A History of English Literature

just to the north of the 'city,' only a few minutes' walk from the center
of population. His example was soon followed by other managers, though the
favorite place for the theaters soon came to be the 'Bankside,' the region
in Southwark just across the Thames from the 'city' where Chaucer's Tabard
Inn had stood and where pits for bear-baiting and cock-fighting had long
flourished.
The structure of the Elizabethan theater was naturally imitated from its
chief predecessor, the inn-yard. There, under the open sky, opposite the
street entrance, the players had been accustomed to set up their stage.
About it, on three sides, the ordinary part of the audience had stood
during the performance, while the inn-guests and persons able to pay a
fixed price had sat in the open galleries which lined the building and ran
all around the yard. In the theaters, therefore, at first generally
square-built or octagonal, the stage projected from the rear wall well
toward the center of an unroofed pit (the present-day 'orchestra'), where,
still on three sides of the stage, the common people, admitted for sixpence
or less, stood and jostled each other, either going home when it rained or
staying and getting wet as the degree of their interest in the play might
determine. The enveloping building proper was occupied with tiers of
galleries, generally two or three in number, provided with seats; and here,
of course, sat the people of means, the women avoiding embarrassment and
annoyance only by being always masked. Behind the unprotected front part of
the stage the middle part was covered by a lean-to roof sloping down from
the rear wall of the building and supported by two pillars standing on the
stage. This roof concealed a loft, from which gods and goddesses or any
appropriate properties could be let down by mechanical devices. Still
farther back, under the galleries, was the 'rear-stage,' which could be
used to represent inner rooms; and that part of the lower gallery
immediately above it was generally appropriated as a part of the stage,
representing such places as city walls or the second stories of houses. The
musicians' place was also just beside in the gallery.
The stage, therefore, was a 'platform stage,' seen by the audience from
almost all sides, not, as in our own time, a 'picture-stage,' with its
scenes viewed through a single large frame. This arrangement made
impossible any front curtain, though a curtain was generally hung before
the rear stage, from the floor of the gallery. Hence the changes between
scenes must generally be made in full view of the audience, and instead of
ending the scenes with striking situations the dramatists must arrange for
a withdrawal of the actors, only avoiding if possible the effect of a mere
anti-climax. Dead bodies must either get up and walk away in plain sight or
be carried off, either by stage hands, or, as part of the action, by other
characters in the play. This latter device was sometimes adopted at
considerable violence to probability, as when Shakspere makes Falstaff bear
away Hotspur, and Hamlet, Polonius. Likewise, while the medieval habit of
elaborate costuming was continued, there was every reason for adhering to
the medieval simplicity of scenery. A single potted tree might symbolize a
forest, and houses and caverns, with a great deal else, might be left to
the imagination of the audience. In no respect, indeed, was realism of
setting an important concern of either dramatist or audience; in many
cases, evidently, neither of them cared to think of a scene as located in
any precise spot; hence the anxious effort of Shakspere's editors on this
point is beside the mark. This nonchalance made for easy transition from
one place to another, and the whole simplicity of staging had the important
advantage of allowing the audience to center their attention on the play
rather than on the accompaniments. On the rear-stage, however, behind the
curtain, more elaborate scenery might be placed, and Elizabethan plays,
like those of our own day, seem sometimes to have 'alternation scenes,'