William Shakespeare: A Critical StudyBrandes, Georg
General
William Shakespeare: A Critical Study
Brandes, Georg
Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616 -- Criticism and interpretation
As in the theatre of antiquity, rude machines were employed to raise or
lower actors through the stage; trap-doors were certainly in use, and
probably "bridges," or small platforms, which could be elevated into
the upper regions. In somewhat earlier times still ruder appliances
had been in vogue. For example, in the religious and allegorical
plays, Hell-mouth was represented by a huge face of painted canvas
with shining eyes, a large red nose, and movable jaws set with tusks.
When the jaws opened, they seemed to shoot out flames, torches being
no doubt waved behind them. The theatrical property-room of that time
was incomplete without a "rybbe colleryd red" for the mystery of the
Creation. But in Shakespeare's day scarcely anything of this sort was
required. It was Inigo Jones who first introduced movable scenery and
decorations at the court entertainments. They were certainly not in use
at the popular playhouses at any time during Shakespeare's connection
with the stage.
Audiences felt no need for such aids to illusion; their imagination
instantly supplied the want. They saw whatever the poet required them
to see--as a child sees whatever is suggested to its fancy, as little
girls see real-life dramas in their games with their dolls. For the
spectators were children alike in the freshness and in the force of
their imagination. If only a placard were hung on one of the doors of
the stage bearing in large letters the name of Paris or of Venice, the
spectators were at once transported to France or Italy. Sometimes the
Prologue informed them where the scene was placed. Men of classical
culture, who insisted on unity of place in the drama, were offended by
the continual changes of scene and the pitiful appliances by which they
were indicated. Sir Philip Sidney, in his _Defense of Poesy,_ published
in 1583, ridicules the plays in which "You shall have Asia of the one
side, and Afric of the other, and so many other under-kingdoms, that
the player, when he cometh in, must ever begin with telling where he
is, or else the tale will not be conceived."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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