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,