Away with that same tradgike monument.
[Sig. F2v]
Presumably the scaffold is withdrawn from the stage. In all likelihood a scaffold large enough to hold four people was too large to fit through a doorway. Therefore, we must assume that it was removed through the enclosure.
The forward placement of the scaffold is attested by another Globe play. Enamored of Corvino’s wife, Volpone disguised as a mountebank mounts his bank under the window where he might glimpse the lady (II, ii). Dramatically and physically his bank could only be placed on the platform. That he has actually gone up on some structure which, however, is lower than window height, is proved, first, when “Celia at the windo’ throwes downe her handkerchiefe,” and secondly, when Corvino, the jealous husband, rushes out of his door and shouts to Volpone to “Come downe” (II, iii). Here too there is no stage direction for the setting up and taking down of a scaffold, but the reiteration of Corvino’s “will you downe, sir? downe?” establishes its existence. Perhaps, in this case too, actors or attendants erected or thrust out some frame. Once it is established that such a scaffold was brought out upon the Globe stage, it becomes clear that it appears in some of the scenes cited by Smith. How its use affected staging is properly reserved for a [later chapter].
Out of the total properties of one hundred and one, I have already accounted for seventy-six. The remaining twenty-five are divided amongst miscellaneous properties such as tombs, tents, greenery of some sort, and others. Only two scenes require tombs, a dumb show in Pericles (IV, iv) and the discovery of Timon’s body (V, iii). How the tombs were revealed to the audience is not readily determined so that this subject had best be deferred to a consideration of the enclosure.
Tents are even more difficult to treat. Even when the action calls for a tent, it is uncertain whether a property or merely the enclosure is being employed. Frequent allusions to tents can be found in Troilus and Cressida, but there is no scene where more than one tent must be used. But how was that represented? When Ulysses says of Achilles, “We saw him at the opening of his tent” (II, iii), did the audience see a property tent or the flap of the enclosure curtain turned back? No interior is required in any of these scenes so that we are not dealing with a discovery proper. Some evidence for a property tent can be found in The Devil’s Charter. Caesar Borgia leads an army against the town of Furly whose defense is led by the Countess Katherine (IV, iv). Unless she surrenders, Caesar will slay her two young boys, whom he has captured; when she refuses, he orders the children to execution. Then, after having scaled the walls and taken Katherine prisoner, Caesar “discovereth his Tent where her two sonnes were at Cardes,” and says, “Behold thy children living in my Tent.” But where is the tent? In the enclosure? A difficulty arises, if we suppose so, for it places the tent under the very walls which Caesar attempted and finally overran. Moreover, since the dumb show which opens the play requires two property tents, it is likely that Caesar’s tent was brought in by his soldiers and set up on stage.
Similarly, it is difficult to distinguish when prop trees are used and when stage posts. Although property trees were regularly employed on the Elizabethan stage, no tree definitely appears on the Globe stage. In A Warning for Fair Women, a Lord Chamberlain’s play published in 1599, a tree springs up in the midst of the stage (Sig. E3v). But whether or not this was the normal method for introducing the tree prop is uncertain. The rest of the properties must be considered individually. Some are discovered, most brought on. But the study of any one of these properties, if necessary, can be more profitably undertaken in connection with staging methods.
Two inferences can be drawn from this survey of properties on the Globe stage. One is that more often than not properties, even heavy ones, were carried onto the stage. As a consequence, it was not one of the functions of the enclosure to permit the setting of furniture or other properties.[19] The other is that the same class of properties is often introduced in the same way. Beds are likely to be discovered. Tables, scaffolds, and invalid chairs are brought out. These habits may have stemmed from solid theatrical necessity. On the other hand it is possible that they may have embodied a symbolic significance.
Therefore, since the presence of stage properties cannot guide us in deciding when the enclosure was used, some other means must be discovered. References to an interior setting, Richard Hosley has shown, are not reliable. Fortunately, however, several Globe plays contain scenes in which stage directions or incontestable stage business establishes the use of an enclosure. One of these, The Devil’s Charter, supplies unusually valuable evidence.
Barnabe Barnes prepared his text of The Devil’s Charter for the printer with much care. He supplied full stage directions, which show theatrical, not literary marks, and seems to have described an actual production, for the epilogue directly addresses spectators, albeit not of the public playhouse (Sig. M3v). The enclosure, or study, as he terms the area, is employed three times in his play. It will pay to examine these scenes minutely. In two scenes a stage direction opens the scene with the words, “Alexander in his study (or studie) ...,” “with bookes, coffers, his triple Crown upon a cushion before him” (I, iv); “beholding a Magicall glasse with other observations” (IV, i). Alexander speaks a long soliloquy in the first scene, then his two sons enter, later a servant. At the most there are four characters in the scene. Whether Alexander remains in the study throughout the first scene is not indicated. In the second scene Alexander also delivers an extended soliloquy, but here a direction specifies after his sixth line, “Alexander commeth upon the Stage out of his study with a booke in his hand.” He conjures forth a devil in order to discover who killed his son Candie. He is shown a symbol of the murder: his other son, Caesar, pursuing the ghost of Candie. The specters enter at one door and “vanish in at another doore” (G2r 19). On the heels of the apparition of Caesar, Caesar himself arrives, outfaces his father, and parts reconciled to him. The last direction is, “Exit Alexander into the studie.” Clearly the study supplied a novel scene opening and provided access to the platform or stage, but was not utilized for extended presentation.