Shakespeare at the Globe, 1599-1609

by Bernard Beckerman

III. ACTORS’ ENTRANCES UPON THE GLOBE STAGE

At one time, Sir Mark Hunter defined a scene as the action between clearances of the stage.[6] Since this definition is generally accepted, we can consider that the scene concludes with the exit of all characters and commences with the entrance of other characters. This so-called “law of reentry” operates in the overwhelming majority of scene changes. It is rare for a character who has left the stage in one scene to enter immediately in the very next. As C. M. Haines has pointed out, most of the exceptions occur in battle scenes. In those instances it is usual for an alarum or excursion to separate the two scenes. The other exceptions are in large measure suspect.[7]

Ready analogy to cinematic technique has led a number of scholars to minimize the scene markings. Emphasis has been placed on the flow of scene to scene, to the extent that the separation of scene from scene has had to be made by a shift from one stage area or mansion to another or by the opening or closing of a curtain. However, in deemphasizing the contribution of the stage façade to the continuity of the play, it is necessary to consider that the pointing of scene divisions was managed by the actors themselves. Overlapping of the exit and the entrance may not have been the habit of the Globe company; instead separation and pause may have been the method. The actors or stage attendants, on occasion, had to bring out properties. This necessitated a pause, however brief. Nor need this pause have been reflected in the text. For one entrance in The Battle of Alcazar the stage direction in the Quarto reads:

Enter the king of Portugall and his Lords, Lewes de Sylva, and the Embassadours of Spaine.

In the plot of the play, however, the corresponding direction reads:

Enter: 2 bringing in a chair of state (mr. Hunt): w. Kendall Dab & Harry enter at one dore: Sebastian: Duke of Avero; Stukeley: 1 Pages: Jeames Ionas: & Hercules (th) to them at another dore Embassadors of Spaine mr Iones mr Charles: attendants George and w. Cartwright:[8]

Unfortunately, no similar parallel of stage direction and plot exists for any of the Globe plays. In these same plots, we may also notice, a line was drawn across the page to separate one scene from another. Probably this was done to clarify the sequence of scenes, but it had the added effect of fixing the scene divisions firmly in the actor’s mind. Together with the rhyming couplet which concluded so many scenes, it may have encouraged the insertion of a slight pause between the scenes.

In [Chapter Three] I fully examined the character of the scene endings. The conclusions are relevant at this point although the evidence need not be reviewed. Seventy-nine per cent of the scene endings indicate explicitly or implicitly that the actors march off-stage. About ten and one-half per cent of the scenes end with solo exits. About the same number of scenes fail to indicate that the actors actually move out. It is obvious, from this distribution, that at the ends of scenes the playwright normally provided the actors with exit lines or movements. These served a double purpose. They stressed the conclusion of the scene, and they bridged the movement across the large platform.

The sufficiency of such simple movement to separate scenes is reflected in what I call split entrances or exits. The split entrance or exit occurs when characters come together or go apart through more than one entryway. Entrance of two or more characters “at several doors” or exit of two or more characters bidding farewell to one another are split. Of the 644 entrances and exits which begin or end scenes in the Shakespearean Globe plays, only 12.1 per cent are split scenes. Even of this low figure only 6.4 per cent are definitely split scenes, the remaining number including probable cases. Thus nearly 90 per cent of the scenes merely involve the exit of one actor or group at one door and the entrance of another actor or group at another. The split scenes are readily staged, if the third entry through the center curtain is employed. Thus the burden of maintaining the continuity and clarifying the story is placed on the actors—not on the stage.

Shakespeare relies on few methods for opening a scene. In 339 entrances[9] in the Shakespearean Globe plays he employs eight methods for 88 per cent of the entrances. The most frequent type of entrance is that of the mid-speech, which accounts for over 40 per cent of the scene beginnings. In such an entrance two or more characters come on-stage engaged in a conversation the topic of which was begun off-stage. This type of entrance is best adapted to emphasize continuity of action. Among the seven other types is the processional entrance, 9½ per cent of the total; the inquiry, soliloquy, and commanding entrance, about 7 per cent each; and finally the salutation, summoning, and emotional entrances, between 5 and 6 per cent each. In the commanding entrance a character enters giving a command to someone already on-stage; in the summoning entrance the character summons someone who is off-stage, and in the emotional entrance a character enters disturbed by some emotional experience, as Julius Caesar is after the tempestuous night (II, ii).

Except for the processional and salutation entrances, the entrances plunge the audience into the midst of a new situation or a more highly developed stage of an earlier situation. In this respect the evidence would appear to contradict my suggestion that a hiatus may have defined the scenes. But considered in terms of the stage, the contradiction is more apparent than real. This can be seen by turning to the mid-speech entrance, 132 examples of which appear at the beginning of scenes. A typical example opens Othello. Roderigo and Iago enter, apparently after Iago has told Roderigo of Desdemona’s marriage.

Rod. Tush, never tell me! I take it much unkindly

That thou, Iago, who hast had my purse

As if the strings were thine, shouldst know of this.

Iago. ’Sblood, but you will not hear me!

If ever I did dream of such a matter,

Abhor me.

[I, i, 1-6]

But where do the characters begin speaking? At a stage door? The stage doors on either side of the stage are virtually behind the stage pillars. No matter how narrow one supposes these pillars to be, and they cannot be very narrow considering their function of supporting the heavens and huts, they interfere with action at the stage doors. Although the exact locations of the doors in the back wall are uncertain, they must have been behind or nearly behind the pillars if one allows for the enclosure. Consequently, I doubt that the mid-speech, which usually provides information vital to the narrative, was begun at a door, and think it more likely that the characters took several paces toward the center or forward before speaking. This action may have provided a hiatus sufficient to mark a new scene. Presence of such a hiatus is supported by the fact that the mid-speech entrance seldom occurs within the body of a scene. Shakespeare uses it almost exclusively to enable the actor to maintain continuity from scene to scene. For example, in All’s Well and Measure for Measure, fifteen and ten mid-speech entrances respectively all occur at the beginnings of scenes.

However, if the characters entered through the rear curtain, they could engage in immediate conversation. Entrance of actors through the enclosure curtains was not unusual, and, in fact, may have occurred more frequently than we usually assume. For instance, in The Battle of Alcazar, the Quarto stage direction reads:

Enter the king of Portugall and the Moore, with all theyr traine.

For the same action, the plot reads:

Enter at one dore the Portingall Army with drom & Cullors: Sebastian ... att another dore Governor of Tanger ... from behind the Curtaines to them muly mahamet & Calipolis in their Charriott with moores one on each side & attending young mahamet....

Behind the terse stage direction then, lies a more elaborate entrance involving the curtain. Although definite evidence for such entrances does not exist in the Globe plays, there is, on the other hand, no evidence to exclude such entrances. Moreover, there are several situations which imply such use. At the conclusion of scene i in Othello, Brabantio and Roderigo exeunt to seek Othello. At line 160 Brabantio had come out one door, representing his house. At line 184 he and Roderigo go out, certainly not back into the house. Othello and Iago enter in mid-speech, surely upon the outer stage. But from where? Not from the door through which Brabantio and Roderigo just went out. Possibly from the door which only recently had been the entrance to Brabantio’s house. Probably through the curtain in the center of the stage. Although the evidence is not conclusively applicable to the Globe plays, it may be pertinent to note that in the Roxana drawing, the flap of the curtain is partially open, and in the frontispiece to The Wits a character is shown coming through the curtain. In all likelihood, actors regularly entered through the center curtain, and when they did, they could begin speaking immediately upon entrance. But when the entrances were made through a stage door, I suggest that conversation was held back for the several seconds needed by the actors to move into the acting area proper and there to mark the beginning of a new scene.

That a need to focus attention upon an entrance existed is evident from a consideration of the entrances within the scenes. Many of these entrances are heralded by some form of announcement or question, such as “My lady comes,” or “How now?” or “Who comes here?” Other means of emphasizing entrances were through action, such as a procession, or through music, such as the horn announcing Lear (I, iv), or through response to a previous command, such as Lucius’ report of the Ides of March in Julius Caesar (II, i). In As You Like It, I count thirty-one intrascene entrances: twenty-one are announced, one is accompanied by action, three are responses to a previous command or scheme, and six are unprepared. In Lear, there are fifty-one intrascene entrances, of which twenty-five are announced, ten accompanied by action, three by music, and thirteen unprepared. The unprepared entrances in Lear are usually unannounced for dramatic purposes. Oswald’s entering impertinently to Lear (I, iv), Lear’s bearing in the body of Cordelia (V, iii), and Oswald’s sighting “the proclaimed prize,” Gloucester, (IV, vi) depend upon suddenness for dramatic effect.

In addition to directing attention to an incoming actor, the announcement filled an awkward gap. The depth of the stage caused a dislocation between the actors already on stage and those coming on-stage. Frequently, the former would be at the front but the entrant would be at the rear. It was necessary to allow time for the entrant to come down stage. The full effect of these announcements was to formalize the entrances and enhance their ceremonial impression.

Just how conventional the entrance might have been can be seen by examining a particular group of entrance announcements. About forty-three entrances in the Shakespearean Globe plays are accompanied by announcements of greater length than the brief, “Who’s there?” These announcements run from two lines to sixteen lines in length. Most of them are short, two to four lines in length, but a few are longer than ten lines. In each of these instances a character or characters on-stage describe or comment upon someone who has just entered. Usually the entrant is aware of the others, but it is understood that he does not hear the description. Modern producers often try to cover these awkward entrances by giving the entrant some motivated business to account for the delay in speaking. But these scenes are frankly demonstrative, for the audience is supposed to be aware of both parties. In Hamlet, Polonius greets Hamlet, Rosencrantz, and Guildenstern. Hamlet, without answering, says:

Hark you, Guildenstern—and you too—at each ear a hearer!

That great baby you see there is not yet out of his swaddling clouts.

[II, ii, 398-401]

And so forth for another three and one-half lines. Polonius can “cover up” by waiting upon the prince, or by engaging in character business, but in essence he becomes an inert object for that period.

The longest delay in an entrance, sixteen lines, occurs in Coriolanus (V, iii, 19 ff.) when Coriolanus describes the delegation of Volumnia, Virgilia, young Marcius, and Valeria approaching him. By no means could it require a speech of that length for the actors to reach him, no matter from what part of the stage they may have entered or where he may have been standing. During his speech they become the visible expression of the inner struggle that he is about to undergo. If they move, they must move very slowly; if they stand still, they compose a picture. It is highly unlikely that the Globe company tried to “naturalize” this entrance by giving the entrants business or movement which would divert the attention of the audience from the effect their entrance was having upon Coriolanus.

Essentially the plays were written to enable the actors to enter effectively without the aid of the façade, to play intimately near the audience, and to retire convincingly without loss of attention. When one takes into account the number of processions, salutations, commands, summonses, and expressions of duty introduced to cover and emphasize the entrances, one realizes that continuity from scene to scene was mannered rather than casual, ceremonious rather than personal, conventional rather than spontaneous. The effect was probably not too far removed from the daily social manner of the Elizabethans, but on stage their natural predilection for ceremony may have been more fully systematized.