‘Passing over the Stage’

Summary

During the past few years many attempts have been made to reconstruct the staging of Elizabethan plays, and in these attempts the usual assumption is that the players’ actions were confined to the main platform jutting out into the yard, to such space behind doors or curtains as provided opportunity for discoveries, and to the upper stage. Only occasionally has the suggestion been put forward that for some scenes or situations part of the yard was also put into histrionic service. Hitherto this suggestion has, in general, been ignored, since no valid evidence has been brought forward to support it—and indeed it well may be that no amount of research could ever succeed in proving beyond doubt that any important dramatic actions took place down in the arena assigned to the groundlings.

Perhaps, however, we should do wrong if we were to make a specific search for documentary support (or the opposite) of any theory concerned with important dramatic actions of this kind. Such matters must be explored step by step; and the first step would seem to be to limit ourselves strictly to the simple inquiry whether Elizabethan actors ever had the opportunity of making their appearances otherwise than by the normally-used doors. If we do this, the possibility of reaching, if not absolute certainty, at least a reasonable measure of assurance, may lie within our grasp.