PREFACE

This little book is an attempt to ascertain the nature of Shakespeare’s Stagery from an
intensive study of the Stage-directions in the original texts in Quarto, authorised and
unauthorised, and in Folio. It involves a survey of these texts, to determine the source and
relative calue of the directions. Often the comparative study of directions places the texts in
an entirely new aspect, as I have tried to show in dealing with the “assembled texts.” So far as
I know, this is the first attempt to examine this large mass of evidence, and to determine the
relation between the texts and the performances. Such an examination must be dispassionate,
even if it leads to inconclusive results, as in the case of continuity of performance.
Accordingly an explanatory theory of stagery is sketched in a single and separate chapter. The
theory – “of the triple stage” – may be considered a development of the theory of “alternative
scenes” as transformed by a recognition of the vast importance of the balcony as a scenic
resource. The problem of a modern producer is to replace or reproduce the balcony.
My quotations have been deliberately restricted to the original texts of Shakespeare, although
I have compared (with or without citing) the directions for a particular sitation both with those
in the source plays like The Contention or King Lear, and with those in their late adaptations
like Henry VI by Crowne and King Lear by Nahum Tate.
Moreover I see noreason to introduce extraneous problems by comparisons with plays written
for performance under circumstances which have no parallel in Shakespeare, as those by Ben
Jonson for the Children of the Chapel. The single exception I have made is to show the use of
the device of “discovery.” This involves, of course, an attempt to establish the continuity of
practice which connects the practice of drawing curtains on the Elizabethan Stage with that of
drawing scenes on the Restoration Stage.
The playhouse and the library have both played their part in the making of this book. Most of
the questions considered have been provoked by the performances of Shakespeare – some
hundreds in all – during the last decade, in London, Birminham, Stratford and elsewhere,
which have fallen under the view of a dramatic critic. To the editor of the Birmingham Post I
would here record my gratitude for his generous encouragement throughout that period.
The most extensice experiments in the staging of Shakespeare in full text by continuous
action have been carried out at the Stratford Memorial Theatre by Mr. W. Bridges Adams,
and at the Brimingham Repertory Theatre by Mr. Barry Jackson. To both of them I am
indebted for firendly counsel, athough my views are not always theirs. The practical
compromises they have effected between the methods of the Elizabethan and the Victorian
stage have often suggested to me the solution of difficulties. Again, although certain of my
arfuments, notable as to pauses between acts, are not accpetable to Mr. W. J. Lawrence, his
courtesy has been unremitting. For other assistence and encouragement I am indebted to Mr.
Gordon Craig, to Mr. L. P. Hadley, and to Mr. John Dover Wilson.
CHAPTER I.

A SHORT SURVEY OF TEXTS.

The printed texts of Shakespeare, in Quarto and in Folio, must bear a certain relation, direct or
indirect, to the original “prompt-books” – a convenient but not Elizabethan term. Though this
relation cannot be determined with absolute precision, it can be estimated in some measure by
considering the adequacy of a given text for use as a promt-book – of course, as if by an
Elizabethan prompter, with Elizabethan players, and in an Elizabethan playhouse.
While Shakespeare was alive seventeen Quartos from separate sources were published of his
plays These are: -
1. Titus Andronicus . . 1594
2. Romeo and Juliet . . 1597
3. King Richard II . . 1597
4. King Richard III . . 1597
5. Love’s Labour’s Lost . 1598
6. 1 King Henry IV . . 1599
7. Romeo and Juliet . . 1599
8. King Henry V . . 1600
9. The Merchant of Venice . 1600
10. Much Ado About Nothing 1600
11. 2 King Henry IV . . 1600
12. A Midsummer Night’s Dream 1600
13. The Merry Wives of Windsor 1602
14. Hamlet . . . 1603
15. Hamlet . . . 1604
16. King Lear . . . 1608
17. Troilus and Cressida . 1609
To these must be added-
18. The Contention (1594) for its relation with 2 Henry VI, and 19. The True Tragedy (1595)
for its relation with 3 Henry VI.
A preliminary survey of these nineteen texts as documets fot he study of stagery would result
in their division into two classes – according to wether their directions are, or are not, few,
concise, orderly and formal. Th eline of division is not precise, but the difference is best
approached through the question of piracy.
The arguments as to piracy of the Quartos – that is, as to their publication without authority –
have been stated with finality from the bibliographical aspect by Professor Pollard in
Shakespeare’ Fight with the Pirates. The comparison of results, from a theatrical aspect, is
instuctive. Of the four piracies that he has determined, in three cases – Romeo and Juliet
(1597), Henry V (1600) and The Merry Wives of Windsor – the diretions have a certain
informality, as of observations rather than instructions. The lack of finish and quality in parts
of the dialogue is also apparent in the directions. In The Merry Wives of Windsor this is
conspicuous, as in the instructions for the first of the three scenes where Falstaff is fooled.
1. Enter Mistress Ford with two of her men and a greate buck basket. 2. Enter Mistress Page. 3. Falstaffe
stands behinde the arras. 4. Sir Iohn goes into the Basket, they put clothes over him, the two men carries it
away. 5. Foorde meets it and all the rest, Page, Doctor, Priest, Slender and Shallow. 6. Exit omnes. 7.
Enter alle.
The entire absence of directions in the Folio makes direct contrast between the texts of The
Merry Wives of Windsor impossible; but it is possible in Romeo and Juliet. In Act III, Scene
3 (where the Nurse finds Romeo in the Friar’s cell), the unauthorised Quarto of 1597 has –
 1. Nurse Knockes. 2. Shee knockes againe. 3. He rises. 4. He offers to kill himselfe &
Nurse snatches the dagger away. 5. Nurse offers to go in and turnes againe.
The Folio, which follows the authorised Quartos, has merely “Knocke” thrice, as the other
directions would be obvious to an Elizabethan player. Therefore these descriptive notes are
not in the manner of the prompt-book, but of an observer. About Hamlet (1603) there is less
certainty. Without doubt it was published wihtout authority, but perhaps printed from an old
“stolne” prompt-book, with the addition of certain directions in the descriptive manner, as
“Enter Ofelia with a lute, and her haire downe, singing.” This differenc remarked, it must be
grouped among the unauthorised texts with the other three piracies and the two early versions
of the York and Lancaster plays.
This leaves the thirteen texts which Professor Pollard has claimed as being authorised. Of
these thirteen, ten are homogeneous, despite the minor pecularities of each.But in three the
directions have a style which may be considered literary rather than theatrical. Those of
Titius Andronicus are elaborate and literary, while those of 1 King Henry IV have been given
also a literary form, htough less elaborately. King Lear may be styled an “authorised piracy.”
Professor Pollard suggests that the authority for its publication was obtained from the King’s
Players by blackmail – John Busby threatening to print King Leir, the old play, with the
happy ending. The speculation suggests another: perhaps Busby had already in his possession
a surreptitious copy, with notes on stage-business as observed in the theatre, and threatened
that if he were not allowed to print King Lear he would print King Leir. The ten remaining
texts in Quarto were printed from the promt-books or from accurate and unedited transcripts
of them.
The closer the study of the texts, the more clear will it become that they mus not be regarded
as a theatrical homogeneity. Actually almost thirty years of theatrical practice may separate
the directions of two of the elaborate texts – Titus Andronicus in the Quarto of 1594, and
King Henry VIII in the Folio of 1623. The resources of the new Globe Theatre of 1614 and of
the old Globe Theatre of 1599 must inevitably have been different. Again, while Love’s
Labour’s Lost demands no more than what Quince found in the clearing of the forest outside
Athens:
A maruailous conuenient place for our rehearsall. This greene plot shall be our stage,
this hauthorne brake our tyring house,
Some of the early histories, as 3 Henry VI, demand a most elaborate structure. They may not
all be versions which were presented in regular playhouses, for many of them are manifest
adaptations, as if for Court. The longer plays, above all the authorised versions of Hamlet,
may have been arranged for connoisseurs at the private theatre in Blackfriars. Even in the
time of Betterton the full Hamlet was too long for ordinary public representation, and a reprint
of the Second Quarto “as it was acted in theDuke of York’s Theatre” in 1676 has numerous
passages marked off as not bein played.
On the standard of the directions in these ten Quartos, the plays in the First Folio may
be sorted into three classes for their value as prompt-books: -
(1) The inadequate-
The Two Gentlemen of Verona, The Merry Wives of Windsor, Measure for
Measure, The Winter’s Tale, and King John
(2) The elaborate –
Titus Andronicus, the three parts of Kig Henry VI, The Tempest, King Henry
VIII, Coriolanus, and Timon of Athens.
(3) The simple –
All the remaining plays.
“For their value as prompt-books” does not imply that the twenty-three simple plays were, of
necessity, direclty printed from a prompt-book unaltered. In the Folio on some simple plays
the directions bear signs of literary revision, and in others of theatrical accretion. The Othello
n Quarto of 1622 and the Othello in Folio of 1623 were obtained from different sources, as
were the texts of King Richard III and King Lear in Folio and in Quarto. A closer examination
of their stage directions reveals much that has been obscure in the history of Shakespeare’s
texts – but, though my conclusions have been kept in mind throughout this book, their formal
exposition is not strictly relevant to the present theme.
CHAPTER II

STAGE DIRECTIONS.

The Elizabethans were not accustomed to putting a marginal note to show that an actor
“suited the action to the word.” In The Tempest, when Caliban said “Ile fall flat,” he fell flat;
and when Trinculo, following him, said “My best way is to creepe under his Gaberdine . . . . .
I will here shrowd till the dregges of the storm be past,” he crept under the gaberdine and
“shrowded.” To an Elizabethan, the directions in the later acting-editions that Caliban “lies
down,” and Trinculo “lies down behind Caliban,” would have been purely gratuitous. When
the action was “suited to the word,” no stage-direction was required. No great ingenuity is
neede to “amend” the texts by expressing these implied directions, though the labour has
occupied a long line of commentators, many of whom have given their excuse that the stage-
direction “required by the text” has either “dropped out” or “been edited away.” The great
mass of these modern directions were never recorded in the Elizabethan prompt-books, where
stage direction was given only where the action or the movement was not the natural corollary
to the dialogue.
Where the movement became intricate, as in many of the histories, the directions were made
express. An example of essential instructions for “business,” or “pantomime,” is found in 1
King Henry IV, where the fights at Shrewsburry (Act V, Sc. 3) demand no less than eighteen
directions in the First Folio. Taken together, they give an almost perfect scenario of action.
1. Alarums, excursions, enter the King, the Prince, Lord Iohn of Lancaster, and Earle of Westmerland. 2.
(Prince) Exit 3. Enter Dowglas. 4. They fight, the K. being in danger. 5. Enter Prince. 6.
They Fight, Dowglas flyeth. 7. (King) Exit. 8. Enter Hotspur. 9. (Prince and Hotspur) Fight.
10. Enter Flastaffe. 11. Enter Dowglas, he fights with Flastaffe who fals down as if he were dead.
The Prince killeth Percia. 12. (Prince) Exit. 13. Falstaffe riseth vp. 14. Takes Hotspurre on his backe. 15.
Enter Prince and Iohn of Lancaster. 16. A retreat is sounded. 17. (John and Prince) Exeunt. 18.
(Falstaffe) Exit.
In the Quarto of 1598 is one more direction, for Prince Hal: “He spieth Falstaffe on the
ground”; but the scenario is still not quite complete, because in both Quarto and Folio there is
one “implied action,” no express direction being given that Westmoreland and Prince John
exeunt, though they depart when John says: -
We breath too long: come cosin Westmerland,
Our duty this way lies, for heauens sake come.
1 King Henry IV is an axceptinal text in many ways, as is King Henry VIII, which belongs,
perhaps, to a quarter of a century later. The directions in a single scene comprehend all the
types of direction that are found in the plays of Shakespeare – formal movement, manner,
costume, music and effects, as well as “movables” or furniture.
1. Hoboies. A small Table under a State for the Cardinall, a longer Table for the Guests. Then Enter Anne
Bullen, and diuers other Ladies & Gentlemen as Guests at one Doore, at an other Doore enter Sir Henry
Guilford. 2. Hoboyes. Enter Cardinall Wolsey, and takes his State. 3. Drum and Trumpets.
Chambers discharg’s. 4.Enter a Seruant. 5. All rise and Tables remov’s. 6. Hoboyes. Enter King
and others as maskers, habited like Shepheards, vsher’d by the Lord Chamberlaine. They passe directly before
the Cadrinall, and gracefully salute him. 7. Choose Ladies, King and An Bullen. 8. Musicke, Dance.
9. Whisper. 10. Exeunt with Trumpets.
The directions in Elizabethan play-books may therefore be divided into four classes: (I) those
of formal movement, (II) those demanding noises and effects, (III) the descriptice notes, (IV)
those concerning the scenical divisions.
The directions for formal movement are enter, exit, and manet, with their variations. The exit
is frequently implied, as in Macbeth, where although the ghost of banquo is twice marked to
enter, there is no instruction for him to leave the stage. These directions were inserted
gradually, as in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, after Bottom cried out in a strange voice “If I
were faire, Thisbie I were onely thine,” Quience shrieked “We are hanted, pray masters, flye
masters, helpe”; whereupon they all fled. For this they needed no formal direction, and there
is none in Fisher’s Quarto of 1600. But in “Roberts’” Quarto of “1600” (i.e., Jaggards of
1619), exit is marked for Quince, the action still being left implied for the others, as is
elsewhere the case when one member of a group speaks the cue on which they all go out.
Again, in the First Folio this has been chenged to “The Clownes all Exit,” which was not
altered to “Exeunt” till the Third Folio.
This custom of revision accounts for the defective Latinity of many directions, though not for
the change of “staies all the rest” in The Contention, Part 1, into “manet the rest” in the
corresponding direction of King Henry VI, Part 2. Revision is apparent also in the Comedy of
Errors, where a double instruction is given for the same persons. “Runne all out” and “Exeunt
omnes, as fast as may be, frighted.” It is safe to say that the prompt-book had merely “Exeunt
omnes,” the additions being made for reasons external and literary, and not internal and
theatrical.
The directions for noises like “shout within,” for effects like “thunder and lightning,” and for
music like “sennet,” “flourish,” and “tucket” need no expansive illustrations. 1
The descriptive notes concern exceptinal circumstances of manner, appearance, costume and
property. They are most common in the unauthorised Quartos, as in Romeo and Juliet, the
Quarto of 1597 having “Enter Iuliet somewhat fast and embraceth Romeo,” and “Enter Nurse
wringing her hands with the ladder of cordes in her lap,” where the Quarto of 1599 has only
“Enter Iuliet” and “Enter Nurse with cordes.” Again, in Hamlet, where the unauthorised
Quarto of 1603 has “Enter Ofelia playing on a Lute, and her haire downe singing,” the
authorised Quarto of 1604 has “Enter Ophelia,” which in the First Folio becomes “Enter
Ophelia distracted.” The first Folio has a few examples like “Enter the Queene with her haire
about her eares,” in King Richard III, where also is found “Enter Richard and Buckingham in
rotten Armous, maruellous ill fauoured,” the Quarto having only “Enter Duke of Gloster and
Buckinham in Armous.”
In The Merchant of Venice is “Enter Morocus, a tawnie Moore all in white and three or foure
followers accordingly”; and in Alls Well that Ends Well is “Enter yong Bertram” (etc.) “all in
blacke.” These descrptive notes are rae, and, of course, are usually attached to a note of
entrance, where they were considered as implied by the dialogue or imposed by the situation,
they were not inserted.
Costume is difficult, beaucse it was first prescribed by oral instruction, afterwards becoming
traditional. But to show the state of the texts as to costume, it is best to isolate a small group
of allusions and directions, as those for appearance in night-gowns.
In four texts a man is directed to appear “in his night-gown,” but only one of them is found in
the First Folio where, in “the Tragedie of Julius Caesar, is “Thunder and Lightning. Enter
Julius Casesar in his night-gowne.” Again, in 2 King Henry IV, where the First Folio has
“Enter King with a Page” to speak of “O Sleepe. O gentle Sleepe,” the First Quarto has “Enter
the King in his night-gowne laone.” Here, it is not unreasonable to suppose that any player,
who had to lament in a bed-chamber that he could not sleep, would wear his “night-gown,” so
the instruction bay be considered implicit. Brabantio called from sleep in Othello has the same
attire prescribed in the First Quarto but not in the First Folio.
In Hamlet, when the Ghost shows himself to the Prince, who is with his mother, where the
First Folio has “Enter Ghost” the unauthorised Quarto of 1603 has “Enter the Ghost in his
night-gowne.” The costume is scarcely implied by “My Father in his habite as he lived.” His
previous appearance in armous is implied: though in neither of the Quartos nor in the Folio is
1
The directions for noises take many forms, as „Noyse and shout within” in King Henry VIII, for effects as
“Storm and Tempest” in King Lear and “Thunder and Lightning” in Julius Caesar, and for music as “Flourish for
the players” in Hamlet, “Trumpets sound” in Antony and Cleopatra. “The cock crowes,” which follows “Stop it
Marcellus,” in both the early quartos of Hamlet, is curious, because, despite its absence from the Folio, the
“business” survived on the stage long after Betterton. Strictly, the sound is implied by “It was about to speake,
when the Cocke crew.”
there a mark of costume for the entrances upon the platform. “Arm’d at all points exactly Cap
a Pe.”
In Macbeth there is no direction that Macbeth appears in his night-gown after the murder of
Duncan, as it is prescribed by lady Macbeth saying “Get on youre Night-Gowne.”
Even in the elaborate texts costume is often left implied. In 2 Henry VI it is directed that
“Enter Duke Humfrey and his Men in Mouring cloakes,” when they await the entry of the
Duchess “in a white sheet” of penance. But elsehwere in the play costume is not prescribed by
directions, as in the amusing scene where Duke Humfrey exposes an imposter who pretends
that he has received his sight by a miracle at the shirne of St. Alban. The Duke questions the
man as to the colous of his clothes. From this it appears that Duke Humrey wars a “Cloake of
Red, Master, as Red as Blood,” and a “Gowne of Black, forsooth, Coale-black, as iet,” but
there are no actual directions to this effect.
Similarly in 1 Henry VI, when Duke Humfrey is at the Tower Gates, to him enter the Bishop
of “Winchester and his men in Tawney coates.” But it is the dialogue, not the directions, that
speak of Duke Humfrey’s men waring “Blew Coats.” This device of contrast in colous as
between “Blew” and “Tawney” for bodies of opposed forces must have been common
throughout the plays of Shakespeare. Furthermore in King Henry V, before Agincourt, the
King is directed to enter with “his poore souldiers” whose stained and “warre-worne coats”
contrast with the fine bright French attire – a distinction always violated in modern practice.
It is a little curious to find that in The True Tragedy of Richard Duke of York (1595), and also
in The Whole Contention, Part 2 (1619) the entrance of Yorke and his men is directed “With
Drumme and Souldiers with White Roses in their hats” and of Henry’s “Souldiers with Red
Roses in their hats,” the descriptive note of costumes is not found in the corresponding
direction of King Henry VI, Part 3.
The great regard of the Elizabethans to the wearing of the sumptuous costume is not reflected
in the directions. All the ceremonious habiliments of a coronation are comprehended in a
word or phrase, the King entering “with his traine,” or “in pompe,” or “crowned.”
The directions for the procession to the coronation of King Henry V at the close of 2 King
Henry IV are curt. In the Quarto is:
1. Enter Strewers of rushes. 2. Trumpets sound, and the King and his traine pass ouer the Stage.
After them, Enter Falstaffe, Shallow, Pistoll, bardolfe and the Boy. 3. Enter the King and his traine.
In the Folio is:
1. Enter two Groomes. 2. Enter Falstaffe, Shallow, Pistoll, Bardole and Page. 3. The Trupets
sound. Enter King Henrie the Fift, Brothers, Lord chiefe Justice.
The Folio has no indication of the procession, which is a hint that the two texts of this play
were based upon distinct performances.
The return from the coronation in Richard III appears in Actus Quartus Scena Secunda of the
Folio as
“Sound a Sennet. Enter Richard in pompe, Buckingham, Catesby, Ratcliffe, Louel.”
In the First Quarto this is:
“Enter Richard Crwoned, Buckinham, Catesby and other Nobles.”
Again, where the Quarto directs, “He ascendeth the throwne,” the Folio has only “sound”
(i.e., a sennet), the ascension being implied.
On the other hand, the great exception is King Henry VIII, in which there are many instances
of the importance of costume. Of course the element of pageantry imposed the necessity for
definite and elaborate instructions, not only as to costume, but also as to the disposition of
playersabout the stage. The order of the procession for the coronation of Anne Bullen is set
out with much precision, though it seems as if inserted in the text after a performance, on hint
being in the tense of “he wore a Filt Copper Crowne.”
It follows:
The Order of the Coronation.
1. A liuely Flourish of Trumpets.
2. then two Iudges.
 3. Lord Chencellor, with Purse and mace before him.
4. Quirristers singing. Musicke.
5. Maiour of London bearing the Mace. Then Garter, in his Coate of Armes, and on his head he wore
a Gilt Copper Crowne.
6. marquesse Dorset, bearing a Scepter of Gold, on his head a Demy Coronall of Gold. With him, the
Ealre of Surrey bearing the Rod of Siluer with the Doue, Crowned with an Ealres Coronet Collars
of Esses.
7. Duke of Soffolke, 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 marshallship, a Coronet on his
head. Collars of Esses.
8. A Canopy, brone by foure of the Cinque-Ports, vnder it the Queene in her Robe, in her haire, richly
adorned with Pearle, Crowned. On each side her, the Bishops of London, and Winchester.
9. The Olde Dutchesse of Norfolke, in a Coronall of Gold, wrought with Flowers, bearing the
Queene’s Traine.
10. Certaine Ladies or Countesses, with plaine Circlets of Gold, without Flowers.
Exeunt, first passing ouer the Stage in Order and State, and the A great Flourish of Trumpets.
The fourth class, which concerns the scenical divisions, is the most difficult of all. The
doors, the curtains, and the balcony were constantly used in Elizabethan production. Yet it
is little more than an accident that we can trace their use in Shakespeare. If we were
confined to the authorised Quartos, without reference to plays published surreptitiously or
posthumously, we could scarcely find thirty examples in Shakespeare, mostly concerned
with the stage-doors. Though the principle of the “implied action” is fundamental and far-
reaching, it cannot account for all the apparent deficiencies.
The stage had three ways of entrance – to the fore-stage by a door on either side; and to
the after-stage by a middle door; but the middle door, which was known as “ the gates” in
the histories and tragedies, was not always looked upon as “a door.”
To show that “the gates” was the middle door may be cited from The Whole Contention,
Part 2 (1619), a set of directions which were taken, with some changes in spelling only,
from The True Tragedy of Richard Duke of Yorke (1595):
1. Enter the Lord Maior of Yorke upon the Walls. 2. Exit Maior. 3. The Maior opens the doore,
and brings the Keies in his hand.
During the dialogue “the doore” is spoken of as “the gates,” as by Edward:
So my Lord Mayor, these gates must not be shut.
Although the main entrance was through the side doors, they are mentioned in
Shakespeare only where both are to be used at the same time, as by two contending forces
or opposed trains. This type of direction is found most often in the histories and tragedies,
and takes two formd – the first as in Cymbeline, where “Enter Lucius Iachimo and the
Romane Army at one doore; and the Britaine Army at another,” and the second as in King
John, where “Enter the two Kings with their powers, at seuerall doores.” It is rare in the
comedies, a notable expection being A Midsummer Night’s Dream where “Enter the King
of Fairies at one doore, with his traine, and the Queene at another with hers.” Sometimes
the direction concerns only two persons, as in King Lear, where the Quarto has “Enter
Kent, and a Gentleman, seuerally.”
Although “the doors” of the directions are the two side doors, the third door is not a great
difficulty. However, the direction for entry “at one door” is continued sometimes by “at
the other,” sometimes by “at another.” In King Henry VIII both are used. In the First Folio
“at the other” is used in three other texts, these being 2 Henry VI, King Richard III, and
Titus Andronicus. “At another” is used in eight other texts: A Midsummer Night’s Dream,
King John, King Henry V, 3 Henry VI, Troilus and Cressida, Coriolanus, Anthony and
Cleopatra, Cymbeline – an exapmle from Anthony and Cleopatra being “Floursih. Enter
Pompey at one doore with Drums and Trumpet: at another, Caesar, Lepidus, Anthony,
Enobarbus, Mecenus, Agrippa, Menas with Souldiers marching.”
The same entrance appears in both forms in the two texts of King Henry V, for where the
unauthorised Quarto has:
 Enter at one doore, the King of England and his Lords. And at the other Doore the King of France,
Queene Katherine, the Duke of Burbon and others.
The First Folio has:
Enter at one doore, King Henry, Exeter, Bedford, Warwicke, and other Lords. At another, Queene
Isabel, the King, the Duke of Bourgogne, and other French.
This instance is not conclusive, but confirmation that the third enctrance was, or was not,
counted as a door merely from a personal point of view is found from Pericles, in the First
Quarto of 1609, “as it hath been diuers and sundry times acted by his dMaiesties Seruants,
at the Globe on the Banck-side,” where both terms are used in descriptions for “Dombe-
Shews” –
Enter at one dore Pericles talking with Cleon all the traine with them: Enter at another dore a gentleman
with a Letter ro Pericles. Pericles shows the Letter to Cleon: Pericles gives the Messenger a reward and
Knights him. Exit Pericles at one dore and Cleon at another.
Enter Pericles at one doore, with all his trayne
Cleon and Dioniza at the other. Cleon shewes Pericles the tombe. Whereat Pericles makes lamentation,
puts on sack clothand in a mighty passion departs.
The spelling as “doore” and “dore” points to the work of two different hands.
An unusual instance occurs in 2 King Henry IV. The Quarto opens Act 1, Scene 2, “Enter
Lord Bardole at one doore.” He obviusly crossed the stage, and the Porter opening “the
other” (implied, but not mentioned), answered at once. Here the folio has only “Enter
Lord bardolfe and Porter,” without “seuerally.” And in the next scene at the opening it
directs “Enter Falstaffe and Page,” obviously on one side and a little later “Enter Chief
Justice and Seruant,” obviusly on the other, which appeared in the later acting-editions as
“Enter Falstaf, L.” and “Enter Chief Justice, R.” Even assuming that the Elizabethan
custom was to work the stage mainly from “one door,” there were hundreds of cases
where “the other” was used. Yet a generous estimate, in all the canon of Shakespeare, in
Quartos and Folios – excluding, of course, simple reprints – there are not more than fifty
stage directions where the doors are mentioned; and always for simultaneous use in
entrance. What is the conclusion? It is either that, with unexampled industry and absolute
precision, they were absolutely deleted from the printer’s copy, or they were never in the
prompt-book. For the prompt-book was not a complete self-contained manual of
instruction in stage management and, though the chief means of regulation the rehearsal
and performance of plays, it was not the only requisite. There was also the “platt,” a
remembrancer in the form of an extract from stage-directions with additions. Even
recognising the far reach of the implied action in histrionics, not one of these printed texts
of Shakespeare – even those that seem elaborate – is self-contained for the purposes of
stage management.
 CHAPTER III

THE CURTAINS.

While a study of Elizabethan stagery shows the peculiar importance of the curtains in the
Elizabethan playhouse, they were never mentioned in _Shakespeare’s directions. For the
purpose of attack, it is convenient to assume that three terms – the arras, the traverse, and
the curtains – cover variations of the same device, which was to provide a recess, an inner
stage, or an after stage, where players could be revealed at will.
In the formal directions, but for certain minor exceptions which will be noted in due order,
Shakespeare’s rule of silence is absolute. Explicit descriptions showing the force of this
device must therefore be sought elsewhere, and marlowe provides an example in
Tamberlaine, Part 2 (1590), with the death of Zenocrate:
1. The arras is drawen and Zenocrate lies in her bed of State, Tamberlaine sitting by her:
three Phisitians about her bed tempering potions. 2. They call musicke. 3. The
musicke sounds, and she dies. 4. The Arras is drawen.
The after-stage was therefore devised for scenes, such as death-bed scenes, where it was
more effective for persons to enter or depart unseen. They could be “discovered,” as in: -
(I) David and Bethsabe by Peele, where is found “The Prologue-speaker before going out draws a
curtain, and discovers Bethsabe with her maid, bathing over a spring.”
(II) The Tragedy of Dido by Marlowe, where is found “Here the curtains draw, there is discouered
Iupiter, dandling Ganimed on his knee and mercury lying asleepe.”
(III) The Duchess of Malfi by Webster, where is found “Here is discouered behind a traverse the
artificial figures of Antinoi and his children appearing as if they were dead.”
In my opinion, these were not notes from the prompt-book, but descripitons devised for
the readers. Nevertheless, we have to reconcile the absence of directions by the curtains in
the authorised texts of Shakespeare with the frequency of their use. Is this accounted for
by the “implied action”?
A most convenient example is the last scene of Othello. 2 The initial direction is “Enter
Othello, and Desdemona in her bed.” The instruction for Desdemona to “Enter” had no
relation to actual appearance before the audience, but was a direction for the player to take
his position behind the curtains. In Othello the curtains are drawn four times: -
(I) by Othello, who opens them discovering Desdemona, his cue seeming “Put out the light.”
(II) by Othello, who closes them when he says, “Soft: by and by, Let me the curtains draw,” as Emilia
calls “at the doore”;
(III) by Emilia, who opens them on hearing Desdemona’s moaning.
(IV) by Montano or another actor, who closes them on Lodovico, saying to Iago-
Looke on the Tragicke Loading of this bed:
This is thy work: The Object poysons Sight.
Let it be hid.
The four directions have clearly bot been “edited away,” since they are absent from the
Quarto of 1622, which is far moore circumstantial than the Folio of 1623. In this scene the
Quarto directs: -
1. He Kisses her. 2. He stifles her. 3. Emilia calls within. 4. She dies. 5. Othello falls on the
bed. 6. The Moore runnes at Iago. Iago kills his wife. 7. She dies. 8. Gra. Wtihin. 9.
Enter Lodovico . . . Cassio in a chaire. 10. He stabs himselfe. 11. He dies.
Of these in the Folio apear only three, each in another form, being: -
2. He smothers her. 3. Emilia at the door. 11. Dyes.
2
In A Woman Killed with Kindness (1607), by Thomas Heywood, is a note, “Enter Mrs. Frankford in her bed,”
she being a woman almost on the point of death. Collier commented that “In the simplicity and poverty of our
ancient stage, it often happened that a bed was thrust upon the scene in order that it might represent a sleeping-
room instead of a sitting-room, when it was brought before the audience.” This patronising attitude is not
warranted by the facts (for the descriptive note would have been “The curtains are drawn and Mrs. Frankford is
discovered in her bed”), but is at the root of many misunderstandings.
In the Quarto there is another important difference. The initial direction being only “Enter
Othello with a light,” the presence of Desdemona is not indicated except by the marginal
name when she speaks. Now, although the curtais were closed in Act V, Scene 2, the audience
knew that Desdemona was behind. For in the preparatory scene, Act IV, Scene 3, before the
Willow Song, Othello had made his innocent-sinister command, “Get you to your bed on
th’instant.” And at the close of the scene Desdemona passed towards her bed, and Emilia,
drawing the curtains upon her mistress, departed by the stage-door. The dramatic continuity
with the preparatory scene is ensured by this theatrical device – obvious, although not
indicated in Quarto or Folio.
There is a similar continuity in Act IV of Romeo and Juliet, between Scenes 3 and 5, the first
of which is known as the “potion scene.” The “stolne and surreptitious” Quarto of 1597 is
explicit in its descriptions. Scene 3 has “She falls upon her bed within the Curtaines,” and
Scene 5 “They all but the Nurse goe forth casting Rosemary on ther bed and shutting the
curtens.” In none of the five texts of Romeo and Juliet printed under authority are the curtains
mentioned, and the principle of implied action fails to apply.
A clue to the use of curtains comes from one puzzling direction in 2 Henry VI, which is the
curt note “Bed put forth” in Act III, Scene 2. Mr A.W. Pollard says in Shakespeare’s Fight
with the Pirates (p. 65) that this prompter’s note
reveals to us the primitive stage management, which thrust forth a bed with Glouvester’s body on it,
into the middle of the stage, instead of having it vremoniously brought in according to the directions in
modern editions, “Exit Warwick” and “Re-enter Warwick and Others bearing Gloucester’s body on a
bed.”
There is no particular reason to think that “Bed put forth” implies a lack of ceremony, or
anything but “Bed carried forth.” There are many instances of formal directions whose
curtness has an unceremonious sound. In King John the Folio directs the appearance of the
dying King with “Iohn brought in,” where The Troublesome Reigne of 1591 has, in the
corresponding place, “Enter King Iohn carried betweene 2 Lords.”
Moreover, the directions in 2 Henry VI show its stage-management under peculiar conditions
was not primitive but full of resource and invention. Besides, it is a most valuable document
for the study of Elizabethan stagery, since it can be compared not only with an earlier form –
“The Contention of 1594 – but also with a later adaptation, The first part of King Henry VI,
by John Crowne, of 1681. Many scenes are common to all three plays. Instead of “Bed put
forth, “The Contention of 1594 has: -
Warwicke drawes the curtaines and shews Duke Humprey in his bed.
And 1 King Henry VI of 1681 has: -
The scene is drawn and the Duke of Gloucester is shown dead in a Chair.
the cue being “Ho! open these doors.”
Clearly, the body of Duke Humfrey was discovered on the after-stage in the earlier and the
later versions, the only difference in stage-management being that where the Elizabethan
inner chamber was partitioned off by curtains, the Restoration inner chamber was partitioned
off by doors (of painted canvas), but in both cases the partition was drawn apart. Why was
this changed in the middle play, 2 Henry VI, of the First Folio?
The principle of coupled scenes is a reminder that though all three titles lay stress “on the
death of the good Duke Humfrey,” his “murther” was not enacted according to the text of the
First Folio. Instead it is replaced by the short scene (Act III, Scene 2, section 1), headed
“Enter two or three running over the Stage from the Murder of Duke Humfrey.” The direction
in The Contention for the suppresses scene is explicit and vivid: -
The the curtains being drawne Duke Humpfrey is discouered in his bed, and two men lying on
his brest, and smothering him in his bed. And then enter the Duke of Suffolke to them.
In this direction printed in 1594, we have positive example that the platform stage had already
whithin its compass a picture-stage, where the essential use of stage-curtains was displayed in
full colour. 3 In his play of 1681, John Crowne gave the following directions in the course of
this scene. After a discussion between Cardinal Beaufort and three murderers: -
1. The Scene is drawn and the Duke of Glouvester is seen sitting and reading in his night gown. 2.
They lay hold on the Duke and strangle him. 3. They place the body in a chair, shut the scene
and exit.
Here, again, we have the middle version of three differing from the others, becase the after-
stage is not used. Yet in the next scene (Act III, Scene 3) we have the death of Cardinal
Beaufort in a frenzy of madness:
Enter the King, Salisbury, and Warwicke, to the Cardinal in bed.
which appears in the corresponding note in The Contention as: -
Enter King and Salisbury and then the curtaines be drawne and the Cardinall is discouered in his bed,
rauing and staring as if he were mad.
A sharp distinction must always be made between “the curtaines,” double and a permanent
fixture, and “the curtaine,” a single and temporary contrivance. Often, a “curtaine” must have
been placed “tandem” behind “the curtaines,” but in this play (2 Henry VI of 1623) I believe
that “a curtaine” was set obliquely across each side of the main stage, the body of Humrey
being shown, say on the right, and the death-bedof Beaufort on the left. This is pure
speculation, but the whole of tis directions, as compared with those of The Contention, show
that this Folio version was prepared for performance under special conditions, and not, I
think, in an ordinary playhouse. Here, after the death of Cardinal Beaufort, King Henry says
“curtain,” not “curtaines”: -
Close up his eyes, and draw the curtaines close
And let us to our Meditations.
In all examples cited, the curtains were mentioned because they had acquired a localised
significance by the coincidence that they are taken to represent a primitive partition, the
curtains which made an inner romm in an Elizabethan mansion; but it is clear that they were
often used when no mention is made of them in dialogue or directions. The clue is found from
The Merchant of Venice, in the casket scenes, scene between each pair. The first and last lines
of Act II, Scene 7 (with Morocho) are: -
(1) Goe drawe aside the curtaines and sicouer
The seuerall caskets to this noble Prince.
(2) A gentle riddance: draws the curtaines, go.
Let all of his complexion choose me so.
Act II, Scene 9 (with Arragon), opens and closes with similar precision; but in Act III, Scene
1 (with Bassanio), we search in vain for any cue, although the curtains must have been drawn
as before.
This scene is a most valuable link in the chain. It is clear proof that the curtains were used
where there is no mention of them in directions or in dialogue. A curious instance comes from
the comparion between King Lear in the First Folio and in the First Quarto, which, so far as
directions are concerned, are two independent texts. The scene is Act IV, Scene 5. The King
has gone mad, and Cordelia, with Kent by her, is discussing his illness with a Gentleman: -
Gent. So please your Maiesty,
That we may wake the King, he hath slept long?
Cor. Be gouern’d by your knwoledge, and proceede
I’th sway of your wone will: Is he array’s?
Enter Lear in a chaire carried by seruants.
Gent. I Madam: in the heauinesse of sleepe
We put fresh garments on him.
Be by good Madam when we do awake him.
I doubt of his temperance.

3
Mr. Walkley’s coinage of „the platform stage“ and „the picture stage” furnished a valuable antithesis, but . . . . .
antithesis is a figure of rhetoric. Its value lay in its emphasis upon the declamatory element in Elizabethan
drama, but Elizabethan declamation was not confined to the platform of the fore-stage, for the after-stage and the
balcony had their share of declamation. Also, of course, as this chapter should convey, the element of
“discovery,” the fundamental principle of the picture stage, was never absent.
 Cor. O my deere Father, restauration hang
Thy medicine on my lippes, and let this kisse
Repaire those violent harmes . . . . .
Now, it is rather strange that while an obsequious gentleman is desiring permission to awaken
the King, the old man is being carrid about by servants. Actually, in the First and Second
Quartos, there is no direction for “Lear in a chaire,” nor is his entrence marked or presence
shown, the initial direction bein “Enter Cordelia, Kent and Doctor”; but between “I doubt not
of his Temperance” (the correct reading) ad “O my deere father” are two lines, obviusly
deleted from the text in the Folio: -
Cor. Very well.
Doct. Please you draw near, louder the musicke there.
From this it is clear that they moved towards his bed, and drew apart the curtains, the action
taking place on the after-stage. For the change there are two possible reasons, the first being
that the after-stage was not available, the second being the desire of the actors that this
pathetic scene of the “very foolish fond old man” should be played as close as possible to the
audience.
A similar instance is found in 2 King Henry IV, where the modern editions make from Actus
Quartus Scena Secunda two scenes which they call Scene 4 and Scene 5. The King falls with
apoplexy in the Jerusalem Chamber, and on recovering:
King. I pray you take me vp, and beare me hence
Into some other chamber: softly pray:
Let there be no noyse made (my gentle friends)
Vnless some dull and fauourable hand
Will whisper Musicke to my wearie spirit.
War. Call for some Musicke in the other Roome.
King. Set me my crowne upon my Pillow here.
Here, again, the action was continuous, and the curtains were drawn, showing a bed of State,
to which the King was borne, Yet on the modern stage these are foten enacted as separate
scenes in different settings.4
The usage is again illustreted in King Henry VIII, by Scenes 2 and 3 of Act V, which the First
Folio marks as a single continuous scene. This divides readily into three sections, each
enacted in a different scenical division: -
(i) On the fore stage, which represents an ante-chamber, Archbishop Cranmer is kept
in waiting among “Boyes, Groomes, and Lackeyes,” by a Keeper on command of
the Lords in Council. His disgrace is withnessed by the King’s Physician, who
passes through.
(ii) On the balcony, which represents “a window above,” where the Physician tells the
King of the incident, and they look down upon the ante-chamber. This window is
curtained, as is shown by Henry sayig “drawe the curtaine close.”
(iii) On the full stage, which represents the Council Chamber.
During sections (i) and (ii) the curtains were vlosed, giving emphasis that the place was an
ante-chamber,5 which would not have been apparent if the “State and Councell Table” were
visible: -
A Councell Table brought in with chayres and stooles, and places vnder the State. Enter Lord
Chancellour, places himself at the vpper end of the Table on the left hand: a Seate being left void aboue
4
There is no practical difficutly in distinguishing between the movement of the curtains which creates a new
locality and the movement which shows a contiguous inner chamber. In the former case the curtains are drawn
fully open, and in the second the curtains are drawn only partly.
5
It is dangerous to assume that a scene was enacted throughout as in an unchanged locality (see Appendix I).
Recently my deductions were confirmed by a production of Mr. Bridges Adams at the Stratford Memorial
Theatre, where, in The Merchant of Venice (1920), he recovered this device by opening the Trial Scene before
the curtains, as in an antechamber before passing to the Court. The dramatic gain was that the Duke’s talk with
Antonio seemed as in his private capacity, and not ex cathedra. The mechanical gain was a little longer time for
setting the Court. The division of this scene may have been incorrect, but is showed the value of the device,
which must therefore always be weighed as a possible resource on the Elizabethan stage.
 him, as for Canterburies Seate, Duke of Suffolke, Duke of Norfolke, Surrey, Lord Chamberlaine,
Gardiner, seat themselves in order on each sider. Cromwell at the lower end, as Secretary.
When the curtains are opened, only the State, or Royal Chair, is discovered, the other
movables being carried in by servants. The continuity of method in stagery is shown by the
version of King Henry VIII printed by Bell in 1773. “As it was acted at Covet Garden.” The
only change in this scene was that the whole of the movables were discovered when “the
scene opened” 8which was the development of “the curtains being drawn”). Cranmer still
remained throughout the three sections without leaving the stage, and, when the Keeper told
him “Your race may enter now,” he “approached” the table.
In another fifty years, a change of method was imposed because of the disuse of the windows
above the proscenium doors, and Henry could not overlook the ante-chamber. So in
Cumberland’s edition fo 1824, as then “acted at Covent Garden,” the short dialogue in section
(ii) was suppressed, and the action was discontinuous, Cranmer leaving the ante-chamber in
the first scene, and entering the Council chamber in the second.
These examples give indisputable proof that the case for “primitive stage-management,” so
industriously propagated of late, has no foundation.
In The Theory of the Theatre (1911) Mr. Clayton Hamilton says of the Elizabethan stage that
“As there was no curtain, the actors could never be discovered on the stage” – a statement that
shows the utmost confusion of thought. Even now it is unusual for the stage-curtains to be
used at any time during the course of the play, the “act-drop” being used between the acts.
Actually the very characteristic that distinguishes the Elizabethan Stage from the English
Stage after the Restoration was not the absence of curtains, but the precise opposite – their use
as a scenical contrivance. The Restoration Stage retained them as an architectural feature,
their only theatrical use, then as now, being to denote the beginning and end of a play; but as a
scenical contrivance they were replaced by painted scenes on framed canvas, whose manifest
origin was shown by their “drawing” apart.
The Elizabethan curtains were constantly used to “discover” persons and set-scenes with
heavy movales. In hundreds of cases the direction to “enter” would have been given as “is
discovered” if the term had been used by Shakespeare. Although (I think) it points to a
traverse, not the ordinary curtains, a striking instance is found in the last scene of The
Winter’s Tale, which is headed by “Enter Leontes, Polixenes, Florizell, Perdita, Camillo,
Paulina, Hemione (like a statue), Lords, etc.” The direction for Hermione to enter had no
relation to appearance before the audience, as she is not seen until Paulina draws a curtain
aside, this being clear since Leontes afterwards implores, “Doe not drawe the curtaine.”
Another valuable pointer is found in the frequent directions “A Table prepar’d,” as contrasted
with “A Banquet brought in” and “A Table brought in.” “A Banquet prepar’d” shows that a
banquet had been laid out on the after-stage for discovery. The term had the same meaning
after the Restoration, for in Macbeth, where the First Folio has “Banquet prepar’d,” in the
version of 1674 ba Davenant is found “Scene opens. A Banquet prepared.” A banquet
demanded not only such “properties” as dishes and flagons, but “movables,” as tables and
stools. In Macbeth a stage – a canopied chair or throne – was set for Lady Macbeth.
If the Folio text of Hamlet were all that existed, it would be impossible to show a definite
reason for thinking that the after-stage was used in preparing for the last scene (Act V, Scene
2).
The initial direction in the First Folio is: -
Enter King, Queene, Laertes and Lords, with other Attendants with Foyles, and Gauntlets, a Table and
flagons of Wine on it.
But in the authorised Quarto of 1604 is found: -
A table prepared – Trupets, Drums, and Officers with Cushions, King, Queene, and all the State, Foiles,
daggers, and Laertes.
Of course, as in these instances, the setting of porperties upon the after-stage in no way
precluded, but usually demanded the action – at least in part – taking place upon the fore-
stage. Indeed, in very few scenes was the action confined to the after-stage, a conspicuous
example being Actus Secundus, Scena Secunda, of Cymbeline, where Iachimo comes from
the trunk in the bedchamber of Imogen. The initial direction is “Enter Imogen, in her Bed, and
a Lady,” which means that when the curtains are drawn, Imogen is discovered reading “the
Tale of Tereus” with a taper burning on the table by her side. Here, also, of course, is
discovered the trunk, which is not mentioned in the scene until the direction “Enter Iachimo
from the Trunke.” On the deaprture of Iachimo, the curtains were closed, whence the curious
survival in some modern editions of the direction “the scene closes.”
Again, because “movables” were used in a scene, it does not always follow that they were
discovered on the after-stage.6 The scene in Coriolanus (Act I, Scene 3), whose initial
direction is: -
Enter Volumnia and Virgilia, mother and wife to Martius: They set them downe on two lowe stools and
sowe.
was played on the fore-stage, since the after-stage could not be used “with set movables” in
two successive scenes and it was needed for the next scene, which is before the Gates of
Corioli.
This is the only direction in Shakespeare which points to the early origin of “Two chairs to the
front. It’s a custom in our profession,” as it is styled in Tom Robertson’s David Garrick
(1864).
The Elizabethan stage was a more resourceful place than is commonly supposed.
A hint of the possibilities of the curtains is found in King Richard III, where the crux of stage
management is found in Act V, Scene 3, when the tents of Richard and Richmond are
required alternately and then simultaneously. There seems only one solution. The after-stage
must have been divided into two compartments by an arras hung in the middle, so that the
curtain on each side could be drawn, leaving each half covered or uncovered at will.7 Of
course, no trace of this appears in the printed text, but that actual tents were not pitched is
made certain by the otherwise unnecesary insistence upon them in the preparatory dialogue.
Richmond, in thirty lines, mentions his “tent” three times: -
“Give me some Inke and Paper in my Tent.”
“Desire the Earle to see me to my Tent.”
“Into my Tent, the Dew is rawe and cold.”
And Richard uses the word twice. If this device of a double traverse were used so early as
1594, it is quite possible that it was used frequently under less peculiar circumstances, for
instance, in the alternation between Orsino’s house and Olivia’s in Twelfth Night.
Also the device may have been used “tandem” more often than “abreast” – a curtain behind
the curtains. To my mind “the curtains” mean always the double and permament fixture, and
“the arras” and “the curtain” a single and temporary contrivance, as clearly a plahouse
movable as a bed or state. I suspect the tandem device in King John, where Hubert is
discovered in a room furnished with a large chair, and perhaps also with a table, and with him
are the executioners, who shortly hide behind the arras. The arras was often, in short, the
symbolic setting of a room – the mark of an interiou scene. Like the curtains, the arras is not
mentioned in the formal directions of Shakespeare, although in The Merry Wives the
6
In The Taming of the Shrew, as revived for continuous performance in full text by Sir John Martin Harvey (in
1913), the stage properties, such as charis, tables, and so on, were placed in position, in full view of the audience,
by the servants dressen “in the period.” This method was perhaps due to his adviser, Mr. William Poel, who has
always been anamoured with it: but there is no reason to suppose that on the stage of Shakespeare it was the
general practice or anything but an expediency. Moreover, where the men appeared to move properties, it is
usually clear that they appeared in the dramatic character of household servants. Sometimes, however, it was
otherwise. As Mr. Puff said to the scenemen in The Critic (1779): “It is always awkward, in a tragedy, to have
you fellows coming on in your playhouse liveries to remove things. I wish it could be managed better.”
7
Mr. W. Bridges Adams used the Elizabethan method in reviving King Richard III at Stratford Memorial
Theatre (April 23rd, 1921), but spiled it by lighting each tent in turn as the ghosts spoke. He afterwards wisely
abandoned any tricks with lighting. The usual modern practice is to pitch a tent at each corner of the stage so
they both look like bathing tents on a beach.
surreptitious Quarto of 1602 has “Falstaff stands behinde the arras,” a descriptive not which is
the sign of a surreptitious text. There are no directions to use the arras in Hamlet, but in Act
III, Scene 4, where Polonius says “Ile silence me een here,” in the unauthorised Quarto of
1603 Corambis – the early Polonius – says “Ile shrowde my selfe behinde the Arras,” in
which “shrowde” seems to imply a narrow space.
The possible use of a travers is suggested by two elaborate texts. In King Henry VIII is found
“Exit Lord Chamberlain, and the king drawes the curtaine and sits reading pensiuely,” a
second scene following the former (in which the King is not an actor) without a pause by the
device of drawing the curtain, from within, where he has been waiting unseen.
In The Tempest, “Heere Prospero discouers Ferdinand and Miranda, playing at chesse,”
almost certainly by drawing a curtain. This is the only instance of the use of “discouer” – a
technical word – in the actual directions.

CHAPTER IV.

THE BALCONY.
The central structure of the stage in an Elizabethan playhouse bore a resemblance to the gates
of a mediaeval city, with walls above an archway, which was convenient for the historical
chronicles. The problem as to whether the form of the playhouse determined the form of the
play, or the playhouse the play, is a mere futility.8
In the early plays the most common direction concerning the balcony is for its use as “the
walls” of a besieged city.
The early usage9 of the balcony as the walls is shown by the death of Arthur in The
Troublesome Raigne of King Iohn (1591), where the directions are:-
1. Enter Young Arthur on the walles. 2. He leapes and bruising his bones, after he was from this
trance speaks tus.3. He Dyes.
His body is carried off by the lords departing on the words, “Then let us all convey the body
here.”
In the First Folio of King John the two directions or the death of Arthur are simply “Enter
Arthur on the walles” and Dyes.” His leap was implied by the words: “The wall is high: and
yet will I leape downe.”
The disappearance of the permanent middle balcony, and its replacement by a scenical
erection, is shown by the corresponding place in Colley Cibber’s alteration of Shakespeare,
Papal Tyranny in the Reign of King John (1745), the directions being:-
1. Arthur on the walls of a Castle. 2. He leapes from the Walls and is covered by a parapet between his
Body and the Audience. 3. As they are passing the Castle, Salisbury sees the body of Arthur in the
Ditch. 4. They bring the body forward.
The use of “the walls” is really inseparable from the use of the gates. An extract from
Coriolanus (Act 1, Scene 4), which comprises the aussault on Corioli, shos the conjunctive
use. The directions are:-
1. Enter Martius. Titus Lartius, with Drummes and Colours, with Captaines and Soldiers, as before the
City Corialus. 2. They sound a Parley: Enter two Senators with others on the Walles of Corialus.
Drumme afare off. 3. Alarum farre off. 4. Enter the Army of Volsces. 5. Alarum, the
Romans are beat back to their Trenches. Enter Martius cursing.
Then follows a passage of dialogue:
Look to’t, come on,
If you’l stand fast wee’l beate them to their Wiues
As they vs to our Trenches followes.
Martius followes them to the Gates and is shut in.
So now the gates are ope: now proue good Seconda
Tis for the followers Fortune, widens them
Not for the flyers: Marke me, and do the like.
Enter the Gate.
1 Sol. Fool-hardinesse, not I.
2 Sol. Nor I.
3 Sol. See they haue shut him in.
All. To th’ pit I warrant him.
This double direction to enter the gate – one (at the time of action) theatrical and imperative,
and one (as a preparative summary) literary and descriptive – is the sign of an edited text, as
distinct from an unaltered prompt book. The final directions are: -
Enter Martius bleeding, assulted by the enemy.
They fight and all enter the City.
In 1 Henry VI the gates and walls are used constantly in conjunction. The third scene is
placed in modern editions as in “London, before the Tower.” In the First Folio the directions
are:-

8
Of course there is no certain evidence as to the appearance of the Elizabethan playhouse, so my statement is
conjective. I hesitate to use De Witt’s drawing as evidence, because in so many particulars it is obviously
inexact.
9
The „walls“ are prescribed in plays printed before the first printed Quarto of Shakespeare. In Tamberlaine the
Great (part 2) is “Enter the Gouenor of Babylon upon the Walles with others. . . . . Alarme, and they scale the
Walles.” This play was printed in 1590, its first performance being usually ascribed to 1588.
 1. Enter Gloster with his Seruing men. 2. Glosters men rush at the Tower Gates and Wooduile the
Lietuenant speakes within. 3. Enter the Protector at the Tower Gates Winchester and his men in
Tawney coates. 4. Here Glosters men beat out the Cardinalls men, and enter in the hurly burly
the Maior of London, and his Officers. 5. Here they skirmish again. 6. Exeunt.
During the same play the central structure becomes in turn the Gates of Orleans (Act I, Scene
6), of Rouen (Act III, Scene 2), of Bordeaux (Act IV, Scene 2), and of Angiers (Act V, Scene
3). The usual method of localising was by a line early in the scene, as Talbot’s:
Go to the Gates of Burdeaux, Trumpeter.
Above the middle balcony was built the playhouse tower, which was sometimes, but rarely,
used as for the stage-action.
In 1 Henry VI (Act I, Scene 4) the Master Gunner of Orleance “tells” his Boy:-
How the English, in the Suburbs close entrencht
Went through a secret Grate of Iron Barres,
In yonder Tower to ouer-peere the Citie,
When “Enter Salisbury and Talbot on the Turrets.” From the context “the Turrets” might have
been either the Tower or the balcony; but in Act III, Scene 2, La Pucelle, who has entered “the
Gates of Roan” by a “happy Strategeme” of disguise, has promised to specify:
Here is the best and safest passage in
By thrusting out a Torch from Yonder Tower,
The next direction being “Enter Pucelle on the top, thrusting out a Torch burning,” at which
Bastard says:
The burning Torch in yonder Turret stands.
Here “Yonder Turret” and “Yonder Tower” were not the terms for the balcony, since a little
later the Dauphin and others joined La Pucelle “on the Walls,” obviously another place, where
they remain till they “Exeunt from the Walls,” and later, issuing from the Gates below “they
flye.”
The Tower seems to have been used also in The Tempest, where it is directed in Act III,
Scene 3:-
“Solemne and Strange Musicke: and Propser on the top (inuisible).”
The Tower must not be confused with the Tower of London, as in 2 Henry VI, where is
“Enter Lord Scales upon the Tower walking. Then enter two or three citizens below,” for
there Scales is clearly walking “on the Walls.”
The balcony was not confined to the central structure, but stretched on either side, and was
perhaps continuous with the gallery along the side walls of the playhouse. From the side
balconies the fore stage and after stage were visible, and players upon the side balconies were
visible from the fore stage and after stage. This is clear from the scene in the Parliament
House which opens 3 Henry VI, where the balcony was used by the soldiers of the Duke of
York, who has entered with Warwick and other Lords. His instruction, as he sits on the
“Chaire of State” upon the after stage:
Stay by me my Lords,
And Souldiers stay and lodge by me this night.
is followed by a direction “They goe vp” for the soldiers. Later, when Warwick says to King
Henry:
Doe right vnto this Princely Duke of Yorke,
Or I will fill this House with armed men,
And ouer the Chaire of State, where now he sits
Write up his Title with vsurping blood.
The direction is “He stamps with his foot, and the Souldiers shwe themselves,” and last, when
Exeter says:
Now York and Lancaster are reconciled:
Accurst be he that seeks to make them foes.
the direction is “Senet. Here they come downe.”
In Titus Andronicus (1594) the balcony becomes “the Senate House.” Professor Herford
thinks the debate in the Senate House was transferred to the main stage, but this is clearly
contradicted by the directions:
Flourish. Enter the Tribunes and Senators aloft. And then enter Saturninus and his Followers at one
doore, and Bassanus and his Followers at the other, with Drum and Colours,
after which comes “Enter Marcus Andronicus aloft with the Crowne.” Then Saturninus and
Bassanus having dismissed their followers, there is a “Flourish. They go vp into the Senat
house,” where they await “A long flourish till they come downe.”
In Antony and Cleopatra the balcony became the monument into which the Queen of Egypt
locked herself from Caesar. When it was ascended from the main stage it was by ladders, as in
Romeo and Juliet by a ladder of ropes, and as in King Henry V by scaling-ladders. In Antony
and Cleopatra, which is not divided into acts and scenes in the First Folio, there are two
scenes which take place in the monument, marked in modern editions as Act IV; Scene 15,
and Act V, Scene 2. The first may be looked upon as the outside of the balcony, and the
second as the inside of the monument, played mainly on the stage below. In the first is the
death of Antony was enacted in the balcony is to see its dramatic possibilities in an entirely
new way, but I am convinced that the death of Antony was not originally played in the
balcony. The case may be stated simply. Cleopatra, after her last quarrel with Antony, is
advised by Charmian to go
“To th’ Monument, there lock your selfe,”
and Cleopatra, taking up the thought, cries:-
“To th’ Monument:
Mardian, go tell him I have slaine my selfe-
. . . . Hence Mardian
And bring me how he takes my death to th’ Monument.”
Wherever next she appeared, this reiteration of “monument” would localise the place as the
monument, so there is no need to suppose any structural contrivance, other than the balcony,
to suit the stage-direction:-
Enter Cleopatra and her maids aloft, with Charmian and Iras.
Then Diomed comes below with news of Antony:-
“His death’s vpon him, but not dead.
Looke out o’ th’ other side your Monument.
His Guard have brought him thither.”
Cleopatra cries:-
“Helpe, Charmian, helpe Iras, helpe; helpe Friends
Below, let’s draw him hither.”
Antony demurs, but at last consents, and
“They heaue Antony aloft to Cleopatra,”
and after his death the women “Exeunt, bearing of (i.e., off) Anthonies bodye.”
Looking back over the earlier scenes we find that wherever “Monument” is mentioned, the
line has twelve or fourteen syllables, as in
“Lockt in her monument; she had a prophesying feare.”
Which plainly shows that the words have been altered, as if they were added during a rapid
revision.
And in Act V, Scene 2, there is a great difficulty. Obviously Proculeius, the messenger from
Caesar, enters below, as to her gates, while she speaks to him from “aloft,” although there is
no stage-direction. The decisive passage in the First Folio runs:-
Pro. This Ile report (deere lady)
Haue comfort, for I know you plight is pittied
Of him that caus’d it.
Pro. You see how easily she may be surpriz’d
Guard her till Cesar come.
The continuous arrangement of the dialogue (and the short line) shows that some alteration or
abridgement has taken place, and it seems likely that here the soldiers had taken scaling
ladders and climbed them stealthily while Cleopatra was talking, and then seized her from
behind. Yet there is no indication, in dialogue or direction, that she descended, although
obviously when “she kneels” to Caesar it is below on the main stage. She died “on her bed,”
which would be placed on the after stage. All this is perfectly clear, but the act has been so
baldy “cut” that no trace of her movements has been left. But, in my opinion, the scenes
“aloft,” both carefully written, were late alterations for a revival – maybe when the Globe
Theatre, which had been burnt down, was rebuilt two or three years before Shakespeare’s
death.10
Of course, if a scene like the death of Antony could be enacted upon the balcony, its use was
by no means restricted, as has often been stated. In many plays I believe that one scene in
every four was played, wholly or in part, upon the balcony; but at present I shall only cite
some of the more obvious instances. It should be noted that while “the balcony” is not an
actual term in the directions of Shakespeare, it is convenient and comprehensive to cover the
three actual terms “aloft,” “above,” and “at a window.” The three terms seem to have been
used interchangeably, for in Othello, where the Quarto of 1622 has “Enter Brabantio at a
window,” the Folio of 1623 has “Enter Brabantio above”; and in Romeo and Juliet, where the
unauthorised Quarto of 1597 has “Enter Romeo and Juliet at the window,” the authorised
Quarto of 1593 has “Enter Romeo and Juliet aloft.” Again, in 2 Henry VI, where Dame
Eleanor Cobham is described as “aloft,” in The Contention she is described as being “aboue.”
But it is not always positive that “aboue” and “aloft” mean the balvony, as in some cases there
is strong supposition that the playhouse tower is meant.
The identity of “aloft” and “at a window” seems to be important, because it solves the
difficulty of the constructive defect in The Taming of the Shrew.
In the old play of 1594, The Taming of a Shrew, the device of an induction and a conclusion,
beginning and ending with Cristopher Slie outside an alehouse door, converts the inner play
into a pretended dream, and enables Slie and his supposed servants to act as presenters
throughout. As a mimic audience in the old play, they were placed in “the fairest chamber,”
where they remained during the presentation, the first direction being “Enter two with a table
and a banquet on it, and two other, with Slie asleepe in a chaire, richly apparelled and the
music paieng.” A clear indication that this “fairest chamber” was the localised balcony is
found in the Lord’s speech near the end:-
And put him in his own apparel againe
And lay him in the place where we did find him
Just vnderneath the alehouse side below.
They “did hind” him outside “the doore,” where he had been lying in a “droonken sleepe.”
In the Taiming of the Shrew of the First Folio, Sly disappears before the play is well begun.
He was bustled out of “the doore” by the Hostess in the first part of the Induction, and the
second part was enacted upon the balcony – as is hsown by “enter aloft the drunkard with
attendants, some with apparel, Bason and Ewer and other appurtenances,” while the direction
at the end of the first scene of the actual comedy reads: “The Presenters above speches,” and
after a few sentences “They sit and marke.” But they do not seem to “sit and marke” for long,
since they do not speak again, the reason for their defection being that the balcony is required
in Actus Quartus when “The Pedant lookes out of the window.”
However, I am afraid this is too plausible. It supposes an absence of side-balconies; it is
almost incredible that Shakespeare can have originally allowed Sly to slip away in so casual a
manner. This was more likely the result of a posthumous revision, when Sly at some revival
was required to play another part.
10
There is a chance, then, that we can “look over Shakespeare’s shoulder as he works.” We may fancy
Shakespeare in his garden at Stratford, remembering his Antony and Cleopatra, and there at a distance, writing
the great scene for the monument, and sending it off to Burbage, leaving it to be incorporated in the play by
another hand. All this is fancy, based on “cautious conjecture,” but is there any other way to account for the
facts?
However, the great importance of these two scenes is that they show the use of movables and
properties on the balcony, from 1591 onward. Another important point is that from King
Henry VIII it is clear that “the window” was which “aboue” had a curtain that could be
drawn.
Two more instances without directions, but clear from the context, may be cited. In Julius
Caesar the orations over Caesar’s body were delivered from the balcony. The initial direction
is “Enter Brutus and goes into the Pulpit,” which in the dialogue is called “the publique
chaire.” Both ascents and descents of Antony and Brutus took time; but, of course, the
“chaire” may have been a “property.”
The balcony was localised as the platform in Hamlet. The Ghost of King Hamlet was seen in
Act I, Scene 1, by Horatio and his fellows “vpon the platforme” where they “kept the watch,”
and Hamlet says:-
Vpon the Platforme twixt eleven and twelve
Ile visit you.
He is therefore “vpon the platforme” in Scene 4, and when the “Ghost beckens Hamlet” he
follows, and they next appear below on the main stage, as is made certain because the “Ghost
cries vnder the Stage” for them to “sweare” their secrecy.11

CHAPTER V.

11
„Under the Stage“ is a scenical division of some importance. In Antony and Cleopatra there enter “A
Company of Soldiours” who “meete other soldiers” and place themselves in every corner of the stage as for the
night. When they have settled down, the “Musicke of the Hobeyes” is heard “vnder the stage” and one cries of
“Musickei’ th’ Ayre,” and another of “Vnder the earth,” then all “speak together,” and they decide to “Follow
the noyse so farre as we have quarter.”
THE ASSEMBLED TEXTS.

In the First Folio there are four plays, all printed for the first time under authority, which have
no stage-directions, or very few, and they cannot therefore have been set up by the printer
from the prompt-book. They are The Two Gentlemen of Verona, The Merry Wives of
Windsor, Measure for Measure, The Winter’s Tale, and King John. The problem is, what was
the source of their text?
Now in August, 1623, when the First Folio was being printed, the Master of Revels made a
note that “the allowed book” (i.e., the prompt-copy endorsed with his license ofr
performance) of “An olde play” called The Winter’s Tale was missing, but on the word of
master Heminges that “nothing prophane had been added or reformed” he returned it without
fee. This “reformed” manuscript must have been the printer’s copy for the First Folio.
The control of a theatrical performance required two partial transcripts from the prompt-book
– (1) a set of parts, complete with cue, dialogue, and certain directions, and (2) a detailed
extract from the stage-directions to serve as his remembrancer. Among other things this
would contain scene by scene a list of the characters in order of their appearance, so the could
be called to stand by. This was known as the “platt” or “plot.” Now if an “allowed book” were
lost it would be easy for the prompter to take his remembrancer as a guide for sorting the
players’ parts and keeping them in order hwilst pasting them together into one continuous
text. This reconstructed manuscript would inevitably lack many directions – for instance,
those to the musicians and, moreover, some of the entrances and exits would be pasted over.
The Winter’s Tale bears all the stimata of an “assembled” text. The entrances of the players
are not, as is usual, distributed in the places where they are due to appear, but each scene is
headed by a list of characters in the order of their appearance, and ends with “exeunt omnes.”
In all the five acts there are not more than a dozen incidental entrances and exits, and those
are mostly of minor characters. Apart from these, there are two cursory notes among the lists
of characters – (i) in Act III, Scene 3, it says: “Enter Hermione (as to her triall)” and (ii) in
Act V, Scene 3, “Enter Hermione (like a statue).”
These parenthetical notes would have an origin no more remote than the fact that the players
spoke of these two scenes as “the Trial Scene” and “the Statue Scene.” “As to her triall” was a
comprehensive reminder that the scene was conducted with all the ceremony and
circumstance of a High Court of Justice, and for its stage-management may be compared the
directions for the trial of Katherine in King Henry VIII, which are almost unaltered in modern
editions. Enter “Hermione (like a statue)” of course did not imply “visibly to the audience,” as
the Queen took her place behind a traverse.
There are only three more directions, the first of which is one of the most peculiar stage
directions in all Shakespeare. For when the ship that bears the Lord Antigonus and the pretty
babe Perdita “hath toucht upon the Desarts of Bohemia” the “poore gentleman” is exhortet to
“exit, pursued by a beare.”12 Another direction is “heere a daunce of shepheards and
shepheardesses.”
To me this absence of any but the curt, absolutely essential directions for coherent reading is
conclusive proof that The Winter’s Tale could not have been brinted from the prompt-book.

12
In „Shakespeare’s Workmanship“ Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch records his private opinion that the bear came on
“because the Bear Pit in Southwark, hard by the Globe Theatre, had a tame animal to let out, and the Globe
management took the opportunity to make a popular hit.” This would have been a rather feeble and belated bid
for populartiy, since one of the first pieces at the Globe, the old comedy Mucedorus, played also at Whitehall,
and by strollin gplayers all over the country, had a bear whose exploits were much more exciting. The Quarto of
1598 has these directions: 1. Enter Mouse with a bottle of Hay. 2. As he goes backwards the beare comes
in, he tumbles ouer her and runnes away and laeues his bottle of Hay behind him. Enter Segasto runing and
Amadine after him, being persued with a beare. 5. Segasto runnes away. 6. Enter Mucedorus like a
shepheard with a sworde drawne and a beares head in his hand.” Seventeen editions of Mucedorus were
published in seventy years. To me, as The Spanish Tragedy is to Hamlet, so is Mucedorus to The Winter’s Tale.
The Merry Wives of Windsor has no directions except the list of characters in the order of
their appearance, and the “exeunt omnes” which marks a clear stage and the close of a scene.
A few minor differences might be noted in The Two Gentlemen of Verona,13 while Measure
for Measure has the entrances in their due place, but no stage directions. I conclude that these
three, like The Winter’s Tale, were all “assembled” texts from the players’ parts. Against this
it may be suggested that the directions were deliberately omitted in printing – “edited away”
is the term. Now a prompt-book was a valuable property, the chief tool of the player’s trade,
and, because endorsed by the license, the sole authority for performance. It would not be
submitted to the systematic deletion of directions, for that would destroy its character and
prevent its use as a prompt-book. Nor would the prompter have looked with favour at
reveicing in exchange for his book an awkward tome like the Folio, even if he could have
patiently reinstated all the deleted directions. Again, his precious possession would not be lent
lightly, and even if the “allowed book” were not missing, as in the case of The Winter’s Tale,
Heminge and Condell may have set out to make a continuous text from the players’ parts as
being quicker than a transcript and less valuable than the prompt-book. Of course, the players’
parts were not left in their possession, but in the custody of the prompter, who, among other
things, was the theatrical librarian. It was dangerous to leave these parts loose, because years
before Merry Wives had been pirated in a text which was built around two stolen parts –
Falstaff’s and the Host’s. These parts have “style,” wile the rest of the play reads like a
mixture of a transcript from an incompetent report by stenography (“scarce one word trew,”
said another Elizabethan playwright in like case) and a clumsy paraphrase.
To show what the missing stage directions from The Merry Wives were like, I copy out these
“descriptions” – the term is advised – from the pirated Quarto of 1600:-
1. Enter Sir ohn with a buck’s head on him. 2. Enter Mistris Page and Mistris Ford. 3.
There is a noyse of hornes, the two women run away – Enter Sir Hugh like a Satyre and boys drest like
Fayries, Mistrise Quickly like the Queene of Fayries: they sing a song about him and afterwards speake.
4. Here they pinch him and sing about him and the Doctor comes one way and steales away a
boy in red. And Slender another way and takes a boy in greene; And Fenton steals Mistris Anne being
in white. And a noyse of hunting is made within; and all the Fayries runne away. 5. Falstaffe
pulles off of his buck’s head, and rises up and enter M. Page, M. Ford, and their wives, Shallow, Sir
Hugh.
The absence of similar but more formal directions in the Folio is, I think, absolute proof that
the play was not set up from a prompt book. So we are thrown back on the hypothesis of an
assembled text.
King John was also an assembled text, in process of reconstruction as a prompt-book, and
most of the directions are clearly derived from the dialogue. The initial direction of Actus
Primus, Scena Secunda (Act II, Scene 1, in modern editions) is:
Enter before Angiers, Philip King of France, Lewis, Daulphin, Austria, Constance, Arthur,
Where the prompt-book would have said:
Enter at one doore Philip King of France, Lewis (Daulphin) and at another Austria, Constance, Arthur.”
“Before Angiers” has been taken from the opening line, “Before Angiers well met braue
Austria.” Again, in the same scene, the dialogue:
Some Trumpet summons hither to the Walles
These men of Angiers.
has suggested the direction:
“Trumpet sounds. Enter a Citizen upon the Walles.”
The other directions are few, being mostly for entrance “on the walls” or “to the gates.” A
striking instance of their absence is foundin the scene between Hubert and Arthur,14 which is
13
The substance of this chapter appeared on the same day as the Cambridge University Press published an
edition of The Two Gentlemen of Veorna, in which Mr. John Dover Wilson announced a similar conclusion
based on other reasoning. He pinted out, for instance, that the text is free from obvious corruptions, as it would
be, since the players’ parts must be plain and make sense.
14
If it were desired to express the actions in this scene by directions there could be found parallels in the
surreptitious and posthumous texts.
Actus Quartus, Scena Prima, of The Life and Death of King Iohn in the First Folio. Hubert
says to the Executioners:
Heate me these Irons hot, and looke thou stand
Within the Arras: when I strike my foot
Vpon the bosome of the ground, rush forth in
And binde the boy which you shall finde with me
Fast to the chaire. . . .
The Executioners depart and return on the command:
Comme forth: do as I bid you do.
but there are no directions in either case, nor for their departure in:
Hub. So stand within: let me alone with him.
Ex. I am best pleas’d to be from such a deede.
Beyond “Enter Hubert and Executioners,” “Enter Arthur,” and the final “Exeunt,” there is no
direction whatsoever in the entire scene, although the “business” was considerable. The
contrast is made clear by an extract from The Troublesome Raigne of King Iohn (1591) –
where, by the way, the arras is not mentioned:-
Hubert. Staie within that entry, and when you heare me crie God Saue the King, issue sodainly
foorth, lay hands on Arthur, binde him in this chayre, wherein (once fast bound) leaue
him with me to finish the rest.
Attendants We goe tho loath. Exeunt.
The final instruction being given later:-
Hubert. God send you freedom and God saue the King.
The issue forth.
Obviously, the reconstruction of an assembled text might have been so careful and complete
that it would be indistinguishable from a prompt-bool. Yet the informality of directions in
certain texts, notably in the First Quarto of King Lear and in the three parts of Henry VI, can
be explained only by the hypothesis of an assembled text, as against “the less authentic and
less complete transcripts in private hands” of Sir Sydney Lee’s theory of textual sources. To
explain the full force of this hypothesis is outside the scope of the present study, but the
assembled text is a factor which cannot now be disregarded, and so far as the comedies at
least are concerned, Mr. John Dover Wilson arrived at very similar conclusions to mine, at the
same time, but by other ways.

CHAPTER VI.

CONTINUITY OF PERFORMANCE.

(i) He stand behind the Arras (The Merry Wives of Windsor, Quarto, 1602).
(ii) Speakes to himself (King Richard III, First Folio, 1623).
(iii) Enter three or foure and ofer to blinde him (The comedie of Errors).
(iv) He stampes with his foot, and the soldiers shew themselves (3 Henry VI).
But, again, these four are each unique in the canon, even the note in King Richard III, being added in the Folio
where the six editions in Quarto have no directions of the kind.
Whether they appeared with authority of without, and wheter in first or later editions, the
plays of Shakespeare printed hwile he was alive were not divided into Acts. That is to say, the
thirteen authorised and seven unauthorised Quartos had all the same peculiarity, which is an
entire absence of any direct evidence that there were pauses during the performance.
Moreover, the construction of the plays shows that there was no need for pauses for any
purpose, and indeed their entire movement is against any interval. From this there seems no
doubt that at the old Globe the plays of Shakespeare were performed in one unbroken
continuity.15
But the first new Quarto published after his death, the Othello of 1622, partly divided into
acts; though having no division between “Actus 2 Scena 1” and “Actus 4.” So, in the First
Folio of 1623, only six plays are printed in continuous text, while eleven are divided into acts,
and eighteen are not only divided into acts but also divided into scenes. Hamlet has Actus
Primus divided into three scenes only, while the first scene of the Second Act, marked “Actus
Secundus,” is followed by “Scena Secunda,” after which the text is continuous. Sometimes
the divisions are not fully marked, The Taming of the Shrew in the Folio not having Actus
Secundus. If such texts were printed from prompt-books, there can have been no relation
between the act markings and the pauses during the performance.
The six continuous texts are two histories – the second and thrid parts of King Henry VI, and
four tragedies – Troilus and Cressida, Romeo and Juliet, Timon of Athens, and Antony and
Cleopatre. While there was no hint either for or against revivals of the others about 1623,
Romeo and Juliet was, without doubt, then, as always, one of the most popular of
Shakespeare’s plays, since Leonard Digges, in his poem “To the Memorie of the deceased
Author,” is loud in praise of the “Passions of Juliet and her Romeo”; but as the Folio text of
this play was printed without alteration from one of the late Quartos, it would not affect an
argument that these six texts had been for some years immune from the prompter’s attention.
There is left the large mass of plays all divided into acts, and some also subdivided into
scenes. The question of the scene marking is of no great importance. In one early Quarto the
surreptitious Romeo and Juliet of 1597, while the first half of the play is undivided, in the
second half the scenes are separated by a printed ornament. Division into scenes was merely a
question of drawing a line across the book eacht time there was a clear stage after an exeunt
omnes.16 Its relation to place was a coincidence, for, as in Merry Wives of Windsor, Scenes 1
and 2 of Act 1 are obviously continuous in time and place. In theory, an act is a phase of
dramatic development, but in the Foliothe practice has often no relation to the theory. The
divisions are often purely arbitrary – a notorious example bein Twelfth Night. The divisions
in King John are negligible: Actus Secundus consists of a colloquy between Constance,
Arthur, and Salisbury, only eighty lines in all, at the end of which Constance declares:
. . . . Here I and sorrowes sit
Here is my Throne, bid kings come bow to it.
And at once the Kings of France and England come to her, the action being continuous,
though the Folio marks their entrance as Actus Tertius, Scena Prima. Again, in King John,
Act IV and Act V are both marked as being “Actus Quartus.”
The phases of action in King Henry V are divided by four speeches by Chorus, yet the Folio
begins Actus Secundus with the third chorus, leaving the second in the middle of Actus

15
Mr. W. J. Lawrence, in The Elizabethan Playhouse, says that “the idea of continous performance as a principle
cannot be entertained.” It would have involved “a serious menatl strain and called for powers of concentration
given to few.” But the many recent revivals in full text have reduced the intervals to one, and seriously
challenged the statement, which, in any case, is no proof that the division into five acts connoted four pauses
with or without music.
16
In many prompt-books the change of scena must have been marked by drawing a line underneath the exeunt
omnes. This would account for the line across the column between Act IV, Scene 3, and Act IV, Scene 4, in All’
Well that Ends Well, a text otherwise divided only into acts. (See also Appendix I)
Primus, and having none for Actus Quartus, so the pauses cannot conceivably have taken
place where the acts are marked in the Folio.
In A Midsummer Night’s Dream the division of the “game of blind man’s buff,” which takes
place in the wood, into three acts is obviously arbitrary, and pauses during its course cannot
have been permitted under any rational system of stage-management. Yet this play has the
only direction in all Shakespeare that has any possible connection with act pauses. Curiously
enough, in his Textual Introduction to The Tempest, mr. John Dover Wilson, in arguing for
absolute continuity of performance during the life of Shakespeare, cites this direction as
evidence of a change after his death. He says that the division into acts of A Midsummer
Night’s Dream was almost certainly due to the players. He cites the direction at the end of Act
3, which is not in the Quarto of 1619, although it is found in the Folio, “They sleep all the
act.” He explains “act” as “interval,” and calls it “an important clue, and one eloquent of the
shifts which a curtainless stage imposed.” But those who have lived on terms of theatrical
intimacy with the Dream know the early part of Act IV is the cause of much vexation. The
poor bewitched lovers of Athens have to feign sleep for a long period; first, while Titania
caresses Bully Bottom, then while Oberon talks to Robin Goodfellow, next while he has a
conversation with Titania. At this place the Folio directs “Sleepers lie still,” and they have to
lie there without the flicker of an eyelid, while Theseus and his huntin party are eloquent
about their hounds, until at last the benevolent Duke, seeing them, calls for the sound of
“Hornds, and they wake.” Now the four actors always wonder why that can’t be “off” during
these conversations, and the peremptory directions read like the cold fury of an annoyed
prompter at their plaintive suggestions. I cannot conceive any producer adding to their misery
by directing them to sleep also through an interval. Moreover, I know no instance of “act”
being used in the meaning of interval, though in The Changeling of Middleton “in the act-
time” means “between the acts.” (Performed in 1623, but not printed till 1653.)
Not only is the division of the Folio arbitrary, but the nomenclature is peculiar. Though The
Comedy of Errors is divided only into acts, each of them is headed by the number of the act
followed by “scena prima.” Moreover thirty-three of the plays begin with “actus primus,
scena prima,” flourishing above the double column of the first page. This was obviously a
device of typographical uniformity, with no theatrical meaning or origin.17 Moreover, division
into acts had no necessary relation to pauses in performance. It had a purely academical origin
from a pseudo-classical practice. Its convenience, however, is manifest, since it provided a
ready means of correlating the various theatrical documents – the prompt-book, the parts, and
the platt. For purpose of reference it was invaluable, as it told, say the stage keeper at what
place in the performance his properties were to be set. Like the division of books into chapter
and verse, the division of plays into acts and scenes, however arbitrary, has much to comment
it, especially with so complete an organisation as the stagery of the Elizabethans, with its
rapid sequence of scenes.
There is no positive evidence that pauses were not introduced in the new Globe. Indeed, King
Henry VIII, with its processions and trials and continruous changes of vestment, seems to
have demanded the four pauses. I am also a little uncertain about a few other revised plays;
but there is not the slightest trace of evidence against the absolute continuity of performance
in all the unrevised original plays. Their whole structure demands it.
The “two houres trafficque of our Stage” is not relevant, since its relation to Shakespeare
depends upon two prologues – to Romeo and Juliet and to King Henry VIII. The problem of
the raltions between the authorised and the unauthorised Quarto of Romeo and Juliet
complicates the question, but, to my mind, the prologue (which was not reprinted in the Folio)

17
The numbering of scenes was very irregular in plays until the nineteenth century. In The School for Scandal
(ed. 1795), Act III is marked “Scene: Sir Peter’s House,” then “Scene: Charles House,” and then “Charles,
Carless, Sir Toby and gentlemen discovered drinking,” not one fo the three scenes being numbered. Even in
Macbeth (1673), reprinted from the Folio, numbers of scenes are left out.
was designed for a shorter version of the play. Again, the prologue of King Henry VIII clearly
does not relate to the elaborate and spectacular version in the Folio, since its whole tone
promieses a solemn tragedy and not a show-piece. Certain other plays in the Folio, however,
have manifestly been abridged, as if for performance at Court in some two hours.

CHAPTER VII.

PLACE, AND CHANGE OF PLACE:

A THEORY.
The chief problem in the Stagery of Shakespeare is the method of indicating place, and
changes of place. On the stage there are two means of “localising” a place – by anticipatory,
the character announcing that he is going to a place, or incidental, the character announcing
that he is there. Setting may be illusory or symbolical. These four separate methods cannot
always be disentangled.
According to my theory, on the Stage of Shakespeare the curtains played a very large part in
marking changes of place. As a point of departure the most obvious necessity for some simple
and striking mark of a changed place is demanded for the distinciton between the inside and
outside of the same City, as in a siege. Between them, without such a device as the drawn
curtain to hide the gates, there would be no visible difference, and it is therefore reasonable to
postulate its use for such changes of place in many histories and tragedies, as in 1 Henry VI,
where, in Act II, Scene 1, which is outside Orleans, before the Gates, is directed:-
1. Enter a Sergeant of a Band and two Sentinells. 2. Enter Talbot, Bedford and Burgundy with
scaling ladders: Their Drummers beating a Dead March.
In Act II, Scene 2, which is inside Orleans, in the middle of the city, is directed:-
Enter Talbot, Bedford, Burgundie.
Talbot says:
Bring forth the body of old Salisbury
And here aduance it in the Market Place
The middle Centure of this cursed Towne.
A similar sequence is found in Coriolanus, where Act I, Scene 4, takes place before the Gates
of Corioli:-
Enter Martius, Titus Lartius, with Drummes and Colours, with Captaines and Souldiers, as before the
City Coriolus. . . . . They fight and all enter the City,
and Act I, Scene 5, takes place within the city, where:-
Enter certaine Romanes with spoiles,
while Act I, Scene 7, is again localised as before the Gates:-
Titus lartius having set a guard upon Carioles going with Drums and Trumpets towars Cominus and
Caius martius, Enters with a Lieutenant, other Souldiers and a Scout.
Titus says:-
So let the Ports be guarded . . . . .
Hence, and shut your Gates vpon’s.
Which shows that the curtains must again have been drawn aside.
On this foundation the theory may be developed still further. The fifth act of 1 Henry VI is a
conspicuous instance which may be examined. Accepting the theory as an accomplished fact,
it is an excellent example of changes of place, and through its action it is clear that the
curtains were alternately withdrawn and closed. Near the end of Act IV, where Edward has
captured Henry, is a short passage:
Hence with him to the Tower, let him not speake.
Exit with King Henry.
And Lords, towards Couentry bend we our course
Where peremtorie Warwicke now remaines,
Which pre-localises (i) the place of Henry’s next appearance as the Tower, and (ii) the place
of Warwick’s next appearance as Coventry.
Moreover, Richard of Gloucester closes the scene with
Braue Warriors, march amaine towards Couentry.
The initial direction of Act V, Scene 1, is:
Enter Warwicke, the Maior of Couentry, two Messengers and others vpon the Walls.
During Scene 1 the curtains were open, because the Gates could be seen, and Oxford, and
Montague, and Somerset, each with “Drumme and Colours,” march through them into the
city, and, as the first party enters, Cloucester says:
The Gates are open, let vs enter in.
The change of place for Scene 2 was marked by their closing, the initial direction being
“Alarum and Excursions. Enter Edward bringin in Warwicke wounded.” After Warwick’s
death Somerset and Oxford clear the stage when “Here they beare away his Body.”
Scene 3, like Scene 2, is “at Barnet field,” and it begins with “Flourish. Enter King Edward in
triumph, with Richard, Clarence, and the rest.” But Scene 3 clearly takes place in “another
part” of the field, marked by the opening of the curtains, and the entry of Edward through the
middle door. During Scene 3 Edward says that the forces of Margaret of Anjou:
Doe hold their course toward Tewkesbury:
We having now the best at Barnet field.
Will thither straight.
In Scene 4 the appearance of Margaret with her forces has therefore localised the place as
near Tewkesbury, and the curtains were closed, Edward, on entering to them, says, perhaps
pointing “off”:-
Brave followers, yonder stands to thornie Wood.
Scene 5 was enacted with opened curtains as within and before this thornie wood. An actual
“thornie Wood” is the point of Edward’s taunt to “young Edward:-“
Bring forth the Gallant, let vs heare him speake.
What? can so young a Thorn begin to prick?
After Edward stabs the young Prince, his mother, Queen margaret, is borne away on the new
King’s command, and young Edward left dead and dishonoured, the curtains being closed on
him as he lies.
Meanwhile, Gloucester has rushed out, crying “Tower, Tower,” and on Edward asking hwere
he has gone, Clarence says.-
To London, all in post, and as I guesse
To make a bloody svpper in the Tower.
When therefore in Scene 6 Henry appears on the balcony, the place has been prelocalised as
the Tower of London, and the initial direction is:-
Enter Henry the sixt, and Richard, with the Lieutenant on the Walles.
Richard “Stabbes him,” Henry “Dyes,” and Richard “Stabs him againe,” and then descends
with the body, saying:-
Ile throw thy body in another roome.
For Scene 7 the curtains are open, and Edward is discovered enthroned, saying:-
Once more we sit in Englands Royall Throne,
the place having been pre-localised by Edward at the end of Scene 5 saying:-
Let’s away to London.
This theory of the triple stage may be regarded as a development of “the theory of alternative
scenes” advanced by Brandl and Brodmeier, according to which “the action took place
alternately upon the inner stage and the outer stage, a recurring scene with elaborate
properties being arranged upon the inner stage, which was curtained off, while intervening,
scenes were playe dupon the outer stage.” In an essay upon “Shakespeare’s Stage in its
bearing upon his drama” (in TheWarwick Shakespeare), Professor Herford has disposed
briefly of the theory to which there is one special objection – it collapses in practice. But its
entire aspect is changed by the introduction of the third division, the balcony or upper stage,
for use in conjunction with the curtains. At one there are five disctinct localities:-
(i) main stage - - - - curtain closed.
(ii) main stage and after stage - curtains open.
(iii) main stage and balcony - - curtains closed.
(iv) main stage, after stage and balcony curtains open.
(v) balcony - - - - curtains closed.
This still enables the after-stage to be used alternatively if required for (a) setting and (b)
playing; but without forcing the intervening scene to be played upon the main stage, Again,
on the evidence already advanced, before 1623 the balcony had been sed for all the purposes
of the after stage, since it was:-
 (i) curtained wholly or in part, as for King Henry VIII (before 1623).
(ii) set with properties as for The Taming of th Shrew (1591).
(iii) used for important scenes, as the death of Antony in Antony and Cleopatra (before
1623).
(iv) used for a large number of persons, as in Titus Andronicus (1594).
Even if, as may be, these were all exceptional cases, its value would still have been
considerable.
Of course “recurrent scenes” could not be enacted in different scenical divisions; that is to
say, the same room could not be represented in one scene by the balcony and in another by the
after stage. Again, scenes in streets and open spaces were enacted as a rule upon the fore
stage, with closed curtains. With these two necessary provisions, the capacity of the stage
becomes almost without limit.
Of course, not all the plays of Shakespeare can be arranged in the beautiful simplicity of 1
Henry VI. Without a second traverse, or a double traverse, it would seem impossible to stage
Romeo and Juliet, and even then is the difficulty of staging the orchard and the celli n
successice scenes. Moreover, it is by no means certain that “the balcony scene” was enacted
upon the balcony. It is more likely that “the window” was that of the “tower” above the
middle balcony, as is hinted by a direction in the unauthorised Quarto, “she goeth downe from
the window,” as if to the room below in the balcony. But Romeo and Juliet is the most
intractable of the plays. This theory, therefore, pretends to be no more than a contribution to a
solution, laying emphasis on the funtion of the curtains.
Again, I do not believe that any scene was merely pre-localised by a few words in it, unless
the locality were by a few words in it, unless the locality were of no dramatic importance.18
The symbolic propterty must have been largely used.
It is beyond dispute that symbolic properties are effective for denoting place – as a throne to
show a palace, an altar with candles to show a church; so it was with denoting time – night
out of doors being shown with torches, and indoors by tapers. Of course, these symbols are
used to reinforce the dialogue, and are not absolutely sufficient of themselves.
A curious hint of the symbol of place is found in 2 Henry VI. In Act V, Scene 2, “Enter
Richard and Somerset to fight,” and when Somerset is killed, Richard, remembering the
Wizard’s warning to Somerset, “Let him shunne Castles,” says:-
So lye thou there,
For underneath an alehouse paltry sign
The Castle in Saint Albans, Somerset hath made
The Wizard famous in his death.

18
Mr. W. J. Lawrence contends that the locality of scenes was often shown by sceneboards bearing the names of
places. In The Elizabethan Playhouse he instances All’s Well that Ends Well, Act III, Scene 1, where “the text
affords no clue to the place of action or the identity of the Duke,” and Act V, Scene 1, which is “an equally
unlocated scene.” He adds that “in both cases were scene boards positively demanded.” In Act III, Scene 1, a
scene board is no more necessary than a label round the Duke’s neck, and actually the place is fedinitely fixed by
the two French Lords who, in Act II, Scene 1, have taken “leave for the Florentin warre,” appearing at their
destinantion with “a troope of souldiers” before one who is obviously the Duke of Florence. Act V, Scene 1, has
been prelocalised as Marseilles in Act IV, Scene 4 (the second previous scene), by Helena saying “His Grace is
at Marcelloe, to which place We have conuenient conuoy.” I deny the use of scene-boards for these or any other
scenes in the texts. The Elizabethan Playhouse is a most valuale work. It is not an instance of depreciation that in
my notes I have contradicted a few statements in it.
Obviously, an Alehouse sign19 was here hanging above their heads; and in The Contention,
Part I (1594), the definite direction is given:-
Alarum to the battle and then enter Duke of Somerset and Richard fighting, and Somerset fals vunder
the signe of the Castle in St. Albones.
Now Act III, Scene 1, was also placed at Saint Albanes, the locality being marked midway by
talk of a miracle at the shrine of St. Alban, where “a blind man hath receiu’d his sight” and
“the Townesmen on Procession” are directed to enter with “the Maior of St. Albones and his
Brethren bering the man betweene two in a Chayre.” If the sign had been hung out in Act III,
Scene 1, in Act V, Scene 2, the presence of the same device would mark the place as St.
Albans at once.
On Richard going out in Act V, Scene 2, the curtains were drawn, both to enable Somerset to
rise and depart unseen, and to mark the place as “another part of the field” where King Henry
and Queen Margaret are flying from the battle. This change, however, is not marked as a new
scene in modern editions. The next scene – their Scene 3 (which should therefore be Scene 4)
– was played before open curtains, showing by “the signe of the Castle” that it was again St.
Albans.
The development of this theory also supposes a greater variety of scenical device than has
been usually admited, bt not the use of “perspective” or flat peinted scenery. That is to say, in
timon of Athens, when Timon came as was directed “from the caue,” this cae was not merely
the localised after stage, nor a hole in a piece of scenery in two dimensions, but a property of
considerable size in three dimensions. Again, in the same play it is directed “Enter Timon in
the Woods”; from the tone of the dialogue it seems that the trees were not simply imaginary,
but they were palpable, klike “the thornie wood” in 3 King Henry VI. “From the caue” and
“in the wood” may not have been found in the original prompt-bookds, since there are no
similar directions in the authentic and unedited Quartos. In Julius Caesar, a Folio text, is also
“Enter Brutus in his orchard,” which would suggest a corresponding direction in Much Ado
About Nothing and Romeo and Juliet; but there are none in the Folio texts, which, however,
are derived directly from the Quartos. Obviously the evidence depends upon a recognition of
the difference between an authentic and unedited Quarto and a revised text in the Folio.
A contrast is possible in 2 King Henry IV, where, contrary to the usual rule, the Quarto text
has been edited for publication and the Folio text has been taken from a prompt-book. In Act
IV, Scene 1, where the Folio has “Enter the Archbishop, Mowbray, hastings, Westmerland,
Coleuille,” the Quarto has “Enter the Archbishop, Mowbray, Bardolfe, Hastings, within the
forest of Gaultree.” Whatever the reason for tis insertion, I think that “within the forest”
shows an entry by the middle door and not by the side-doors. The middle entry was the
custom, I think, in set scenes on the after-stage, which accounts for the special insertion in A
Midsummer Night’s Dream of “Enter A Fairie at one doore and Robin Goodfellow at
another” in the Forest scene. I suppose a wood to have been represented by a number of trees,
either properties, or more likely actual trees in tubs or pots disposed about the after-stage. It

19
Mr. W. J. Lawrence, in The Elizabethan Playhouse, mentions “the signe of the Castle in Saint Albones,” and
passes on to two cases where trade-signs were required – the Pelican for Shore’s shop in 1 King Edward IV, and
the Ple and Bason for the Barber’s shop in the Knight of the Burning Pestle –saying “These two properties were
utilised in the spirit of the Multiple Stage. They must have been in position from the beginning of the Act.” But
Mr. Nigel Playfair, reviving The Knight of the Bruning Pestle (1918), thrust foth and took away at need both the
“Pole and Bason” and “the sign of te Bell” for the Inn at Waltham, without any conspicuous incongruilty. With a
curtained balcony this could have been accomplished easily, as was mist likely in King Henry VI. Since large
hanging trade-signs were universal for London shops, whatever the trade or calling of the owner, until 1764, they
must have been used frequently on the stage. Another old custom which must not be forgotten was that of
distinguishing rooms by a device on the walls or the ceiling, like the “Half-moon” and “the Pomgarnet”
mentioned at the inn in 1 King Henry IV. This was common also in mansioins, and must have left its trace in
Elizabethan stagery. In the inns it continued for many years, a later example being “The Lion” and “The Rose”
in The Recruiting Officer (1704).
should be noted that this group of directions is very small, and it’s survival almost an accident
of editing.
Another small but important group, distinguished by “as,” is instanced from Coriolanus.
“Enter two officers to lay Cushions, as it were, in the Capitol,” and “Enter Martius,” etc., “as
before the City Coriolus”; and from Richard the Second; “Enter as to the Parliament,
Bullingbroke,” etc. Here the directions are clearly opposed to the use of “perspective.” The
place was merely “supposed,” without any pictorial device. Actually they prescribe manner as
much as place, or rather the manner imposed by the place, like the “as to her triall” in The
Winter’s Tale.
It must be said over and over again that, as a guide to Stagery, the value of an Elizabethan
stage-direction depends upon a knowledge of its origin – the special nature of the situation to
which it refers, the general nature of the text in which it occurs, the period of its insertion, the
probable resources of the playhouse. It is only by infinite patience and pertinacity that the
complexities are resolved into simplicity, the disorderliness into order. For that reason, I do
not think the theory of the triple stage is by any means final without takin into account as an
exceptional resource the possibilities of the playhouse tower, the double traverse, and the
second traverse.
APPENDIX I.

SOME THEORIES OF MR. WILLIAM POEL.

When Mr. William Poel speaks about Elizabethan stagery he is entitled to the mos profound
gratitude and respect, since the modern English revival of “Shakespeare in the full text by
continuous action” has been inspired by his example, beginning in April, 1881, with the
presentation of Hamlet from the Quarto of 1603. On the appearance in The Times Literary
Supplement of the substance of Chapter II of this book, Mr. William Poel challenged my use
of “scene” as being misleading to modern readers,and suggesting the substitution of
“episode”; and while finding “episode” still more misleading, and a mere corrupt usage in the
picture-houses, I admitted that “scena” might be used, as in the First Folio. Wherever this
term is employed, despite the diversity of divisions in the First Folio, one fact is perfectly
clear – at each exeunt omnes one scena ends and another begins. In other words, a scena is the
section of a play between a clear stage and a clear stage. Scena has, therefore, no essential
connexion with locality. Nor, of course, had it any original relation with changes of painted
“scenery” or “pieces of perspective.”
The argument is double. In the First Folio:-
(1) A change of locality did not (necessarily) connote a change of scena, as in
(a) Measure for Measure. Actus Tertius Scena Prima is one continuous scena which has
been divided in modern editions into “Scene 1: a Prison,” and “Scene 2: a Street.” In
the Folio there was no division, because there was no “clear stage,” the Duke
remaining while the locality was changed by closing the curtains behind him, thus
hiding the prison, a scene set with properties.
(b) 2 King Henry IV. Actus Quartus Scena Secunda is one cntinuous scena which has been
divided in modern editions into “Scene 4: Westminster. The Jerusalem Chamber,” and
“Scene 5: Another Chamber.” As a later passage shows, these apartments were
“supposed” as at a distance, and not as ante-chamber to chamber. In the Folio there
was no division, because there was no “clear stage,” the King remaining on the stage,
but moving with his Lords from the forestage to the bedchamber, which was
approached by drawing “the curtains” (cf. King Lear, Act IV, Scene 4, Q.1, 1608)
(2) A change of scena did not (necessarily) connote a change of locality, as in:-
(a) Measure for Measure. Actus Primus, Scena Secunda, and Scena Tertia, are marked in
modern editions as one continuous scene, “Act I, Scene 2: a Street.” In the Folio the
division was marked at the exeunt which marked a clear stage, and not an overlapping
of entrance and exit.
(b) The Merry Wives of Windsor. Actus Primus, Scena Prima, and Scena Secunda, are
marked in modern editions as “Scene 1: Outside Page’s House,” and “Scene 2: The
Same.” In the Folio the division was marked at an exeunt omnes. Here,however, I
doubt the continuity of place, since Scene 2 may have been enacted either on the
balcony or on the fore-stage, the curtains being closed because the properties were set,
or were being set, for the next scena at the Garter Inn.
In the three texts cited – Measure for Measure, The Merry Wives of Windsor, and 2 King
Henry IV, the divisions are made on a definite principle. However, the division of Twelfth
Night is casual and perfuntory, and, mainly misled by Rowe (1709), the modern editors have
confused the localities. In the First Folio, Actus Tertius Scena Prima is one continuous scena,
still undivided in modern texts and on the modern stage, although the locality shifts from a
garden to a street, once marked, as usual, by closing the curtains. Whoever made the hasty
division of his text missed the “clear stage” in the middle. Haste, again, must account for the
flagrant instance of King John. But it is obvious from all the texts where reasonable care has
been exercised that a scena is the section between a clear stage and a clear stage. Mr. Poel had
claimed that “while the actors at the close of an episode were leaving the stage by one door
those taking part in the succeeding episode were entering by another.” This overlapping
would not be continuity, but confusion.
Thereupon he replied that the Elizabethan stage “never was clear,” the privileged spectators
sitting in a “ring around the front, or acting space of the platform.” As this “ring” would have
made it impossible (not merely difficult) for the “groundlings” to see, it could not therefore
have been the general custom in playhouses with a pit. Of course, spectators sat on the stage –
but at the sides, even, on occasions, until the early nineteenth century. Moreover, Mr. Poel
urged that players often waited their cue among the spectators, which would obviusly have
caused confusion, as it would have not been apparent whether a player was “on” or “off.” A
similar objection may be urged against the supposed practice of “fore-stalling cues” by a
premature entry. The Induction to The Malcontent (1604) shows clearly that it was against
theatrical etiquette for players to sit among the “gentlemen” on the stage.
Mr. Poel’s theory of performance depends upon the use of “two doors, one for entrances and
the other for exits,” a statement which he reiterated. But obviously there was in constant use
“the third door, localised often as the gates.” In Titus Andronicus (First Quarto, 1502) it was
the door of the study: in The Merry Wives of Windsor (the piracy of 1602) it was the door of
the counting house. Other instances abound, as in Arden of Feversham (Act V, Scene 1),
where the murder of Arden demands three doors – the “street door,” the “back door,” and the
“counting-house door.” The three doors could be used in scenes played on the full stage,
while those on the fore-stage were entered by two doors, the third being available for the
entrance of persons and properties “behind the curtains” in preparation for discoveries.
Whenever players were “discovered” they had entered the after-stage by the middle door.
APPENDIX II.

SHAKESPEAREAN METHODS AT THE BIRMINGHAM REPERTORY THEATRE.

The plays of Shakespeare may be performed in full text by a resonable compromise between
Elizabethan and modern methods, which does not reject, say, the more modern system of
lighting. Accordingly, to bring this little book in its relation to contemporary practice I add an
extract from my article on Shakespearean Methods at the Birmingham Repertory Theatre,
which appeared in The Stage during Sept., 1919. Since then Mr. Barry Jackson has added to
his list, among other plays, Othello, Love’s Labour’s Lost, and 2 King Henry IV. His methods
are becoming more Elizabethan as he progresses, but I have left the extract unaltered, keeping
the conventional terms which are usually employed:-
“Mr Barry Jackson, the owner of the Birmingham Repertory Theatre, has the rare faculty of
“seeing Shakespeare steadily and seeing Shakespeare whole.”
His company have performed twelve plays of Shakespeare, all from the full text, and the
acting time has rarely been more than two and a half hours. This time has been lengthened, it
is true, by one or two intervals of ten minutes or less, not from any need of the stage, but as a
concession to the audience.
For the last thirteen or fourteen years, alsways helped by Mr. John Drinkwater, he has studied
the problems of simple staging – first with the company of Pilgrim Players, whom he founded
to present the mediaeval interlude of “Youth,” and secondly with the Repertory Theatre
company. Mr. Jackson started with methods in some ways similar to Mr. William Poel’s, and
at last, about the time of The Winter’s Tale at the Savoy, had reached methods in some ways
similar to Mr. Granville Barker’s. He had studied the structural conditions of the Elizabethan
theatre in their relation to Shakespeare’s playcraft, and had considered the value of an
achaeological reconstruction, particularly of the platform or apron. To this there were many
objections, the chief being that it would have restricted the repertory to Elizabethan plays,
making the theatre useless for all those of other periods.
He decided, therefore, to employ a compromise between the Elizabethan method, which was
presentation upon a platform-stage, and the Victorian method, which was representation upon
a picture-stage. This compromise was very much a revival of the transitional method that had
been established in the old Georgian playhouse at the point it had reached before footlights
were first used by Garrick. The stage of the Birminham Repertory Theatre resembles that of
the old Gerogian playhouse. On either side of the proscentium stands a permanent door,
which gives access to the narrow forestage. This forestage is uilt above the musicians’ well,
and is removed for the performance of modern plays in prose, though it is employed in the
presentation of the plays in verse of Mr. Drinkwater, Mr. Yeats, and others. On the forestage,
and before the theatre curtains, are presented all the ordinary “front scenes,” which are short
and need only few players. Another use, more important histrionicalls, is for te delivery yof
soliloquies, like Benedick’s or Lancelot Gobbo’s, directly and frankly to the audience.
Mr. Jackson, like Mr. Barker, uses a stage of three depths – forestage, middle-stage, and after-
stage. The middle-stage, opened by the raising of the theatre-curtains, is divided from the
after-stage by a second curtain, which is sometimes a plain cloth of silver-grey, sometimes a
decorative arras in the mediaeval manner. The second curtain is usually stretched across the
full width of the stage, except when it is replaced by what is in effect an Elizabethan
“traverse” or small inner curtain between two solid and permanent pillars, the rest of the space
being filled by the walls of a house, or some other piece of scenic architecture. The traverse-
pillars, and the principle of the iner stage, are invariably employed in Mr. Jackson’s full
settings, though with such dexterity and facility that they never appear to be a device of
pedantic archaeology, which is the great danger of all such devices.
When the “second curtain” is raised, the stage opens to the permanent horizon, heaven, or
firmament. This is a curved wall of white concrete,lighted by reflected sky-colours, which
give the sense of spaciousness and distance. No painted skies are used, and no painted
backcloths, except perhaps now and then at the foot of the firmament, and thereofre at the
back of the after-stage is painted a stretch of sea or hills, or a village, which appears to be so
small and so distant that the perspective is not affected by the movement of the actors. In
general of course the scene appears to be enacted on a hill, a terrace, or other high place.
Some part of the after-stage is usually elevated above the stage-level, which, by placing the
action on a higher plane, always disguises the shallowness of the stage. The raised section
behind the traverse is used for scens like the banquet-hall of Baptista’s House or the Witches’
Cave in Macbeth. Between a terrace at the back, and on either side, at the higher level.
Localities in important scenes are shown by some single conspicuous property – a church by a
cross, a royal palace by a throne, a garden by a row of conventional trees, like yews or elms.
Of course, wherever localities are important, Shakespeare always marked them clearly in the
dialogue, and no scenery is required to show that both Benedick and Beatrice hide in an
arbour, whilst their friends walk in the orchard. So, too, in The Winter’s Tale the prison is
clearly spoken of, but the impression can be reinforced by some clear central device, like a
barred window between the traverse-pillars, as well as by the presence of the gaoler with his
huge keys. Mr. Jackson always seeks for some simple, plain, and striking device of this
nature, and leaves the rest to the imagination.
Not all Shakespeare’s plays can be treated so simply. As You Like It and A Midsummer
Night’s Dream are full of difficulties, chiefly because of the prejudice of audiences against the
conventional presentation of forests. In The Merry Wives of Windsor the full stage is needed
for Ford’s House and for Windsor Forest, though, since the last scene is played in darkness, a
single oak trunk standing against a shadowy background is enough, and whilst this is being
set the action is confined alternatively to the fore-stage and the middle-stage. The Garter Inn
can be clearly shown by a decorative use of the travern sign.
But in general the stage of three dephts, with the traverse and the proscenium doors, can be
applied to most plays of Shakespeare. Where it can be applied, action is continuous and
uninterrupted.”