with the added emphasis of a drop-curtain; but of this there is no proof, and an allusion in Catiline to action as rapid
As is a veil put off, a visor changed,
Or the scene shifted, in our theatres,
is distinctly against it.[1] A mere clearance of the stage does not necessarily entail a change of scene, although there are one or two instances in which the exit of personages at one door, followed by their return at another, seems to constitute or accompany such a change.[2] And even if the fact of a change could be signified in one or other of these ways, the audience would still be in the dark as to what the new locality was supposed to be. Can we then assume a continuance of the old practice of indicating localities by labels over the doors? This would entail the shifting of the labels themselves during the progress of the play, at any rate if there were more localities than entrances, or if, as might usually be expected, more entrances than one were required to any locality. But there would be no difficulty about this, and in fact we have an example of the shifting of a label by a mechanical device in the introduction to Wily Beguiled.[3] This was not a public theatre play, and the label concerned was one giving the title of the play and not its locality, but similar machinery could obviously have been applied. There is not, however, much actual evidence for the use either of title-labels or of locality-labels on the public stage. The former are perhaps the more probable of the two, and the practice of posting play-bills at the theatre door and in places
- ↑ Catiline, I. i.
- ↑ Second Maidens Tragedy, 1719, 'Exit' the Tyrant, four lines from the end of a court scene, and 1724 'Enter the Tirant agen at a farder dore, which opened, bringes hym to the Toombe' (cf. p. 110, n. 8). So in Woman Killed with Kindness (Queen's), IV. ii, iii (continuous scene), Mrs. Frankford and her lover retire from a hall scene to sup in her chamber, and the servants are bidden to lock the house doors. In IV. iv Frankford enters with a friend, and says (8) 'This is the key that opes my outward gate; This the hall-door; this the withdrawing chamber; But this . . . It leads to my polluted bed-chamber'. Then (17) 'now to my gate', where they light a lanthorn, and (23) 'this is the last door', and in IV. v Frankford emerges as from the bedchamber. Probably sc. iv is supposed to begin before the house. They go behind at (17), emerge through another door, and the scene is then in the hall, whence Frankford passes at (23) through the central aperture behind again.
- ↑ Wily Beguiled, prol. The Prologus asks a player the name of the play, and is told 'Sir you may look vpon the Title'. He complains that it is 'Spectrum once again'. Then a Juggler enters, will show him a trick, and says 'With a cast of cleane conveyance, come aloft Jack for thy masters advantage (hees gone I warrant ye)' and there is the s.d. 'Spectrum is conveied away: and Wily beguiled, stands in the place of it'.
