having re-entered immediately after the graveyard scene, never leave the stage until the end of the play. That there may be no mistake as to the imagined location, Hamlet says to Osric, both in Q2. and F., Sir, I will walke heere in the Hall; if it please his Majestie, 'tis the breathing time of day with me; let the Foyles be brought.' Again, in Q2. (though not in F1.) a lord enters and says, 'My Lord, his Majestie commended him to you by young Ostricke, who brings backe to him that you attend him in the hall.... The Kinge, and Queene, and all are comming downe.' Thus Shakespeare seems almost to have gone out of his way to insist that, from the entrance of Hamlet and Horatio onward, the locality remains the same until the end. It may perhaps be suggested that the passage was treated as a split scene,' the 'middle curtain' being closed before the entrance of Hamlet and Horatio, and opened before the entrance of the Court. If we admit the existence of middle and lateral curtains, this is no doubt conceivable; but if alternation were an established principle, why adopt the awkward expedient of a 'split scene'? What more simple than to make the HamletHoratio-Osric passage a separate scene (as on the modern stage) by letting Hamlet and Horatio go off at the end of it and re-enter with, or after, the Court? A very conclusive testimony against that 'middle curtain,' on which the whole alternation theory depends, is to be found in the third and fourth acts of 'A Midsummer-Night's Dream."* In examining this passage we may find, not only negative evidence in regard to the 'middle curtain,' but affimative evidence on another point of crucial importance. At the end of Act III Robin Goodfellow, having led the four lovers 'up and downe, and up and downe' until they are exhausted, leaves them all asleep upon the ground. On his exit there follows (in the Folio) the significant stage-direction, 'They sleepe all the Act'-that is to say, all the interact. At the beginning of 'Actus Quartus,' Enter Queene of Fairies and Clowne, and Fairies, and the King behinde them.' Titania says to Bottom, 'Come sit thee downe upon this . * Even if it be true that A Midsummer-Night's Dream' was written for performance during the marriage festivities of some nobleman, there can be no question that it was acted, and was very popular, on the common stage. flowry bed,' and there follows Bottom's famous colloquy with Pease-blossom, Cobweb, and Mustard-seed, at the end of which Bottom and Titania fall asleep. Oberon and Puck enter; Oberon frees Titania from the charm, awakens her, and goes off with her, Puck removing the ass-mask from Bottom's shoulders and leaving him asleep upon the 'flowry bed.' At the exit of Oberon, Titania, and Puck, that there may be no doubt as to the position of matters, there is a special stage-direction, 'Sleepers lye still.' Then, Winde Hornes. Enter Theseus, Egeus, Hippolita and all his traine.' After the exquisite passage about the hounds of Sparta,' Theseus catches sight of the sleeping lovers. But, soft, what nimphs are these? ... Goe, bid the huntsmen wake them with their hornes.' Then follows the curious stage direction, Hornes, and they wake. Shout within: they all start up.' These stage-directions place it beyond doubt that from the moment the lovers sank down in sleep until they were awakened by the horns, they remained in full view of the audience, and that even through an interact.* If there was a 'middle curtain' by which at least half the stage could be concealed, what possible motive could there be for keeping them thus exposed to view? But now we have to ask: what has become of Bottom all this time? At line 107 he has been left sleeping on the 'flowry bed'; then follows the whole long scene between Theseus, Hippolyta, Egeus, and the four lovers; and they all go off at line 204 without having taken the slightest notice of him. Then 'Bottome wakes,' speaks his soliloquy, and 'Exit.' Can we suppose him to have been all the time on the open stage? For light on this point let us look a little farther back. In Actus Secundus (modern editions, Act II, Sc. 2), the fairies having sung Titania asleep, Oberon enters, squeezes the magic juice into her eyes, and goes off. Then ensues a scene of about 120 lines between the four lovers, with Puck mischievously intervening, which brings the act to a close; no one (not even Puck) showing the slightest consciousness of the At private theatres, such as the Blackfriars, there was certainly music between the acts. A passage in Webster's Induction to Marston's 'Malcontent' renders it doubtful whether this custom was 'received' at the public theatres. The wording of the above-quoted stage-direction, however, makes it clear that some sort of pause between the acts was contemplated. presence of Titania. Actus Tertius' begins Enter the Clownes'; and they, with Puck again intervening, have an animated scene of 130 lines before Bottom's song arouses Titania, and she says, 'What Angell wakes me from my flowry bed?' Is it conceivable that she, on her 'property' bank, lay on the open stage during two long scenes, while the actors all sedulously made believe to be unconscious of her? Or is it conceivable that the middle and lateral curtains were closed at Oberon's exit, and that the two long and complicated scenes in question were played on the front stage? Neither of these alternatives is credible. We must suppose Titania's 'flowry bed' to have been placed in some recess which could probably be concealed by curtains, or at any rate could, with reasonable plausibility, be ignored by the actors, who would naturally turn their backs to it. In the same recess the same 'flowry bed' would be placed in Act IV, and there Bottom would slumber peacefully while Theseus was awakening the lovers, and their cross-purposes were being evened out. For our part, we have little doubt that the recess was actually curtained off during the unseen sleep of Titania in Acts II and III, and of Bottom in Act IV. How notably would the comic effect be enhanced if Bottom put his head through the curtains at the line 6 When my cue comes, call me, and I will answer'! Of the existence and frequent use of such a recess there is an overwhelming mass of evidence. It is possible of course to affirm it without denying the middle curtain'; both may conceivably have been employed. But to attempt, like Dr Brodmeier, to operate without any recess, or, in other words, without what we shall henceforth call a Rear Stage (see illustration facing p. 462), is to plunge into a maze of difficulties and impossibilities. This is very clearly illustrated by Dr Richard Wegener in his book on 'Die Bühneneinrichtung des Shakespeareschen Theaters,' which is the most careful and important study of the subject yet published. While Dr Brodmeier confines his examination almost entirely to Shakespeare, Dr Wegener alludes to Shakespeare only incidentally, and goes for the main body of his evidence to the other Elizabethans. He sums up entirely against the 'middle curtain,' so far as the 'public' theatres are concerned, but he thinks that at the 'private' theatres such a curtain was occasionally used for convenience in clearing the stage of properties. He adduces no proof of this distinction, which seems to us highly improbable; but the point need not be here discussed. Any systematic alternation of Vorder-' and 'Hinterbühne' scenes Dr Wegener shows to be out of the question. On the subject of the Rear Stage he is quite convincing. 'An assumption' (he says) is more than a hypothesis when it enables us to explain the whole body of phenomena simply and without inconsistency. It then becomes a truth, a fully established item of knowledge. Remove the Rear Stage* and there is scarcely a popular play whose staging does not become an insoluble riddle. But if we postulate this stage-region, everything explains itself in the simplest fashion, and the poets' design and course of thought become clear and transparent. The popular dramatists of that time, Shakespeare not excepted, had in their mind's eye, at the back of the main stage, a smaller space, or Rear Stage; otherwise the unanimity would be incomprehensible with which all poets included in their compositions scenes which cannot be placed elsewhere than in such a stage-region.' Dr Wegener† slightly exaggerates the universal validity of the Rear Stage hypothesis. It solves an immense number of apparent difficulties; but there remains a residue of problems which it leaves obscure. The existence of such a stage-region, however, may be taken as admitted, even by the more moderate 'alternationists.' Dr Brodmeier is almost the only student of the subject who ignores or denies it. It is noteworthy, with regard to this Rear Stage, that the evidence for it runs through the whole Elizabethan drama from its very beginnings. One would not have been surprised to find it a comparatively late refinement; * Dr Wegener calls it 'Unterbühne,' in contradistinction to the 'Oberbühne,' the gallery at the back of the stage. † Dr Wegener, in his otherwise careful and accurate book, more than once accepts as authoritative the garbled stage-directions of modern editors. In one or two cases, moreover, his argument shows a faulty understanding of his English texts. We would specially urge him to reconsider the suggestion (p. 109) that when Slitgut, in Eastward Hoe,' climbed the 'famous tree' at Cuckold's Haven, the actor swarmed up a mast specially erected against the side of the Globe Theatre, and had actually before his eyes the river scene which he described. The fact that Eastward Hoe' is not stated to have been played at the Globe, but at the Blackfriars, is the smallest objection to this theory. |