were learned, there may have been no more than a single rehearsal before the first performance. With six different plays to be put on every week, there was no time for more. Actors, then, would go into a show with a very limited sense of the whole. The notion of a collective rehearsal process that is itself a process of discovery for the actors is wholly modern and would have been incomprehensible to Shakespeare and his original ensemble. Given the number of parts an actor had to hold in his memory, the forgetting of lines was probably more frequent than in the modern theater. The book-holder was on hand to prompt.
Backstage personnel included the property man, the tire-man who oversaw the costumes, call boys, attendants, and the musicians, who might play at various times from the main stage, the rooms above, and within the tiring-house. Scriptwriters sometimes made a nuisance ofthemselves backstage. There was often tension between the acting companies and the freelance playwrights from whom they purchased scripts: it was a smart move on the part of Shakespeare and the Lord Chamberlain’s Men to bring the writing process in-house.
Scenery was limited, though sometimes set pieces were brought on (a bank of flowers, a bed, the mouth of hell). The trapdoor from below, the gallery stage above, and the curtained discovery space at the back allowed for an array of special effects: the rising of ghosts and apparitions, the descent of gods, dialogue between a character at a window and another at ground level, the revelation of a statue, or a pair of lovers playing at chess. Ingenious use could be made of props, as with the ass’s head in
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
. In a theater that does not clutter the stage with the material paraphernalia of everyday life, those objects that are deployed may take on powerful symbolic weight, as when Shylock bears his weighing scales in one hand and knife in the other, thus becoming a parody of the figure of Justice who traditionally bears a sword and a balance. Among the more significant items in the property cupboard of Shakespeare’s company, there would have been a throne (the “chair of state”), joint stools, books, bottles, coins, purses, letters (which are brought on stage, read, or referred to on about eighty occasions in the complete works), maps, gloves, a set of stocks (in which Kent is put in
King Lear
), rings, rapiers, daggers, broadswords, staves, pistols, masks and vizards, heads and skulls, torches and tapers and lanterns, which served to signal night scenes on the daylit stage, a buck’s head, an ass’s head, animal costumes. Live animals also put in appearances, most notably the dog Crab in
The Two Gentlemen of Verona
and possibly a young polar bear in
The Winter’s Tale
.
The costumes were the most important visual dimension of the play. Playwrights were paid between £2 and £6 per script, whereas Alleyn was not averse to paying £20 for “a black velvet cloak with sleeves embroidered all with silver and gold.” No matter the period of the play, actors always wore contemporary costume. The excitement for the audience came not from any impression of historical accuracy, but from the richness of the attire and perhaps the transgressive thrill of the knowledge that here were commoners like themselves strutting in the costumes of courtiers in effective defianceof the strict sumptuary laws whereby in real life people had to wear the clothes that befitted their social station.
To an even greater degree than props, costumes could carry symbolic importance. Racial characteristics could be suggested: a breastplate and helmet for a Roman soldier, a turban for a Turk, long robes for exotic characters such as Moors, a gabardine for a Jew. The figure of Time, as in
The Winter’s Tale
, would be equipped with hourglass, scythe and wings; Rumor, who speaks the prologue of
2 Henry IV
, wore a costume adorned with a thousand tongues. The wardrobe in the tiring house of the Globe
Backstage personnel included the property man, the tire-man who oversaw the costumes, call boys, attendants, and the musicians, who might play at various times from the main stage, the rooms above, and within the tiring-house. Scriptwriters sometimes made a nuisance ofthemselves backstage. There was often tension between the acting companies and the freelance playwrights from whom they purchased scripts: it was a smart move on the part of Shakespeare and the Lord Chamberlain’s Men to bring the writing process in-house.
Scenery was limited, though sometimes set pieces were brought on (a bank of flowers, a bed, the mouth of hell). The trapdoor from below, the gallery stage above, and the curtained discovery space at the back allowed for an array of special effects: the rising of ghosts and apparitions, the descent of gods, dialogue between a character at a window and another at ground level, the revelation of a statue, or a pair of lovers playing at chess. Ingenious use could be made of props, as with the ass’s head in
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
. In a theater that does not clutter the stage with the material paraphernalia of everyday life, those objects that are deployed may take on powerful symbolic weight, as when Shylock bears his weighing scales in one hand and knife in the other, thus becoming a parody of the figure of Justice who traditionally bears a sword and a balance. Among the more significant items in the property cupboard of Shakespeare’s company, there would have been a throne (the “chair of state”), joint stools, books, bottles, coins, purses, letters (which are brought on stage, read, or referred to on about eighty occasions in the complete works), maps, gloves, a set of stocks (in which Kent is put in
King Lear
), rings, rapiers, daggers, broadswords, staves, pistols, masks and vizards, heads and skulls, torches and tapers and lanterns, which served to signal night scenes on the daylit stage, a buck’s head, an ass’s head, animal costumes. Live animals also put in appearances, most notably the dog Crab in
The Two Gentlemen of Verona
and possibly a young polar bear in
The Winter’s Tale
.
The costumes were the most important visual dimension of the play. Playwrights were paid between £2 and £6 per script, whereas Alleyn was not averse to paying £20 for “a black velvet cloak with sleeves embroidered all with silver and gold.” No matter the period of the play, actors always wore contemporary costume. The excitement for the audience came not from any impression of historical accuracy, but from the richness of the attire and perhaps the transgressive thrill of the knowledge that here were commoners like themselves strutting in the costumes of courtiers in effective defianceof the strict sumptuary laws whereby in real life people had to wear the clothes that befitted their social station.
To an even greater degree than props, costumes could carry symbolic importance. Racial characteristics could be suggested: a breastplate and helmet for a Roman soldier, a turban for a Turk, long robes for exotic characters such as Moors, a gabardine for a Jew. The figure of Time, as in
The Winter’s Tale
, would be equipped with hourglass, scythe and wings; Rumor, who speaks the prologue of
2 Henry IV
, wore a costume adorned with a thousand tongues. The wardrobe in the tiring house of the Globe
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