By turning out, the actor emphasized the stage as a setting behind him rather than as an environment around him. This was in accord with the demands of the plays. As I have pointed out, most of the scenes were set in a generalized locale. The actor did not have to maintain an illusion of place. He could concentrate wholly on the action and the passion of a scene. To achieve verisimilitude it was not necessary that he project time and place. Standard practice in movement and delivery would fit every play, for they would never seem out of harmony with the conventional façade. The result was that the actor did not adapt himself to every environment, as the actor does now, but translated every environment into a theatrical form.
These tendencies towards simplification and systemization were reinforced by the conditions of repertory. In [Chapter One] I showed how many plays were maintained actively in the Globe repertory. A member of the company, who was likely to be in every play, had to learn a new role every other week. At the same time, he had to keep in mind thirty or forty others. We do know that the players were used to preparing a script rapidly. Augustine Phillips, in the course of testimony offered on the Essex conspiracy, reveals that the Lord Chamberlain’s men had only a day or a day and a half to revive Richard II, a play long off the boards.[19] The fact that the play was actually presented at the Globe is proof of the actors’ adaptability.
But the player’s task was still more arduous. There was no opportunity for him to fix a role in his memory by repetition. Rarely would he play the same role two days in succession. Even in the most popular role he would not appear more than twice in one week, and then only in the first month or two of the play’s stage life. The consequences of such a strenuous repertory were twofold. First, the actor had to cultivate a fabulous memory and devote much of his time to memorization; various plays testify to the scorn of the playwright for the actor who is out of his part. Secondly, the actor had to systematize his methods of portrayal and of working with his colleagues. How far this could be done will have to be considered below in light of the variety of roles the actor played.
If we could have a glimpse of an actual rehearsal, we should learn a great deal about Elizabethan acting. The closest that we can come to such a glimpse is to examine various players’ scenes in the drama of the period. From A Midsummer Night’s Dream (I, ii, 101 ff.), we learn that it was the practice to distribute the sides to the actors and, after these had been memorized, to rehearse the company. That this was normal procedure is indicated by the surviving part for Orlando from Orlando Furioso.[20] Used by Edward Alleyn, it embodies the system adopted by the professional companies. The part, inscribed on a narrow sheet of paper, was originally arranged on a long roll. From this roll Alleyn studied his part and from it we can learn some of his methods, particularly by comparing the part to the extant copy of the play.
The part contains Orlando’s speeches, together with the cues for each speech and some stage directions. The cues are extremely brief, consisting of no more than two or three words of the preceding actor’s speech. If the speeches of more than one actor separate two speeches of Orlando, only the last cue is inserted. Of the presence of any other actors on stage there is no indication. The stage directions, usually written in the third person, are not as descriptive as in the text of the play. Entrances of other actors are not noted. In effect, the part is shorn of almost everything but the speeches of the character.
As Dr. Greg has pointed out, the part does not rely upon quite the same text as the full copy of the play. Therefore, a word-by-word comparison cannot be made. Yet there is some evidence that short replies by the other actors were conventionalized in the part. Compare the following extract, for example:
Part.
stay villayne I tell
the/e/ Angelica is dead, nay she is in deed
... lord