Shakespeare

The drama of the Globe, then, was largely built upon a succession of scenes. The sequence of scenes conforms to the English love of interdependent units, a series of variations upon a theme that encourages variety rather than concentration and heterogeneity rather than intensity. That is why a new entrance was always significant, and why it is heavily emphasised in the stage-directions. “Enter Cassandra with her hair aboute her eares … Enter a Troian in his night-gowne all vnready … Enter Godfrey as newly landed amp; halfe naked … Enter Charles all wet with his sword … Enter Er-cole with a letter …” These were defining moments in the creation of a scene. They represented purpose and character, setting in motion the subsequent action. The presence of the actor, what was known as “the ability of body,” was the paramount element of the dramatic entertainment. It is also possible that the player sometimes made his entry from the yard, perhaps from one of the entrances to the theatre, and then vaulted onto the stage.

The actor would come forward, and then deliver his lines to the audience. He did not enter a particular location; he entered in order to address or confront another actor. Speakers were also separated from non-speakers in the dramatic space. There were set patterns for scenes of greeting and of parting; there were stage conventions for kneeling and embracing. There were no doubt also accepted theatrical codes for asides and soliloquies, perhaps a particular placing of the body on stage. At the close of the performance the highest-ranking character left on stage delivered the final lines. The audience loved processions and marches and dumb-shows; it loved colour and display. There is a large element of ceremony or ritual about this theatre, in other words, which remained an important part in its staging.

It was a general setting, a blank space that actor and playwright could manipulate with perfect imaginative freedom. It has been suggested by some theatrical historians that place cards were set up to inform the audience of a particular setting, but this is perhaps too prescriptive. It was enough for the actor to announce his location. And of course the nature of the costumes also determined the nature of place. The green garment of a forester would signify a wood, a set of gaoler’s keys a prison. Costume was a most important theatrical device. In a visual culture it was the key to all levels of society and all forms of occupation. Elizabethan actors, and audiences, also delighted in disguise as a plot device. More was spent on costumes than on texts or actors’ salaries, and the inventory of the company wardrobe includes robes, cloaks, jerkins, doublets, breeches, tunics and nightshirts. And of course there was always a need for armour. In one of his inventories Henslowe also lists a range of more exotic costumes – a suit for a ghost and a senator’s gown, a coat for Herod as well as apparel for a devil and a witch. A good wardrobe master kept cast-offs and oddments of clothes, and there is reason to believe that the companies were sometimes given the remnants of a nobleman’s wardrobe of worn-out clothes and garments that had gone out of fashion. Clothing also determined the identity of the character. There were conventional costumes for the Jew and the Italian, the doctor and the merchant. A canvas suit indicated a sailor, and a blue coat was the token of a servant. Virgins wore white, and doctors were dressed in scarlet gowns. The female characters sometimes wore masks, as an overtly theatrical way of disguising their fundamentally male identity. In that sense the Elizabethan theatre has affiliations with classical Greek and Japanese drama.

There was no scenery as such, but on occasions painted cloths were used. In Henslowe’s theatrical accounts there is a description of “a clothe of the Sone amp; Moone.” They were not naturalistic, but were designed to convey an atmosphere or to suggest a theme. When romances were to be played, for example, there were cloths painted with cupids. When tragedies were to be performed, the stage was hung in black draperies.