And Kidderminster did the stage adorn.
Graves, 78, suggests pictorial ‘painted cloths’ for backgrounds.
[428] ‘Scenes’ were used in the public performances of Nabbes’s Microcosmus (1637), Suckling’s Aglaura (1637), and Habington’s Queen of Arragon (1640); cf. Lawrence, ii. 121 (The Origin of the English Picture-Stage); W. G. Keith, The Designs for the First Movable Scenery on the English Stage (Burlington Magazine, xxv. 29, 85).
[429] For Paul’s, C. and C. Errant (after each act), ‘Here they knockt up the Consort’; Faery Pastorall; Trick to Catch the Old One (after I and II), ‘music’; What You Will, II. ii. 235 ‘So ends our chat;—sound music for the act’; for Blackfriars, Gentleman Usher, III. i. 1, ‘after the song’; Sophonisba (after I), ‘the cornets and organs playing loud full music for the act’, (II) ‘Organ mixt with recorders, for this act’, (III) ‘Organs, viols and voices play for this act’, (IV) ‘A base lute and a treble violl play for the act’, with which should be read the note at the end of Q1, ‘let me intreat my reader not to taxe me for the fashion of the entrances and musique of this tragedy, for know it is printed only as it was presented by youths and after the fashion of the private stage’; K. B. P. (after I), ‘Boy danceth. Musicke. Finis Actus primi’, (II) ‘Musicke. Finis Actus secundi’, (III) ‘Finis Actus tertii. Musicke. Actus quartus, scoena prima. Boy daunceth’, (IV) Ralph’s May Day speech; cf. infra and vol. ii, p. 557. I do not find any similar recognition of the scene as a structural element in the play to be introduced by music; in 1 Antonio and Mellida, III. ii. 120, the s.d. ‘and so the Scene begins’ only introduces a new scene in the sense of a regrouping of speakers (cf. p. 200).
[430] For Paul’s, Histriomastix, III. i. 1, ‘Enter Pride, Vaine-Glory, Hypocrisie, and Contempt: Pride casts a mist, wherein Mavortius and his company [who ended II] vanish off the Stage, and Pride and her attendants remaine’, (after III) ‘They all awake, and begin the following Acte’, (after V) ‘Allarmes in severall places, that brake him off thus: after a retreat sounded, the Musicke playes and Poverty enters’; 2 Antonio and Mellida, III. i. 1, ‘A dumb show. The cornets sounding for the Act’, (after IV) ‘The cornets sound for the act. The dumb show’; What You Will, III. i. 1, ‘Enter Francisco ... They clothe Francisco whilst Bidet creeps in and observes them. Much of this done whilst the Act is playing’; Phoenix (after II), ‘Towards the close of the musick the justices three men prepare for a robberie’; for Blackfriars, Malcontent, II. i. 1, ‘Enter Mendoza with a sconce, to observe Ferneze’s entrance, who, whilst the act is playing, enters unbraced, two Pages before him with lights; is met by Maquerelle and conveyed in; the Pages are sent away’; Fawn, V. i. 1, ‘Whilst the Act is a-playing, Hercules and Tiberio enters; Tiberio climbs the tree, and is received above by Dulcimel, Philocalia, and a Priest; Hercules stays beneath’. The phrase ‘whilst the act is playing’ is a natural development from ‘for the act’, i. e. ‘in preparation for the act’, used also for the elaborate music which at private houses replaced the three preliminary trumpet ‘soundings’ of the public houses; cf. What You Will, ind. 1 (s.d.), ‘Before the music sounds for the Act’, and 1 Antonio and Mellida, ind. 1, ‘The music will sound straight for entrance’. But it leads to a vagueness of thought in which the interval itself is regarded as the ‘act’; cf. the M. N. D. s.d. of F1, quoted p. 124, n. 3, with Middleton, The Changeling (1653), III. i. 1, ‘In the act-time De Flores hides a naked rapier behind a door’, and Cotgrave, Dict. (1611), ‘Acte ... also, an Act, or Pause in a Comedie, or Tragedie’.
[431] For Paul’s, Histriomastix, i. 163, ‘Enter Fourcher, Voucher, Velure, Lyon-Rash ... two and two at severall doores’; v. 103, ‘Enter ... on one side ... on the other’; v. 192, ‘Enter ... at one end of the stage: at the other end enter ...’; vi. 41, ‘Enter Mavortius and Philarchus at severall doores’; vi. 241, ‘Enter ... at the one doore. At the other ...’; 1 Antonio and Mellida, iv. 220 (marsh scene), ‘Enter ... at one door; ... at another door’; 2 Antonio and Mellida, v. 1, ‘Enter at one door ... at the other door’; Maid’s Metamorphosis, II. ii. 1 (wood scene), ‘Enter at one door ... at the other doore, ... in the midst’; III. ii. 1 (wood scene), ‘Enter ... at three severall doores’; Faery Pastoral, III. vi, ‘Mercury entering by the midde doore wafted them back by the doore they came in’; IV. viii, ‘They enterd at severall doores, Learchus at the midde doore’; Puritan, I. iv. 1 (prison scene), ‘Enter ... at one dore, and ... at the other’, &c.; for Blackfriars, Sir G. Goosecap, IV. ii. 140, ‘Enter Jack and Will on the other side’; Malcontent, V. ii. 1, ‘Enter from opposite sides’; E. Ho!, I. i. 1, ‘Enter ... at severall dores ... At the middle dore, enter ...’; Sophonisba, prol., ‘Enter at one door ... at the other door’; May Day, II. i. 1, ‘Enter ... several ways’; Your Five Gallants, I. ii. 27, ‘Enter ... at the farther door’, &c.
[432] For Paul’s, 2 Antonio and Mellida, IV. ii. 87, ‘They strike the stage with their daggers, and the grave openeth’; V. i. 1, ‘Balurdo from under the Stage’; Aphrodysial (quoted Reynolds, i. 26), ‘A Trap door in the middle of the stage’; Bussy d’Ambois, II. ii. 177, ‘The Vault opens’ ... ‘ascendit Frier and D’Ambois’ ... ‘Descendit Fryar’ (cf. III. i; IV. ii; V. i, iii, iv); for Blackfriars, Poetaster (F1) prol. 1, ‘Envie. Arising in the midst of the stage’; Case is Altered, III. ii, ‘Digs a hole in the ground’; Sophonisba, III. i. 201, ‘She descends after Sophonisba’ ... (207) ‘Descends through the vault’; V. i. 41, ‘Out of the altar the ghost of Asdrubal ariseth’.
[433] Widow’s Tears (Blackfriars), III. ii. 82, ‘Hymen descends, and six Sylvans enter beneath, with torches’; this is in a mask, and Cupid may have descended from a pageant. When a ‘state’ or throne is used (e.g. Satiromastix, 2309, ‘Soft musicke, Chaire is set under a Canopie’), there is no indication that it descends. In Satiromastix, 2147, we get ‘O thou standst well, thou lean’st against a poast’, but this is obviously inadequate evidence for a heavens supported by posts at Paul’s.
[434] C. and C. Errant, V. ix, ‘He tooke the Bolle from behind the Arras’; Faery Pastoral, V. iv (wood scene), ‘He tooke from behind the Arras a Peck of goodly Acornes pilld’; What You Will, ind. 97, ‘Let’s place ourselves within the curtains, for good faith the stage is so very little, we shall wrong the general eye else very much’; Northward Ho!, IV. i, ‘Lie you in ambush, behind the hangings, and perhaps you shall hear the piece of a comedy’. In C. and C. Errant, V. viii. 1, the two actors left on the stage at the end of V. vii were joined by a troop from the inn, and yet others coming ‘easily after them and stealingly, so as the whole Scene was insensibly and suddenly brought about in Catastrophe of the Comoedy. And the whole face of the Scene suddenly altered’. I think that Percy is only trying to describe the change from a nearly empty to a crowded stage, not a piece of scene-shifting.
[435] Cynthia’s Revels (Q), ind. 149, ‘Slid the Boy takes me for a peice of Prospective (I holde my life) or some silke Curtine, come to hang the Stage here: Sir Cracke I am none of your fresh Pictures, that use to beautifie the decay’d dead Arras, in a publique Theater’; K. B. P. II. 580, ‘Wife. What story is that painted upon the cloth? the confutation of Saint Paul? Citizen. No lambe, that Ralph and Lucrece’. In Law Tricks, III. i, Emilia bids Lurdo ‘Behind the Arras; scape behind the Arras’. Polymetes enters, praises the ‘verie faire hangings’ representing Venus and Adonis, makes a pass at Vulcan, and notices how the arras trembles and groans. Then comes the s.d. (which has got in error into Bullen’s text, p. 42) ‘Discouer Lurdo behind the Arras’, and Emilia carries it off by pretending that it is only Lurdo’s picture.