vi. In the first of these scenes Ross and an old man comment on

the unnatural state of the world, then Macduff brings them news of Duncan’s burial and Macbeth’s election to the throne. In the second scene, Lennox and a gentleman comment upon the web of tyranny and the hope that lies in England with Malcolm. Aside from the section containing Macduff’s news, neither of these scenes contributes to the flow of the narrative. Rather they are comments upon the action and essentially perform a choral function.

That these two types of scenes are present in Elizabethan plays has long been recognized. Some scholars, such as V. E. Albright, E. K. Chambers, and J. C. Adams, have tended to divide all scenes of a play into one or the other type, the localized, usually interior and more or less realistic, the unlocalized, exterior, neutral, and somewhat less realistic. This division, according to Albright, derives from the _sedes_ and _platea_ of the medieval stage.[2] What had been physically separate areas earlier became united on one stage in the Tudor period. But, the argument runs, the Elizabethan dramatists continued to juxtapose the two types of scenes, stringing them in a more or less alternating order along the thread of narrative.

To what extent can this dichotomy be supported by the evidence from the Globe? Naturally there is no sharp distinction between these two types of localization. The differentiation depends upon the sequence a scene assumes in the narrative. Consequently, there are scenes which clearly fit into one or the other category. But even if all the localized and unlocalized scenes are counted, the total amounts to only 136. Since there are 345 scenes in my enumeration of the fifteen Shakespearean Globe plays, 209 remain to be accounted for.[3]

Is it true, as William Archer, Harley Granville-Barker, and George F. Reynolds have pointed out, that much localization was vague, that place faded elusively like a mirage before a traveler, and that often the Elizabethans treated the stage as stage? “Scene after scene,” asserts Granville-Barker, “might pass with the actors moving to all intents merely in the ambit of the play’s story and of their own emotions: unless, the spell broken, they were suddenly and incongruously seen to be upon a stage.”[4] Many a scene gives just such an impression, and yet, in almost every scene that is not unlocalized, the characters do not actually act in a dislocated void but are known to be in some more or less specific region. Even when attention is directly called to the stage-as-stage, stage-as-fictional-world still remains. In such moments the audience experiences a double image.

It is a commonplace that the public stages of the Elizabethan period contained “Asia of the one side, and Affricke of the other.” Though contemptuous in intent, in effect this phrase of Sidney’s isolates one of the characteristics of Elizabethan scene setting. Perhaps, as some scholars have thought, the Elizabethans utilized place cards to inform the audience of the general location of a scene. But whether they did or not, they were in the habit of specifying a place at large but not a particular section of it. In such cases the stage stands for rather than represents the fictional locale, the confines of which cannot be reasonably encompassed within the limits of the stage. In this type of locale, placement is general rather than precise--for example, the city of Troy in _Troilus and Cressida_, not a particular part of it. Rome as a whole rather than some portion of it is often the setting in _Coriolanus_ (I, i; IV, ii; IV, vi). Free movement within such a locale occurs readily as in _Julius Caesar_ (III, i), where action takes place first in the street and then in the Capitol. Sequences of action which would be incongruous in a localized setting assume dramatic power in a generalized setting. In the very same place, Othello’s castle, occur the private conflict of Othello and Desdemona and the public encounter of Cassio and Bianca (III, iv). Actually, in this type of setting, dramatic impact proceeds from the general rather than the specific nature of the locale. Without a doubt we know when the scene is Rome and when Egypt in _Antony and Cleopatra_. Dramatically that is all we need to know. To endeavor to isolate the whereabouts of Octavius’ meeting with Antony (II, ii) would reduce the stature of that meeting. All of Rome is their stage just as in medieval practice all of paradise might be the setting for Adam and Eve. Among the 345 scenes of Shakespeare’s Globe plays, 142 are clearly of this sort and 67 tend toward this sort, accounting together for fully 60 per cent of the scenes.

A. H. Thorndike described three types of localization too: the definitely localized, the vaguely localized, and the unlocalized.[5] At first my analysis may seem to repeat his. However, there is a fundamental difference. The generalized locale is not vague; it is extensive, it is symbolic, and dramatically it is concrete. The audience is not expected to identify the stage with a particular location but to understand that it functions as a token of Troy or the Danish palace or the Forest of Arden. Regularly editors have been reducing the generalized location to a localized setting congruent with realistic dimensions. This practice merely betrays the scope of Elizabethan drama. The real distinction between scene _loci_ was not, as others have assumed, a separation of interior from exterior or realistic from conventional but a gradation from the unlocalized through the generalized to the localized setting.

Before investigating whether or not the Globe stage utilized stage decor to set these scenes, it is advisable to consider to what degree and by what methods location was conveyed by the playwright himself. It might be well to state at the outset that in extremely few cases is place projected through properties or other decor. Of all the scenes in Shakespeare’s Globe plays I count only seventeen in which this occurs, a mere 5 per cent. The most frequently recurring methods used by Shakespeare to indicate location are by announcement: a character tells us where he is (“This is the forest of Arden,” _As You Like It_, II, iv); by foreshadowing a location: a character in one scene tells us where he or others will be next (“To the Monument,” _Antony and Cleopatra_, IV, xiv); and by identifying a character with a place (early in _All’s Well_, the Countess becomes identified with Rossillion; whenever she appears thereafter, the scene, we know, is Rossillion). Some of these methods are used in combination. For example, we learn in the second scene of _Othello_ that the Duke is in council, to whose presence Othello, Brabantio, and others are summoned. This is foreshadowing. In the next scene when we see a meeting in progress between the Duke and Senators, we can guess we are at the council, and when Othello and Brabantio enter shortly, we are sure of it. Of course, there are other methods employed to indicate place, but these three are the principal ones. Announcements help to locate 129 of the scenes (37.3 per cent), presence of characters, 128 of the scenes (37.1 per cent), and foreshadowing, 61 of the scenes (17.7 per cent).

Though the chorus is used only occasionally to indicate place, it tells us most about Elizabethan playwrights’ attitudes toward setting the scenes. Fortunately, the Globe plays include two examples of this technique, one from the beginning and one from the end of the decade. In _Every Man Out of His Humour_ Ben Jonson introduces three choral figures, Asper, Mitis, and Cordatus. At the end of the induction Asper leaves the stage to assume the role of Macilente; Mitis and Cordatus remain to comment upon the action. Cordatus, who knows the play, is able to inform Mitis where the action takes place. For some scenes he indicates a generalized locale. “The Scene is the country still,” he remarks to Mitis (Chorus to II, i) or “Onely transferre your thoughts to the city, with the Scene; where, suppose they speake” (Chorus to II, iv). Sometimes he is more specific. Upon the entrance of Cavaliere Shift (III, i), Mitis asks,

What new _Mute_ is this, that walkes so suspiciously? CORD. O, mary this is one, for whose better illustration; we must desire you to presuppose the stage, the middle isle in Paules; and that, the west end of it.

At one time, where the presence of characters identifies the location, Cordatus queries Mitis, “You understand where the Scene is?” (Chorus to IV, i). Jonson, desirous of specifying particular London sites despite the fiction of Italian-named characters, is experimenting along the lines of Shakespeare who shortly before tried a similar method in _Henry V_. Shakespeare returned to this device in _Pericles_. Gower, the chorus, relates portions of Pericles’ adventures directly and in accompaniment to several dumb shows. In passing he often sets the locale. The first scene, he tells us, is “this Antioch ... this city” (17-18). Preparatory to the commencement of III, i, Gower asks the audience,

In your imagination hold This stage the ship, upon whose deck The sea-tost Pericles appears to speak

Imagine! Suppose! Both Jonson and Shakespeare call upon the audience to visualize the place of action. Clearly neither conventional nor realistic setting is introduced. Only words, in these instances delivered directly, in most instances conveyed in the midst of dramatic action, are the means for informing the audience where the scene takes place.

II. THE PARTS OF THE STAGE

What the Choruses make evident is that the stage was not altered for individual scenes. As a consequence, the stage structure itself, not scenery, served as the frame for the action. What this structure was and how it was used has been debated for years, and yet despite the lively and continuous debate, there actually exists a broad band of agreement About the size of the stage, for instance, there is little dispute. It is deduced from the Fortune contract. Without a doubt the platform, one side of which was attached to the stage wall or façade, was large, probably about 25 by 45 feet, and bare. Whether or not the supporting trestles were seen by the audience, as Hodges claims, matters little in a consideration of the use of the stage. What is important is that the stage extended to the middle of the yard, that consequently a large portion of the audience stood or sat on either side of the actors, and that the actors had to master the techniques of playing on this open stage. Some disagreement exists concerning the shape of the stage which, according to John C. Adams, was not rectangular but tapered inward toward the front. However, the weight of the evidence is against this theory, and most scholars are inclined to accept the rectangular shape.

Upon what other points is there general agreement? For one, that there were two pillars, located halfway between the stage wall and the front edge of the platform, which supported a shadow or cover over part of the stage. For another, that at platform level the stage wall contained two doors at least and probably a third entry or enclosed space and on an upper level, some sort of acting area. Where there are disputes, they arise over three matters: (1) what details complete this generally accepted scheme, (2) how the parts of the stage were employed, and (3) what temporary structures, if any, supplemented the basic façade. To examine these issues, it will be necessary to review each part of the stage in the light of the Globe repertory.

The Globe plays confirm the presence of at least two entrance doors at some distance from each other. On several occasions there is need for two characters to enter simultaneously from separate entrances and after some conversation come together. For the existence of a third entry the Globe plays offer no conclusive proof. No stage direction specifying an entry from a middle door, such as can be found in non-Globe plays, appears. However, certain scenes do suggest the use of a third entrance. In _Macbeth_ (V, vii) Malcolm, who has presumably come through one door (_A_), is invited into the castle of Dunsinane by Siward. At his exit (through _B_ presumably) Macbeth enters. Either he can come from the door (_A_) through which Malcolm entered, which is dramatically unconvincing, or from the door (_B_) of Dunsinane, which is awkward, or from a third entrance, evidence for which is not conclusive. Still, another sort of evidence does occur, which supports the idea of a third entry. In all cases, save one, where simultaneous entrances take place, the stage direction either reads “Enter _A_ at one door, and enter _B_ at another” or “at another door” or “Enter _A_ and _B_ severally,” or “at several doors.” In all the Globe plays, Shakespearean and non-Shakespearean, there are twenty-two instances of such stage directions.[6] The only exception is _Pericles_ (IV, iv), “Enter Pericles at one doore, with all his trayne, Cleon and Dioniza at _the_ other. Cleon shewes Pericles the tombe, whereat, Pericles makes lamentatton [_sic_].” The explanation for the article, “the” other door, if a third did exist, may be that the third entry was used to display the tomb. The presence of a word such as “another” in all other stage directions implies that when one door was used, more than one other entrance remained, and that, therefore, a third mode of entry was regularly employed on the Globe stage.

Regarding the position of the main entrance doors on either side of the stage, the Globe plays are equally unhelpful. Authority for oblique doors partly facing each other rests on three items of evidence that have been set forth. (1) The phrase “Enter _A_ and _B_ at opposite doors,” which appears in some of the Jacobean plays, proves, according to W. J. Lawrence, that the doors faced each other.[7] (2) Certain plays need facing doors in the action.[8] (3) The historical development of the playhouses explains the genesis of the oblique doors.[9] Concerning the first item, I need only point out that in no stage direction in the Globe plays does the phrase “at opposite doors” appear. Nor does it appear in any pre-Globe Shakespearean play. The second item invites subjective judgment. Lawrence insists that the last scene of _The Merry Devil of Edmonton_, a Globe play, could not be played unless the doors were oblique. However, cross-observation in that scene concerns the exchange of signs over the doors to two inns in Waltham.

SIR ARTHUR. Mine host, mine host, we lay all night at the George in Waltham, but whether the George be your fee-simple or no, tis a doubtfull question, looke upon your signe.

HOST. Body of Saint George, this is mine overthwart neighbour hath done this to seduce my blind customers. [Sig. F2^r]

Signs extending over a door would be readily seen from the opposite end of the stage whether or not the doors were oblique. What this interpretation comes down to is that insistence on opposite doors reveals a realistic conception of staging. Out of oblique doors characters emerge already facing each other or the action. They can respond “naturally” and “realistically.” But, if the doors are flush with the façade, an “unnatural” formal entrance results.

The last argument for oblique doors is historical. Lawrence claims that they were introduced into the Globe from the second Blackfriars theater (1598-1600). Adams argues that they were developed when the Theatre’s frame was adapted for the Globe. Neither offers sufficiently convincing proof to counter-balance the evidence of the Swan drawing which clearly shows flush doors. Therefore, though either oblique or flush doors could accommodate the Globe plays, flush doors were more likely to have been employed.

We can also dismiss the notion occasionally put forth that the doors consistently represented entrances from particular places, such as Olivia’s house in _Twelfth Night_ or Page’s and Ford’s houses in _The Merry Wives of Windsor_. The difficulty of maintaining a continuing identification of one place with one entrance is obvious in the latter play. The comedy opens with the entrance of Justice Shallow, Sir Hugh Evans, and Slender. Their point of entry (marked _A_ for identification) is unspecified and therefore might be in the center. Having been insulted by Falstaff, whom he expects to find at Page’s house, Shallow calls upon the Windsor worthy who emerges from his house (entry _B_). The remaining entrances and exits in scene i and in the brief