and the Admiral's had a beacon, apparently as a detached property.[1] I am also inclined to think that a wall may occasionally have been drawn across the stage to make a close of part of it for a garden scene. In Act II of Romeo and Juliet Romeo pretty clearly comes in with his friends in some public place of the city, and then leaps a wall into an orchard, where he is lost to their sight, and finds himself under Juliet's window. He must have a wall to leap. I mentioned Pyramus and Thisbe just above with intent, for what is Pyramus and Thisbe but a burlesque of the Romeo and Juliet motive, which would have been all the more amusing, if a somewhat conspicuous and unusual wall had been introduced into its model? Another case in point may be the 'close walk' before Labervele's house in A Humorous Day's Mirth.[2] I have allowed myself to stray into the field of conjecture.
One other possible feature of action 'above' must not be left out of account. The use of the gallery may have been supplemented on occasion by that of some window or balcony in the space above it, which De Witt's drawing conceals from our view. Here may have been the 'top' on which La Pucelle appears in the Rouen episode of 1 Henry VI, and the towers or turrets, which are sometimes utilized or referred to in this and other plays.[3] It would be difficult to describe the central boxes of the Swan gallery as a tower.
Before any attempt is made to sum up the result of this long chapter, one other feature of sixteenth-century staging, which is often overlooked, requires discussion. In the majority of cases the background of an out-of-door scene need contain at most a single domus; and this, it is now clear, can be represented either by a light structure, such as a tent or arbour, placed temporarily upon the floor of the stage, or more usually by the scena or back wall, with its doors, its central aperture, and its upper gallery. There are, however, certain scenes in which one domus will not suffice, and two or possibly even three, must be represented. Thus, as in Richard III, there may be two hostile camps, with alternating action at tents in each of them.[4] There may also be interplay, without change of scene, between different houses in
- ↑ Henslowe Papers, 116.
- ↑ Cf. p. 56, nn. 2, 3. The courtyard in Arden of Feversham, III. i, ii, might have been similarly staged.
- ↑ 1 Hen. VI, I. ii (a tower with a 'grate' in it), III. ii (p. 55); 1 Contention, sc. iii (p. 56); Soliman and Perseda, V. ii. 118 (p. 57); Blind Beggar of Alexandria, sc. ii (p. 62); Old Fortunatus, 769 (p. 63).
- ↑ Cf. p. 54.
