in Grazzini's La Spiritata and Pasqualigo's Il Fedele. Each preserves complete unity of place, and the continuous action in the street before the houses, two or three in number, of the principal personages, is only varied by occasional colloquies at a door or window, and in the case of the Two Italian Gentlemen by an episode of concealment in a tomb which stands in a 'temple' or shrine beneath a burning lamp. Whetstone's Promos and Cassandra, the neo-classical inspiration of which is advertised in the prefatory epistle, follows the same formula with a certain freedom of handling. In the first part, opportunity for a certain amount of interior action is afforded by two of the three houses; one is a prison, the other a barber's shop, presumably an open stall with a door and a flap-down shutter. The third is the courtesan's house, on which Serlio insists. This reappears in the second part and has a window large enough for four women to sit in.[1] The other houses in this part are a temple with a tomb in it, and a pageant stage used at a royal entry. The conveniences of exterior action lead to a convention which often recurs in later plays, by which royal justice is dispensed in the street. And the strict unity of place is broken by a scene (iv. 2) which takes place, not like the rest of the action in the town of Julio, but in a wood through which the actors are approaching it. Here also we have, I think, the beginnings of a convention by which action on the extreme edge of a stage, or possibly on the floor of the hall or on steps leading to the stage, was treated as a little remote from the place represented by the setting in the background. The four tragedies were all produced at the Court itself by actors from the Inns of Court. It is a little curious that the earliest of the four, Gorboduc (1562), is also the most regardless of the unity of place. While Acts I and III-V are at the Court of Gorboduc, Act II is divided between the independent Courts of Ferrex and Porrex. We can hardly suppose that there was any substantial change of decoration, and probably the same
- ↑ II. ii. 'Fowre women bravelie apparelled, sitting singing in Lamiaes windowe, with wrought Smockes, and Cawles, in their hands, as if they were a working'. Supposes, IV. iv, is a dialogue between Dalio the cook, at Erostrato's window, and visitors outside. At the beginning, 'Dalio commeth to the wyndowe, and there maketh them answere'; at the end, 'Dalio draweth his hed in at the wyndowe, the Scenese commeth out'. The dialogue of sc. v proceeds at the door, and finally 'Dalio pulleth the Scenese in at the dores'. In Two Ital. Gent. 435, 'Victoria comes to the windowe, and throwes out a letter'. It must not be assumed on the analogy of later plays, and is in fact unlikely, that the windows of these early 'houses', or those of the 'case' at Ferrara in 1486, were upper floor windows.
