute ‘Evidence for the use in most playhouses of the three-door configuration’,18 the textual evidence in support of such a position is neither so extensive nor so unambiguously convincing as to serve, when allied to his reading of the Jones drawings, as a basis for the theory he goes on to develop that this was the dominant and default arrangement which playwrights were envisaging as they wrote. Gurr’s recourse to what could justifiably be characterized as a few exceptions that prove the rule concentrates (apart from the reference to Blackfriars) on two playhouses, the Rose and the Red Bull. His own 1992 list of plays19 assigns some 60 plays to these playhouses (though some were performed in both venues); but he draws specific examples from only a handful: The Four Prentices of London, The Travels of the Three English Brothers, The Golden Age and The Virgin Martyr, together with a some plays staged elsewhere which also call for comment. Let us look in turn at a number of different categories of evidence constituted by the examples that might point to a third opening.

Beckerman, Shakespeare at the Globe, 1599–1609 (New York, 1962), p. 73. The infrequent use of this third resource may stem from the limitation that it does

15 16

not provide access to the tiring house, and might not have been in place if not required by a particular play – rather than from tacit understandings and protocols which would restrict its use to royal entrances, discoveries and clowns as Andrew Gurr suggests (‘Page and Stage’, pp. 69–70). 17 Gurr, ‘Page and Stage’, 61. 18 Gurr, ‘Page and Stage’, 62. 19 Andrew Gurr, The Shakespearean Stage, 1574–1642, 3rd ed. (Cambridge, 1992), pp. 232–43.

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‘Three Doors’ Alan Dessen and Leslie Thomson’s invaluable reference work notes some 600 examples of stage directions referring to doors.20 A large subset of these 600 is constituted by ‘hundreds of entrances/exits at one door/at another door’, so it is of some statistical significance that the record of stage directions which involve three entrance-points is comparatively so slight – and there are none that specify the use of a central door independent of simultaneous use of the lateral doors. There are just three plays in the whole early modern corpus that refer explicitly to three doors.21 The most interesting of these is Eastward Ho!, the opening scene of which contains an explicit stage direction that mentions a ‘middle door’. But a closer examination of the sequence involved suggests that this is not necessarily a practicable door providing access to the tiring house, and the dialogue and stage directions may well justify an alternative reading of the size and characteristics of this upstage feature: Enter Master Touchstone and Quicksilver at several doors, Quicksilver with his hat, pumps, short sword & dagger, & a racket trussed up under his cloake. At the middle door, enter Golding, discovering a goldsmith’s shop, and walking short turns before it. (Eastward Ho! I, i, 0)

It is clear from the text that the central feature represents Touchstone’s goldsmith’s shop: Golding enters from it, but he subsequently makes clear to the Page it is not his shop, but Touchstone’s: ‘It is his shop, and here my master walks.’ (I, i, 70). Golding is merely on duty, in contrast to Touchstone’s other apprentice Quicksilver (see I, i, 20, 77) who is not. A little reflection clarifies what the other two entrance-points (obviously the two lateral doors) represent in this scene: one stands for Touchstone’s house which Quicksilver is attempting to leave, intending to ‘use his recreation’ (I, i, 13) to play tennis. Quicksilver lodges with his master: he sleeps and gets drunk in Touchstone’s house, a source of some aggravation to the latter and to Golding (II, i, 29, 37, 93), and his abuse of his master’s house culminates in Touchstone subsequently dismissing his apprentice from the house and returning him his indenture (II, i, 114–15). At the play’s opening, as he leaves the house he is waylaid by his master. There is no indication of where Touchstone is coming from, but it might be inferred from Golding’s shop-minding duties that his master has been out and is now returning; but what is most significant is the oppositional pattern of their entrances – Quicksilver is being intercepted on his way out.

20 Alan C. Dessen and Leslie Thomson, A Dictionary of Stage Directions in English Drama, 1580–1642 (Cambridge, 1999), p. 73. 21 Mariko Ichikawa, Shakespearean Entrances (Basingstoke/New York, 2002), follows Gurr’s interpretation of these instances: p. 18.

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The indication that Golding is ‘walking short turns’ before the shop might suggest that it is not a large feature. This is confirmed in the second stage direction (II, i, 0) where it is referred to merely as a ‘stall’, evidently so small that no-one can sit inside it – since Touchstone, Golding and Mildred are sitting ‘on either side’ of it. More importantly, this feature need not provide access to and from the tiring house: Golding could be pre-positioned in the goldsmith’s shop before the start of the performance and ‘enter’ from there at the start of the play, and the three characters who go into it at the end of I, ii clearly do not leave the stage before reappearing at the start of II, i. At the end of the second scene, after the other characters have gone into Touchstone’s house, the three remaining characters enter this ‘middle door’ with Touchstone directing their exit: ‘So, shut up shop, in! We must make holiday!’ (I, ii, 162–3). However they do not need to exit into the tiring house, as immediately thereafter they are discovered in the central feature: ‘Touchstone, Golding, and Mildred, sitting on either side of the stall’ (II, i, 0). This might then be at best a small temporary structure on the stage, not unlike those described by Michael Best in his study of the staging patterns of the boys’ companies, or suggested by George Reynolds in relation to the Red Bull.22 Perhaps, however, even a temporary structure was unnecessary. If we assume the presence of an angled tiring-house wall and curtained concealment space (perhaps embellished with a sign and/or a skeletal frame to signify the ‘shop’ or ‘stall’), the sequence of actions might be as follows: Golding is pre-positioned there before the start of the performance and comes out, ‘discovering’ the shop by opening the curtains. Then at the end of I, ii he, Mildred and Touchstone go in and close the curtains to ‘shut up shop’, and then take up their positions on stools behind the curtain on either side of the stall. The curtains are then re-opened (presumably by stage-hands) to reveal them for the split-stage action of II, i which occurs the following morning: Touchstone talks with Quicksilver (back home after a night of drinking), then eavesdrops on the scene between Golding and Mildred:

Fig. App. 1.1

Eastward Ho!: different curtain arrangements modify the concealment space.

22 Michael R. Best, ‘The staging and production of the plays of John Lyly’, Theatre Research 9/2 (1968): pp. 104–17. See also George Reynolds, The Staging of Elizabethan Plays, pp. 133–6.

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The central location of the shop carries no necessary connotations of status, importance or pretentiousness, as has been suggested.23 Indeed there is evidence to the opposite effect. Touchstone refers to it as ‘a little shop’ (I, i, 46), in keeping with the opening stage direction’s indication that Golding is ‘walking short turns’ in front of it, and three characters ‘in’ the shop actually sit ‘on either side of the stall’. This might then be a small temporary structure providing no access to the tiring house, where Golding could be positioned prior to his initial entrance. If the performance is preceded by the usual musical entertainment, the actor playing Golding can easily position himself while the musicians and their properties leave the stage: what follows is not a dramatic surprise entrance, so nothing significant is lost should anyone in the audience notice the actor positioning himself. It is telling that Jonson’s ‘middle door’ serves no discernible purpose as a goldsmith’s shop or anything else in any subsequent scene in the play: detailed analysis shows that the rest of the action runs smoothly on the basis of a two-door logic.24 The text does not suggest that this central feature should be imbued with any particular iconic status and predominance that would counter-distinguish it, for example, from other shops represented elsewhere on the stage. Indeed there is nothing in the text to suggest that any other shops are thus represented (one in each flanking door, for instance) – let alone that the central one is the most prominent of a number of such shops, as Andrew Gurr repeatedly argues.25 Gurr’s misreading of the textual evidence is of particular significance given that this stage direction is the basis for his argument that there were three doors at Blackfriars (and hence at the Globe).26 Gurr, ‘Page and Stage’, p. 61. I have previously discussed the single use of this central feature in this play

23 24

(Fitzpatrick, ‘Hangings’, pp. 19–20), pointing out that that these two uses of the ‘shop’ are the only such instances in the course of the play. 25 It is surprising that Andrew Gurr would wish to mount such an argument in regard to this text: Eastward Ho!’s three shops, with ‘At the middle door, Enter Golding discovering a Goldsmith’s shop’, specifically places one shop in each doorway. Golding’s, the most pretentious of the three sets of wares on display, had to be set in the most imposing location, the central opening (although if the shops were set in all three of the doorways they must have impeded entry for the shoppers). (‘Page and Stage’, p. 61) As noted above, the text in fact contradicts Gurr’s assumption that the initial entrance of Touchstone, Quicksilver and Golding involves each of them coming out of their respective shops: apprentices work in their master’s shop, they do not have their own. Despite noting that if each of his three stage entrances signifies a shop then this presents entrance problems for characters coming from elsewhere, Gurr makes repeated references to these three shops: ‘Eastward Ho! with its golden shop in the centre’ (p. 65); ‘the three shops in Eastward Ho! each used a separate opening for their displays’ (p. 68). His repeated suggestion that the central location of the goldsmith’s shop confers on it a pretentiousness and iconic significance in opposition to two other shops seems wide of the mark. 26 Ichikawa, Elizabethan Entrances, p. 14, cites another possible example of a shop that would entail a third opening, in Thomas Dekker’s, The Honest Whore, Part II

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A similar pattern may hold in Heywood’s The Four Prentices of London (performed at the Red Bull and at the Rose, probably in 1594). Its prologue begins with a stage direction ‘Enter three in blacke clokes, at three doores’, and once again this is at the very start of the performance – so the character entering from the third ‘door’ (one of the play’s three ‘Prologues’) could enter from the concealment space, having been positioned there beforehand. It should be noted that the text of the prologue emphasizes the ‘fictional’ aspect of the stage doors (it stresses the range of things they might stand for, their fictional signifieds, rather than their physical ‘doorness’ as signifiers): 1 O superfluous, and more then ever I heard of! three Prologues to one play! 2 Have you not seene three ropes to tole one bell, three doores to one house, three wayes to one Towne? (The Four Prentises of London, A4r27)

This reference to multiple fictional significations of the openings to the tiring house suggests that the issue here is not the practicability of the stage doors, so a functional curtain in front of a concealment space could serve loosely as a third door or road without raising the audience’s semiotic hackles. Analysis of this play too demonstrates that, apart from this initial stage direction, it runs smoothly with two doors.28 The Maid’s Metamorphosis also refers explicitly to three doors: Enter Ioculo, Frisco, and Mopso, at three severall doors (Dv4). However this passage does not necessarily indicate a playwright writing for a three-door architecture.29 It can be argued that it indicates instead a playwright who, despite knowing he has three doors to play with in some playhouses, is aware of its lack in others. Mopso and Ioculo have six lines of dialogue before Frisco is drawn into the conversation, and this late entry into the conversation might be seen as a sort of textual ‘each-way bet’ by which the playwright covers both two- and three-door configurations. This textual ‘space’ prior to Frisco’s entrance into the dialogic exchange would enable (London, 1630): ‘Enter at one doore Lodouico and Carolo; at another Bots, and Mistris Horsleach; Candido and his wife appeare in the Shop’ (F2r). This would be more convincing were it not for the fact that the shop is not called into play until some 20 lines after the entrances at the two doors, when Lodovico spies Candido and his wife: ‘Stay, is that not my patient Linnen Draper yonder, and my fine yong smug Mistris, his wife?’(F2v). The shop could easily be set and revealed within one of the two doorways after the two sets of characters have entered. The semicolon which divides the stage direction in two is probably significant. Ichikawa, Elizabethan Entrances, 15, also refers to Middleton’s A Chaste Maid in Cheapside B1r: ‘Enter Maudline and Moll, a Shop being discovered’. Subsequent entrances in the scene are all from outwards to the shop, so this does not imply a third opening. 27 Thomas Heywood, The Foure Prentises of London, London for I. W[right], 1615. 28 The same may well be true for the opening scene of David and Bethsabe, which employs a curtain or pavilion (see Gurr, ‘Page and Stage’, p, 69). 29 This position is argued by Gurr, ‘Page and Stage’, p. 61.

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a delayed entrance onto the stage if necessary. If such is the case it is similar to the practice of staggering exits at the ends of scenes discussed in an earlier chapter, to minimize logistical problems or for other reasons: Shakespeare in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, I, i, 222–5 creates a temporal parting of Lysander and Hermia by staggering their exits. Staggering exits or entrances can either complement or substitute for a spatial separation which might or might not be an option depending on the number of exits available for a particular performance. In fact another moment in The Maid’s Metamorphosis which involves the same three characters is considerably less specific about the ‘doorness’ of one of their entrance-points, and into the bargain explicitly refers to just two doors: ‘one’ and ‘the other’: Enter at one doore, Mopso singing Enter at the other doore, Frisco singing Enter Ioculo in the midst singing. (The Maid’s Metamorphosis, C3, C3v)

This stage direction merely specifies that two characters enter via lateral doors, and then specifies that the third character (wherever his point of entry) should end up between the other two. This and the earlier stage direction cannot both be right: either there are ‘three severall doors’ or there is ‘one doore’ and ‘the other doore’. Given the vast size of the textual corpus, these few instances which explicitly nominate three doors do not represent a statistically convincing return on the investigative energies expended. This fact, and the two-door textual patterns elucidated in the range of texts discussed in earlier chapters, combine to suggest instead that some playwrights may have very occasionally written for three openings, but only in limited circumstances (at the very beginning of the performance) or with an alternative eye to two doors. These three examples can be used to argue that some playhouses may have had an upstage central feature that would serve as a third entrance-point, but it is to draw a long bow indeed to extrapolate from such a slight body of evidence to argue for three doors as the dominant pattern across all the playhouses. ‘Three ways’ and ‘severally’ The paucity of explicit references to three ‘doors’ leads to discussions of paraphrases that might bolster the evidence for this elusive trinity. One such example has been cited at the beginning of this appendix: it refers to entrances ‘three ways’. This occurs in a play by Day, Rowley and Wilkins, The Travels [or Travails] of the Three English Brothers, a Red Bull play from 1607, and one of the Red Bull plays adduced by Andrew Gurr to buttress the iconographic importance of the Jones drawings discussed above.30 The first Quarto of this play has, at H4v: ‘Enter three severall waies the three Brothers’, but these ‘three several ways’ cannot be equated with ‘three doors’, since Gurr, ‘Page and Stage’, p. 61.

30

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the issue here is not so much where the three brothers have come from, but where they end up on the stage once they have entered. They are to position themselves in three parts of the stage, signifying three kingdoms – as is evident from Fame’s address to the audience which introduces these processional entrances: Fame.

But would your apprehensions helpe poore art Into three partes deviding this our stage: They all at once shall take their leaves of you, Thinke this England, this Spaine, this Persia. (The Travels [or Travails] of the Three English Brothers, H4r, H4v)

Their ‘three ways’ refer therefore to their trajectories once they have entered – the ‘floor patterns’ or ‘blocking’ that take them to their particular part of the stage – rather than to their respective points of (almost certainly) staggered entrance. Mariko Ichikawa notes that similar caveats need to be invoked where three characters are indicated as entering ‘severally’, as occurs in Chettle’s The Tragedy of Hoffman: ‘Enter Saxony, Rodorique, Marthias, seuerally’ (H4v). She is correct to note: ‘we cannot completely dismiss the possibility that in this case the three characters enter one after the other from the same door.’31 ‘In the midst’ There are numerous instances where, as we have seen in the case of Ioculo above, a character is indicated as entering ‘in the midst’, and this might be taken to indicate a central entrance-point. One such instance occurs in Chettle, Dekker and Haughton’s Patient Grissil, a Fortune play. The Fortune may well have had three entrance-points, but this play could be seamlessly performed even with two doors, and the stage direction in question is at best ambiguous in regard to entrancepoints: ‘Enter Vrcense and Onophrio at seuerall doors, and Farnezie in the mid’st.’ (III, ii, 0). The phrasing may suggest a staggered entrance, as Andrew Gurr seems to imply with his suggestion that this set of entrances ‘makes the third and most potent one “in the midst”’.32 However if the entrances are staggered into some such climactic sequence, then two doors could be used in alternation and three separate entrance-points would not be required. It should however be pointed out that there is no question of high status here that can be used to justify Farnezie’s entrance as the ‘most potent’ and therefore necessarily from the central opening: these are simply three characters who are meeting so as to be onstage observers to a scene about to take place between Emulo and Julia. Where they are coming from or the relative status of their entrance-points is irrelevant – the stage direction is intent

31 Ichikawa, Elizabethan Entrances, p. 14. This holds for two other instances noted by Ichikawa, Elizabethan Entrances, p. 103: The Woman’s Prize F1, 5O1v: ‘Enter three mayds, at severall doors’. The Two Noble Kinsmen, Q1, D1r; 1.5.16: ‘Exeunt severally’. 32 Gurr, ‘Page and Stage’, p. 61; see also Ichikawa, Elizabethan Entrances, p. 14.

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firstly on signifying that they are congregating here from different directions, and secondly on having Farnezie end up between the other two. We saw in an earlier chapter that Mariko Ichikawa claims two sequences from Jonson’s Epicoene as referring to three doorways.33 They do not, but clearly refer instead to two doors plus some central feature or central position on the stage. As we have seen in Chapter 2, the long sequence in Act 4 refers repeatedly to two doorways and an ‘arras’ behind which characters temporarily conceal themselves; the ‘arras’ is not needed as a third exit-point, and at no point does this sequence refer to three doorways. Neither does the subsequent sequence, which Ichikawa claims ‘refers to three doorways for a second time’.34 In this second sequence True-wit directs his two companions to position themselves with him upstage. He and Dauphine will stand by the two stage doors, and Clerimont upstage centre: ‘Thou shall keepe one dore, and I another, and then Clerimont in the midst, that he [Morose] may haue no meanes of escape from their cavilling him, when they grow hot once’ (V, ii, 317/590). The three characters who stand upstage do not enter or exit by their two respective doors or whatever feature is ‘in the midst’; they are merely positioned upstage near these features, out of the way of the central action between Morose at centre stage, and Otter and Cutberd (disguised as Lawyer and Parson) downstage left and right. An example from Heywood’s The English Traveller, a play performed at the Cockpit in 1627, raises identical issues.35 It features this stage direction: Enter at one doore an Usurer and his Man, at the other, Old Lionell with his servant: in the midst Reignald (Fv). Once again we cannot assume, as Gurr seems to,36 a simple identification of ‘in the midst’ with ‘by a middle opening’, since the main issue is not where the characters come from but where they end up in relation to each other once on stage: this becomes a ‘split’ scene, with Reignald, the character ‘in the midst’, interacting in turns with the two groups on either side of the stage.37 It might be noted in passing that the phrase ‘in the midst’ may derive from a very common direction in the scenarios of the Commedia dell’Arte: characters often enter ‘di mezzo’ or place them selves on entry between other characters (‘si mette di mezzo’). There is one such instance in The Four Prentises of London: ‘Bella Franca … runnes betwixt them and parts them’.38

Ichikawa, ‘Were the Doors Open or Closed?’ The Use of Stage Doors in the Shakespearean Theatre’, Theatre Notebook 60/1 (2006): p. 19. 34 Ichikawa, ‘Were the Doors Open or Closed?’ p. 19. 35 Ichikawa refers to this instance as indicating a third central opening: Elizabethan Entrances, p. 18. 36 Gurr, ‘Page and Stage’, p. 61. 37 A similar pattern occurs in The Trial of Chivalry: ‘Enter in the middest, Pembrooke, Ferdinand, and Philip’ (Q1, I4r). 38 Thomas Heywood, The Foure Prentises of London, London for I. W[right], 1615. 33

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Staging Discoveries: the Inferred ‘Necessity’ of a Third Opening The foregoing stringent examination of the textual evidence which has been deemed to refer most explicitly and directly to a trinity of openings in the tiring house wall suggests that the evidence is less than convincing, and the hypothesized central opening remains maddeningly elusive. It may be, however, that a more inferential line of argument that deduces general movement patterns from the texts will bring the three openings, the central one of which is thought to serve as a ‘discovery space’, into sharper focus. Let us proceed therefore to discuss the textual instances that have been brought forward to support such inferential arguments, and examine in particular the cogency of the inferences drawn from the textual patterns. This will lead us to question the rational basis for the belief that discoveries took place at the upstage central feature: the textual evidence is often ambiguous, but more to the point such arguments involve substantial inference from that evidence, and the assumptions underlying such inferential processes are themselves questionable. There are many indications to suggest there was some sort of dramaturgical resource upstage centre between the two flanking doors: characters regularly hide themselves behind curtains at points where there is considerable stage traffic, suggesting something in addition to the two lateral doors shown in De Witt. Bernard Beckerman noted that the profusion of terms used to describe ‘the place in the middle’ indicates the conflicting evidence and points of view, but nevertheless observed that it was granted by all scholars ‘that there is some space between the stage doors, capable of being enclosed or secluded’.39 There was something there, but as we have seen in previous chapters the textual evidence that it was a fully functioning third opening in the vast majority of playhouses is not as strong as some scholars would argue. I have called this feature a ‘concealment space’ since it is generally used as a place where onstage characters can temporarily conceal themselves, to later return to the stage rather than disappear through an opening into the tiring house.40 • An earlier chapter has provided substantial evidence that the two lateral doorways were fitted both with practicable doors and with hangings. This would

Beckerman, Shakespeare at the Globe, p. 73. Tim Fitzpatrick, ‘Stage Management, Dramaturgy and Spatial Semiotics in

39 40

Shakespeare’s Dialogue’, Theatre Research International 24 (1999): p. 14. Gurr (‘Page and Stage’, pp. 60, 61) has unfairly characterized my inclusion of the additional resource of a concealment space as merely an exercise in ‘fudging’, a belated and limited recognition of the inadequacy of two doors. However, he does not refer to my 1999 article which contains the complete articulation of my position. In that article I acknowledged the need for at least a concealment space, and canvassed its role and function in a number of plays which require a resource in addition to two doors; it had not been considered in my initial foray into the field (‘Shakespeare’s Exploitation of a Two-Door Stage: Macbeth’, Theatre Research International 20 (1995): pp. 207–30) because Macbeth, the focus of that article’s analysis, does not require such a concealment space.

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mean that when the doors were open tiring-house privacy was assured, and also that many entrances could be made through a split in the hangings – a technically simpler means of entry than one which entailed opening and closing a door, as Gurr has pointed out.41 One important ramification of such a configuration is that textual references to ‘hangings’, ‘curtains’, ‘arras’ and ‘discoveries’ do not therefore automatically refer to the upstage central feature. It certainly seems to have been curtained, but its curtains were not the only ones in evidence; so arguments which depend on textual references to such ‘hangings’ or ‘discoveries’ do not automatically connote a central opening into the tiring house. Claims made by Mariko Ichikawa that plays such as Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus and The Jew of Malta need a specifically ‘central discovery space’ for Faustus’s study and Barabas’s counting house, and for the hell and cauldron to be ‘discovered’ towards the ends of the plays42 should therefore be discounted.43

Ichikawa lists a number of Shakespearean plays that require ‘a discovery space or a third entry’.44 The instances from early plays include Henry VI part 2, III, ii, iii (Gloucester’s and the Cardinal’s death bed scenes, which will be discussed below) and Romeo and Juliet, IV, iv, and V, iii: (Juliet’s bed, and the tomb). However in neither of these instances from the latter play is it necessary to keep both lateral doors free for entrances and exits in opposing directions, so there is no need for the bed or tomb to be located at an upstage centre third opening: it could be in one of the two doorways, with characters entering to it from the other door. Of more interest is Ichikawa’s instance from Henry VI part 1, II, i. In this scene the English soldiers scale the walls of Orleans with ladders, and the French defenders ‘leap o’er the walls in their shirts’ (II, i, 38): the actors are to jump from the gallery onto the stage below. But then follows a stage direction for the entrance of the French nobles: Enter, several ways, BASTARD, ALANSON, REIGNIER, half ready and half unready. (Henry VI part 1, II, i, 38)

Ichikawa’s line of reasoning appears strong: if the English soldiers are entering via one door to attack the town, and these nobles then enter ‘several ways’ escaping from the town, there must be three entrance-points. However it subsequently becomes clear that the playwright is envisaging an unusual entrance-point for the nobles too: not only the common troops but also some of the nobles ‘leap o’er the walls’. In the following scene Bedford tells Talbot how the French nobles escaped:

Gurr, ‘Stage Doors’, p. 17. Ichikawa, Shakespearean Entrances, p. 15. 43 The case for a central opening was articulated by Richard Hosley in an important 41 42

article, ‘The Discovery-Space in Shakespeare’s Globe’, Shakespeare Survey 12 (1959): pp. 35–46. 44 Ichikawa, Shakespearean Entrances, p. 18.

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Bed. ’Tis thought, Lord Talbot, when the fight began, Rous’d on the sudden from their drowsy beds, They did amongst the troops of armed men Leap o’er the walls for refuge in the field. (Henry VI part 1, II, ii, 22–5)

The nobles thus enter ‘several ways’ either by using one stage door or by jumping from the gallery, so no third entry-point is required here. Throughout this book the importance of spatial indications recoverable from the dialogue has been repeatedly stressed. Ichikawa’s argument from this instance provides a clear example of a reading of the stage direction without consideration of the surrounding dialogic context. It is unfortunate that arguments for the third opening are based on such narrowly focussed reading strategies. Nor are Ichikawa’s examples from later Shakespearean plays45 more cogent: they provide no hard evidence of a third entry-point at the upstage central feature. In King John, IV, i the executioners are sent to stand ‘Within the arras’ (IV, i, 2), and come forth onto the stage some 60 lines later. If this ‘arras’ is at the central feature it does not need to provide access to and from the tiring house. The Merchant of Venice (II, vii, II, ix and III, ii) features the ‘discovery’ of the caskets, but as this play has no other need for the upstage central feature the caskets can be set there before the start of the performance, ‘discovered’ and then re-concealed as required – so access from the tiring house is not required. In Henry IV part 1, II, v, 500 the Prince sends Falstaff ‘behind the arras’, where he goes to sleep while the Sheriff inquires about him. At the end of the scene the Prince exits, directing Peto to leave Falstaff asleep. No third entry is required, so in this case the ‘arras’ which Falstaff uses can be in one of the two lateral doorways. In The Merry Wives of Windsor, III, iii, 90, Falstaff ensconces himself ‘behind the arras’, and some 40 lines later comes out onto the stage – so no opening into the tiring house is required if in this case the ‘arras’ used is the hanging at the central feature. The same holds for Hamlet, III, iv: Polonius hides behind the arras, but is then brought onto the stage by Hamlet and dragged off via one of the doors – so again there is no question of the central upstage feature needing to provide a third exit-point. In The Winter’s Tale, the discovery of Hermione’s statue is preceded by a number of extremely explicit and detailed spatial indications of a whole series of exits and entrances via the outwards door. The reconciliation scene between the two Kings takes place off outwards at the seashore; perhaps one contributing factor to its not being shown to the audience was the logistical problem which seems to be dominating the movement patterns in this section of the play – a problem created by one door being deliberately not used, so as to build to the climactic unveiling of the ‘statue’ positioned behind it. At the end of V, i Leontes, in an explicitly ‘marked’ manner, indicates a major outwards exit for his court for the reconciliation scene: Ichikawa, Shakespearean Entrances, pp. 18–19.

45

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Playwright, Space and Place in Early Modern Performance Leontes I will to your father. Your honor not o’erthrown by your desires, I am a friend to them and you. Upon which errand I now go toward him; therefore follow me, And mark what way I make. Come, good my lord. (The Winter’s Tale, V, I, 229–33)

The following scene begins with Autolycus receiving a series of news updates from outwards, as various gentlemen arrive (at lines 1, 19 and 25) recounting the latest developments at the site of reconciliation. They all then exit back outwards (112) to join the others who are still there, not having returned to the palace. Then the Shepherd and Clown too enter from outwards (123), from the encounter – and then they too, with Autolycus, return outwards to join the others (174). Scene iii then begins with the Kings and their respective children and courts re-entering from outwards, coming inwards to the ‘chapel’ within Paulina’s house (via the ‘gallery’). Note how explicitly is sketched the topography of Paulina’s house: Leontes O Paulina, We honour you with trouble; but we came To see the statue of our queen. Your gallery Have we pass’d through. (The Winter’s Tale, V, iii, 8–11)

At the end of the play, all exit outwards to another part of the house. The ‘gallery’ and the rest of the house has been established here as beyond the outwards door, and Leontes enjoins Paulina to ‘Hastly lead away’ (155) to where, as foreshadowed by Paulina’s Steward in scene ii (103), they ‘intend to sup’. This deliberate textual marking of the spatial indications suggests a precise conception on the part of the playwright as to the limitations under which he foresaw the play being performed: the exclusive use of outwards patterns limiting the entrances and exits to one of the two stage doors suggests that the inwards door was taken to be otherwise engaged for the discovery of the ‘statue’, and that a third entrance-point simply did not come into the calculations. Similar comments are to be made in regard to Ichikawa’s other late Shakespearean references: Desdemona’s bed in Othello, V, ii can be thrust out through one of the two doorways, since all the entrances in the scene are from outwards. The same holds for Imogen’s bed in Cymbeline, II, ii, and for the chess scene in The Tempest, V, i. Ichikawa also cites the discovery scene in Henry VIII, II, ii, already discussed in Chapter 6: the point made there was that the spatial integrity of the scene in question is better maintained if the King discovers himself (which he clearly does from offstage) within one of the two lateral doorways rather than in the central feature. A gruesome discovery occurs in John Webster’s The Duchess of Malfi, a King’s Men play performed at both the Globe and Blackfriars (1614). It uses a ‘traverse’ like that in Volpone discussed in an earlier chapter:

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Here is discover’d (behind a Travers;) the artificiall figures of Antonio, and his children; appearing as if they were dead. (The Duchess of Malfi, Ilv)

Since these are inanimate figures, there seems no reason why this effect requires access from the tiring house to an upstage centre discovery space: the figures could be set there before the start of the performance and revealed at the appropriate moment. The reference to a ‘traverse’ brings into play the same issues canvassed in an earlier chapter in relation to Volpone, where Volpone peeps over the curtain, suggesting the tiring-house wall was angled rather than straight. Unlike a straight wall, such an angled wall would provide two points from which to attach a metal rod on which curtains could be hung and open and closed, giving a concealment space some two or three feet deep at its centre. These contrasting geometries are shown below:

The only complication to such a proposed ‘pre-set’ of the artificial figures would be whether the concealment space were needed (and by whom) at other points in the play. In fact there are two instances where characters might go behind this ‘arras’: Cariola certainly does – she is ‘behind the arras’ at I, I, 435–588 – though this ‘arras’ might be a curtain hung in one of the two lateral doorways. Bosola is sent into Julia’s ‘cabinet’ in V, ii, 247–325. This latter could instead be an exit via the inwards door, though if so it might cause a congestion with the Cardinal returning from inwards; it is possible therefore that the central concealment space is used here too. In each case, however, it is a question of only one character sharing the space with the artificial figures of Antonio and his children. While it might be a tight fit it would by no means be impossible:

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A further problem might seem to be posed by the shrine at Loreto in III, iv. However there is no explicit stage direction for a ‘discovery’ of the shrine, so it may be that it was simply carried on and located upstage by stage-hands. Alternatively it could be discovered at the inwards door, since there is no logistical problem in having all three entering and exiting groups (Pilgrims, Cardinal with Clergy, Antonio, Duchess and Children) using the outwards door. It might however be objected that such an arrangement would lose the sense of the Cardinal’s transformation from churchman to warrior that would be implicit in an entrance from inwards (with the clergy) and subsequent exit outwards, transformed by the costume change into warrior. ‘Studies’ are offered as one type of scene which would require a third, central opening, but those dealt with in Chapter 5 suggested no such additional resource requirement. A typical example offered as evidence of the need for three openings is the opening scene of Ben Jonson’s Catiline (a 1611 King’s Men’s play), which at I, i, 15 has this stage direction: ‘Discovers Catiline in his study’. This instance poses no problems for a two-door configuration, since there is no reason why Catiline’s study cannot be within the inwards doorway. Sylla’s Ghost can enter from outwards, discover Catiline at the inwards door, and then return outwards. Catiline later ‘extrudes’ the study by coming onto the stage, and Aurelia comes in from outwards to him. Note that the stage directions and dialogue here clearly support the basic inwards-outwards pattern for the doors; there is a noise ‘without’ which prompts Catiline to direct Aurelia inwards: ‘In, my fair Aurelia’ (187).

Alternatively Catiline could be discovered in an upstage centre concealment space, as shown in the diagram below, even if there is no tiring house access there: as long as the actor is positioned prior to the start of the performance, he does not have to wait long for this entrance. It should be noted that the concealment or discovery space is not required anywhere else in the play.

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A different issue is raised by the ‘study’ in the final Act of Massinger and Dekker’s The Virgin Martyr. Andrew Gurr notes46 that Harpax the devil is heard laughing ‘within’ and then ‘At one end’, ‘At the other End’, and ‘At the middle’ before he enters ‘in a fearful shape, fire flashing out of the study’. It is clear that the playwrights expect a particular performance resource to be available: the capacity to localize offstage sound effects at three upstage points (the two sides and the middle). It is highly likely that the flanking doors, even if closed, could have satisfied this; For practical reasons it would be surprising if they were not fitted with a lattice or grate to facilitate acoustic flow in both directions (so that offstage characters could be heard by the audience, and the onstage actors heard by the book-holder and their offstage colleagues). But this does not necessarily imply a third, similarly equipped entrance door upstage centre: there may well have simply been a third such grate or lattice in the wall there. In any case there is a 20-line gap between the final offstage sound effect ‘At the middle’ and the entrance of Harpax ‘out of the study’, so the actor playing Harpax would have had ample time during those 20 lines to get from the ‘middle’ to wherever the ‘study’ might have been located. Ichikawa cites a passage from Act 3 of Field and Fletcher’s The Honest Man’s Fortune as evidence of the need for a third opening. The 1647 Beaumont and Fletcher Folio has the following two stage directions in sequence: ‘Enter Lamira behinde the Arras’ and ‘Exit Lamira from the Arras’ (The Honest Man’s Fortune, 5V3v). Ichikawa interprets this as follows: Lamira enters the stage from one of the doors and conceals herself in the central discovery space; and then comes out from there onto the stage.47 If that is the case the discovery space does not need to provide access to offstage. But Ichikawa rightly notes that the invaluable playbook manuscript in the Victoria and Albert Museum (MS D.25.F9) anticipates the first of these stage directions by nine lines, and words the entrance differently: ‘Lamyra showes hir selfe at the Arras’ (Fol. 21b), and this is then followed by ‘Ent. Lamyra: from the Aras’ (Fol. 22a).48 This would seem to suggest instead that Lamyra has positioned herself from backstage behind the arras; first she shows Gurr, ‘Page and Stage’, p. 65. Ichikawa, Shakespearean Entrances, p. 129. 48 Ichikawa, Shakespearean Entrances, p. 129. 46 47

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herself there, and subsequently enters the stage from there. But neither does this alternative arrangement require access from offstage at a third central opening: we have seen in an earlier chapter cases (The Wits and Cupid’s Whirligig) in which hangings in the doorways are used in just this way. Barnabe Barnes’s The Devil’s Charter (1606, a King’s Men’s play at the Globe) has a case of a discovery which is most probably at the outwards door, but which does not support the need for a third entry-point: ‘He discoverthe his Tent where her two sonnes were at Cardes’ (IV, iv [2580]). This stage direction occurs towards the end of a long siege scene: Caesar (Cesare Borgia) is besieging the town of Furli. Following standard two-door patterns, Caesar’s army enters from outwards to the siege, Katherine and her forces appear on the walls, and Caesar’s army actually scales the walls and enters the gallery. Here is the sequence of stage directions: Enter Caesar and Barbarossa, souldiers, drums and trumpets. [2329] Enter upon the walles Countess Katherine, Julio Sforza, Ensigne, souldiers, Drummes, Trumpets. [2375] Barbarossa bringeth from Caesars Tent hir two boyes. [2439] Exeunt with the boyes. [2542] A charge with a peale of Ordinance: Caesar after two retreates entreth by scalado, her Ensigne-bearer slaine: Katherin recovereth the Ensigne, & fighteth with it in her hand. Heere she sheweth excellent magnanimity. Caesar the third time repulsed, at length entreth by scalado, surpriseth her, bringeth her downe with some prisoners. Sound Drums and Trumpets. [2554] He discovereth his Tent where her two sonnes were at cardes. [2580]

As suggested in Chapter 10, the normal pattern for sieges has the gates of the city represented by the inwards door, the battlements by the gallery above. The besieging army enters from outwards and then either enters the city via the gates or (as here) by scaling the tiring house wall. Before the hostilities commence the Boys are fetched by Barbarossa, shown to Katherine and then taken back offstage (outwards, whence the army has entered):

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It is only after the army has scaled the walls, exited the gallery and returned to the stage via the town gates (the inwards door) that the two boys are discovered in Caesar’s tent, so spatial logic would locate the tent either at, or beyond, the outwards door from where the army has come. There seems to be no logistical problem in having the boys ‘discovered’ in the tent, i.e., by drawing curtains hung in the outwards doorway:

This complex scene does not in fact create logistical difficulties that would necessitate a third entry-point. The same can be said of Thomas Middleton’s Hengist, King of Kent, which has the following complex stage direction for the first dumb show: Musique. Dumb show: ffortune is discovered uppon an alter, in her hand a golden round full of Lotts: Enter Hengist and Hersus with others, they Draw Lotts and hang them vp with Ioy, soe all depart saueing Hengist and Hersus who kneele and imbrace each other as parteneres in one fortune, to them Enter Roxena seemeing to take her leaue of Hengist her father, but especeally priuately & warily of Hersus her louer; she departs weepeing: and Hengist and Hersus goe to the doore and Bring in their souldiers with Drum and Collors and so march forth. (Hengist, King of Kent, Folio 5v)49

This dumb show clearly requires two doors, and in fact the 1661 Quarto is explicit in this regard: Roxena ‘departs one way, Hengist and Hersus another’.50 There is therefore need for a central feature to accommodate Fortune’s altar, but yet again we find that this does not entail access from the tiring house. If Fortune is an inanimate figure like the caskets in The Merchant of Venice or Antonio, etc., in The Duchess of Malfi, she and her altar can be pre-set prior to the start of the performance, and then at the end of the dumb show the curtains are drawn to conceal it for the rest of the play:

Hengist, King of Kent, R.C. Bald (ed.) (New York, 1938), p. 12. Hengist, King of Kent, B2r; see R.C. Bald’s critical edition (New York, 1938), p. 13.

49 50

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Hengist has no subsequent need for a third access-point, running smoothly on a two-door hypothesis (there is, however, a very interesting use of split staging at III, iii). We have seen in Chapter 6 the implications for a two-door staging of The Second Maiden’s Tragedy, in particular of a sequence in which the Tyrant arrives at the cathedral to rob the tomb where the lady lies buried. I suggested there that the logistics seem to have been simplified by the use of an onstage choric figure to effect the change of location – a change explicitly signalled in the stage direction for the Tyrant’s re-entry into the new location of the cathedral: Enter the Tirant agen at a farder dore, which opened, bringes hym to the Toombe wher the lady lies buried; the Toombe here discovered ritchly set forthe; (The Second Maiden’s Tragedy, IV, iii, ms. 1725–27)

The stage direction ‘enter … again’ seems to indicate that the Tyrant and soldiers exit, cross backstage and return to the stage through the outwards door, coming into a new fictional space, the cathedral. They then rob the tomb and carry the Lady’s body off outwards. But we should note that the exit, as the soldiers drag off the Lady’s body, is staggered – the Tyrant gives two sets of orders: ‘Bear her before us gently to our palace. Place you the stone again where first we found it’ (127–8). The text here betrays a playwright who is organizing a staggered exit, as one soldier remains behind to replace the lid on the sarcophagus before clearing the stage with his exit. This serves an obvious function: congestion at the outwards door is minimized if just one character rather than four (if we include the body they are lugging away) intersects backstage with the entering Govianus and Page. This exit-entrance pattern projected in the text requires only a minimal pause; it does not necessitate a third entrance-point. Govianus subsequently dismisses the page (IV, iv, 35–6), and is treated to a spectacular discovery which might provide further fuel for the third opening: On a sudden, in a kind of noise like a wind, the doors clattering, the tombstone flies open, and a great light appears in the midst of the tomb; his Lady, as went out, standing just before him all in white, stuck with jewels, and a great crucifix on her breast. (The Second Maiden’s Tragedy, IV, iv)

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Since the visual effects here are complex, backstage set-up is clearly required – so if this discovery is to occur in the central upstage feature, it cannot be a simple concealment space with no access to backstage. However since the sequence as outlined so far does not require more than one entrance-point in addition to the discovery, then the discovery could be done in one of the two doorways:

If both the tomb and the spectacular discovery occur at the inwards door, the actor playing the Lady, having been carried off outwards, has 40 lines to cross backstage to behind the inwards door, don the additional items of costume, and get into position for the spectacular effect. Then, after farewelling Govianus the Lady exits inwards, and Govianus exits outwards to deal with the Tyrant and bury the Lady’s body. Govianus’s end-of-scene exit outwards will cause congestion with the next entrance; but this congestion is both ‘minimal’ and ‘marked’: just one character is exiting, and this is a marked point of transition from this extended sequence to the other plot strand. Votarius and Anselmus are coming in from outwards: Votarius is bringing Anselmus to where he can witness his wife’s infidelity, and instructs Anselmus to enter the ‘closet’. This ‘closet’ is most likely the concealment space upstage centre if the spectacular effects and properties are still being removed from behind the inwards door. Once again we see that a consideration of the broader logistical patterns around ‘discoveries’ suggests that a third entry-point is not required, and that the text seems to have been structured to enable fluid performance with just two entrance-points. In Chapter 11 we discussed two serial discoveries outlined in the explicit and articulated stage directions that punctuate the otherwise ‘bad’ quarto of 1600, The First part of the Contention betwixt the two famous Houses of Yorke and Lancaster. The two relevant directions read as follows: Then the Curtaines 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. (The First part of the Contention, E2r) Enter King and Salsbury, and then the curtaines be drawne, and the Cardinall is discouered in his bed, rauing and staring as if he were mad. (The First part of the Contention, F1v)

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There is no logistical problem created by using the inwards door twice for these two deaths, and indeed the two uses of the same bed seem to have been deliberately separated by the intervening uses of the inwards door by the Cardinal, Vaux and Queen. Here are the main patterns:

To establish the possibility of a two-door configuration, we need to examine this whole sequence. In the previous scene (III, i), after the exit of the Queen and nobles through the inwards door, York has a soliloquy of some 50 lines in which he unveils his plans to stir up revolt, before he exits outwards, for Ireland. These 50 lines provide ample time for Humphrey’s bed to be set at the inwards door: Key:

Act /sc III, i

Enter from inwards m Exit inwards j door in j

Entering characters Queen Cardinal Suffolk Buckingham Salisbury Warwick Somerset York

l Enter from outwards k Exit outwards

door Space-time indication out SUF. But now return we to the false Duke Humphrey. (322)

Commentary and notes Exit inwards (King already inwards) to respond to the news from Ireland and to organize York’s expedition.

k

After a 50-line soliloquy he exits outwards to Ireland. This leaves plenty of time for the bed to be set at the inwards door.

Appendix 1 III, ii

m

Folio: Enter two or three running over the stage, from the murther of Duke Humphrey. Quarto: Then the Curtaines being drawne, Duke Humphrey is discovered 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.

2 Murderers

Suffolk

l

2 Murderers

k

SUF. The King and all the peers are here at hand. (10)

273 Folio has Murderers fleeing the offstage murder scene. Quarto stage direction has bed located behind curtains in inwards doorway. Both texts involve the murder taking place inwards. Enters from outwards, backstage cross since his previous exit indicates change of location. Sends murderers out.

The King and party now also arrive from outwards to try Humphrey: their entrance after having crossed backstage signals the change of location. Suffolk then goes inwards to find Humphrey, and returns with news of his death (the exit is unnecessary in Q, with its deathbed in the doorway): III, ii

King Queen Cardinal Somerset Attendants

l

KING. Go, call our uncle to our presence straight. Say we intend to try his Grace to-day. (15–16)

j

Suffolk

SUF. I’ll call him presently, my lord. (18)

m

Suffolk

SUF. Dead in his bed, my lord; Gloucester is dead. (29)

Royal party arrives from outwards for Gloucester’s trial. Congestion with exiting murderers avoided by offstage effects of trumpets announcing royal party’s arrival: Sound trumpets. Suffolk’s exit and re-entrance not required in Q, with death-bed already located behind curtains in open doorway.

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The action now shifts so that the focus is at or beyond the outwards door, where the commoners have risen in revolt: III, ii

Warwick Salisbury Commoners

l

Salisbury Commoners

k

Noise within. Enter Warwick, [Salisbury,] and many Commons. WAR. It is reported, mighty sovereign, That good Duke Humphrey traitorously is murd’red By Suffolk and the Cardinal Beaufort’s means. (122–4) WAR. Stay, Salisbury, With the rude multitude till I return. (134–5)

Perhaps the audience is to suspect the Murderers have spread the word.

F has no exit; Q Exet Salsbury, suggesting Salisbury and commoners go back outwards (where they are subsequently heard shouting).

The bed is now discovered, and the curtains presumably then closed for the door to resume its normal usage (Cardinal and others exit through it); the King deals with the rebellion: III, ii

j m

j

Gloucester

Folio has not shown the murder, has SD Bed put forth at … (146)

Cardinal Others

Suffolk Warwick

k

WAR. Away even now, or I will drag thee hence. (229)

Gloucester goes to the inwards door and discovers the bed. (148) After Warwick’s speech over the body, he closes the curtains, enabling the bed to be moved away (177) backstage so Cardinal can exit inwards (it is his house at Bury St Edmunds; the Commons have implicated him in the murder (121), so would not exit outwards. They exit outwards; Suffolk is attacked by the Commons …

Appendix 1 Suffolk Warwick

l

Salisbury

l

Salisbury

k

King Warwick Somerset, etc.

k

SUF. That trait’rous Warwick, with the men of Bury, Set all upon me, mighty sovereign. (240–41) SAL. Dread lord, the commons send you word by me. (243) KING. Go, Salisbury, and tell them all from me … (279) KING. Come, Warwick, come, good Warwick, go with me. (298)

275 … and they return with their weapons drawn.

Salisbury comes as messenger from the commons … … and returns to them with an answer from the King. Royal party exits back outwards as King and Warwick confer.

Affairs of state are now suspended for over one hundred lines as the Queen and Suffolk, in a scene of awesome poetic power realize they are about to part forever and say their final farewells. They are momentarily interrupted by Vaux, who crosses the stage. He enters from inwards, reports the Cardinal’s illness, and continues outwards to relay the news to the King: III, ii

m

Vaux

Vaux

k

QUEEN. Whither goes Vaux so fast? VAUX. To signify unto his Majesty That Cardinal Beaufort is at point of death … Whispers to his pillow. (367–8, 375) QUEEN. Go, tell this heavy message to the King. (379)

Cardinal is reported to be on his death-bed, consonant with his previous exit inwards.

Vaux goes out towards King’s party.

The Queen and Suffolk then part forever, their split exits definitively closing this sequence and separating Humphrey’s earlier deathbed scene from the next episode, which features the Cardinal’s death in the same stage space:

Playwright, Space and Place in Early Modern Performance

276 III, ii

III, iii

j

m

Suffolk Queen

k

QUEEN. The King, thou know’st, is coming. (386) SUFF. This way fall I to death. QUEEN. This way for me. (41)

King Salisbury Warwick Cardinal

l

Quarto: Enter the King and Salsbury, and then the Curtaines be drawne, and the Cardinall is discovered in his bed, and raving and staring as if he were madde. Folio: Enter the King, Salisbury, Warwick, to the Cardinal in bed. (3.3.0)

Suffolk must leave before the King returns. They part, Queen’s exit through inwards door wiping the previous discovery, and breaking performance before next use of the deathbed at the inwards door. Minimal and marked congestion at outwards door, but possible slight staggering of exits. King, etc., returning from outwards, Cardinal’s bed discovered at inwards door.

At the end of this scene the King, etc., return outwards, the curtains are drawn and the bed struck at the inwards door, while next entrance is from outwards: III, iii

King Salisbury Warwick j

IV, i

k

KING. Close up his eyes, and draw the curtain close, And let us all to meditation. Exeunt. (32–3)

Cardinal Lieutenant Master Mate Whitmore Soldiers Suffolk 2 Gentlemen

l

Alarum.Ord’nance goes off. (4.1.0)

They exit outwards

The curtains are closed and the bed removed. Congestion at outwards door minimized by sound effects.

This extended analysis of the entrances and exits demonstrates that not only can the serial discoveries be accommodated by just two entrance-points, but this occurs as part of a broader set of spatial patterns that the dialogue sets out with remarkable clarity.

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William Davenant’s The Distresses (a late King’s Men’s play from 1639)51 has the following stage direction: He steps to the Arras softly, draws it. Charamante is discovered sleeping on her Book, her Glas by. (The Distresses, [IV, vi])

Extended analysis of this late Blackfriars play demonstrates that apart from this single possible complication it is a resolutely two-door in structure, with numerous stage directions referring to ‘one door’ and ‘the other door’. There are three obvious ways of staging this sequence. If there was a third central opening with access from the tiring house, Claramante’s discovery could be set up there from backstage after her previous exit, with no logistical complications. If however the ‘arras’ referred to is a curtain upstage centre which covers merely a concealment space, then Claramante’s previous exit must be into this concealment space, and she must remain there until Leonte discovers her. This would entail the concealment space being set from the start of the play with the required furniture and properties: bed or table, book and glass; and it cannot therefore be used for any other discoveries in the course of the play. In fact it is not required at all elsewhere in the play, so this option requires merely that Claramante, having been told by Androlio to confine herself ‘to her chamber’ (IV, i), exit into the concealment space upstage centre. The actor only needs to sit out some five minutes of action before being discovered there by Leonte. A third possibility is that the ‘arras’ refers to a curtain hung in the inwards doorway, and it is there that Leonte discovers Claramante. This involves a logistical issue: there needs to be sufficient time to set the discovery in the doorway, and once it is set and the door committed to the discovery of Claramante, other entrances and exits around the discovery need to be manageable and managed with just one door in play, the outwards door. This is indeed possible, and when its ramifications are worked through minutely it can actually be argued that it is the textually prescribed option: there are clear signs in the text that the playwright is conscious of the logistical and fictional implications of this, and has carefully attempted to clarify the relationship between various offstage places and character movements behind the outwards door so the audience can believe that various parties have avoided each other despite having entered and exited the stage from the same door. The earlier options’ capacity (with a central ‘discovery’) to use the two doors for the entrances and exits in this sequence, far from facilitating the movement patterns, in fact complicates the clear spatial logic that has been inscribed in the dialogue. The implications of this as a two-door sequence are outlined below. In 4.1 Androlio directs Claramante to confine herself

51 References are to The Dramatic Works of Sir William D’Avenant, vol. 4, (Edinburgh, 1873). Standard scene break conventions have been imposed, marked between square brackets as appropriate.

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within her chamber, and exits outwards with a specific dialogic indication to that effect; and Marillia and Claramante exit inwards towards the ‘chamber’: An. Confine yourself within your chamber, your brothers are abroad. … I will adventure forth. (The Distresses, IV, i)

Some four scenes later, in [IV, v] Androlio returns in search of Claramante, but is surprised when Amiana, not Claramante, comes out with Orco to meet him. They then prepare to get Amiana out of the house, planning to leave via a back gate. Marillia is to go with them, lock the gate after them and return to the house to take care of Claramante who is still in hiding ‘within’: Orco. Let not The thought of danger trouble you, for I’ll Convey you backward through a gate that safely Leads unto a dwelling of mine own. Take care, Marillia, of your charge within! Lock all your doors! (The Distresses, [IV, v])

The party is leaving the house, so it is logical they use the outwards door which is physically opposed to the inwards door behind which Claramante has been cloistered. Orco’s explicit reference to the ‘back’ door is indicative: the next scene will begin with an entrance from outwards, and the playwright seems aware that he needs to create an offstage topography that will not result in the audience asking awkward questions about who might or might not have seen or heard whom offstage. The entering characters have clearly gained access to the house by the front door: Leonte refers to the duplicate keys the Servant has used, and to the fact that they have brought with them a Bravo they hired in the street: Leo. Make here a stop? Will thy false keys procure Us entrance everywhere?… Ha’ye brought the bravo hither, which you hir’d I’th’ street, t’assist us, if our use require him? (The Distresses, [IV, vi])

After reassuring Leonte that the Bravo ‘waits your purposes in the next room’ (the room just beyond the stage door through which they entered), the Servant then refers to the fact that they have heard the noise of the exiting party offstage: 2d Serv. Those, that you heard descending from the postern by The garden wall, was sure my master and His friends, newly departed homeward from Their visit here. (The Distresses, [IV, vi])

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This reference is important, since it indicates a ‘close shave’ beyond the outwards door as the two parties crossed: the fact that the playwright makes it explicit in the text shows his awareness of the need to satisfy the audience that there is a multiplicity of spaces beyond the outwards door (a room for the Bravo, a way out by the back gate or ‘postern’, a way in for Leonte and company by the front door), without the various parties concerned intersecting with each other. Leonte, reassured that they have the house to themselves, now issues the Servant a doublebarrelled set of instructions: he is to exit to intercept Marillia as she ‘now returns from the back gate’, and he is to make sure the Bravo is ready and waiting in the room ‘without’: Leo. Then we have no impediment, But that decrepid grave Iniquity That keeps the house. Steal down to intercept Her as she now returns from the back gate, And force her to keep silence in some vault! And let the bravo wait without! (The Distresses, [IV, vi])

The Servant can obviously only exit in one direction, so both these tasks must be understood to be taking him outwards – the clearest proof that all of these preceding exits and entrances have been at the same outwards door; which in turn suggests the inwards door is being kept clear to accommodate the imminent ‘discovery’ of Claramante by Leonte: He steps to the Arras softly, draws it. Charamante is discovered sleeping on her Book, her Glas by. (The Distresses, [IV, vi])

The explicit dialogic reference to the ‘back door’ and other offstage places does not indicate that they are spatially differentiated in performance by being represented as lying beyond the different stage doors: if they were, the Servant would have to go in two different directions when sent off by Leonte. Instead they are all projected as lying beyond just one of the stage doors, keeping the other door free as the location where the ‘discovery’ can be set up from backstage. I believe that this is a case that betrays a playwright writing for the constraint of only two available entrance-points, and as such is similar to the sequence from The Knight of Malta, the Porter’s scene in Macbeth or the final section of The Winter’s Tale previously discussed. As in those instances the text here appears ‘stressed’ as the playwright carefully constructs the various offstage fictional places and their relationships so

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that the audience will accept as spatially viable the various comings and goings which become ‘close shaves’ as characters en route to and from different places must use the same door in quick succession because the other door is committed to the ‘discovery’ of Claramante (as is the case with Oriana’s tomb, Duncan’s deathbed and Hermione’s statue). Inferences From Logistical Considerations for a Third Opening Some scholars insist on the need for more than two openings on the basis of logistical considerations, in scenes where there are multiple entrances and exits, or where the entrance- and exit-patterns are constrained in ways that suggest complications for a two-door configuration. Mariko Ichikawa has discussed a range of such examples, and they are indeed worthy of attention.52 She cites a passage from Barnabe Barnes’s The Devil’s Charter, IV, i: Alexander is discovered ‘in his study’ (F4v), and then ‘commeth upon the Stage out of his study with a booke in his hand’. But then a devil brings Ghost of Candie: ‘goeth to one doore of the stage, from whence he bringeth the Ghost of Candie gastly haunted by Caesar persuing and stabing it, these vanish in at another doore’ (G2r). The Devil and the Ghost of Candie clearly use the two available doors, but then as Ichikawa points out Alexander exits ‘into the studie’ (G2v); she maintains that ‘It is simply unlikely that one of the flanking doors would serve as his study’.53 However Ichikawa herself has articulated an important aspect of early modern staging, the ‘neutralizing’ of the significance of the stage doors from one scene to the next and even within a scene.54 There seems to be no reason why such a mechanism could not be in play here. After the initial ‘discovery’ of Alexander ‘in his study’, he then ‘commeth upon the Stage out of his study with a booke in his hand’. This entrance expands the study out onto the stage, so whatever door or opening initially stood for the discovered study will have been neutralized by this subsequent extrusion of the study onto the stage. For this reason, in a two-door scheme, that opening can now be one of the two doors used by the Devil and the Ghost. Then, after their exit there is ample time for it to be neutralized of that significance before it serves once more as the door to the study into which Alexander exits. In other words one of the two lateral doors can serve initially and finally as the ‘study’, but in between can be used by the Devil and Ghost without the audience raising 52 Some of Ichikawa’s examples have already been discussed. In relation to The Comedy of Errors, T.S Dorsch in the editor’s introduction to the Cambridge University Press edition, 1988, p. 24, suggested that this play was staged with three small houses signifying the different locations. Ichikawa seems to accept this (p. 85), but as we have seen in Chapter 4 there are in fact more than three locations involved in the play, and it does not require or support a three-door architecture. Similarly her instances from Eastward Ho!, The Maid’s Metamorphosis and The English Traveller have been discussed above. 53 Ichikawa, Shakespearean Entrances, p. 15. 54 Ichikawa, ‘Were the Doors Open or Closed?’, pp. 14–15.

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any eyebrows. Ichikawa also nominates a number of passages which she suggests involve entrance- and exit-patterns requiring a third door. A passage from The Jew of Malta (Q1, D1r–v) features a split exit as Barabas sends off his daughter with the friars, abbess, etc., to the nunnery; his exit will be in another direction, but as these characters exit, there is an entrance by Mathias. On a two-door stage one would therefore expect that the exiting Barabas and entering Mathias would cross each other at or near the door, and this leads Ichikawa to suggest that ‘Mathias enters, perhaps by a third door’.55 Here is the passage in question: Bar. Out, out thou wretch. [Exeunt.] Enter Mathias. Math. Whose this? Faire Abigall the rich Iewes daughter Become a Nun, her fathers sudden fall Has humbled her and brought her downe to this: (The Jew of Malta, Q1,D1v)

The editorial addition of the exits is completely justified, but it is clear from the dialogue (and from some reflection on logistics) that the exit of Barabas and entrance of Mathias do not overlap: Mathias is already onstage, clear of the stage door, when Barabas exits. Barabas’s direction to his daughter prompts a complex processional exit that will take some seconds; and Mathias’s choric description of this exit makes it clear that he has already completed his entrance before the other characters have left the stage. If there were only two stage doors Mathias and Barabas could easily use the same door: there is plenty time for Mathias to enter and take up a detached downstage position of onstage observer before Barabas’s exit. Ichikawa constructs the movement patterns of a scene from Hamlet56 on the basis of a particular reading of the initial stage direction to argue for the need for a third entry-point: Enter FORTINBRAS with his army over the stage. Fort. Go, captain, from me greet the Danish king. Tell him that by his license Fortinbras Craves the conveyance of a promis’d march Over his kingdom. You know the rendezvous. If that his Majesty would aught with us, We shall express our duty in his eye, And let him know so. Cap. I will do’t my lord. Fort. Go softly on. [Exeunt all but the Captain.] Enter HAMLET, ROSENCRANTZ … (Hamlet, IV, iv, 0–8).

Ichikawa, Shakespearean Entrances, p. 58. Ichikawa, Shakespearean Entrances, pp. 59–60.

55 56

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She adduces substantial evidence, in a chapter dedicated to this type of stage direction,57 to suggest that ‘passing over the stage’ usually implies an entrance at one door and an exit at the other; she argues that since this scene involves the Captain breaking off from the column to take Fortinbras’s message to Claudius and then meeting the entering Hamlet and his companions, it constitutes evidence for three openings (two for the army, one where the Captain meets Hamlet). There is evidence in the dialogue, however, to suggest that this might be one of a number of exceptions to the normal ‘passing over’ pattern,58 and this confirms other evidence that armies on the march, or travellers mid-journey, do not necessarily ‘pass over’ the stage from one door to the other; instead they sometimes both enter from, and exit via, the outwards door, describing a ‘looping’ pattern over the stage – a sort of extrusion pattern at the outwards door, matching the inwards door examples discussed in an earlier chapter.59 Such a pattern would be amply justified by the dialogue in this scene. Hamlet and his companions are leaving Elsinore, so Ichikawa is correct to suggest that they would enter from the same door through which the Captain exits on his way to Elsinore to deliver Fortinbras’s message. Fortinbras, on the other hand, is explicitly not going to Elsinore: he will meet Claudius at a pre-arranged rendezvous should the Captain find that is necessary (IV, iv, 4–6), but he is simply using Denmark as a corridor on his way from elsewhere to elsewhere. Both these ‘elsewheres’ are remote locations, adequately signified by an entrance and then (after passing over the stage) an exit at the outwards door.60 Then, after the Captain has exited inwards towards Elsinore, Hamlet and his companions too exit outwards on their way to England. The spatial pattern outlined here, based on the systematic and indeed systemic use of the doors articulated in previous chapters, shows that two doors can provide coherent patterns even with complex entrance- and exit requirements, and that Ichikawa’s supposed third entry-point is not needed to achieve spatial coherence in this scene. The Q1 text of the opening scene of Titus Andronicus has a group of characters entering in the gallery above the stage, to be addressed in turn by two characters who have entered below: Enter the TRIBUNES and SENATORS aloft, and then enter SATURNINUS and his followers at one dore, and BASSIANUS and his followers, with Drums and Trumpets. (Titus Andronicus, I, i, 0)

Ichikawa concedes that the absence of ‘at the other door’ at the end of the Q1 stage direction could suggest staggered entrances of Saturninus and Bassianus (and their Ichikawa, Shakespearean Entrances, pp. 90–101. Ichikawa herself notes an exception in the opening scene of Julius Caesar:

57 58

Shakespearean Entrances, pp. 99–100. 59 See also Fitzpatrick, ‘Shakespeare’s Exploitation’, pp. 207–30. 60 Such a pattern might in fact be an ‘outwards’ equivalent of the ‘extrusion’ pattern at the inwards door discussed in Chapter 5.

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followers) via the same door. This would leave the other door free as the door to the Capitol, but Ichikawa prefers a symmetrical arrangement that would supply the ‘missing’ text and use both doors, with the Capitol signified instead by the hypothetical central opening. She suggests that ‘the most desirable form of the first entrance of the rival brothers is a split and symmetrical entrance through opposing doors’.61 This preference is based on the Folio text, which completes the stage direction with the ‘expected’ words ‘at the other’ – words that are ‘omitted for some reason’ in Q1.62 This dismissal of the Q1 text’s omission as inexplicable is surprising, since the text does supply a perfectly good reason why the two entrances might be staggered rather than symmetrical. And once again insufficient attention to the nesting dialogic context vitiates the argument being made from the Folio stage direction: Saturninus, the first of the two brothers to speak, explicitly invokes his primacy: Sat. I am his first-born son, that was the last That ware the imperial diadem of Rome, Then let my father’s honors live in me, Nor wrong mine age with this indignity. (Titus Andronicus, I, i, 5–8)

This invocation of the rights bestowed by first-born status and age is sufficient in itself to justify a staggered entrance of the two brothers in succession from the same door – they are, in terms of birthright, anything but ‘symmetrical’. Q1 therefore seems cogently written for two doors. It is not Q1’s omission of the ‘expected’ symmetrical phrase ‘at the other’ that is to be questioned; it is instead the Folio, that supplies the not-to-be-trusted lectio facilior: an indication of a typesetter’s expectations running ahead of his eyes rather than Ichikawa’s suggested evidence of three stage doors at the Globe and Blackfriars.63 Ichikawa nominates King John, II, i as an example of a siege scene in which a third opening is suggested and would be appropriate.64 However this is not really a siege scene at all: there is a threat to attack the town, but it does not eventuate. First the Kings of France and Austria enter ‘before Angiers’ (II, i, 0), and since they are meeting we should presume they enter by different doors – neither of which stands for a gate into the city. A third door might therefore serve as the town gates, but it is simply not required at this point – since some two hundred lines pass before the tiring house wall comes seriously into play with the entrance of Hubert and Citizens ‘upon the walls’ (II, i, 200). In the meantime King John and his army have also entered from elsewhere, and John’s threat to besiege the town would suggest that at this point not one, but both stage doors stand for the gates 63 64

Ichikawa, Shakespearean Entrances, p. 79. Ichikawa, Shakespearean Entrances, p. 79. Ichikawa, Shakespearean Entrances, p. 79. Ichikawa, Shakespearean Entrances, p. 108; also Gurr and Ichikawa, Staging in Shakespeare’s Theatres (Oxford, 2000), pp. 107–8. 61 62

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(plural) of the town – with the façade of the tiring house referred to as a face with its doors as eyes: K. John. All preparation for a bloody siege And merciless proceeding by these French [Confronts your] city’s eyes, your winking gates; (King John, II, i, 213–15)

Another hundred lines ensue before the armies exit to the field, and the dialogue suggests they use both doors to do so. King John directs his army ‘up higher to the plain’ (294), King Philip has his stand ‘at the other hill’ (298), so it is clear that the ‘city gates’ significance of the stage doors has been ‘neutralized’ so they can now serve as interfaces with the battlefield. They are then used by the French and English Heralds returning to report on the outcome of the battle (300, 311), and by the two kings and their armies: ‘Enter the two KINGS with their powers at several doors’ (334). The marriage between the Dauphin and Lady Blanche is then arranged, a lengthy process which takes a further two hundred or so lines, before the doors are brought into play again as the ‘city gates’ which the citizens are asked to open (536). Given that the city gates have been already referred to as a pair, there seems no reason why they both should not now be employed for the final exit (560). If there were a central opening fitted with doors it might well be appropriate to use it for this exit as Ichikawa suggests;65 but the flexible signification patterns in this scene make it clear that the two lateral doors, the ‘city’s eyes’ are being switched on and off (‘winking’), alternating their functions to serve also as more generic entrance- and exit-points to other places. This flexible overworking of the doors, similar to that discussed in Chapter 2 in relation to Epicoene, suggests that they were taken to be the only available entrance-points, and this limitation engendered flexible and creative usage patterns. The suggestion of two pairs of offstage locations points, in the absence of a four-door theory, to the double use of two doors rather than to a third opening. A siege scene in Edmond Ironside is also adduced by Ichikawa as evidence of the need for a third, central opening.66 It involves the Danish army besieging the town, refused entry by the bailiffs who appear ‘above’ on the walls (TLN 873). Ichikawa suggests that when Edmond arrives with the English army and drives the Danes off the stage, this must involve two doors – since Canutus and his army ‘would exit from the door opposite the one by which they have entered. Their use of both flanking doors suggests that the city gates should be represented by the central opening’.67 The first assumption is questionable: if the Danes have arrived from elsewhere to besiege the city, and are then driven off by the English, they would logically leave the stage by the same door from whence they entered Ichikawa, Shakespearean Entrances, p. 108. Ichikawa, Shakespearean Entrances, p. 108. 67 Ichikawa, Shakespearean Entrances, p. 108. 65 66

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(returning, as it were, to Denmark). Ichikawa’s conclusion that ‘the author seems to have assumed the existence of three doorways in the tiring-house façade’68 is justified neither by this reasoning nor by her argument based on the subsequent entrance of a chorus.69 A similar false assumption negates John C. Meagher’s claim that the siege in Coriolanus 1.4 constitutes an ‘undeniable case for a central door at the Globe’.70 He cites the stage direction which has the besieging army enter ‘as before the City Corioles; to them a MESSENGER’ (I, iv, 0), and assumes that these two entrances must be from different doors – and hence a third central door is required for the city gates. If, however, we assume that besieging armies enter from outwards, both the army and the messenger who subsequently enters ‘to them’ – also from outwards with news from another battlefield – would logically and justifiably enter from the same door, leaving the other door as the city gates. Ichikawa claims that ‘Middleton’s A Game at Chess, performed at the second Globe, requires three entries’.71 In support of this claim she quotes a stage direction for a dumb-show: Enter Bl. Queenes pawne as Conducting the White to a Chamber, then fetching in the Bl. Bishops pawne the Iesuite conuayes him to another puts out the Light and shee followes. (A Game at Chess, Trinity manuscript, TLN 1941–7: IV, iii, 0)

This final example is, like all the others examined, not as straightforward a proof of the existence of a third opening as Ichikawa would suggest. In the first place there is a difference between the wordings of the first two tasks of the Black Queen’s Pawn. First she enters ‘as conducting’ the White Queen’s Pawn; and then she is ‘fetching in’ the Black Bishop’s Pawn. Alan Dessen and Leslie Thomson have discussed perceptively the possible implications stage directions such as ‘enter as’,72 and the presence of ‘as’ in the first of these instances is potentially significant in contrast to its absence in the second. If the Black Queen’s Pawn enters the stage space with the White Queen’s Pawn ‘as conducting her to a chamber’, that might simply mean that the stage space, rather than serving merely as a conduit to an offstage chamber behind one of the doors, actually signifies the ‘chamber’. Then the Black Queen’s Pawn ‘fetches in’ the Black Bishop’s Pawn and conveys him offstage, ‘to another [chamber]’. This would indicate that the Black Bishop’s 70 71 72

Ichikawa, Shakespearean Entrances, p. 108. Ichikawa, Shakespearean Entrances, p. 177. John C. Meagher, Pursuing Shakespeare’s Dramaturgy (Madison, 2003), p. 127. Ichikawa, Shakespearean Entrances, p. 15. Dessen and Thomson, Dictionary, pp. 12–15. See also Alan C. Dessen, ‘Recovering Elizabethan Staging: a Reconsideration of the Evidence’, in Edward Pechter (ed.), Textual and Theatrical Shakespeare: Questions of Evidence (Iowa City, 1996), pp. 53–60; and Recovering Shakespeare’s Theatrical Vocabulary (Cambridge, 1995), pp. 127–49. See also his ‘Much Virtue in As: Elizabethan Stage Locales and Modern Interpretation’, in Marvin and Ruth Thompson (eds), Shakespeare and the Sense of Performance (Newark, 1989), pp. 132–8. 68 69

Playwright, Space and Place in Early Modern Performance

286

Pawn is taken offstage through the door other to that of his entrance, while the White Queen’s Pawn remains onstage in the first ‘chamber’. If there were a third entrance both these characters could be taken offstage, but it is not necessary. More importantly, the stage direction for this dumb-show must be read – and at the risk of repetition again it needs to be pointed out – by reference to the fictional context as it is fully elucidated in the dialogue. Subsequently at V, ii, 75–87 the events portrayed here are revisited, and it becomes clear why the Black Queen’s Pawn ‘puts out the light and she follows’ the Black Bishop’s Pawn into the other chamber: it is an instance of the commonplace of the mistaken bedfellow. The Black Bishop’s Pawn has been attempting to seduce the White Queen’s Pawn, and the Black Queen’s Pawn tricks him into bedding down with her instead, unaware of the mistaken identity due to the fictional darkness which results from her putting out the light as she exits into the other chamber. The separation of the two characters who are conveyed onstage is paramount, but it does not, contrary to Ichikawa’s claim, necessitate two separate exit points in addition to the entrypoint. If the White Queen’s Pawn remains onstage to witness the rest of the sequence, rather than having been previously secreted offstage, she can then exit whence she came, providing a powerful visual representation of her escape from her would-be seducer. This also enables the audience to witness her witnessing the sequence – a sequence which she later describes in detail that might in fact suggest she was an eye-witness: ‘through blind lust to be led, Last night to the action of some common bed’ (V, ii, 75–6). Conclusion It would be foolish to deny the possibility that, as Andrew Gurr asserts in relation to the Red Bull,73 some of the playhouses did have a third entry-point – even if there are strong textual counter-arguments to suggest that most playhouses merely had a concealment space. But given the inconclusive and restricted nature of the evidence for a third opening (a small number of plays and a restricted range of playhouses), it is drawing a long bow to use it to argue for the predominance of a three-door configuration in the mindset of playwrights generally, and to install a three-door architecture as the predominant paradigm to replace the two-door configuration shown in De Witt and exemplified in hundreds of references to ‘one’ and ‘the other’ door. While the presence of an ‘inner stage’ for staging intimate scenes is no longer generally accepted, there remains a persistent belief in an upstage-centre alcove with access from the tiring house.74 Major work in the field indicates that most of the plays written for the public playhouses required only two doors,75 and stringent Gurr, ‘Page and Stage’, p. 61. Gurr, ‘Staging at the Globe’, pp. 161–2: see footnote 19. 75 T.J. King, Shakespearean Staging, 1599–1642 (Cambridge, MA, 1971); R. Hosley, 73 74

in The Revels History of Drama in English, vol. III (London, 1975); H. Berry, The Boar’s Head Playhouse (Washington, 1986).

Appendix 1

287

analysis of the evidence suggests that scholars who argue for a third upstagecentre opening are capitulating prematurely when considering the logistics of ‘discoveries’ and ‘beds’. Pursuing the implications of two-door spatial patterns reveals not only that two doors can accommodate such cases, but that in many of them the resultant movement patterns are spatially more coherent. Under these assumptions the lateral doors and their hangings play a much greater role: ‘beds’ and ‘studies’ such as that of Faustus, or the discovery of Ferdinand and Miranda in The Tempest – all of which cases involve characters positioning themselves from backstage – must be located at one of the two lateral doors rather than at upstage centre, utilizing the hangings within the open doorway. There seem to be no cases in which such an arrangement creates logistical difficulties either for other entrances or for continuity between scenes, and in fact such scenes (e.g., The Winter’s Tale) often seem deliberately constructed to deal with this limitation.76 The normal spatial pattern revealed in the texts has characters who enter to view the ‘discovery’ or visit the bedridden do so from one direction only, suggesting that the playwrights were assuming these set-pieces would take place in one of the two doorways. The other hanging, the upstage-centre curtain which constituted the concealment space, would provide a shallow concealment space of limited but specific usefulness. If, as I have suggested, the tiring house wall at the Globe were angled rather than straight, this curtain could be anchored to the wall and might be as wide as two bays of the polygon. If so it would be as wide as 20 feet; it would be more than 3 feet deep at the centre and provide some 10 feet of usable width (excluding, that is, its shallow extremities), making it wide enough to serve a range of practical purposes.77 As suggested in Chapter two, the six chairs ‘placed at the Arras’ in the first Folio (I, iii, 129) of The Maid in the Mill might have been positioned there to be brought out onto the stage. Finally, we must return to the question considered at the beginning of this appendix: if there were indeed a fully functional third opening, why was it so seldom used, so seldom referred to in the texts? The argument that the actors might have shared an understanding that it was ‘reserved’ for certain limited cases78 is not finally convincing. F.H. Mares79 is more guarded than most editors in regard to the need for a third opening, and this research indicates that his caution is wise. This appendix has not covered all possible ‘cases’ that might point in one way or another towards the existence of an upstage-central feature that provided a third entrance-point and was available for discoveries to be set from backstage; See Fitzpatrick, ‘Shakespeare’s Exploitation’, pp. 12–13. Richard Hosley (‘The Discovery-Space in Shakespeare’s Globe’, 46) calculated

76 77

that the discovery space he hypothesized, on the basis of textual evidence, for the Globe ‘need not have been deeper than 4 ft. or wider than 7ft.’. 78 Gurr, ‘Staging at the Globe’, pp. 159–68. 79 F.H. Mares, introduction to the Manchester University Press edition of Ben Jonson, The Alchemist (Manchester, 1979).

Playwright, Space and Place in Early Modern Performance

288

indeed, since scholars will doubtless continue to advance further instances for consideration, the task of responding to them would bear some relation to those of Sisyphus, the Sorcerer’s Apprentice or Heracles in his struggle with the Lernaean Hydra. Nevertheless the task undertaken here has two aspects that might bring more discrimination to the scholarly pursuit of identifying cases worthy of serious consideration. Firstly, the categorization of the range of instances into distinct groupings enables a more discriminating and more relevant set of search criteria. Secondly, this categorization demonstrates a large variation in cogency between the various categories, enabling a more or less summary dismissal of some (such as, for instance, ‘enter severally’). But there is another aspect to this overview of the evidence adduced to support a third entrance-point: it demonstrates above all how limited the evidence actually is. If these are the best pieces of textual evidence to be gleaned so far from a finegrained trawl through tens of thousands of stage directions, then the continuing elusiveness of the hypothesized upstage-centre feature – a feature of supposed high status and key importance – serves to call into question its very existence. The old ‘inner stage’ hypothesis was finally superseded in the light of a better understanding of the plays and staging practices, and perhaps it is now time for its successor, the ‘discovery space’, to be retired.80 William of Ockham enjoins that ‘entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem’, and it might be suggested that previous multiplications of two entia/entrances by a factor of 1.5 were ‘without necessity’, and should now be reversed. In contrast to a case-based approach which searches for snippets of evidence for three entry-points, this book has argued at both the micro- and macro-levels: it suggests that the plays manifest a systemic division of the fictional world based on two and only two entry-points, and that this fictional division serves also as a stage-management system that assigns specific functions to those two doors. It has brought forward a wealth of evidence of different types and scales – from the close reading of a single stage direction or line of dialogue to large-scale statistical analysis of many plays – to support a general theory which has farreaching ramifications for thematic analysis, for an understanding of performance processes, and for a deeper appreciation of the skills of the playwrights and their complicity with their audience in making meaning together in performance.

Ann Pasternak Slater, Shakespeare the Director (Sussex, 1982), p. 35 notes the ‘modern rejection of the unhistoric “inner stage”, whose existence was as much a critical fantasy as the “upper stage”’. Despite the fact that the examples she adduces refer to onstage concealment rather than entrances or exits, she accepts a central doorway that would provide access to the tiring house; her note that ‘It is generally recognised that no sustained significant action takes place within this confined discovery-space’ (p. 35) is apposite, but the real reason may simply be that there was no space for action there because it provided no access to backstage. 80

Appendix 2 The plays cited are from a broad range of companies and cover an extended time-span, as is illustrated in the table below. The book argues that there existed a broad set of spatial conventions that spanned the different companies and provided a common spatial language for playwrights of the period to draw on; should it be proven that the texts exhibit traces of company-specific or playhousespecific staging practices, these would be secondary and complementary to the general conventions evident in the range of heterogeneous texts drawn on here. There might have been company-specific practices that rested on such general understandings, but much work remains to be done to identify such specific practices. The information in the table is largely derived from Andrew Gurr’s invaluable list published in The Shakespearean Stage, 1574–1642, 3rd ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), pp. 232–43. Play Albovine The Alchemist All’s Well that Ends Well Antonio and Mellida Antonio’s Revenge Antony and Cleopatra As You Like It The Battle of Alcazar The Bride Caesar and Pompey The Cardinal Catiline

Author

Perf. date

Company

Playhouse

Jonson Shakespeare

1610 1602?

King’s Chamberlain’s

Blackfriars Globe

Marston

1599

Paul’s Children

Paul’s

Marston Shakespeare

1600 1608

Paul’s Children King’s

Paul’s Globe

Shakespeare Peele

1599 c. 1589

Chamberlain’s Admiral’s

Globe Rose?

Nabbes Chapman

1638

Beeston’s Boys

Cockpit

Shirley Jonson

1641 1611

King’s King’s

A Chaste Maid in Cheapside The City Nightcap

Middleton

1613

Davenport

1624

Cobbler’s Prophecy The Comedy of Errors

Lady Elizabeth’s Lady Elizabeth’s

Blackfriars Globe? Blackfriars Swan

Wilson Shakespeare

Cockpit

290

Playwright, Space and Place in Early Modern Performance

Play Coriolanus Covent Garden

Author Shakespeare Nabbes

Perf. date 1608 1633

Playhouse Globe Cockpit

1609 1606

Company King’s Queen Henrietta’s King’s Revels Children King’s King’s

Cupid’s Whirligig

Sharpham

1608

Cymbeline The Devil’s Charter The Distresses Doctor Faustus The Duches of Malfi Eastward Ho!

Shakespeare Barnes Davenant Marlowe Webster

1639 1588? 1614

King’s Strange’s? King’s

Chapman, Jonson, Marston

1605

Blackfriars Children

Blackfriars Rose? Blackfriars/ Globe Blackfriars

Marlowe

1592

Pembroke’s

Theatre

Heywood

c. 1627?

Cockpit

Jonson

1609

The Famous Victories of Henry V Fedele and Fortunio The First part of the Contention betwixt the two famous Houses of Yorke and Lancaster The Four Prentises of London A Game at Chess The Gentleman of Venice Gentleman Usher

Anonymous

c. 1588?

Queen Henrietta’s Blackfriars Children Queen’s

The Goblins The Golden Age

Edmond Ironside Edward I Edward IV part 2 Edward the Second The English Traveller Epicoene

Whitefriars Globe Globe

Heywood

Whitefriars Bull Inn

Munday

Heywood

c. 1594?

Admiral’s/ Queen Anne’s

Rose/ Red Bull

Middleton Shirley

1624

King’s

Second Globe

Chapman

1602(?)

Blackfriars

Suckling Heywood

1637–41 1610?

Blackfriars Children King’s Queen Anne’s

Blackfriars Red Bull

Appendix 2

291

Play Greene’s Tu Quoque Hamlet Hengist, King of Kent Henry IV part 1 King Henry V

Author Cooke

Perf. date 1611

Company Queen Anne’s

Playhouse Red Bull

Shakespeare Middleton

1601 c. 1610?

Chamberlain’s King’s?

Globe Blackfriars?

Shakespeare Shakespeare

1596–97 1599

Chamberlain’s Chamberlain’s

Henry VI part 1

Shakespeare

Henry VI part 2 Henry VI part 2 Henry VI part 3 Henry VIII

Shakespeare Shakespeare Shakespeare Fletcher and Shakespeare Fletcher

1590?/ 1594 1592–93? 1592–93? 1592–93? 1613

Admiral’s/ Stranges? Pembroke’s? Pembroke’s? Pembroke’s? King’s

Theatre? Curtain?/ Globe Rose?/ Rose Theatre? Theatre? Theatre? Globe

Day

1608

Whitefriars?

Heywood

1612–13

King’s Revels Children Queen Anne’s

Marlowe

1589

Theatre?

The Honest Man’s Fortune How a Man May Choose a Good Wife From a Bad Humour out of Breath Iron Age part 2 James IV The Jew of Malta

Shakespeare

1599

Strange’s/ Admiral’s Admiral’s Queen Henrietta’s Chamberlain’s

Shakespeare Shakespeare

1605 1595

King’s Chamberlain’s

1594

Admiral’s

Globe Theatre?/ Globe Rose

Fletcher, Field and Massinger Beaumont

1616–19

King’s

Blackfriars

1607

Blackfriars

Fletcher and Massinger Shakespeare

1619–23

Blackfriars Children King’s

1594?

Chamberlain’s

Theatre?/ Globe/ Blackfriars

1594 c. 1632 Julius Caesar King John King Lear Richard II A Knack to Know an Honest Man The Knight of Malta The Knight of the Burning Pestle The Little French Lawyer Love’s Labour’s Lost Lust’s Dominion

Red Bull

Rose Cockpit Globe

Blackfriars

292

Playwright, Space and Place in Early Modern Performance

Play Macbeth A Mad World, My Masters The Maid in the Mill The Maid’s Metamorphosis The Maid’s Revenge The Malcontent

Author Shakespeare Middleton

Perf. date 1606 1605– 1606 1623

Company King’s Paul’s Children

Playhouse Globe Paul’s

King’s

Blackfriars?

Shirley

1626

Cockpit

Marston

1603

Match Me in London Measure for Measure The Merchant of Venice The Merry Wives of Windsor

Dekker

1621?

Shakespeare

1603

Queen Henrietta’s Blackfriars Children Red Bull Company King’s

Shakespeare

1596?

Chamberlain’s

Theatre

Shakespeare

1597?

Chamberlain’s

A Midsummer Night’s Dream Much Ado about Nothing New Trick A New Trick to Cheat the Devil The News from Plymouth No Wit like a Woman’s Orlando Furioso

Shakespeare

1595

Chamberlain’s

Theatre?/ Globe/ Blackfriars Theatre

Shakespeare

1598

Chamberlain’s

Curtain?

1635

King’s

Globe

Greene

c.1591

Othello

Shakespeare

1603/1604

Queen’s/ Admiral’s Chamberlain’s

Patient Grissil

Chettle, Dekker and Haughton

1600

Admiral’s

Rose?/ Rose Globe/ Blackfriars Fortune

Massinger

1624

Lady Elizabeth’s Queen Henrietta’s Beeston’s Boys King’s

Ralph Roister Doister Renegado

Fletcher and Rowley

Red Bull Globe

Davenport Davenant Middleton

1630 The Revenger’s Tragedy

Blackfriars

Middleton?

1639 1606– 1607

Cockpit Cockpit Cockpit Globe

Appendix 2

293

Play Richard III

Author Shakespeare

Perf. date 1593? 1594

Company Pembroke’s? Chamberlain’s

Romeo and Juliet

Shakespeare

1594?

Chamberlain’s

Heywood Drayton, Hathaway, Munday and Wilson

1610–12 1599

Queen Anne’s Admiral’s

Red Bull Rose

Worcester’s Blackfriars Children

Rose Blackfriars

1592–93 1597– 1602

Strange’s Admiral’s

Rose Fortune

1631 1587–88

King’s Admiral’s

Blackfriars Theatre/ Rose

1587–88

Queen Anne’s

Red Bull

Shakespeare

1593?

Chamberlain’s

The Tempest Timon of Athens Titus Andronicus

Shakespeare Shakespeare Shakespeare

1610

King’s

Theatre?/ Globe/ Blackfriars Blackfriars

1591?

The Tragedy of Hoffman

Chettle

1602

Strange’s/ Pembroke’s Sussex’s Chamberlain’s Admiral’s

Rose?/ Theatre? Rose Globe Fortune

Queen Henrietta’s

Cockpit

The Second Maiden’s Tragedy Selimus Silver Age Sir John Oldcastle

Sophonisba

Marston

1602 1605

The Spanish Tragedy

Kyd

c. 1587

Swaggering Damsel The Swisser Tamburlaine the Great parts 1 and 2 The Taming of a Shrew The Taming of the Shrew

Playhouse Theatre? Theatre?/ Globe Theatre?/ Globe

Chamberlain Wilson Marlowe

c. 1630

294

Playwright, Space and Place in Early Modern Performance

Play The Travels [or Travails] of the Three English Brothers Troilus and Cressida Troublesome Reign of King John part 1 Twelfth Night The Twins The Two Gentlemen of Verona The Virgin Martyr Volpone Westward Ho! The Widow’s Tears The Winter’s Tale The Wits Wonder of a Kingdom

Author Day, Rowley and Wilkins

Perf. date 1607

Company Queen Anne’s

Playhouse Red Bull

1600

Chamberlain’s

Globe

1620

Red Bull Company King’s King’s Paul’s Children

Red Bull

Blackfriars Children King’s King’s

Blackfriars

Shakespeare

Shakespeare Shakespeare Dekker and Massinger Jonson Dekker and Webster Chapman Shakespeare Davenant Dekker

1605 1635 1604 c. 1605 c. 1610 1634

Globe Blackfriars Paul’s

Globe Blackfriars

Works Cited Primary Sources References to Elizabethan and Jacobean plays are to the electronic texts in Early English Books Online (EEBO), except in cases where original or modern critical editions (listed below) and their editorial commentary are pertinent to the discussion. References to the works of William Shakespeare are to the Riverside Shakespeare as listed below. The Dramatic Works in the Beaumont and Fletcher Canon, vol. 8, ed. George Walton Williams (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992). The Dramatic Works of Sir William D’Avenant, vol. 4 (Edinburgh: William Paterson, 1873). Hengist, King of Kent, ed. R.C. Bald (New York: Scribner’s Sons, Folger Shakespeare Library Pubs, 1938). Jonson, Ben, Workes (London: Richard Bishop, 1616 and 1640). ———, Epicene, or The Silent Woman, ed. Richard Dutton (Manchester, Manchester University Press, 2003). Il Lasca (Anton Francesco Grazzini), La Strega, ed. G. Grazzini (Bari: Laterza, 1953). The Revenger’s Tragedy, ed. R.A. Foakes (London: Methuen, 1966). Scala, Flaminio, Scenarios of the Commedia dell’Arte: Flaminio Scala’s Il Teatro delle favole rappresentative, ed. Henry F. Salerno (New York: New York University Press, 1967). The Second Maiden’s Tragedy, ed. Anne Lancashire (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1978). Shakespeare, William, Macbeth, ed. Kenneth Muir (London: Methuen, 1951). ———, The Riverside Shakespeare, gen. ed. G. Blakemore Evans (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin Company, 1974). ———, Twelfth Night, ed. J.M. Lothian and T.W. Craik (London: Methuen, 1975). ———, Hamlet, ed. Harold Jenkins (London: Routledge,1982). ———, The Taming of the Shrew, ed. Brian Morris (London: Routledge, 1982). ———, King Henry VIII, ed. R.A. Foakes (London: Routledge, 1986). ———, The Comedy of Errors, ed. T.S Dorsch (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988). ———, Love’s Labour’s Lost, ed. R.W. David (London: Methuen, 1951, Routledge, 1992).

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Secondary Sources Bauman, Richard, Verbal Art as Performance (Illinois: Waveland Press, 1984). Beckerman, Bernard, Shakespeare at the Globe, 1599–1609 (New York: Macmillan, 1962). Beckerman, Bernard, ‘Theatrical Plots and Elizabethan Stage Practice’, in W.R. Elton and William B. Long (eds), Shakespeare and Dramatic Tradition (Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1989). Berry, H., The Boar’s Head Playhouse (Washington: Folger Shakespeare Library, 1986). Best, Michael R., ‘The Staging and Production of the Plays of John Lyly’, Theatre Research 9/2 (1968): 104–17. Bowsher, Julian, The Rose Theatre: An Archaeological Discovery (London: Museum of London, 1998). Bowsher, Julian and Pat Miller, The Rose and the Globe: Playhouses of Tudor Bankside, Southwark: Excavations 1988–1991 (London, Museum of London, 2009). Bradley, David, From Text to Performance in the Elizabethan Theatre: Preparing the Play for the Stage (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992). Brennan, Anthony, Onstage and Offstage Worlds in Shakespeare’s Plays (London: Routledge, 1989). Brown, John Russell, Shakespeare and the Theatrical Event (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002). Burns, Elizabeth, Theatricality: a Study of Conventions in the Theatre and in Social Life (London: Longman, 1972). Carlson, Marvin, The Haunted Stage (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2001). Carnegie, David, ‘Stabbed Through The Arras: The Dramaturgy of Elizabethan Stage Hangings’, in Heather Kurr, Robin Eaden and Madge Mitten (eds), Shakespeare: World Views (Cranbury/London/Mississuaga: Associated University Presses, 1996). Cook, Ann Jennalie, The Privileged Playgoers of Shakespeare’s London, 1576– 1642 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981). De Marinis, Marco, Semiotica del Teatro (Milan: Bompiani, 1982). ———, ‘Cognitive Processes in Performance Comprehension: Frames Theory and Theatrical Competence’, in Tim Fitzpatrick (ed.), Performance: from Product to Process (Sydney: Frederick May Foundation, 1989). de Saussure, Ferdinand, Course in General Linguistics (London: Fontana, 1974 [1915]). Dessen, Alan C., ‘Much Virtue in As: Elizabethan Stage Locales and Modern Interpretation, in Marvin and Ruth Thompson (eds), Shakespeare and the Sense of Performance (Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1989). ———, Recovering Shakespeare’s Theatrical Vocabulary (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995).

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———, ‘Doors at the Globe: the Gulf between Page and Stage’, Theatre Notebook 55/2 (2001): 59–71. Gurr, Andrew and Mariko Ichikawa, Staging in Shakespeare’s Theatres (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000). Harris, John and Gordon Higgott, Inigo Jones: Complete Architectural Drawings (London: Zwemmer, 1989). Holmes, Martin, Shakespeare and Burbage (London: Phillimore, 1978). Hosley, Richard, ‘Shakespeare’s use of a Gallery over the Stage’, Shakespeare Survey 10 (1957): 77–89. ———, ‘The Discovery-Space in Shakespeare’s Globe’, Shakespeare Survey 12 (1959): 35–46. Hosley, Richard (ed.), The Revels History of Drama in English, vol. III (London: Methuen, 1975). Hotson, Leslie, The First Night of ‘Twelfth Night’ (London & New York: Macmillan, 1954). Ichikawa, Mariko, Shakespearean Entrances (Basingstoke/New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002). ———, ‘Were the Doors Open or Closed? The Use of Stage Doors in the Shakespearean Theatre’, Theatre Notebook 60/1 (2006): 5–29. Kiefer, Frederick, ‘Curtains on the Shakespearean Stage’, Medieval & Renaissance Drama in England (2007): 151–85. King, T.J., Shakespearean Staging 1599–1642 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1971). Lopez, Jeremy, Theatrical Convention and Audience Response in the Early Modern Theatre (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003). MacIntyre, Jean, ‘Production Resources at the Whitefriars Playhouse, 1609–1612’, Early Modern Literary Studies 2/3 (1996): http://extra.shu.ac.uk/emls/02-3/ maciwhit/.html. Mahood, Molly, ‘Shakespeare’s Sense of Direction’, in Grace Ioppolo (ed.), Shakespeare Performed: Essays in honour of R.A. Foakes (Cranbury/London/ Mississuaga: Associated University Presses, 2000). Mares, F.H., introduction to the Ben Jonson, The Alchemist (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1979). McAuley, Gay, Space in Performance: Making Meaning in the Theatre (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1999). McJannet, Linda, The Voice of Elizabethan Stage Directions (Newark/London: University of Delaware Press/Associated University Press, 1999). Meagher, John C., Pursuing Shakespeare’s Dramaturgy (Madison: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2003). Mulryne, J.R. and Margaret Shewring (eds), Shakespeare’s Globe Rebuilt (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997). Nungezer, Edwin, A Dictionary of Actors: and Of Other Persons Associated with the Public Representation of Plays in England before 1642 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1929).

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Orrell, John, The Theatres of Inigo Jones and John Webb (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985). ———, ‘The Polarity of the Globe’s Stage’: paper delivered at the first ISGC conference held at the Globe Education Centre, Easter 1995. Peat, Derek and Tim Fitzpatrick, ‘Macbeth in Performance’, Sydney Studies in English 8 (1982–83): 89–99. Pietropaolo, Domenico, ‘Improvisation as a Stochastic Composition Process’, in Domenico Pietropaolo (ed.), The Science of Buffoonery: Theory and History of the Commedia dell’Arte (Toronto/Ottawa: Dovehouse, 1989). Plett, Heinrich F., Rhetoric and Renaissance Culture (Berlin/New York: Walter de Gruyter, 2004). Reynolds, George, The Staging of Elizabethan Plays at the Red Bull Theater 1605–1625 (London: Oxford University Press, 1940). Ronayne, John, ‘Totus Mundus Agit Histrionem’, in J.R.Mulryne and Margaret Shewring (eds), Shakespeare’s Globe Rebuilt (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997). Rutter, Carol, Documents of the Rose Playhouse (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1984). Slater, Anne Pasternak, Shakespeare the Director (Sussex: Harvester Press, 1982). Smith, I., ‘Their Exits and Re-entrances’, Shakespeare Quarterly 18 (1967): 7–16. Stern, Tiffany, Rehearsal from Shakespeare to Sheridan (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000). Stopes, C.C., Burbage and Shakespeare’s Stage (London: Alexander Moring, 1913). Styan, John L., Shakespeare’s Stagecraft (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1967). Thomson, Peter, Shakespeare’s Theatre, 2nd edn. (London: Routledge, 1992). Tribble, Evelyn, ‘Distributing Cognition in the Globe’, Shakespeare Quarterly 56/2 (Summer 2005): 135–55. Walton, Kendall Mimesis as Make-Believe: On the Foundations of the Representational Arts (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1990). Weimann, Robert, Shakespeare and the Popular Tradition in the Theater: Studies in the Social Dimension of Dramatic Form and Function (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1978). Wilson, Jean, The Archeology of Shakespeare (Stroud: Sutton Publishing, 1997).

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Index Note: Page numbers in boldface indicate figures or tables. acoustic aid, angled tiring house wall as, 37 actors competence in performance conventions, 25 inwards-outwards patterning and, 175–6 rehearsal practices, 177 standardized use of doors and tight rehearsal time, 212, 214 Acts and Monuments (Foxe), 131 Admiral’s Men, 177 Albovine (Davenant) inwards-outwards patterning in, 153 onstage observer in, 125 Alchemist, The (Jonson) congestion pattern in, 194 inwards door in, 227 All’s Well that Ends Well (Shakespeare), congestion pattern in, 194 altars, 104, 108–9 antefatto, 74, 76–7 Antonio and Mellida (Marston), congestion pattern in, 193 Antonio’s Revenge (Marston), congestion pattern in, 193 Antonio’s Revenge (Marston), stage directions in, 209 Antony and Cleopatra (Shakespeare) congestion pattern in, 194 entrance/exit patterns for unexpected return in, 20–21, 22 inwards-outwards patterning in, 158 architectural system of stage directions, 198, 207, 208, 211, 214 As You Like It (Shakespeare), 245 alignment of fictional direction with stage direction in, 217–18 congestion pattern in, 194 inwards door in, 229

location of sheep-cote, 215 use of stage posts for trees in, 31–2 asymmetries in English theatre, 222–6 audience familiarity with spatial conventions, 11–12, 176 inferential walk and, 82 meaning of exits and entrances for, 144, 176 metatheatrical complicity with playwright, 100, 101–2 onstage, 133 relationship to author, 10n3 split stage and, 128–9, 133 status and location of, 224–6 audience competence, 11–12, 12n6, 25 audience response, 3–4 author, relationship to audience, 10n3 authority, asymmetries in English theatre and, 222–6, 225 banquet tables, 104 banquets, 104, 107, 109–11 Barnes, Barnabe, 31, 127, 206, 209, 268, 280 Battle of Alcazar, The (Peele), congestion pattern in, 193 battles/battlefields binary representation of, 233 extrusion and, 117–20 inwards-outwards patterning and, 159–60 offstage, 71–3 outwards door and, 230–31 properties and creating sense of, 105–6 sound effects to cover between-scene gaps, 184 Bauman, Richard, 24 Beckerman, Bernard “place in the middle and”, 29, 43, 253, 261 waiter’s doors system, 179, 180

302

Playwright, Space and Place in Early Modern Performance

beds, 104 discovery of, 274 extrusion and, 114–15 inwards door and, 228 stage directions and, 210 Best, Michael, 255 binary meetings, 233 Blackfriars playhouse, 225, 250, 251, 253, 256 Bradley, David, 64, 65, 66, 70, 181 Brennan, Anthony, 13, 76, 83n22, 118–20 Bride, The (Nabbes) inwards door in, 227 inwards-outwards patterning in, 175 stage directions in, 204, 205 Buchell, Arend Van, 249 Burbage, Richard, 75 Burns, Elizabeth, 2n1, 10n4, 22 Caesar and Pompey (Chapman), stage directions in, 209 canopies, 104, 108 Cardinal, The (Shirley), congestion pattern in, 194 Carnegie, David, 35 Catiline (Jonson) congestion pattern in, 194 discovery space in, 266–7 central feature/opening concealment and, 53, 60–61 discoveries and, 39 Gurr and, 40, 41 chairs of state, 104 Chapman, George, 201, 209 chariots, 104 Chaste Maid in Cheapside, A (Middleton) congestion pattern in, 193 funeral procession in, 107 inwards-outwards patterning in, 159 use of stage doors in, 40–41 Chettle, Henry, 259 City Nightcap (Davenport), stage directions in, 201 Cobbler’s Prophecy (Wilson), stage directions in, 203 Cockpit playhouse, 249, 260 Cockpit-in-court, 222 coffins, 107, 139

Comedy of Errors, The (Shakespeare) congestion pattern in, 192 doors in, 121 entrance/exit patterns for unexpected return in, 18–19, 22 inwards-outwards patternings in, 143, 146, 146–7 lost twins plot in, 77, 78 nomination and inference in, 87–94, 88–93 three-door stage and, 280n52 use of door for final exit in, 39–40 comings and goings, entrance and exit patterns for, 13–14, 21 commedia dell’arte, 77, 123, 178, 219, 260 commedia erudita, 77 concealment space, 29, 36, 36–7, 135, 252, 253, 261, 286, 287 central feature and, 60–61 curtain arrangements modifying, 255 nomination of, 100 use of in Epicoene, 44–53 congestion avoiding, 177 battle scenes and, 119, 120 minimal, 183 patterns of, in 50 plays, 192–4 as punctuation, 181–6 two doors and, 194–5 contextual information, 74–7 continuity, alternating two doors and, 181–6 conventions, 10, 10n4; see also spatial conventions Cooke, John, 201 Coriolanus (Shakespeare) battle in, 118 congestion pattern in, 194 inwards-outwards patterning in, 157 third opening and staging of, 285 costume battles and, 105 establishing sense of place and, 104 use in King Henry VIII, 108 councils, 111–12, 129–31 Covent Garden (Nabbes), three doors in, 121–2, 145, 160, 226, 227, 248 Cupid’s Whirligig (Sharpham), 55, 124, 268 curtains; see also hangings central feature and, 43

Index concealment space and, 252, 253, 255 discoveries and, 134 hanging from tiring house wall, 35–7 Cymbeline (Shakespeare) congestion pattern in, 192 discovery space in, 264 daggers, in Macbeth, 103 Davenant, William, 55, 125, 209, 277 Davenport, Robert, 115, 201 Day, John, 203 De Witt, Johannes de, 27, 34, 225, 250 dead time, minimizing, 177 death, love and, 238–9 deathbeds, inwards door and, 228 Dekker, Thomas, 201, 202, 256n26, 267 Dessen, Alan dramatic economy and, 114 on interplay between verbal and visual signifiers, 30 Dessen and Thomson on distance effects, 68 on properties in stage directions, 104 on sound effects, 118 on stage directions, 197, 198, 199n5, 200, 224, 254, 285 on stage posts as vantage points, 33 on use of trapdoor, 33–4 Devil’s Charter, The (Barnes) congestion pattern in, 193 discovery in, 105, 268–9 extrusion in, 115–16 inwards-outwards patterning in, 153, 154, 158 onstage observer in, 127–8 reference to third opening in, 280–81 stage directions in, 206, 209 use of stage posts in, 31 dialogue cues for entrances/exits in, 186–91, 196 indicating performance orientations in, 12–13 as means of establishing place, 87–102 stage management inscribed in, 178–9 Dictionary of Actors, A (Nungezer), 59 Dictionary of Stage Directions in English Drama (Dessen & Thomson) see Dessen and Thomson Dionysos, theatre of, 216

303

discoveries, 123, 124, 134–42 central opening/third door and, 39, 252 hangings and, 57, 134 inferred necessity of third opening and, 261–80 inwards door and, 228 of large properties, 106 role of small properties in, 105 stage doors and, 135–42 of tombs, 139–42 distance effects, 68 Distresses, The (Davenant) congestion pattern in, 194 discovery space in, 277–80 divided stage, 123–4, 128–34 Doctor Faustus (Marlowe), 262 doors, inferences derived from textual references to, 30; see also stage doors Dorsch, T.S., 280n52 dramatic economy, 114; see also extrusion dramaturgical system, stage management system as, 182 drawings, of playhouses, 249–51 Duchess of Malfi, The (Webster), 269 congestion pattern in, 194 discovery space in, 264–6 dumb-shows, 269–70, 285–6 Dutton, Richard, 12n7, 44 east, stage door indicating, 215–20 Eastward Ho! (Chapman, Jonson & Marston), 250 congestion pattern in, 193 costume and properties and sense of place in, 104 inwards-outwards patterning in, 156 reference to three stage doors in, 254–6 east-west orientation of stage, 215–16 Eco, Umberto, 10n3, 82 Edmond Ironside, third opening and staging of, 284–5 Edward I (Peele) discoveries in, 135–7 inwards door in, 227 inwards-outwards patterning in, 159 Edward IV part 2 (Heywood), stage directions in, 202, 209

304

Playwright, Space and Place in Early Modern Performance

Edward the Second (Marlowe), congestion pattern in, 193 English Traveller, The (Heywood), 205 congestion pattern in, 193 entrances/exits in, 142 evidence for three doors in, 260 “enter” stage direction, 197 entrance/exit patterns coming back into play, 16–18, 22 comings and goings, 13–14, 21 in Epicoene, 44–53 inwards-outwards, 143–61 in King Henry VI part 2, 10–13 meeting, 15–16, 21 partings, 10–13, 21 pursuing and overtaking, 14–15, 21–2 taxonomy of, 21–2 unexpected returns, 18–21, 22 entrances/exits; see also stage doors; stage management dialogue cues for, 186–91, 196 staggered, 184, 258 Epicoene (Jonson), 12n7 costume and establishing sense of place in, 104 dialogue establishing place in, 87 inwards-outwards patterning in, 152 nomination of stage in, 101–2 onstage observer in, 124, 126 three doorways in, 260 use of doors and concealment space in, 44–53 events, past, made present, 74–7; see also offstage events/features Ewans, Michael, 216 executions, outwards door and, 230 “exit” stage direction, 197 exits, staggered, 183–4, 185–6, 258; see also stage doors; stage management extrusion, 112–20, 114 battle scenes and, 117–20 beds and, 114–15 in The Devil’s Charter, 115–16 inwards-outwards patterning and, 154–6 mansion staging and, 121–2 of offstage place onto stage via large properties, 106 in Othello, 116–17 in Romeo and Juliet, 116

Famous Victories of Henry V, The (anon.) inwards-outwards patterning in, 153 split stage in, 131–3, 132 farewells, 232–3 Fedele and Fortunio (Munday), stage directions in, 204 females, inwards door and, 228–9 fictional stage directions, 199, 200–206, 212–14 houses and, 203–4 fictional world, stage direction contradicting, 208–9 Field, Nathan, 267 First part of the Contention betwixt the two famous Houses of Yorke and Lancaster, The, discovery space in, 271–6 Fletcher, John, 267 flow, textual analysis for, 186–91 forests, alignment of fictional direction with stage direction in, 217–18 fork in the road, outwards door and, 229–30 Fortune contract, 224 Fortune playhouse, 259 Four Prentises of London, The (Heywood) evidence for third opening in, 247, 253, 257, 260 stage directions in, 203 Foxe, John, 131 frons scenae, 37, 38, 40, 250 frontispiece, to Jonson’s Workes, 57, 58, 59, 222 gallery, 28, 219 onstage observers in, 128, 129 use of, 33 Game at Chess, A (Middleton), third opening and staging of, 285–6 garden scenes, outwards door and, 231 gender bias, stage doors and, 228–9, 240–44 Gentleman of Venice, The (Shirley), 205 Gentleman Usher (Chapman), stage directions in, 201 Globe playhouse, 250–51, 256 concealment space, 36 orientation of, 215–16 side galleries at, 225 split stage and, 128

Index tiring house wall at, 37 Globe reconstruction, 28 Goblins (Suckling), stage directions in, 204 goings, exit patterns for, 13–14, 21 Golden Age, The (Heywood), evidence for third opening in, 253 Greek theatre, performance orientation in, 216 Greene’s Tu Quoque (Cooke), stage directions in, 201 Gurr, Andrew on central/third opening, 132, 136, 140, 248, 249–50, 249n3, 253, 256, 286 on entrances/exits and gaps in performance, 182–3 on hangings and discoveries, 262 on hangings and tiring house wall, 57 on inter-scene gaps, 112 list of plays, 289 on playwrights’ control of performance, 24 on problematical entrance patterns, 184, 185 on Rose configuration, 36n23 on three-door staging of Macbeth, 167 on use of stage doors, 40, 41 hall theatres, 250 Hamlet (Shakespeare), 245 congestion pattern in, 193, 194 discovery space in, 263 inwards-outwards patterning in, 150 onstage observers in, 123, 126–7 split stage in, 133–4 third opening and staging of, 281–2 hangings; see also curtains concealment space and, 135 in flanking stage doors, 54–61, 261–2, 287 onstage observers behind, 124, 125–7 tiring house wall and, 57, 59, 60 upstage-centre, 287 heaven, identification of stage door with, 220–22 hell, identification of stage door with, 220–22 Hengist, King of Kent (Middleton) congestion pattern in, 193 discovery space in, 269–70

305

Henry IV part 1 (Shakespeare), discovery space in, 263 Henry IV part 2 (Shakespeare), alignment of fictional direction with stage direction in, 218–19 Henry IV (Shakespeare) inwards-outwards patterning in, 159 management of battle scenes in, 119, 120 Henry VI part 1 (Shakespeare) discovery space in, 262–3 outwards door in, 230 stage directions in, 198 staggered entrances in, 184 Henry VI part 2 (Shakespeare), 155 congestion pattern in, 193 entrance/exit patterns in, 10–13 exposition of antefatto in, 76–7 inwards door in, 228 staggered exits in, 183 Henry VI part 3 (Shakespeare) outwards door in, 230 stage directions in, 198 Henry VI (Shakespeare) costume and properties and sense of place in, 104 inwards-outwards patterning in, 158, 160 Henry VIII (Fletcher & Shakespeare) coronation procession in, 107–8 council in, 111 discoveries in, 137–8, 138, 139 discovery space in, 264 extrusion in, 115 inwards-outwards patterning in, 154, 155, 157 onstage observers and splitting of stage in, 129–31, 130 use of stage doors in, 41 Henslowe, Philip, 27 Heywood, Thomas, 97, 142, 142n14, 202, 203, 204, 205, 206, 209, 221, 260 Higgott, Gordon, 251 hinge arrangement of stage doors, 41–3 Honest Man’s Fortune, The (Field & Fletcher), 267–8 Honest Whore, The, Part II (Dekker), 256–7n26 horses, references to offstage, 66–7, 99 houses fictional stage directions and, 203–4

306

Playwright, Space and Place in Early Modern Performance

inwards door and, 226–7 How a Man May Choose a Good Wife From a Bad (Heywood), 97 Humour out of Breath (Day), stage directions in, 203 Ichikawa, Mariko on central feature, 59–60, 262–3, 267–8 on discovery place, 135, 262–3, 267–8 on discovery space, 135 on entrances/exits, 179–80 on entry-level patterns, 22 on lack of hangings in doorways, 54 on lack of spatial clarity, 113–14 on meaning of door, 235–6 on nomination of doors, 96, 97–8 on place represented by stage space, 94 on several characters entering stage and number of doors, 259 on three doorways, 53, 260, 280–86 iconographic evidence for central opening, 249–51 “in” directions, alignment with fictional inwards, 207 in the midst stage direction, 259–60 indeterminate stage directions, 210 inferences patterns of, 87–96 from text references, 28–9 inferential walk, 82 inner stage hypothesis, 29, 288, 288n80 “ins” and “outs”, confusion of, 197–8 inwards door, 215–16, 226–9 inwards-outwards patternings, in use of stage doors, 143–61 arrangement 1, 150, 150 arrangement 1(e), 151, 151 arrangement 2, 152, 152–4, 154 arrangement 2(e), 154, 154–5, 155 arrangement 3, 156, 156–7 arrangement 4, 157, 157 arrangement 5, 158, 158 arrangement 6, 159, 159–60 one door standing for a tomb, 161–4 one door standing for two things, 164–71 summary of patterns, 160–61 Iron Age part 2 (Heywood) inwards-outwards patterning in, 152, 153 location of hell in, 221–2

stage directions in, 206 use of altar in, 108–9 James IV (Peele), congestion in, 185 Jew of Malta, The (Marlowe), 262 congestion pattern in, 193 reference to third door in, 281 Jones, Inigo, 34, 222, 249–50 Jonson, Ben, 12n7, 124, 266; see also individual plays Julius Caesar (Shakespeare) alignment of fictional direction with stage direction in, 219 battles in, 118 congestion pattern in, 193 outwards door in, 231 use of stageposts as vantage points in, 33 keys establishing sense of place and, 103–4 nomination with fictional role, 98 stage doors and, 42–3 Kiefer, Frederick, 54 King, T.J., 180 King Henry V (Shakespeare) congestion pattern in, 192 inwards-outwards patterning in, 160 King John (Shakespeare) discovery space in, 263 third opening and staging of, 283–4 King Lear (Shakespeare) entrance patterns in, 184 entrance/exit patterns for meeting in, 15–16 inwards-outwards patterning in, 156 stage directions in, 198 King Oedipus (Sophocles), 103 Knack to Know an Honest Man, A arrangement of doors in, 40, 41 congestion pattern in, 194 inwards-outwards patterning in, 156 nomination of onstage resources in, 98–9 Knight of Malta, The (Fletcher, Field & Massinger), 279 congestion pattern in, 193 inwards-outwards patterning in, 153 key in, 28–9 nomination of stage door in, 98

Index one door standing for tomb in, 161–4 three-door staging of, 163 two-door staging of, 61, 163–4, 164 use of doors in, 41–3 Knight of the Burning Pestle, The (Beaumont) inwards door in, 227 inwards-outwards patterning in, 175 knocking, 67–9 ladies, inwards door and, 228–9 Latinate system of stage directions, 197, 198, 207, 208, 211, 213–14 Little French Lawyer, The (Massinger), 135 use of central feature in, 59–60 location changes, mid-scene, 233 long-distance communication, 71–3 Lopez, Jeremy, 3, 4n2, 10n4, 63n1, 64n3, 64n4, 67n10, 74n13, 77n16, 103n1, 133n6, 168n11 Lords’ room, 222n13 lost twins plot, 77–83 love, death and, 238–9 Love’s Labour’s Lost (Shakespeare) congestion pattern in, 192 farewells in, 233 inwards door in, 227, 229 women, stage pattern, and “natural order” in, 242–4 Lust’s Dominion (Marlowe), 98 use of trapdoor in, 34 Macbeth (Shakespeare), 279 congestion pattern in, 192 dialogue establishing place in, 87 inwards-outwards patterning in, 150, 151, 153, 155, 157, 160, 176, 179, 186, 191 knocking effects in, 68–9 location change mid-scene in, 233 movement patterns in sleepwalking scene, 1, 13–14 offstage battles and, 71–3 one door standing for two things in, 164–71 outwards door in, 231 properties indicating offstage events, 69–71

307

relation between onstage, offstage places in, 5 relational treatment of place in, 96–7 shifting polarities between onstage and offstage places in, 170 spatial “echoes” enriching audience perception of, 235–8, 237 use of properties in, 103 use of two entrance-points in, 61 MacIntyre, Jean, 45 Mad World My Masters, A (Middleton) inwards-outwards patterning in, 151 role of small properties in, 105 Mahood, Molly, 160, 165n7 Maid in the Mill, The (Fletcher & Rowley), 37, 287 inwards-outwards patterning in, 152 nomination of stage door in, 100–101 Maid’s Metamorphosis, The, evidence for third opening in, 257–8 Maid’s Revenge, The (Shirley) inwards-outwards patterning in, 154 role of small properties in, 105 Malcontent, The (Marston), stage directions in, 202, 205–6 males, outwards door and, 228 mansion staging, 121–2 Mares F.H., 287 Marlowe, Christopher, 205, 262 Marston, John, 109, 202, 205, 209 Massinger, Philip, 59, 135, 203, 267 Match Me in London (Dekker), stage directions in, 202 McJannet, Linda, 214 Meagher, John C., 226 on doors in The Comedy of Errors, 121 on flexible space within scenes, 114n10 on lost twins plot in Twelfth Night, 78, 80 on offstage, 65 on place represented by stage space, 94 on siege and need for third door, 285 meaning; see also spatially-based meaningmaking system recovering original, 245 spatially-based, 235 of two stage doors, 176 Measure for Measure (Shakespeare), congestion pattern in, 193

308

Playwright, Space and Place in Early Modern Performance

Mechanicals, 133 medieval stage, locations of heaven and hell on, 220 meetings binary, 233 entrances and exit patterns for, 15–16, 21 Menaechmi (Plautus), 77 Merchant of Venice, The (Shakespeare), 269 concealment space and, 37 congestion pattern in, 193 discovery space in, 263 exits and entrances of pursued and pursuer in, 14–15 inwards-outwards patterning in, 158 Merry Wives of Windsor, The (Shakespeare), discovery space in, 263 messengers, 71–3 outwards door and, 231–2 metatheatrical complicity between audience and playwright, 100, 101–2 methodologies, for examination of stage resources, 28–31 Middleton, Thomas, 97, 105, 204, 269, 285 Midsummer Night’s Dream, A (Shakespeare), 243 congestion pattern in, 193 extrusion in, 114n10 outwards door in, 229–30 split stage in, 133 staggered exits in, 258 monuments, inwards door and, 228 Much Ado About Nothing (Shakespeare) congestion pattern in, 192 inwards door in, 228 outwards door in, 231–2 spatial “echoes” enriching audience perception of, 239–40, 240, 241 Munday, Anthony, 204 Nabbes, Thomas, 121, 145, 160, 204, 205, 226, 227, 248 “natural order,” women and, 240–44 New Trick to Cheat the Devil, A (Davenport) extrusion in, 115 inwards-outwards patterning in, 151 News from Plymouth, The (Davenant) inwards-outwards patterning in, 151

role of small properties in, 105 No Wit like a Woman’s (Middleton), 204 nomination patterns of, 87–96 signification systems and, 99–100, 101 of stage doors, 96–8 of stage resources with fictional roles, 98–9 observers see onstage observers offstage; see also tiring house battles, 71–3, 117–20 function of, 63–6 relationships between onstage and, 22–3 setting of banquets and relation to, 110–11 offstage events/features, properties and reports indicating, 69–71 offstage places, spatial specificity of, 160 offstage resources, 5 offstage sound effects, 127, 198, 267 onstage audience, 133 onstage observers, 123–8 in King Henry VIII, 129–31 onstage, relationships between offstage and, 22–3 onstage resources, 5, 27–8, 30–31 open air theatre, entrance/exit patterns in, 12 openings, stage, 28; see also stage doors orchard scenes, outwards door and, 231 Orlando Furioso (Greene), congestion pattern in, 193 Orrell, John, 222, 250 Othello (Shakespeare) congestion pattern in, 192 discovery space in, 264 entrance/exit patterns for coming back into play in, 16–18, 22 extrusion in, 116–17 inwards door in, 215, 227, 229 inwards-outwards patterning in, 147–9, 148–9, 176, 186, 187–91, 191 location of heaven and hell in, 220–21, 222 place represented onstage in, 94–5, 94–6 staggered exits in, 183–4 women, stage pattern, and “natural order” in, 241

Index “out” directions, alignment of fictional outwards, 207 “outs” and “ins”, confusion of, 197–8 outwards door, 228, 229–32 overtaking, 14–15, 21–2, 79–80 Palladio’s Teatro Olimpico, 250 partings, exits for, 10–13, 21 Patient Grissil (Haughton), evidence for three stage doors in, 259–60 patterns of inference and nomination, 87–96 pavilions, inwards door and, 227 Peacham, Henry, 59 Peele, George, 135, 227 performance defined, 24 manipulation of conventions by playwrights and control of, 23–5 performance dates, 289–94 phrasal verb stage directions, 197, 200, 200 phrasal verbs, 213, 214 Pierce, Charles Sanders, 12n5 Pietropaolo, Domenico, 178 place dialogue as means of establishing, 87–102 lack of specification of onstage, 94–102 properties and sense of, 103–22 relational treatment of, 96–102 representation on stage, 23 sense of, in early modern performance, 1–2 small properties and creating sense of, 104–6 space vs., 64n4 “place in the middle”, 28, 29, 43–53 Plautus, 123 Players, 133 playhouse resources, playwright knowledge of, 2, 5 playhouses; see also individual playhouses list of, 289–94 orientation of, 215–16 plays, list of, 289–94 playwrights; see also individual playwrights decisions made by regarding performance patterns in text, 5, 9

309

knowledge of playhouse resources, 2, 5 list of, 289–94 manipulation of performance conventions by, 23–5 metatheatrical complicity with audience, 100, 101–2 offstage events/features and, 63–4 providing contextual information, 74–7 splitting stage, 128–9 use of congestion for dramatic effect, 184–5 use of spatial patterns to create meaning, 235 use of stage directions, 199–200, 199n5 use of stage management system alternating doors, 181 writing for oral stage management system, 195 prisons, inwards door and, 228 processions, 107–8, 111 properties indicating offstage events, 69–71 large carrying on and off stage, 107–12 creating sense of place and, 106–12 sense of place and, 103–22 small, creating sense of place and, 104–6 use of daggers in Macbeth, 103 public playhouses, 250 punctuation patterns, textual analysis for, 186–91 pursuing and overtaking, entrance and exit patterns for, 14–15, 21–2 Queen’s Men’s plays, 183 Ralph Roister Doister, inwards-outwards pattern in, 195 rebirth, death and, 239–40 Red Bull playhouse, 250, 253, 255, 286 rehearsal practices early modern, 177 standardized use of doors and, 214 relational interfaces, 97 relational spatial system, 5, 65, 144–5 relational spatial triangle, 113–14 Renegado (Massinger), stage directions in, 203 reports, of offstage events, 69–71

310

Playwright, Space and Place in Early Modern Performance

resources of Elizabethan stage see stage resources onstage and offstage, 5 playhouse, 2, 5 returns entrance and exit patterns for, 16–18, 22 unexpected, 18–21, 22 Revenger’s Tragedy, The (Middleton?) banquet in, 110–11 congestion pattern in, 193 Reynolds, George, 255 Richard II (Shakespeare), congestion pattern in, 194 Richard III (Shakespeare) alignment of fictional direction with stage direction in, 219 congestion pattern in, 192 inwards door in, 228 inwards-outwards patterning in, 153, 156 outwards door in, 230 provision of contextual information in, 74–6 role of small properties in, 105 Romeo and Juliet (Shakespeare) alignment of fictional direction with stage direction in, 219–20 congestion pattern in, 185, 192 costume and establishing sense of place in, 104 discovery space in, 262 extrusion in, 114, 116 inwards door in, 228 inwards-outwards patterning in, 155, 156, 157 lack of spatial clarity in, 113–14 nomination of stage resources as fictional roles in, 98 spatial “echoes” enriching audience perception of, 238–9 splitting stage in, 128 stage directions in, 201, 209 status and laterality in, 223 tomb in, 139 use of gallery in, 33 use of stageposts in, 32–3 rooms, inwards door and, 227 Rose playhouse, 250, 253 concealment space, 36

orientation of, 220 split stage and, 128 tiring house wall at, 34, 37 royal box, 225–6 royalty, stage doors and, 222, 224, 225–6 Rutter, Carol, 177 Scamozzi, Vincenzo, 250 scene, changes offstage and onstage in, 65 scene changes, system of instant, 38 scenic flexibility, angled tiring house wall and, 38 Second Maiden’s Tragedy, The (Middleton), 221 congestion pattern in, 193 discovery of tomb in, 139–42 discovery space in, 270–71 inwards-outwards patterning in, 153 nomination of stage door in, 97–8 status and stage doors in, 224 Selimus, entrance patterns in, 184 semiotic complementarity, 100 semiotic substitution, 100 Shakespeare, William; see also individual plays east-west orientation of stage and, 215–16 entrance/exit patterns in King Henry VI part 2, 10–13 imaginary forces, 10 knowledge of playhouse resources, 2 list of plays, 289–94 lost twins plot in Twelfth Night and, 78–83 use of offstage, 72–3 use of spatial “echoes”, 238, 245 use of staggered exits, 258 use of two entrance-points in Macbeth, 61 Shakespearean Stage, 1574–1642, The (Gurr), 289 Sharpham, Edward, 55 Shirley, James, 205 side galleries, 224–5 sieges, 118, 283–5 sign functions, 12n5 signification nomination and, 99–100, 101 of two doors switching within scene, 53

Index signified, 12, 12n5, 31 signifiers, 12, 12n5, 31 stage doors as opposed, 143–71 textual analysis and, 30 Silent Woman, The (Jonson), 12n7 Silver Age (Heywood), stage directions in, 204 slowsightedness, 123 small hand property, 30 Sophocles, 103 Sophonisba (Marston), 109 inwards-outwards patterning in, 151 sound effects, 67–9, 127, 267 battle, 72, 105–6, 117–18, 119, 120 between-scene gaps and, 184 stage directions and, 198 space, place vs., 64n4 Spanish Tragedy, The (Kyd) congestion pattern in, 194 stage directions in, 198 spatial conventions, 2–5 audience familiarity with, 11–12 for coming back into play, 16–18, 21 for comings and goings, 13–14, 21 for entrances and exits, 10–22 general, 22–3 for meeting, 15–16, 21 for partings, 10–13, 21 for pursuing and overtaking, 14–15, 21–2 renegotiation of, 2–3 for unexpected returns, 18–21 spatial patterns in performance in Epicoene, 44–53 textual analysis and, 9–10, 25 spatial triangulation, 23, 144 spatially-based meaning-making system, 235–45 gender and, 240–44 Love’s Labour’s Lost and, 242–4 Othello and, 241 Macbeth and, 235–8, 237 Much Ado About Nothing and, 239–40, 240, 241 Romeo and Juliet and, 238–9 split stage in The Famous Victories of Henry V, 131–3, 132 in Hamlet, 133–4 in King Henry VIII, 129–31, 130

311

stage lack of specification of place represented on, 94–102, 160 nomination of, 100 representation of place on, 23 stage directions architectural system, 198, 207–8, 208, 211, 213, 214 broad implications of, 210–13 confusion of “ins” and “outs”, 197–8 groups of “fictional”, 200–206 comes in, and from “outwards”, 201 comes out, and from “inwards”, 202–4 common phrasal verbs, 200 goes in, and to “inwards”, 205–6 goes out, and to “outwards”, 201–2 indeterminate, 210 indicating fictional space, 199–200 inwards-outwards patterning and, 196 Latinate system, 197, 198, 207–8, 208, 211, 213–14 phrasal verb, 197, 200, 213 stage management and, 197–214 statistical analysis of, 207–8 which contradict fictional world in dialogue, 208–9 stage doors binary meetings and, 233 discoveries and, 135–42 east and west and, 215–20 establishing sense of place using, 112 farewells and, 232–3 fictional spatial system and, 211–12 hangings in, 54–61 heaven and hell and, 220–22 hinge arrangement of, 41–3 inwards door, 226–9 inwards-outwards patternings, 143–61 locks and, 29, 42–3 mid-scene location changes and, 233 nomination as fictional doors, 96–8, 100–101 one door standing for tomb, 161–4 one door standing for two things, 164–71 opening out onto stage, 41–3 as opposed signifiers, 143–71 oppositions using three doors, 145

312

Playwright, Space and Place in Early Modern Performance

oppositions using two doors, 145 outwards door, 229–32 role in beds, studies, discoveries, 287 role in relational treatment of place, 96–8 stage management and, 175–96 status and laterality and, 223–6 two doors, continuity, and congestionas-punctuation, 181–6 two lateral, 28, 39–43 two wide, 39–40 use in The Comedy of Errors, 143 stage management system characteristics of, 177–81 as dramaturgical system, 182 stage directions and, 197–214 stage doors and, 176–96 stage posts, 27 observer behind, 127 as trees, 98, 99, 100 use of, 31–4 stage resources, 27–8 methodologies to determine use of, 28–31 nomination with fictional role, 98–9 stage-right, status and, 225 staggered entrances, 184, 258 staggered exits, 183–4, 185–6, 258 statistical analysis, of stage directions, 207–8 status, stage doors and, 222–6 Stern, Tiffany, 102, 116, 177 Strega, La (Il Lasca), 74n12 studies movement onto stage, 105 small properties creating sense of, 104–5 stage directions and, 204 third opening and, 266–7 Suckling, John, 204 Swaggering Damsel (Chamberlain), stage directions in, 201 Swan playhouse de Witt’s sketch of, 28, 34 stage doors at, 39, 40, 249 Swisser, The (Wilson), 105 Sydney eScholarship Repository, 186 symmetry, authority/status and, 223, 224–5, 225

Tamburlaine the Great part 1 (Marlowe), congestion pattern in, 194 Tamburlaine the Great part 2 (Marlowe) congestion pattern in, 194 stage directions in, 205 Taming of the Shrew, The (Shakespeare) banquet in, 109–10 congestion pattern in, 192 inwards-outwards patterning in, 152, 154, 157 location change mid-scene in, 233 references to offstage horses, 66–7 stage directions in, 202–3 staggered exits in, 183 Tempest, The (Shakespeare) congestion pattern in, 193 discovery space in, 264 tents, 104 inwards door and, 227 text references, inferences from, 28–9 textual analysis for flow and punctuation patterns, 186–91 of spatial patterns in performance, 9–10, 25 statistics from entrance and exit patterns, 192–5 textual evidence, for third opening, 251 theatre, asymmetries in, 222–6 theatre companies, 289–94 Theatre Notebook (periodical), 98 Theatrical Convention and Audience Response in Early Modern Theatre (Lopez), 3–4 third opening, 247–88 congestion and, 182–3 iconographic evidence for, 249–51 inferences from logical considerations for, 280–86 lack of evidence for, 134–5 persistence of belief in, 286–8 staging discoveries and, 261–80 textual evidence for, 251–60 Thomson, Leslie see Dessen and Thomson Thomson, Peter, 225 three-door discovery arrangement, 136, 139, 140 three-door staging, of Knight of Malta, 163; see also third opening

Index thrones, 104, 107 time, inwards-outwards patternings and, 166–7 Timon of Athens (Shakespeare) entrance and exit patterns in, 184–5 stage directions in, 204 tiring house, 27–8 function of offstage, 63–6 lack of evidence for third access-point to, 134 long-distance communication from, 71–3 moving large properties out of, 106 previous events made present, 74–7 privacy in, 54 properties and reports from, 69–71 sound effects from, 67–9 stage directions referring to, 214 twin genre and, 77–83 verbal reference to offstage events/ characters, 66–7 tiring house wall, 28 angled, 28, 38 hangings and, 57, 59, 60, 60 nomination with fictional role, 99 straight vs. angled, 34–7 triumphal arches and, 57 use in Twelfth Night, 82–3 use of, 34–7 Titus Andronicus (Shakespeare) congestion pattern in, 193 entrances/exits in, 142, 142n14 third opening and staging of, 282–3 tombs discovery of, 139–42 inwards door and, 228 in Much Ado About Nothing, 239–40, 240, 241 one door standing for, 161–4 in Romeo and Juliet, 238–9 Tragedy of Hoffman, The (Chettle), 259 trapdoor, 27, 30 nomination as fictional door, 98 use of, 33–4 Travels of the Three English Brothers, The (Day, Rowley & Wilkins), reference to three stage doors in, 247, 253, 258–9 traverse, 35, 37, 264–5

313

trees, stage posts as signifiers for, 31–3, 98, 99, 100 triangular spatial relationships, 23 triangulation of fictional spaces, 194, 195 Tribble, Evelyn, 178 triumphal arches, 57, 58 Troilus and Cressida (Shakespeare) battles in, 118 inwards-outwards patterning in, 159 outwards door in, 231 Troublesome Reign of King John part 1, stage directions in, 209 Twelfth Night (Shakespeare) alignment of fictional west with stageleft door in, 217 binary meetings in, 233 congestion pattern in, 192 discoveries in, 138 entrance/exit patterns in, 180 extrusion in, 112 inwards-outwards patterning in, 155, 157, 159 lost twins plot in, 77, 78–83 outwards door in, 232 Twins, The (Rider), inwards-outwards patterning in, 175–6 Two Gentlemen of Verona, The (Shakespeare), alignment of fictional direction with stage direction in, 218 two-door staging; see also inwardsoutwards patternings gender bias and, 240–44 of Knight of Malta, 164 skepticism regarding, 247–8 unexpected returns, entrance/exit patterns for, 18–21, 22 vantage points, use of stage posts to signify, 33 verbal references, to offstage events/ features, 66–7 Virgin Martyr, The (Massinger & Dekker) discovery space in, 267 evidence for third opening in, 253 Volpone (Jonson) inwards-outwards patterning in, 150 onstage observer in, 124

314

Playwright, Space and Place in Early Modern Performance traverse in, 264–5 use of traverse in, 35–7, 37

waiter’s doors system, of entrances/exits, 179 walls, gallery signifying, 33 Webb, John, 34, 251 Webster, John, 264 Weimann, Robert, 132 west, stage door indicating, 215–20 Westward Ho (Dekker) banquet in, 110 inwards-outwards patterning in, 155 Widow’s Tears, The (Chapman) congestion pattern in, 194 stage directions in, 198 William of Ockham, 288

Wilson, Jean, 251 Wilson, Robert, 203 window, gallery signifying, 33 Winter’s Tale, The (Shakespeare), 240 congestion pattern in, 192 discovery space in, 263–4, 279 staging with two doors, 287 Wits, The (Davenant), 268 hangings in doorways and, 55, 56–7 inwards-outwards patterning in, 152 onstage observer in, 125 stage directions in, 208–9 women, place, and ‘natural order’, 240–44 Wonder of a Kingdom (Dekker), stage directions in, 201 Workes (Jonson), frontispiece, 57, 58, 59, 222