Northward Ho! seven, but also, although the greater part of both plays takes place in London, Westward Ho! has scenes at Brentford and Northward Ho! at Ware.[1] The natural conclusion is that, for these plays at least, the procedure of the public theatres was adopted. It is, of course, the combination of numerous houses and changes of locality which leads me to this conclusion. Mahelot shows us that the 'multiple' staging of the Hôtel de Bourgogne permitted inconsistencies of locality, but could hardly accommodate more than five, or at most six, maisons. Once given the existence of alternative methods at Paul's, it becomes rather difficult to say which was applied in any particular case. Chapman's Bussy d'Ambois begins, like The Fawn, with an open-country scene, and thereafter uses only three houses, all in Paris; the presence-chamber at the palace (I. ii; II. i; III. ii; IV. i), Bussy's chamber (V. iii), and Tamyra's chamber in another house, Montsurry's (II. ii; III. i; IV. ii; V. i, ii, iv). Both chambers are trapped for spirits to rise, and Tamyra's has in it a 'gulfe', apparently screened by a 'canopie', which communicates with Bussy's.[2] As the interplay of scenes in Act V requires transit through the passage from one chamber to the other, it is natural to assume an unchanged setting.[3]
The most prolific contributor to the Paul's repertory was Middleton. His first play, Blurt Master Constable, needs five houses. They are all in Venice, and as in certain scenes more than one of them appears to be visible, they were' . . . (162) 'Descendit cum suis'; V. i. 155, 'Ascendit Frier' . . . (191) 'Montsurry. In, Ile after, To see what guilty light gives this cave eyes'; V. iv. 1, 'Intrat umbra Comolet to the Countesse, wrapt in a canapie' . . . (23) 'D'Amboys at the gulfe'.]
- ↑ Westward Ho! uses the houses of Justiniano (I. i), Wafer (III. iii), Ambush (III. iv), the Earl (II. ii; IV. ii), and a Bawd (IV. i), the shops of Tenterhook (I. ii; III. i) and Honeysuckle (II. i), and inns at the Steelyard (II. iii), Shoreditch (II. iii), and Brentford (V). Continuous setting would not construct so many houses for single scenes. There is action above at the Bawd's, and interior action below in several cases; in IV. ii, 'the Earle drawes a curten and sets forth a banquet'. The s.ds. of this scene seem inadequate; at a later point Moll is apparently 'discovered', shamming death. Northward Ho! uses the houses of Mayberry (I. iii; II. ii) and Doll (II. i; III. i), a garden house at Moorfields (III. ii), Bellamont's study (IV. i), Bedlam (IV. iii, iv), a 'tavern entry' in London (I. ii), and an inn at Ware (I. i; V. i). Action above is at the last only, interior action below in several.
- ↑ B. d'Ambois, II. ii. 177, 'Tamyra. See, see the gulfe is opening' . . . (183) 'Ascendit Frier and D'Ambois' . . . (296) 'Descendit Fryar'; IV. ii. 63, 'Ascendit [Behemoth
- ↑ The Q of 1641, probably representing a revival by the King's men, alters the scenes in Montsurry's house, eliminating the characteristic Paul's 'canapie' of V. iv. 1 and placing spectators above in the same scene. It is also responsible for the proleptic s.d. (cf. ch. xxii) at I. i. 153 for I. ii. 1, 'Table, Chesbord and Tapers behind the Arras'.
