[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.