of the action of Elizabethan plays passes at the doors of houses; and as a result the problem of staging, difficult enough anyhow, has been rendered unnecessarily difficult. Here we have probably to thank the editors of plays, who have freely interspersed their texts with notes of locality, which are not in the original stage-directions, and, with eighteenth-century models before them, have tended to assume that action at a house is action in some room within that house. The playwrights, on the other hand, followed the neo-classic Italian tradition, and for them action at a house was most naturally action before the door of that house. If a man visited his friend he was almost certain to meet him on the doorstep; and here domestic discussions, even on matters of delicacy, commonly took place. Here too, of course, meals might be served.[1] A clue to this convention is afforded by the numerous passages in which a servant or other personage is brought on to the stage by a 'Who's within?' or a call to 'Come forth!' or in which an episode is wound up by some such invitation as 'Let us in!' No doubt such phrases remain appropriate when it is merely a question of transference between an outer room and an inner; and no doubt also the point of view of the personages is sometimes deflected by that of the actors, to whom 'in' means 'in the tiring-room' and 'out' means 'on the stage'.[2] But, broadly speaking, the frequency of their use points to a corresponding frequency of threshold scenes; and, where there is a doubt, they should, I think, be interpreted in the light of that economy of interior action which was very evident in the mid-sixteenth-century plays, and in my opinion continued to prevail after the opening of the theatres. The use of a house door was so frequent that the stage-directions do not, as a rule, trouble to specify it.[3] Two complications are, however, to be observed.*
- ↑ Cf. ch. xix, p. 11. The introduction of a meal goes rather beyond the neo-classic analogy, but presents no great difficulty. If a banquet can be brought into a garden or orchard, it can be brought into a porch or courtyard. It is not always possible to determine whether a meal is in a threshold scene or a hall scene (cf. p. 64), but in 1 Edw. IV, III. ii, 'Enter Nell and Dudgeon, with a table couered' is pretty clearly at the door of the Tanner's cottage.
- ↑ In the theatre usage personages go 'in', even where they merely go 'off' without entering a house (cf. e.g. p. 53, n. 2). The interlude usage is less regular, and sometimes personages go 'out', as they would appear to the audience to do.
- ↑ Soliman and Perseda, II. i. 227, 'Sound vp the Drum to Lucinaes doore' (s.d.). Doors are conspicuous in K. to K. Honest Man; thus sc. ii. 82, 'Enter Lelio with his sword drawen, hee knockes at his doore'; sc. v. 395, 'tis time to knocke vp Lelios householde traine. He knockes' . . . 'What mean this troup of armed men about my dore?'; sc. v. 519
