I. STAGE ILLUSION AT THE GLOBE PLAYHOUSE

Staging, like acting, is an art of illusion, but its illusion, unlike that of acting, deals not with being but with time and space. In the manipulation of time, it has long been recognized that Shakespeare is a master. An oft-cited example of his mastery occurs in the guard scene in Othello (II, iii). During the course of the action a night is made to pass. At the beginning of the scene, the time is not yet “ten o’ the clock” (15). At the conclusion, Iago remarks, “By th’ mass, ’tis morning!” (384). In the midst of the alarum, Othello speaks of night and Iago agrees that Cassio should see Desdemona “betimes in the morning” (335). Here, as elsewhere, Shakespeare creates his own illusion of time corresponding neither to actual chronology nor to agreed convention, but solely to narrative demands.

It has also been generally recognized that Shakespeare may utilize more than one time scheme within a single play. For example, after Edmund has shown “Edgar’s” letter to his father, the Duke of Gloucester, he assures him that he will seek out Edgar as quickly as he can,

convey the business as I shall find means, and

acquaint you withal.

[I, ii, 109-111]

In Act II, scene i, three scenes later, he expedites his plot, presumably without delay, for the action picks up where it had left off. In the intervening scenes, however, Lear spends sufficient time at Goneril’s castle for her to complain to the Steward, “By day and night, he wrongs me!” (I, iii, 3). Certainly the spectator is to suppose that a good portion of a month has gone by.

Through a kind of illusion the author accelerates or decelerates the passage of time to fit the needs of his narrative. Thus, the time sequence varies during the course of the play. In some scenes time is extended, in others highly contracted. Antony is told, only a moment after the mob, which he has stirred to fury, rushes out to revenge Caesar’s death, that Brutus and Cassius have fled before this same mob. The reference point, manifestly, is not the length of time that the events would require in actuality, or a fixed standard of time, such as the twenty-four-hour neoclassical day, or a symbolic dimension, such as the morality time scheme of man’s life on earth, but the duration of time required to tell the story. This narrative ordering of time, moreover, has a parallel in a similar narrative ordering of space.

Simultaneous staging illustrates the operation of such ordering of space. By simultaneous staging is meant, in this instance, the practice of mounting more than one setting on stage at the same time so that during one scene the setting for another is already present. The degree to which it was employed by the popular companies is a matter of controversy.

In 1924 E. K. Chambers endeavored to distinguish between simultaneous staging in the private theaters and sequential staging in the public playhouses. But Professor George Reynolds has shown that at the Red Bull, some of the time at least, simultaneous staging was practiced. Later studies by George Kernodle and C. Walter Hodges have supported his position. In writing about simultaneous staging Reynolds, as well as Kernodle and Hodges, refers to the disposition of properties only. Reynolds argues that properties from one scene were occasionally left on-stage during the playing of another. Or he suggests that tents or shops, utilized much like the mansions of the medieval stage, were erected on-stage. He cites the tents scene in Richard III (V, iii), where both Richard’s and Richmond’s tents occupy the stage, as evidence that “theaters permitted violation of realistic distance and the use of simultaneous settings.” Instances of such simultaneity, although not abundant, do occur among the Shakespearean Globe plays.

The disguised Kent is placed in stocks before Gloucester’s castle where he is to remain all night (II, ii). The Quarto specifies that at the end of a soliloquy he “sleeps.” A soliloquy by Edgar follows. After Edgar’s exit, with the coming of morning, Lear arrives. Editors frequently treat the sleep and Edgar’s exit as the conclusions of separate scenes, thus marking Edgar’s soliloquy Act II, scene iii, and the scene commencing with Lear’s arrival, Act II, scene iv. However, neither the Folio nor the Quarto texts have any divisions at these points, although the Folio text is otherwise divided. John C. Adams, in his proposed staging of King Lear, suggests that the “inner stage” curtain was closed while Kent sleeps in order to allow Edgar to deliver his soliloquy, and then reopened for the next scene. But the direction “sleeps” indicates that this was not the case. Edgar merely entered while Kent slept in the stocks. Whether he was supposed to be in the same part of the castle yard or another part does not much matter. In this instance an imaginative expansion of space occurs and he “does not” see Kent.

A similar instance occurs in As You Like It. While Amiens and Jaques are singing in the Forest of Arden, a banquet is brought out. Seeing the uncovered dishes, Amiens says,

Sirs, cover the while; the Duke will drink under

this tree.

[II, v, 32-33]

After they sing some more, Jaques announces that he will go off to sleep and Amiens replies:

And I’ll go seek the Duke. His banquet is prepar’d.

[64-65]

These definite exit lines spoken by Amiens, as well as those spoken by the Duke at the end of Act II, scene vii (where he is careful to have Adam supported off stage), indicate that discovery of the banquet is not intended in either scene. Between the setting and partaking of the banquet, there intervenes the scene in which Orlando and Adam enter the forest fainting from want of food. Here is demonstration of the blending of general localization with simultaneous staging.

However, such simultaneous staging did not set the style for an entire play. Nowhere is there evidence that mansions or properties were left on-stage throughout an entire play. Nor is this surprising. It is apparent by now that scenic materials appeared infrequently on the Globe stage. Therefore, if there were conventions of spatial order, they involved not merely the physical elements of staging but more especially the organic elements, namely, the actors.

A nonrealistic ordering of space becomes necessary when the demands of a dramatic story create a disparity between the actual dimensions of the stage and the spatial dimensions of the action. Utilizing the theatrical conventions of the age, illusion masks this disparity. Such illusion is a product of two factors: the extension and/or compression of space and the juxtaposition of actors and properties.

As in the case of temporal illusion, Elizabethan spatial illusion does not obey a fixed proportion between stage and reality. It employs neither the unity of place nor the cosmic range of medieval drama. Between property and actor and between actor and actor, space assumes whatever dimension the narrative requires. This is true not only of the compression of space, that is, how closely characters stand to one another, but of their dramatic relationship, that is, the quality of that proximity.

To illustrate how the Elizabethans employed narrative space relationships between actors, I turn to a striking, and, as far as I am aware, hitherto unnoticed instance of compression in one of the Globe plays, Pericles.

In the first scene of the play Pericles seeks the hand of the Daughter of Antiochus. To win her, he must successfully answer a riddle. To fail, as many princes before him have done, means death. After the Daughter appears before him in all her regal beauty, Pericles receives the text of the riddle which he reads aloud. Almost immediately he fathoms the meaning: Antiochus and his daughter have committed incest. Pericles expresses this revelation in an aside, in the midst of which he addresses the Daughter directly.

Y’are a fair viol, and your sense the strings:

Who, finger’d to make man his lawful music,

Would draw heaven down, and all the gods, to hearken;

But being play’d upon before your time,

Hell only danceth at so harsh a chime.

Good sooth, I care not for you.

[I, i, 81-86]

We might assume that, since the character speaks an aside, the actor was standing some distance from the Daughter in order to give the illusion that he is not overheard. But the next line, which Antiochus addresses to Pericles, shows that Pericles was actually next to the Daughter.

Ant. Prince Pericles, touch not, upon thy life,

For that’s an article within our law,

As dangerous as the rest. Your time’s expir’d.

Either expound now, or receive your sentence.

[I, i, 87-90]

Apparently, Pericles in his aside gestures toward the Daughter on the line, “Good sooth, I care not for you.” Antiochus misinterprets the meaning of the gesture and warns Pericles not to touch his daughter. Thus, instead of speaking from afar, Pericles delivers the aside in the midst of the other actors.

In analyzing the aside as a dramatic device, writers have accepted the convention but rejected a conventional delivery by suggesting that in performance the platform stage enabled the actor to render it realistically. Not only this scene in Pericles, but equally significant instances of spatial compression contradict this theory. Many asides give the actor neither time nor motivation for creating verisimilitude. When Othello meets Desdemona, after Iago has awakened the “green-eyed monster” within him, he is struggling to hide his conviction of her guilt. Desdemona greets him.

Des. How is’t with you, my lord?

Oth. Well, my good lady. O, hardness to dissemble!

How do you, Desdemona?

[III, iv, 33-35]

Today the actor mutters the aside, “O, hardness to dissemble,” turns away, or in some other manner endeavors to give plausibility to the convention that Desdemona does not hear the remark. In final desperation, he may cut the line. The study of asides below shows that these were not the methods employed at the Globe.

Naturally, the high degree of spatial compression among the players caused a change in the quality of their relationships. When one actor comes closer to another than realistic action plausibly admits, as in the scene in Pericles, he destroys illusion, if it is one of reality, or he creates a new illusion, if it is one of convention. By standing near the defiled princess while he unravels the mystery, the actor of Pericles can convey his horror with maximum effectiveness, and by speaking his aside near her while he paints a word picture of her outer beauty and inner pollution, he can project his revulsion at her foul proximity. The Globe players, in the staging of asides, did not think in terms of creating an illusion of actuality but of relating the crucial elements of the narrative to each other. Within such a frame of reference the dilemma, folly, or scheme which gives rise to an aside is demonstrated more lucidly and more dramatically than it could be within a realistic frame of reference. What is true of the aside is equally true of observations, disguises, concealments, parleys, and other theatrical devices.

The conventions governing grouping of actors also governed the sequence of actions. From scene to scene, and within scenes, space had a fluidity which was accommodated to the narration. Generalization of locale required such fluidity, for locale was as broad or as narrow as occasion demanded. The picturing of locale, we must remember, was not accomplished with scenery. Nor was passage from one locale to another accomplished through physical changes in the stage façade, as some scholars have insisted. According to various views, the drawing of a curtain or a shift from one part of the stage to another or from one mansion to another was a conventional means of conveying a change of place to the audience. All these views assume in common that the establishment of space was dependent upon clues of a physical sort.

The application as well as the refutation of such an assumption can be illustrated in the assassination scene of Julius Caesar, which begins in the streets of Rome and moves to the Capitol (III, i). Ronald Watkins would express this sequence in a change in the stage itself. To mark the moment when the scene shifts into the Capitol, he would open the “inner stage” curtain to reveal a state for Caesar.[1] The possibility that the street and the Capitol were situated in the same imaginary area is never explored although there is no instance in a Globe play where a shift takes place like that which Watkins predicates. Before examining this scene in detail, it might be well to turn to another Globe scene which is unqualified evidence against Watkins’ method of staging.

In scene x of Miseries of Enforced Marriage, it will be recalled, Butler has convinced Ilford, Bartley, and Wentloe that he can provide them with rich wives. Appointing a time to introduce them to their “brides-to-be,” he arranges to meet first Ilford and then the other two “at the sign of the Wolfe against Gold-smiths row” (Sig. G1v). After these rakes depart, Butler soliloquizes upon the punishment that he will inflict upon them for their villainy. At the conclusion of this brief soliloquy, he does not exit. Instead, Thomas and John Scarborrow enter.

But. O, are you come. And fit as I appointed.

[Sig. G2r]

He bids them wait while he sets up the plot for Ilford. The scene with Ilford is played in continuous fashion. There is no indication that the scene has shifted to any other part of the stage, for Ilford observes the Scarborrows from a window. When Wentloe and Bartley appear, Wentloe points out the sign of the Wolfe. Through dialogue, the audience is made aware that a change of locale has occurred without either a clearing of the stage or a shift in area. Furthermore, the appearance of the sign suggests one of three possibilities: the sign was visible throughout the scene, thus creating a type of simultaneous setting; it was not employed physically and thus Wentloe’s line is imaginative; or it was placed in position during the course of the scene. In any one of these instances the change of scene did not depend upon any change in the form or size of the stage space.

To return to Julius Caesar. It is possible to carry out the staging of the scene as Watkins suggests. But there is no instance in the Globe plays which clearly shows this to be Globe practice. A scene in The Devil’s Charter (II, i, Sig. E1r) contains a similar scene of procession, this time to a papal state. In the other stage directions of the play, Barnes has carefully indicated when the enclosure was employed, even within a scene, so that his failure to mention it in a stage direction for this scene argues against its use. In that event the state must have been thrust out. This method would serve equally well in Julius Caesar with the result that both street and Capitol would be simultaneously presented.

Essentially the stage was a fluid area that could represent whatever the author wished without the necessity for him to indicate a change in stage location. The actors did not regard the stage as a place but as a platform from which to project a story, and therefore they were unconscious of the discrepancy between real and dramatic space. How far behind Malvolio were the “box tree” and his tormentors? How far from Brutus and Cassius are Caesar and Antony when Caesar sneers at Cassius’ “lean and hungry look”? Is the eye meant to take in both parties at once? In performing these scenes, the Globe players probably concentrated on making the observation of Malvolio and the scornful characterization of Cassius dramatically effective. That this frequently necessitated the substitution of imaginary for real distance must have passed unobserved both by the players and the audience.

Space, though flexible, was not amorphous. Principles of order in staging existed independently of the stage façade and machinery. As in Elizabethan graphic art during this period, the principles were simple and derivative. The “primitive” art of the medieval period had been suppressed by Henry VIII. No vital growth in a secular art appeared to take its place. Save for some painters who created original and masterly miniatures, among them the master Nicholas Hilliard, the Elizabethans failed to develop a school of graphic art and thus resorted to foreign artists or imitators. It is not surprising, therefore, that the stage which developed at this period was simple in composition and imitative in adornment. Massive and symmetrical, not easily varied in its fundamental appearance, its boards served any scene.

Evidence for fixing stage positions is scanty at best. The text of a drama, unless it is accompanied by detailed stage directions, does not contain the kind of evidence needed. Unfortunately, no one at the Globe thought of preparing a regiebuch. Furthermore, methods of rehearsal indicate that the pictorial arrangement of the actors received little attention. Considering the history of the Elizabethan acting company and the conditions of its repertory, it is not unlikely that traditional patterns of arrangement were retained and repeated. Novelty in the stage picture is a characteristic of the director’s theater, not of the stock company’s repertory. But, though the evidence for stage composition is scanty, what evidence there is is consistent.

The simplest order in art is symmetrical balance. It is this type of composition which one observes in the Globe plays from time to time. At a banquet in The Devil’s Charter, Act V, scene iv, Pope Alexander enters with three cardinals and three soldiers. The stage direction reads,

The Pope taketh his place, three Cardinals on one side and [three] captaines on the other. [Sig. L1r]

Poisoned at this banquet by the Devil, Alexander rushes to his study,

Alexander unbraced betwixt two Cardinalls in his study looking upon a booke, whilst a groome draweth the Curtaine. [Sig. L3r]

This might be an echo of Richard III’s position between the Bishops as he receives the Lord Mayor’s embassy from London. A more dramatic use of symmetry can be found in the finale of Miseries of Enforced Marriage. At the last moment Scarborrow repents his wild courses. Surrounded by the brothers and sister he has ruined, the wife and children he has neglected, and the uncle he has abused, he is deeply shamed.

Harke how their words like Bullets shoot me thorow

And tel mee I have undone em, this side might say,

We are in want and you are the cause of it,

This points at me, yare shame unto your house,

This tung saies nothing, but her lookes do tell,

Shees married but as those that live in hel.

[Sig. K4r. My italics]

The demonstratives indicate brothers and sister on one hand, the uncle on the other, and his wife next to him.

This type of symmetry can be seen in Shakespearean plays also. At one point in Antony and Cleopatra Antony’s soldiers, while on watch, hear the subterranean music which signifies, according to one of them, that “the god Hercules, whom Antony lov’d,/Now leaves him.” For the setting of the watch occurs the stage direction, “They place themselves in every corner of the stage” (IV, iii, 7). What arrangement could be simpler? In the same play there is another example. Antony and Caesar are to meet to settle their dispute (II, ii). The scene opens with Lepidus urging Enobarbus to “entreat your captain/To soft and gentle speech.” Then the two monarchs of the world enter from opposite sides of the stage. I quote at length to make the balance clear.

Lep. Here comes

the noble Antony.

(Enter Antony and Ventidius.)

Eno. And yonder, Caesar.

(Enter Caesar, Maecenas, and Agrippa.)

Ant. If we compose well here, to Parthia.

Hark, Ventidius.

Cae. I do not know,

Maecenas. Ask Agrippa.

Lep. Noble friends,

That which combin’d us was most great, and let not

A leaner action rend us. What’s amiss,

May it be gently heard. When we debate

Our trivial difference loud, we do commit

Murther in healing wounds. Then, noble partners,

The rather for I earnestly beseech,

Touch you the sourest points with sweetest terms,

Nor curstness grow to th’ matter.

Ant. ’Tis spoken well,

Were we before our armies, and to fight,

I should do thus.

(Flourish)

Cae. Welcome to Rome.

Ant. Thank you.

Cae. Sit.

Ant. Sit, sir.

Cae. Nay then.

[13-28]

And they sit, to discuss their grievances. From the entrance to the final seating, the scene and dispositions are balanced. At the end of this episode there is a formal symmetrical grouping: Caesar seated with his two supporters in attendance facing Antony with his two supporters in attendance. Between them, mediating the matter, is Lepidus.

Throughout the Shakespearean Globe plays instances of this sort can be found, not only in the arrangement of the actors but also in the writing of the scenes. An extended example of verbal symmetry occurs in As You Like It, where Rosalind vows to marry Phebe if she marries any woman (IV, ii, 90-118). Often these symmetrical arrangements are taken for granted because they seem dramatic and do not disturb the flow of narrative. Yet occasionally we can discern dramatic logic sacrificed for symmetrical arrangement. This “failing” can be more graphically observed in the buildings of the period and, therefore, I digress for a moment. A feature of the great houses built as show places during the Tudor age was the adherence to symmetrically balanced design. Usually a central structure would be flanked by more or less elaborately developed ells or wings, as at Wollaton Hall, Hatfield House, Charlton House, or Hardwick Hall. The main hall was in the center, naturally, and the quarters of the noblemen were in one wing. In the other wing the buttery, scullery, or otherwise menial part of the household was located. In both Wollaton and Hardwick Halls, the kitchen or scullery occupies the front chamber of only one wing to balance the opposite lordly wing.[2] From a functional point of view in planning, the symmetrical arrangement did not satisfy the living accommodations of the Tudor household. But from a visual point of view, it represented a dignity and order that relatively unsophisticated builders could create. Despite the obvious waste in space, the visual need determined the structural design.

This tendency can be observed on the stage. I have already cited the scene in Twelfth Night, when Malvolio “returns” Olivia’s ring to Viola. Olivia had sent him to run after the “peevish” boy to tell him that she would not take “his” ring (I, v, 318-323). We should suppose that, in order to catch the boy, Malvolio would have followed Viola on the stage. Yet the stage direction clearly specifies that they enter “severally,” that is, from opposite sides of the stage. The entrance is symmetrical but not logical.

The general thesis for symmetrical staging that I have advanced must be qualified in two respects. First, the reliance upon symmetrical arrangement was probably stronger in the earlier than in the later period. The plays themselves change from a more formal, balanced arrangement of speeches to a more colloquial, asymmetrical arrangement. The balanced dirges of the various queens in Richard III (IV, iv) and the measured laments of Blanch in King John (III, i, 326 ff.) begin to disappear. However, they do not wholly vanish during the Globe period.

Secondly, the principles of composition may not be readily perceived in scenes involving only a few characters. Therefore, in the Globe plays symmetry as an element of staging can be best studied in group scenes, for it is a simple way to arrange groups of actors. The nature of Elizabethan dramatic material made simple balance not only the most feasible but also the most meaningful method of composition.