Bernard Beckerman

“ The orderly arrangement of the moral and political world could be destroyed by the unrestrained passions of man. As a result, the description and analysis of passion became a central function of Elizabethan psychology and philosophy. Bacon carries the condemnation of passion to such an extreme that he condemns love almost entirely. It is a weak passion, it is a “child of folly.” As we turn to a consideration of the plays themselves, we shall find that by and large the tendency toward order subsumed the actions, and the depiction of passion occupied the forefront of the Globe stage. ”

“ Hamlet unable to avenge his father is contrasted with Laertes too ready to avenge his father, Hamlet mad is contrasted with Ophelia mad, Rosalind’s mocking love-play is heightened by comparison with Phebe and Silvius as well as with the earthy affection of Touchstone and Audrey, while Touchstone’s professional mockery of the pastoral life casts light upon Jaques’ melancholy. One could go on endlessly pointing out the contrast of situation with situation. Frequently we encounter scenes whose only relationship to the story is to provide dramatic contrast. ”

“ By standing near the defiled princess while he unravels the mystery, the actor of Pericles can convey his horror with maximum effectiveness, and by speaking his aside near her while he paints a word picture of her outer beauty and inner pollution, he can project his revulsion at her foul proximity. The Globe players, in the staging of asides, did not think in terms of creating an illusion of actuality but of relating the crucial elements of the narrative to each other. ”

“ Only an idolatrous love of Shakespeare can lead us to conclude that from 1599 to 1609 the Lord Chamberlain’s men produced appreciably fewer plays than the other companies did. All were in lively competition, in which, as Platter noted, “those which play best obtain most spectators.” To maintain that the Globe company produced only four or five new plays a year, we must prove that Shakespeare’s plays were of such popularity that they could be repeated again and again while other companies had to change their bills daily. ”

“ As in the case of temporal illusion, Elizabethan spatial illusion does not obey a fixed proportion between stage and reality. It employs neither the unity of place nor the cosmic range of medieval drama. Between property and actor and between actor and actor, space assumes whatever dimension the narrative requires. This is true not only of the compression of space, that is, how closely characters stand to one another, but of their dramatic relationship, that is, the quality of that proximity. ”

“ THE DRAMATURGY Shakespeare’s plays of the Globe years are the highest forms of drama to result from a century of evolution. The long-fought battle between popular and private taste was to go on, finally to the defeat of popular taste in the rise of the private theaters. But in the ten years of the Globe, before the King’s men saw their theatrical future in appealing to a Blackfriars trade, the artistic possibilities of the popular narrative drama were abundantly realized.
As the poet created the play, the actors rehearsed it—or very shortly thereafter. ”

“ The actors did not regard the stage as a place but as a platform from which to project a story, and therefore they were unconscious of the discrepancy between real and dramatic space. How far behind Malvolio were the “box tree” and his tormentors? How far from Brutus and Cassius are Caesar and Antony when Caesar sneers at Cassius’ “lean and hungry look”? Is the eye meant to take in both parties at once? In performing these scenes, the Globe players probably concentrated on making the observation of Malvolio and the scornful characterization of Cassius dramatically effective. ”

“ What strikes many critics as a lack of unity in Hamlet is its particular pattern. Once the conditions imposed on Hamlet by the Ghost are revealed, we witness the following sequence: the place of love in Hamlet’s mind, the testing of Claudius at the play, the relation of mother and son. Each event is prepared for, but each in turn gains full emphasis. Nor does one event bear causative relationship to another. Though Claudius is suspicious of Hamlet at the conclusion of the nunnery scene, he indicates no unusual watchfulness over Hamlet during the play-within-the-play scene. ”

“ A sobering thought on the enigma of popularity must strike us when we realize that Pericles was, if its succession of quartos offers any evidence, more popular than Antony and Cleopatra, and that The Winter’s Tale, if Court performances are any measure, appealed to royalty more than King Lear. ”

“ Fully 80 per cent need nothing but a bare space and an audience, not so much as a stool.
As a result, Shakespearean drama depends a great deal upon the vigorous movement of the actors coming on and off the stage. The actors themselves, rather than the stage equipment, provide the impetus for a play’s progression. We are all familiar with the conclusion of a Shakespearean scene. More often than not, a character will say, “Come along with me,” and off will go the actors. I have checked every scene in the Globe plays and found a startlingly high percentage of such exits. ”

“ Malvolio’s temper is never superseded by another passion; Antony often gives way to self-chastisement or grief, yet fundamentally obeys his passion; Angelo is transformed into another man by yielding to lust and still another by yielding to penitence at the conclusion. Thus the degree of consistency varies with the individuals, yet even with the most consistent characters, the interest is not directed to incidental characteristics such as physique, but to the passions to which they yield. Only here and there do we find a man of balanced temperament who does not yield to passion. ”

“ I offer this suggestion not as a theory but as a warning against such reconstructed staging as Reynolds proposes.
The critical part of any study of an Elizabethan playhouse concerns the “third entry,” “the place in the middle,” “the booth,” “the inner stage,” “the discovery-space.” The abundance of terms testifies to the uncertainty concerning this area. Every aspect of it is open to controversy: function, dimensions in all directions, the presence of curtains, and location. But that there is some space between the stage doors, capable of being enclosed or secluded, is granted by all scholars. ”

“ The style of acting at the Globe played as much a part in the shaping of production as the stage structure itself. But Elizabethan acting lacked both the histrionic traditions and the fertile conditions for the development of a self-perpetuating style. Instead, the actor, endowed with a keen tongue, an agile [215] body, and most of all, a passionate heart, fitted his skills and talents to the needs of the plays. Unlike the commedia actors or the naturalistic actors of the Stanislavsky school, the Elizabethan actor did not impose a mode of presentation upon the individual scripts. ”

“ The weaker plays of the Globe reveal obvious ways of treating a theme. Dramas of the prodigal son reiterate their morality ad infinitum, providing multiple reflections of fall and redemption. The otherwise haphazardly constructed play, The Devil’s Charter, is bound together by the theme of Man’s soul sold to the devil and the final retribution that befalls him. Jonson’s predilection for purging mankind with a pill of satire imposes thematic unity on disparate incidents in Every Man Out of His Humour. ”

“ Thus, the Elizabethan conception of how human beings function and feel shows two principal tendencies. In a strictly regulated society such as the Elizabethan, the members were keenly aware of degree and order. So urgent was the impulse to find order in the universe, that an elaborate series of correspondences was observed between man and all other forces in nature as well as between man and all forces within himself. It was natural for the Elizabethan to look for correspondences, no matter how farfetched, and to insist on decorum, no matter how trifling. ”

“ The Elizabethan physiologists developed a series of correspondences, of course disagreeing among themselves, between temperament and physique, intellect and passion. Supposedly each type was liable to certain passions more readily than others. Yet, when a man is carried away by a passion uncongenial to his temperament, he assumes the quality of the passion fully. “Each passion alters the complexion of the entire body, which assumes, at least temporarily, the very qualities which excite the emotion.” ”

“ The handling of entrance and exit and the representation of the conventional devices and scenes provide the framework of the staging. Interwoven and interpolated are those scenes which rely not on formal presentation but on spontaneous action. These are the scenes which, through the intensity of their poetic conception, the penetration of their observation, or the keenness of their wit, illuminate the stage. But no sharp distinction exists between the conventional device and the spontaneous action. They both spring from the need to sustain and perfect an extended narrative. ”

“ That is why we must be cautious of speaking of a climax in Shakespearean drama.
If we endeavor to isolate such a climax in Elizabethan tragedy, we run into many difficulties. For example, is the play-within-the-play scene, the prayer scene, or the closet scene the climax of Hamlet? All contain some reversal; all are highly intense; we are emotionally swept along by them, caught up in [41] the melodrama of Hamlet’s device, in his mad exultation at its effect upon Claudius, in the pathos of Claudius’ contrition, and in the tortured uncertainty of Gertrude. ”

“ When a modern character enters a scene, he enters a definitely indicated place. The audience or readers are made very conscious of that place, its odors, its atmosphere, its effect upon the characters. But in the Elizabethan drama, particularly in the Shakespearean, a character enters not into a place but to another character. Where he enters is of secondary importance—to whom he enters or with whom he enters is of primary interest.
Coordinately, the continuity of action from scene to scene was independent of the stage façade. ”

“ Among the various contending works on Shakespearean stage production the one subject that is invariably neglected is this repertory system. And yet, an understanding of how a theatrical company goes about the business of presenting its plays is a necessary step in working out a theory of staging. Who sees the show and who pays the bill more often determine the possibilities of production than other high-minded considerations. To know what the Elizabethan repertory system was and how it operated requires the answers to certain basic questions: How many performances was a play likely to receive? ”

“ Tents are even more difficult to treat. Even when the action calls for a tent, it is uncertain whether a property or merely the enclosure is being employed. Frequent allusions to tents can be found in Troilus and Cressida, but there is no scene where more than one tent must be used. But how was that represented? When Ulysses says of Achilles, “We saw him at the opening of his tent” (II, iii) , did the audience see a property tent or the flap of the enclosure curtain turned back? No interior is required in any of these scenes so that we are not dealing with a discovery proper. ”

“ At the heart of dramatic presentation stands the actor, imitating a person in a fictional situation in such a way as to hold the continuous attention of the audience in the unfolding circumstances. This holding of attention is dramatic illusion. Whether that illusion is an imitation of contemporary life, historical life, or mythical life, the action and characters must achieve a level of reality sufficient to involve us. ”

“ A secondary means of individualization was the presentation of a character’s mind. Many of Shakespeare’s finest characters are distinguished by a profuse and keen wit. Rosalind, warm-hearted and merry, becomes the distinct figure she is through the play of her wit. [36] Octavius Caesar in Antony and Cleopatra is a man supremely guided by reason. In these cases wit or reason, rather than passion, controls the character. But in the gallery of Shakespeare’s portraits such characters are in the minority. ”