One other possible feature of action ‘above’ must not be left out of account. The use of the gallery may have been supplemented on occasion by that of some window or balcony in the space above it, which De Witt’s drawing conceals from our view. Here may have been the ‘top’ on which La Pucelle appears in the Rouen episode of 1 Henry VI, and the towers or turrets, which are sometimes utilized or referred to in this and other plays.[304] It would be difficult to describe the central boxes of the Swan gallery as a tower.
Before any attempt is made to sum up the result of this long chapter, one other feature of sixteenth-century staging, which is often overlooked, requires discussion. In the majority of cases the background of an out-of-door scene need contain at most a single domus; and this, it is now clear, can be represented either by a light structure, such as a tent or arbour, placed temporarily upon the floor of the stage, or more usually by the scena or back wall, with its doors, its central aperture, and its upper gallery. There are, however, certain scenes in which one domus will not suffice, and two or possibly even three, must be represented. Thus, as in Richard III, there may be two hostile camps, with alternating action at tents in each of them.[305] There may also be interplay, without change of scene, between different houses in one town or village. In Arden of Feversham, Arden’s house and the painter’s are set together;[306] in The Taming of A Shrew, the lord’s house and the alehouse for the induction, and Polidor’s and Alphonso’s during the main play;[307] in The Blind Beggar of Alexandria, the houses of Elimine and Samethis;[308] in 1 Sir John Oldcastle, Cobham’s gate and an inn;[309] in Stukeley, Newton’s house and a chamber in the Temple;[310] in A Knack to Know an Honest Man, Lelio’s and Bristeo’s for one scene, Lelio’s and a Senator’s for another, possibly Lelio’s and Servio’s, though of this I am less sure, for a third.[311] These are the most indisputable cases; given the principle, we are at liberty to conjecture its application in other plays. Generally the houses may be supposed to be contiguous; it is not so in Stukeley, where Old Stukeley clearly walks some little distance to the Temple, and here therefore we get an example of that foreshortening of distance between two parts of a city, with which we became familiar in the arrangement of Court plays.[312] It is not the only example. In George a Greene Jenkin and the Shoemaker walk from one end to the other of Wakefield.[313] In Arden of Feversham, although this is an open-country and not an urban scene, Arden and Francklin travel some little way to Raynham Down.[314] In Dr. Faustus, so far as we can judge from the unsatisfactory text preserved, any limitation to a particular neighbourhood is abandoned, and Faustus passes without change of scene from the Emperor’s Court to his own home in Wittenberg.[315] Somewhat analogous is the curious device in Romeo and Juliet, where the maskers, after preparing in the open, ‘march about the stage’, while the scene changes to the hall of Capulet, which they then enter.[316]
I think, then, it must be taken that the background of a public stage could stand at need, not merely for a single domus, but for a ‘city’. Presumably in such cases the central aperture and the gallery above it were reserved for any house in which interior action was to proceed, and for the others mere doors in the scenic wall were regarded as adequate. I do not find any sixteenth-century play which demands either interior action or action ‘above’ in more than one house.[317] But a question arises as to how, for a scene in which the scenic doors had to represent house doors, provision was made for external entrances and exits, which certainly cannot be excluded from such scenes. Possibly the answer is, although I feel very doubtful about it, that there were never more than two houses, and that therefore one door always remained available to lead on and off the main stage.[318] Possibly also entrances and exits by other avenues than the two scenic doors, which we infer from the Swan drawing, and the central aperture which we feel bound to add, are not inconceivable. We have already had some hint that three may not have been the maximum number of entrances. If the Elizabethan theatre limited itself to three, it would have been worse off than any of the early neo-classic theatres based upon Vitruvius, in which the porta regia and portae minores of the scenic wall were regularly supplemented by the viae ad forum in the versurae to right and left of the proscenium.[319] No doubt such wings could not be constructed at the Swan, where a space was left on the level of the ‘yard’ between the spectators’ galleries and the right and left edges of a narrow stage. But they would be feasible in theatres with wider stages, and the arrangement, if it existed, would make the problem of seats on the stage easier.[320] It is no more than a conjecture. It has also been suggested that the heavy columns drawn by De Witt may have prevented him from showing two entrances round the extreme ends of the scenic wall, such as are perhaps indicated in some of the Terentian woodcuts of 1493.[321] Or, finally, actors might have emerged from the tiring-house into the space on the level of the yard just referred to, and thence reached the stage, as from without, by means of a short flight of steps.[322]
Working then from the Swan stage, and only departing in any essential from De Witt’s drawing by what appears to be, at any rate for theatres other than the Swan, the inevitable addition of a back curtain, we find no insuperable difficulty in accounting for the setting of all the types of scenes recognizable in sixteenth-century plays. The great majority of them, both out-of-door scenes and hall scenes, were acted on the open stage, under the heavens, with no more properties and practicable terrains than could reasonably be carried on by the actors, lowered from the heavens, raised by traps, or thrust on by frames and wheels. For more permanent background they had the scenic doors, the gallery above, the scenic curtain, and whatever the tire-man might choose to insert in the aperture, backed by an alcove within the tire-house, which the drawing of the curtain discovered. For entrances they had at least the scenic doors and aperture. The comparatively few chamber scenes were set either in the alcove or in a chamber ‘above’, formed by throwing together two compartments of the gallery. A window in a still higher story could, if necessary, be brought into play. So, with all due respect to the obscurities of the evidence, I reconstruct the facts. It will, I hope, be apparent without any elaborate demonstration that this system of public staging, as practised by Burbadge at the Theatre, by Lanman at the Curtain, by Henslowe at the Rose, and perhaps with some modifications by Langley at the Swan, is very fairly in line with the earlier sixteenth-century tradition, as we have studied it in texts in which the Court methods are paramount. This is only natural, in view of the fact that the same plays continued to be presented to the public and to the sovereign. There is the same economy of recessed action, the same conspicuous tendency to dialogue on a threshold, the same unwillingness to break the flow of an act by any deliberate pause for resetting. The public theatre gets in some ways a greater variety of dramatic situation, partly owing to its free use of the open stage, instead of merely a portico, for hall scenes, partly owing to its characteristic development of action ‘above’. This, in spite of the battlements of the Revels accounts, may perhaps be a contribution of the inn-yard. The main change is, of course, the substitution for the multiple staging of the Court, with its adjacent regions for different episodes, of a principle of successive staging, by which the whole space became in turn available for each distinct scene. This was an inevitable change, as soon as the Elizabethan love for history and romance broke down the Renaissance doctrine of the unity of place; and it will not be forgotten that the beginnings of it are already clearly discernible in the later Court drama, which of course overlaps with the popular drama, itself. Incidentally the actors got elbow-room; some of the Lylyan scenes must have been very cramped. But they had to put up with a common form setting, capable only of minor modifications, and no doubt their architectural decorations and unvarying curtain were less interesting from the point of view of spectacle, than the diversity of ‘houses’ which the ingenuity and the resources of the Court architects were in a position to produce. In any case, however, economy would probably have forbidden them to enter into rivalry with the Revels Office. Whether the Elizabethan type of public stage was the invention of Burbadge, the ‘first builder of theatres’, or had already come into use in the inn-yards, is perhaps an idle subject for wonder. The only definite guess at its origin is that of Professor Creizenach, who suggests that it may have been adapted from the out-of-door stages, set up from time to time for the dramatic contests held by the Rederijker or Chambers of Rhetoric in Flanders.[323] Certainly there are common features in the division of the field of action into two levels and the use of curtained apertures both below and above. But the latest examples of the Flemish festivals were at Ghent in 1539 and at Antwerp in 1561 respectively; and it would be something of a chance if Burbadge or any other English builder had any detailed knowledge of them.[324]
XXI
STAGING IN THE THEATRES: SEVENTEENTH CENTURY
[For Bibliographical Note, vide ch. xviii.]
The turn of the century is also a turning-point in the history of the public theatres. In 1599 the Chamberlain’s men built the Globe, and in 1600, not to be outdone, the Admiral’s men built upon the same model the Fortune. These remained the head-quarters of the same companies, when at the beginning of the reign of James the one became the King’s and the other the Prince’s men. Worcester’s, afterwards the Queen’s, men were content for a time with the older houses, first the Rose, then the Curtain and the Boar’s Head, but by 1605 or 1606 they were occupying the Red Bull, probably a new building, but one of which we know very little. Meanwhile the earlier Tudor fashion of plays by boys had been revived, both at Paul’s, and at the Blackfriars, where a theatre had been contrived by James Burbadge about 1596 in a chamber of the ancient priory, for the purposes of a public stage.
We cannot on a priori grounds assume that the structural arrangements of the sixteenth-century houses were merely carried into those of the seventeenth century without modification; the experience of twenty-five years’ working may well have disclosed features in the original plan of James Burbadge which were not altogether convenient or which lent themselves to further development. On the other hand, we have not got to take into account the possibility of any fundamental change or sharp breach of continuity. The introduction of a new type of stage, even if it escaped explicit record, would inevitably have left its mark both upon the dramatic construction of plays and upon the wording of their stage-directions. No such mark can be discerned. You cannot tell an early seventeenth-century play from a late sixteenth-century one on this kind of evidence alone; the handling and the conventions, the situations and the spectacular effects, remain broadly the same, and such differences as do gradually become apparent, concern rather the trend of dramatic interest than the external methods of stage-presentation. Moreover, it is evident that the sixteenth-century plays did not pass wholly into disuse. From time to time they were revived, and lent themselves, perhaps with some minor adaptation, to the new boards as well as to the old. In dealing with early seventeenth-century staging, then, I will assume the general continuance of the sixteenth-century plan, and will content myself with giving some further examples of its main features, and with considering any evidence which may seem to point to specific development in one or more particular directions. And on the whole it will be convenient to concentrate now mainly upon the theatres occupied by the King’s men. For this there are various reasons. One is that the possession of Shakespeare’s plays gives them a prerogative interest in modern eyes; another that the repertories of the other companies have hardly reached us in a form which renders any very safe induction feasible.
Even in the case of the King’s men, the material is not very ample, and there are complications which make it necessary to proceed by cautious steps to somewhat tentative conclusions. The Globe was probably opened in the autumn of 1599. The first play which we can definitely locate there is Every Man Out of his Humour; but I have decided with some hesitation to treat Henry V and Much Ado about Nothing, for the purposes of these chapters, as Globe plays.[325] So far as we know, the Globe was the only theatre used by the company up to the winter of 1609, when they also came into possession of the Blackfriars. From 1609 to 1613 they used both houses, but probably the Globe was still the more important of the two, for when it was burnt in 1613 they found it worth while to rebuild it fairer than before. At some time, possibly about the end of James’s reign, the Blackfriars began to come into greater prominence, and gradually displaced the Globe as the main head-quarters of the London drama. This, however, is a development which lies outside the scope of these volumes; nor can I with advantage inquire in detail whether there were any important structural features in which the new Globe is likely to have differed from the old Globe. At the most I can only offer a suggestion for the historian of the Caroline stage to take up in his turn. In the main, therefore, we have to consider the staging of the Globe from 1599 to 1609, and of the Globe and the Blackfriars from 1609 to 1613. The plays available fall into four groups. There are nineteen or twenty printed and probably produced during 1599–1609, of which, however, one or two were originally written for private theatres.[326] There are two produced and printed during 1609–12, and one preserved in manuscript from the same period.[327] There are ten probably produced during 1599–1603, but not printed before 1622 or 1623.[328] There are perhaps nine or ten produced during 1609–13, and printed at various dates from 1619 to 1634.[329] It will be seen that the first group is of much the greatest value evidentially, as well as fortunately the longest, but that it only throws light upon the Globe and not upon the Blackfriars; that the value of the second and fourth groups is discounted by our not knowing how far they reflect Globe and how far Blackfriars conditions; and that the original features of the third and fourth groups may have been modified in revivals, either at the Blackfriars or at the later Globe, before they got into print. I shall use them all, but, I hope, with discrimination.[330] I shall also use, for illustration and confirmation, rather than as direct evidence, plays from other seventeenth-century theatres. The Prince’s men were at the Fortune during the whole of the period with which we are concerned, and then on to and after the fire of 1621, and the reconstruction, possibly on new lines, of 1623. We know that its staging arrangements resembled those of the Globe, for it was provided in the builder’s contract that this should be so, and also that the stage should be ‘placed and sett’ in accordance with ‘a plott thereof drawen’. Alleyn would have saved me a great deal of trouble if he had put away this little piece of paper along with so many others. Unfortunately, the Prince’s men kept their plays very close, and only five or six of our period got into print before 1623.[331] From the Queen’s men we have rather more, perhaps sixteen in all; but we do not always know whether these were given at the Red Bull or the Curtain. Nor do we know whether any structural improvements introduced at the Globe and Fortune were adopted at the Red Bull, although this is a priori not unlikely.[332] From the Swan we have only The Chaste Maid of Cheapside, and from the Hope only Bartholomew Fair.
At the Globe, then, the types of scene presented are much the same as those with which we have become familiar in the sixteenth century; the old categories of open-country scenes, battle scenes, garden scenes, street scenes, threshold scenes, hall scenes, and chamber scenes will still serve. Their relative importance alters, no doubt, as the playwrights tend more and more to concern themselves with subjects of urban life. But there are plenty of battle scenes in certain plays, much on the traditional lines, with marchings and counter-marchings, alarums for fighting ‘within’, and occasional ‘excursions’ on the field of the stage itself.[333] Practicable tents still afford a convenient camp background, and these, I think, continue to be pitched on the open boards.[334] The opposing camps of Richard III are precisely repeated in Henry V.[335] There are episodes before the ‘walls’ too, with defenders speaking from above, assaults by means of scaling ladders, and coming and going through the gates.[336] I find no example in which a wall inserted on the line of the scenic curtain would not meet the needs of the situation. Pastoral scenes are also common, for the urban preoccupation has its regular reaction in the direction of pastoral. There is plenty of evidence for practicable trees, such as that on which Orlando in As You Like It hangs his love verses, and the most likely machinery for putting trees into position still seems to me to be the trap.[337] A trap, too, might bring up the bower for the play within the play of Hamlet, the pleached arbour of Much Ado about Nothing, the pulpit in the forum of Julius Caesar, the tombstone in the woods of Timon of Athens, the wayside cross of Every Man Out of his Humour, and other terrains most easily thought of as free-standing structures.[338] It would open for Ophelia’s grave, and for the still beloved ascents of spirits from the lower regions.[339] It remains difficult to see how a riverbank or the sea-shores was represented.[340] As a rule, the edge of the stage, with steps into the auditorium taken for water stairs, seems most plausible. But there is a complicated episode in The Devil’s Charter, with a conduit and a bridge over the Tiber, which I do not feel quite able to envisage.[341] There is another bridge over the Tiber for Horatius Cocles in the Red Bull play of the Rape of Lucrece. But this is easier; it is projected from the walls of Rome, and there must be a trapped cavity on the scenic line, into which Horatius leaps.[342]