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Elements of the Shakespearean Stage
From: Cambridge University Press
| By:
C. Walter Hodges |
EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION |
Images of the Elizabethan stage are exceptionally rare. To compensate, the illustrator and scholar C. Walter Hodges
 has devoted a long career to reconstructing images of the Shakespearean stage on the basis of the plays themselves and contemporary accounts. A lifetime's work on this subject is brought together in his book Enter the Whole Army, which is illustrated with his elegant drawings. Here he outlines the fundamental components of the Elizabethan theatre. |
 n the late fifteen-eighties, when the Rose theatre was being built, Shakespeare was already an established playwright: and a few years later he had joined the very successful Burbage company, the Chamberlain's Men, with whom he quickly became a shareholding partner. He had entered the theatre at just the time when the player companies were furnishing themselves with a luxury of professional aids and amenities they could never have enjoyed nor planned ahead for in their former peripatetic way of life. |
If it is true, as Edmund Malone conjectured, that they had customarily made use of whatever convenient building features they had found to hand at the local inns or wherever else their stages were set up, they could now borrow and standardise the best of these into a composed or adaptable background, which they and their writers could henceforth take for granted in the preparation of their plays. |
It would be surprising if, while they were about it, a valued and energetic writer could not have suggested the advantage of a window here or another door there, or a little more space in there at the back. The companies, while enlarging their scope and style, could now invest money on dressing their stages to suit the taste of the time and of the educated gentry who had become an important part of their audience. |
With all this there was created an entirely unique form of staging, which belonged to the Elizabethan theatre alone. Its great plays have since its own time been adapted into the style of every other form of the theatrical arts all over the world. But as itself, having flowered for hardly the space of one human lifetime, it withered away in a sudden change of climate. It was demolished and never restored. What came later to take its place was something very different. So the theatre Shakespeare knew and worked for remains unique in history, a singular phenomenon. |
Verse and movement
As a form of art it was composed out of three conventions, all derived from the original necessary techniques of the travelling play-companies. (It should perhaps be remembered here that this condition did not end with the founding of the London playhouses. Many companies continued to go out on the road, as, in times of plague in London, when the theatres were closed by law, they all had to do.) |
The first of their conventional techniques was indeed the most ancient of all dramatic forms, that of speaking in verse. Poetry itself has been defined as "memorable speech." Dramatic verse is a compact expression of character and emotion, designed not only to have a memorable effect upon its hearers, but to be memorised easily by the speaker. |
Thus, with only the instrument of a trained voice, anyone, even young children, having learned their verses (as all professional actors, to this day, talk about "their lines") could carry about in their heads their parts in elaborate stories, ready-made with complex emotions usually far beyond the actor's own experience. He might be able to add colour to it according to his skill; but even without that the verse could stand up by itself and work; and, above all, it was "portable." |
The second convention was a set of guidelines for the posture and movement of actors or groups of actors upon the stage, quickly adaptable and mutually understood, to take the place of elaborate rehearsals. Techniques of "production" as we understand that today, could scarcely have existed. A company would always have on hand a fairly wide repertoire of new and old plays, any of which might be called for at short notice, with very limited time for preparation; but so long as everyone understood the general guidelines of stage practice all would go well. |
However, with the establishment of permanent theatres, their enlarged stages being backed with upper galleries and windows and sometimes in addition by a curtained-off "place behind the stage" for the preparation of furniture or special effects, and with increasing room on the stage for the assembly of greater numbers of actors all together, the range of necessary working guidelines themselves had to become more elaborate and controlled. So a system of stage management began to evolve. |
The large open stage began to develop its own areas of greater or lesser dominance, and directional movements around or over it began to have special distinctions of their own. References to this sort of stage management may be found embalmed in the texts of all Elizabethan plays either directly as stage-directions, or implicitly in the dialogue, though in that case they are often difficult to interpret. |
"Where's Potpan, that he helps not to take away?" is all that is needed to indicate the hurry and bustle of the Capulets' servants clearing away the banquet in Romeo and Juliet; but "Look out o' the other side your monument," at a very dramatic moment in the last act of Antony and Cleopatra, is by itself impossible to understand, and even with an explanation is not indisputable. |
Such references to stage management are interwoven everywhere throughout the fabric of Shakespeare's plays, and they form a trail of clues which if properly followed should help us to unravel the working methods of his stagecraft, which until Malone's day, and even after, had baffled the imagination of his literary editors. |
Indeed it was not until the twentieth century, with the establishment of comparative theatrical history as an organised study in itself, separate from dramatic literature or the memoirs of old actors, that the material and historical perspective existed, by which it could be done. |
The stage and the tiring-house
Of the three formative conventions of the Shakespearean theatre, the third and most outstanding is simply the physical form of the stage itself and the attached features of its tiring-house. It should be understood that all of this, especially the tiring-house and the details of its frontage on the stage, was entirely composed of useful acting areas put together to form an architectural unit. And here we should note another contribution of the twentieth century to these studies: we now have a widely developed knowledge of comparative art and cultural history in all its forms, both refined and popular, which previous generations had not the means to enjoy. |
In popular terms we can now visualise the frontage of a theatrical tiring-house as built and decorated in a robust vernacular style. Or, in a more refined mode we may liken a play by Shakespeare to a work in music; say, a kind of dramatic oratorio with the soloists as actors, or as an early baroque opera in the style of Monteverdi. Thus we may imagine the stage itself, and its surroundings, as a sort of grand baroque organ-case, composed of the music, the instrument and its frame, all together. |
So at this point we may pause to examine the principal features of which this "organ-case" frame is composed, making up the usual requirements of a typical Shakespearean playhouse. I give them here not as a list, nor as in any particular theatre, but as a schematic diagram. The items shown are all common, well-attested by reference to Elizabethan stage-literature, and mostly of frequent use. |
Item 1 is simply the acting area, which may be a theatre stage, or the floor of a great hall in a mansion or a college; in either case the audience (2) will usually surround it on three sides, and some may find occasion to sit on the stage area itself. There has to be, close at hand, usually at the back (3), a closed-off tiring-house space, where the actors prepare themselves, having at least two doors (4) giving access to or from the stage. These doors have to be fairly large, to allow the passage of big items of furniture: the thrusting-out of beds (as shown here) is frequently referred to. (There may be more doors than two: the diagram indicates four as possible.) |
Perhaps the most characteristic feature of all, belonging in theatre history as a dramatic fixture to the Elizabethan theatres alone, is a permanent upper-stage (5) which is usually reached by stairs within the tiring-house, but sometimes (though not shown here) from the stage itself. Associated with this upper-stage are various windows (6), and there is evidence that these sometimes had curtains. Sometimes at the front of the upper-stage there would be a balustrade or handrail, and because privileged spectators frequently sat at this position to watch the play it is given the number (2), as for the audience below. |
Item 7 is a column or post, this one only symbolic of several which stood about the stage to support the galleries or the roof. (Two very large ones are shown in the de Witt/ van Buchal drawing.) Item 8, a curtain, is shown here attached to nothing because, although there must have been one (or a pair), its position is optional or disputable. Certainly the most likely place would be central, between the two main doors of the tiring-house front, where they would close a large opening sometimes referred to as a "discovery," wherein prepared set-pieces could be revealed or thrust forward onto the stage. (Behind such a curtain Ferdinand and Miranda in The Tempest are "discovered" playing at chess.) |
The numbers 9a and 9b represent trap openings in the stage allowing for the ever-popular effect of ghosts or devils coming up out of the earth: 9a is a grave-trap, as used for Ophelia's funeral in Hamlet. Lastly, 10 represents in diagrammatic form the splendid effects of divinities coming down from The Heavens (above the roof over the stage) throned on painted clouds, to startle heroes on the stage and reward the expectations of the audience. |
It was a very popular effect, although, according to report, not much to Shakespeare's taste, and some of the scenes where from the texts it seems to occur in his plays--such as the scene of Hecate visiting the witches, in Macbeth (3.5)--are thought to have been written in by another hand. |
The "wooden O"
The items shown thus in my diagram have now to be brought together within the "wooden O" frame of an Elizabethan playhouse. Until a few years ago it would have been reasonable, even proper, to name it as the Globe; but since 1989, when archaeologists from the Museum of London, digging on Bankside, discovered the actual foundations of the Rose theatre, and then partly of the Globe itself, it may be better now not to be so specific with names. |
Many of my drawings were made before the actualities on Bankside came to light, bringing new and unexpected facts. It would still have been reasonable, before then, to draw a "typical" public playhouse and call it the Globe, with another similar one called the Rose; but now we know that these two theatres were very different from each other, in size alone if in no other way. |
Note, then, my drawings herein for Shakespeare's dramatic trilogy of King Henry VI. I had reconstructed the staging of its first two parts for a theatre which I had designed conventionally as suitable for a "typical playhouse," or the Globe if necessary. Then, at that point, the Rose theatre was excavated, revealing the foundations of the very stage upon which one or more of the three Henry the Sixth plays had actually first been shown. It was in fact a small stage in a small theatre. |
So my next drawing, for the first scene of the third play of the trilogy, shown as upon a stage of the real proportions, may now be compared with the glamorous amplitude of my reconstructions for part one and it gives rise to some sobering reflections. Nevertheless, though the glamour may be gone the principle of staging is the same, and I can claim that the difference illustrates a variability of resourceful treatment which was required in transporting a play from one playing-place to another. |
It should be remembered that most Elizabethan plays were thus transportable, as for example with Shakespeare's own company in their most successful days as the King's Men, in King James' time, moving between their indoor candle-lit Blackfriars theatre, and their open-air daylit Globe, across the river. |
Dimensions and decoration of the stage
Meanwhile, for reference, I reproduce here my working diagram of a Shakespearean stage which may, if you will, be taken for the one at the Globe. I used it as a guide to maintain a general consistency in the drawings of staging which are to follow, although in most of these I have allowed it to take on a variety of different styles in decorative treatment. |
It is basically a conservative picture, taking its form, overall, from that established by the Swan drawing. Its dimensions are related to those of the Fortune Theatre, as given in the builder's contract. Its "upper-stage" gallery, with its floor nine feet six inches above the lower stage, is within inches of Malone's own original conjecture. The row of windows in the gallery differ from those at the Swan only in that I have made nine of them instead of eight, and that they are round-headed. |
In the facade I have added four strong vertical posts to carry the main weight of the stage roof and the over-stage hut. Beyond that I have added a central opening onto the stage between the doors. As previously stated, most theatres seem to have been provided with something of the sort. The fact that the Swan does not show it is sometimes explained by the suggestion that when de Witt (the original "sketcher" of the drawing) made his visit, the opening was somehow covered over and not seen by him. |
That may just be acceptable. What is not acceptable at all, however, is the featureless blankness of the whole main part of the facade as shown therein. In whatever way that was built, whether with infilled timber framing, or boards, or plaster, or canvas, it must somehow have been decorated, even if only painted all over with one flat colour; and if to that is added a second colour for door and window frames, a decorative scheme has already emerged; and beyond that, de Witt in his note with the Swan drawing states that parts of the theatre were painted to look like marble. |
I have taken that as licence to design the facade in a timber-framed "classical" style, with turned posts between the windows, and mouldings and other details to give a modestly baroque flourish. The window at the centre of the gallery has a removable balustrade, making a walk-through opening for access to a front platform formed by the top of a small porch which, hung around with curtains, could give an additional facility to the "place behind the stage." This addition, which could be removable, is not shown in the diagram, but may be seen in some of the drawings hereafter. |
The "upper-stage" as shown in the diagram under discussion here is fronted, as was that of the Swan theatre, with a row of windows, as if suitable for an upper room (or rooms). Henslowe records money spent for attentions to "the rome over the tyerhowsse." This might of course be used by parties of gentlemen, as in the boxes of later-style theatres, or sometimes by musicians. |
Also to be seen in a number of my drawings are suggestions of scenic painting, especially a traditional technique for representing the masonry of stone walls, as well as pillars painted on the flat, and some elaborate
"mannerist" ornamentation around the doorways, which I imagine was executed in a popular, painting-trade style. |
To end these matters of style and practicality, a point should here be made about those two great posts standing out upon the stage, which first appeared with the publication of the Swan drawing, and have remained a significant feature of the image of an Elizabethan theatre ever since. Their authenticity has now been confirmed by the new evidence of the Rose excavation, where the bases of two such posts have been found not in the middle of the stage but actually at the forward edge of it. |
The posts are, of course, supporters for the stage roof and superstructure, but they raise a question of the spectators' view of the stage. What happens, for example, during a tense scene in a play, when an actor disappears momentarily from view, behind one of these obstructions? Together with this we have also to remember the auditorium galleries, which were fronted all the way round with supportive posts which must have blocked the sightlines from many of the gallery positions occupied by better-class patrons who had paid extra money for the comfort of a seat and a good view: what of that? |
The question arises only because of our modern--or at least more recent--way of theatre-going, for which seats and sightlines are a primary consideration: and the answer is simpler than we may think. If an Elizabethan at a public playhouse found a post or pillar in his way, he simply moved himself along. We at a modern theatre buy at the box-office a numbered ticket for a seat in a fixed position in the house. |
The Elizabethan putting his money into the gatherer's box at the door gained admission not to any single seat but to a whole area, where he might go as he pleased. If he arrived early he might choose himself a good general position and stay there. If he arrived later and the house was more crowded than expected he might find himself in the back parts of his gallery, with posts in his way. In that case he would very likely move about during the performance, standing a little, sitting a little, where he could. |
In the yard, where it was standing for everyone, all the time, he would doubtless move around a great deal, edging his way into more advantageous positions as other people themselves moved away. Of course for occasions of great success, with a very crowded theatre, this would be less possible. But it would rarely be not possible at all. |
We should imagine the whole audience at one of Shakespeare's plays at the Globe, always a little shifting, a little on the move, coming and going. But at those moments now and again when all was hushed and tense and there was no movement in the audience at all, those at last were the great moments they had paid for. That was why they went there. |
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