sometimes proves unmanageable, and the distance from one end of the stage to the other must represent a foreshortening of leagues, or even of the crossing of an ocean. In the hands of less skilful workmen the tendency was naturally accentuated, and plays had been written, long before Lyly was sent down from Magdalen, in which the episodes of breathless adventure altogether overstepped the most elastic confines of locality. A glance at the titles of the plays presented at Court during the second decade of Elizabeth's reign will show the extent to which themes drawn from narrative literature were already beginning to oust those of the old interlude type.[1] The new development is apparent in the contributions both of men and of boys; with this distinction, that the boys find their sources mainly in the storehouse of classical history and legend, while the men turn either to contemporary events at home and abroad, or more often to the belated and somewhat jaded versions, still dear to the Elizabethan laity, of mediaeval romance. The break-down of the Italian staging must therefore be regarded from the beginning, as in part at least a result of the reaction of popular taste upon that of the Court. The noblemen's players came to London when the winter set in, and brought with them the pieces which had delighted bourgeois and village audiences up and down the land throughout the summer; and on the whole it proved easier for the Revels officers to adapt the stage to the plays than the plays to the stage. Nor need it be doubted that, even in so cultivated a Court as that of Elizabeth, the popular taste was not without its echoes.
Of all this wealth of forgotten play-making, only five examples survive; but they are sufficient to indicate the scenic trend.[2] Their affiliation with the earlier interludes is direct. The 'vice' and other moral abstractions still mingle with the concrete personages, and the proscenium is still the 'place'.[3] The simplest setting is that of Cambyses. All is at or within sight of the Persian Court. If any domus was represented, it was the palace, to which there are departures (567, 929). Cambyses consults his council (1-125) and there is a banquet (965-1042) with a 'boorde', at the
- ↑ Cf. ch. xxii.
- ↑ Direct evidence pointing to performance at Court is only available for two of the five, Cambyses and Orestes.
- ↑ Cambyses, 75, 303, 380, 968, 1041, 1055; Patient Grissell, 212, 338, 966, 1048, 1185, 1291, 1972, 1984, 2069; Orestes, 221, 1108; Clyomon and Clamydes, 1421, 1717, 1776, 1901, 1907, 1931, 1951, 2008, 2058, 2078; Common Conditions, 2, 110, 544, 838, 1397, 1570; &c. Of course, the technical meaning of 'place' shades into the ordinary one.
