George Washington University The Shakespeare Association of America, Inc. Their Exits and Reentrances Author(s): Irwin Smith Source: Shakespeare Quarterly, Vol. 18, No. 1 (Winter, 1967), pp. 7-16 Published by: Folger Shakespeare Library in association with George Washington University Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2868057 Accessed: 23-09-2016 11:24 UTC JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://about.jstor.org/terms George Washington University, Folger Shakespeare Library, The Shakespeare Association of America, Inc., The Johns Hopkins University Press are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Shakespeare Quarterly This content downloaded from 217.112.157.113 on Fri, 23 Sep 2016 11:24:19 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms Their Exits and Reentrances IRWIN SMITH HAKESPEARE avoided having a character enter the stage at the beginning of an act or scene after having been on-stage at the end of the preceding act or scene. He did so because intermissions were unknown in the public playhouses for which he wrote all his earlier plays, and because, with act following hard upon act and scene upon scene, the player who departed at the end of an act or scene and then reentered at the beginning of the next, would be reentering immediately. An immediate reentrance could only seem futile and bewildering. Presumably the player departed in the first instance in order to accomplish some dramatic purpose, perhaps to make an imaginary behind-the-scenes journey from the place of the first act or scene to the place of that which followed. Any such journey must inevitably occupy some dramatic time, however much that time might be foreshortened in performance; but if the player returned immediately, his reentry necessarily denied that any time had elapsed, and thus denied that he had accomplished the purpose for which he departed. Both his going and his returning were made to seem meaningless and confusing. The private playhouses differed from the public in respect of intermissions. They divided their plays into five units of presentation, with breaks between them. Blackfriars, as a private playhouse, had adopted the custom of act intermissions in the days of the Children of the Chapel, as evidenced by stage directions calling for entr'acte music, and sometimes dancing, in several of the Children's plays, notably including Marston's The Wonder of Women, or Sophonisba, and Beaumont and Fletcher's The Knight of the Burning Pestle.1 The King's Men continued the custom when they took over. Act intermissions provided the time that must elapse between a character's departure and his return, and thus permitted him to enter at the beginning of an act after having been on-stage until the end of its predecessor. The player left the stage at the end of the earlier act; the musicians struck up a tune and a boy danced, and as they did so minutes or days or years of dramatic time might slip by; and when the player reentered at the beginning of the next act, as after an interval of time and perhaps a journey to a different place, his return was wholly understandable and acceptable, as much to be taken for granted as it is under similar conditions on the stage of today. Of the I33 plays that I believe to have been written specifically for presenta- tion on the Blackfriars stage, 74 plays contain ii6 stage directions calling for I Cf. Irwin Smith, Shakespeare's Blacljriars Playhouse, pp. 223-225. 2 Smith, pp. 2I4-2i8. Reentrances in the plays of the Chapel-Revels Children are listed on p. 226, and those in the plays of the King's Men are briefly discussed on p. 227 and listed on p. 240, n. 8. This content downloaded from 217.112.157.113 on Fri, 23 Sep 2016 11:24:19 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 8 SHAKESPEARE QUARTERLY the reentrance, at the beginning of an act, of one or on the stage at the end of the precedent act. Twelve o eight-year tenancy of the playhouse by the Chapel-Re 22 reentrances by a total of 36 persons. Sixty-two pla two-year regime of the King's Men, and contain 9 about I57 persons. The two lists include plays by all th Blackfriars dramatists. Among them is a play by Shakespeare. For the first one finds a reentry that seems to be clearly intent pest, written probably a year or two after the King's friars. As Act IV comes to an end, Prospero and Ar the stage. They exeunt and an intermission follow cutes Prospero's latest commands and Prospero re and dons his magic robes. They reenter the stage as after an indeterminate interval of time. Such reentrances and music were recognized in characteristic of the private playhouses and contrary Marston says so explicitly in a note at the end of h After all, let me intreat my Reader not to taxe m Entrances and Musique of this Tragidy, for know was presented by youths, & after the fashion of t Incidentally, Marston carefully specifies the instru music for each of his intermissions, and he has fou beginning of Act II and two at the beginning of Act V But the public playhouse dramatists, not less than private houses, sometimes needed to have a character scenes that supposedly were separated by intervals the public playhouses lacked intermissions as a means of dramatic time, their dramatists made up for the l tion that has been called the Law of Reentry. As f later, it seems to have operated substantially as follow If any character appears in two consecutive acts presumed to be separated by an interval of time o tant from one another, he must, in order to mak of place seem credible in a scheme of dramatic t from the stage at least ten lines before the close delay his entrance to the later scene by at least ten li Observance of the Law of Reentry not merely s purpose, but also served the practical theatrical pur an actor to cross from one side of the stage to the ot to go from one unit to another of the multiple st scene to follow. 3 Cf. John Cranford Adams, "The Original Staging of King Lear", Joseph Quincy Adams: Memorial Studies (1948), p. 323. The so-called Law was first stated by R. Prblss in his Von den litesten Drucken der Dramen Shakespeares in i905. It has been discussed by several writers, including W. J. Lawrence in Shakespeare's Workshop (I928), pp. I7-i8. This content downloaded from 217.112.157.113 on Fri, 23 Sep 2016 11:24:19 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms THEIR EXITS AND REENTRANCES 9 Shakespeare's observance of the law is evidenced in a instances as representative of many more. In Antony and Cleopatra, Cleopatra leaves the sta lines before the end of the scene. She reenters at the ing in the meantime traveled from a hill outside A her palace. Antony makes the same journey ten lin side just ten lines after Cleopatra and reaches the pala having made the trip during the course of IV. xiii, wh In Troilus and Cressida, Diomedes escorts Cressid cian camp in twenty-two lines (IV. iv. I4I to IV. v. from that part of the camp to the tent of Achilles in 293 to V. i. 73), and from there to Calchas' tent in V. ii. 4), Diomedes having preceded them on the last le teen lines (V. i.94 to V. ii. i), and Thersites tagging nine (V. i. I07 to V. ii. 9?). Troilus travels from Calc in Troy in thirty-six lines (V. ii. i89 to V. iii. 28), a iii. II2 to V. iv. I9) for his return to the field of battl and-the Grecian tents. Shakespeare makes similar provision of time for Merry Wives of Windsor. The journey from a fiel near Frogmore takes seventy-three lines (II. iii. I2 from Frogmore to a Windsor street takes fifty line Shakespeare's compliance with the law in the fir starkly practical, with no dramatic overtones what is in the royal palace in attendance upon the King, savage charges and countercharges hurled at one anoth and Thomas Mowbray. At line 195, ten lines befor departs. He offers no reason for doing so and takes the King; he merely walks away in silence, and n going. No explanation for his departure suggests itself to have time to travel from the King's palace to his preparation for the next scene; and the unexplained of his leaving causes one to suspect that the dramatist with Gaunt as the first speaker, suddenly realized tha him with time for the journey, and so turned ba "Exit Gaunt" ten lines before the end. If the distance to be traversed is short, Shakespeare lines than ten. In Henry V, for instance, the Archbish Bishop of Ely need only six lines (I. i. 98 to I. ii. 6) in the King's palace to his presence chamber in the beth takes nine lines (I. v. 74 to I. vi. 9) to go from castle's portal to greet King Duncan upon his arriva a room adjoining his banqueting hall to the castle's vii. 82 to II. i. 9), and from one room to another in th lines (III. i. I42 to III. ii. 7). But in spite of Shakespeare's habitual observance 4 Line numbers are from The Complete Works of Shakespear (Boston, I936). This content downloaded from 217.112.157.113 on Fri, 23 Sep 2016 11:24:19 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 10 SHAKESPEARE QUARTERLY Mr. C. M. Haines finds thirty-eight points at which the original texts suggest that the convention has been disregarded.5 One of them is the Tempest reen- trance previously discussed. Twenty-four others occur in battle scenes, and may be dismissed from consideration on the likelihood that reentrances were separated from departures by alarums and excursions either stated or implied; and even if not-even if a fighter dashed briefly off the stage in the hurly-burly of battle and then dashed back on again-he was not making a time-consuming trip from one place to another, and no violation of the rule was involved. But after allowing for these exceptions, Mr. Haines's list still specifies thirteen points at which characters appear to reenter immediately, and to his thirteen I have added three others that he seems to have overlooked." So far as I am aware, these sixteen reentrances are the only ones, in the approximately 75o scenes in the canon, that are open to suspicion as being possible violations of the Law of Reentry. My investigation leads me to believe that nearly all the suspected violations are seeming rather than real. Sometimes the supposed reenterer is found to have left the stage well before the end of the earlier scene or to delay his reentrance until after the beginning of its successor, in either of which events the reentries comply with the Law; and sometimes it seems probable that he has not left the stage at all, in which event the question of reentry is not involved. A few cases are doubtful; but since Shakespeare clearly made it his concern to avoid immediate reentrances, we should probably find that he has done so in the doubtful instances also, if we knew all the facts relating to their presentation on the Elizabethan stage. In the following paragraphs I take up the sixteen incidents in their chronological order.7 (I) 3 Henry VI, V. vi-vii (Richard). These two scenes are not divided in the Folio, but a scene division is plainly called for, since V. vi occurs on the Tower walls and ends in a clearance of the stage, and since it is followed by V. vii as in the throne room of the palace. Nevertheless, Richard of Gloucester speaks the final words of V. vi and is listed among those that enter at the beginning of the next scene. Perhaps his reentrance is delayed by a few lines, since he does not speak until line 2i and speaks in an aside when he does so, which may suggest that he is still on the outskirts of the assemblage. But if in fact Richard does not reenter belatedly, then his return violates the convention. (2) Richard III, III. iii-iv (Ratcliffe). According to the Folio, Sir Richard Ratcliffe is at Pomfret at the end of III. iii, and in the next scene attends a conference in the Tower of London. He is designated as one of those that enter at the beginning of the latter scene, but he is not addressed until line 77 and does not speak until line 93. Perhaps, therefore, he actually enters after the scene is well under way, rather than at the beginning. But whether his entry is early or late, it exists in the Folio only, not in the 5Mr. Haines discusses the 38 instances in "The 'Law of Re-Entry' in Shakespeare," Reiekw of English Studies, I (October I925), 449-45I. 6 Viz., nos. 7, 9, and i6 below. 7 The chronology is that of Sir Edmund K. Chambers, William Shakespeare, 1, 270-271. This content downloaded from 217.112.157.113 on Fri, 23 Sep 2016 11:24:19 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms THEIR EXITS AND REENTRANCES II quartos. In all six of the quartos, beginning with th of i622, which was published only one year before the Folio, Ratcliffe is not present in the Tower scene; all his activities in III. iv are given to Sir William Catesby. In the quartos it is Catesby, not Ratcliffe, that has the "manet" at III. iv. 78, that speaks to Hastings at 93-94 and leads him to execution, and that delivers his head to Richard in III. v. In the quartos, therefore, the question of reentrance does not arise. (3) Titus Andronicus III. ii-IV. i (Lavinia and the Boy, and Titus and Marcus). Lavinia and the Boy depart peacefully with Titus at the end of III. ii, in- tending that they shall read together. When they reenter at the beginning of IV. i the place is the same, but the situation has changed; now the Boy, with books under his arm, is being chased by his aunt Lavinia and in fear is calling to his grandfather for help. A period of time has clearly intervened, and yet the Folio seems to call for an immediate reentrance by the Boy and Lavinia, and probably by Titus and Marcus also. But III. ii is lacking in all three quartos; it appears for the first time in the Folio of i623. According to the quartos, IV.i is preceded by the scene now numbered III.i, which has Titus and Marcus exeunt I3 lines before the scene's end and which comes to an end with a soliloquy by Lucius, who does not appear in IV. i. As with the Richard III scene just discussed, therefore, the problem of reentrance exists only in the Folio, not in the quartos.8 (4) The Taming of the Shrew, Induction i-ii (the Lord). The Lord ends the first Induction scene with a 36-line soliloquy, and the next scene begins with the following stage direction: "Enter aloft the Drunkard with attendants, some with apparel, Bason and Ewer, & other appurtenances, & Lord." The improbable position of the word "Lord", coming at the end of the direction after servants and household utensils, seems plainly to indicate a delayed entrance. The Lord does not speak, nor is his presence recognized by others, until line I4, but when he does speak he shows that he has heard some of the lines just spoken by the Drunkard. Between his departure and his reentrance he has needed to mount from the lower stage to the upper, and his ascent has perhaps taken half a minute. He may have made his reentrance at about line io. (5) The Taming of the Shrew V.i-ii (Petruchio and Katherina). Petruchio and Katherina are on a street before Lucentio's house at the end of V. i, and are inside the house at the beginning of V. ii. They are not listed among the persons who enter at the beginning of the latter scene, but their entrance cannot be long delayed, since they are addressed at line 6 and Petruchio speaks at line I2. I suggest that they are absent from the stage only momen8 Q3's statement (i6ii) that Titus Andronicus had "sundry times beene plaide by the Kings Majesties Servants", and Ben Jonson's allusion to it in the Induction to Bartholomew Fair (i614), indicate that the play held the stage into Blackfriars times; and this, in combination with the textual peculiarities in III. ii, which have led some scholars to believe that the scene was the work of a different and later hand (cf. W. W. Greg, The Shakespeare First Folio, p. 214), suggests the possibility that the Folio version, with III. ii included, is that of the play as performed at Blackfriars, with an act intermission between III. ii and IV. i, and thus with the reentrance eliminated. I owe this suggestion to Dr. McManaway. Incidentally, the Quartos have the direction "Sound trumpets, manet Moore" at the end of Act I, thus implying that they contemplated no act intermission. This content downloaded from 217.112.157.113 on Fri, 23 Sep 2016 11:24:19 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 12 SHAKESPEARE QUARTERLY tarily, if at all. At the beginning of V. ii t rear stage as the interior of the house, with and Petruchio and Katherina merely pass f front of Lucentio's house, to the rear stage as in fact they do not remain continuously little violence to the rule. (6) The Two Gentlemen of Verona II. iv-v (Speed). Although the Folio fails to give Speed an exit prior to the general exeunt at the end of II. iv, he manifestly departs long before the scene's end. He does not speak after line 7, and probably departs at that point, the stage direction for his exit having been omitted through error. His reentrance at the beginning of II. v does not come until 207 lines later. (7) Romeo and Juliet IV. iv-v (the Nurse). The original texts do not give the Nurse an enter when she goes to Juliet's bedchamber in IV. v. Modern texts have her enter at the beginning of the scene, but it seems probable that she speaks the first few lines of IV. v"Mistris, what Mistris? Juliet? Fast I warrant her she. / Why Lambe, why Lady? fie you sluggabed, / Why Love I say?"-as she is climbing the offstage stairs, and that her actual entrance to the chamber is delayed by a few lines. She gives no clear evidence of seeing the bed, and certainly does not open its curtains and see the inert body of Juliet, until line ii. (8) A Midsummer Night's Dream III. ii-IV. i (the four lovers). At the end of III. ii, the Folio prints the famous stage direction "They sleepe all the Act", the word "Act" being used, as was usual in contemporary playscripts and word-lists, in the sense of act intermission. The four lovers do not leave the stage at the end of the earlier scene and do not reenter at the beginning of the next; instead, they lie upon the stage as if asleep, until they are awakened by horns and shouting at IV. i. I41. Reentry is not involved. Although Shakespeare wrote the Dream long before his company occupied a private playhouse, the use of the word "Act" is not to be interpreted as indicating that intermissions were customary in the public theaters where the play was first presented. The stage direction does not occur in the quartos of i6oo and i6i9; it occurs for the first time in the Folio of i623, printed a dozen years after the King's Men began to act at Blackfriars, and it undoubtedly reflects the usages of that playhouse. (9) Henry V, IV. vii-viii (Gower). Gower has no internal "exit" in IV. vii, but he has unmistakably left the stage prior to line I76, at which point the King says to Fluellen "Pray thee goe seeke him, and bring him to my Tent." Gower has therefore departed long before his reentrance at the beginning of IV. viii. (io) Julius Caesar I. i-ii (Flavius and Marullus). Flavius and Marullus are the last speakers in I. i; and although they are listed in the opening stage direction for I. ii, they clearly make a delayed entrance. They are preceded by ten named persons in procession, accompanied by music and crowds of citizens; and "after them Marullus and Flavius". This content downloaded from 217.112.157.113 on Fri, 23 Sep 2016 11:24:19 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms THEIR EXITS AND REENTRANCES I3 (ii) Hamlet III. iv-IV. i (the Queen). All three of the original texts of Hamlet have the Queen remain on-stage at the end of the present-day III. iv, and two of the three-the First Quarto and the Folio-say nothing about her entering at the beginning of IV. i. But the Second Quarto does have her enter at the beginning of the latter scene, and upon that lone indication, offset by five others, rests the modern assumption that she leaves her closet when Hamlet lugs away the body of Polonius, that the stage is thus cleared, and that both the scene and the act come to an end. I agree with those scholars who believe that she does not enter at the beginning of IV. i, and therefore did not depart at the end of III. iv; on the contrary, she remains continuously in her closet and the King joins her there; and to the other arguments in favor of this theory should be added Shakespeare's demonstrated reluctance to let a character return to the stage immediately after having departed. (02) All's Well That Ends Well V. ii-iii (Lafew). The Folio lists Lafew as one of those that enter at the start of the modern V. iii, and editors have therefore taken it for granted that he left the stage at the end, of V. ii. But it seems probable that he does not enter, and therefore did not previously depart; instead, he has remained upon the stage in expectation of the King's arrival, as evidenced by his saying "The Kings comming" at V. ii. 54. I make this assumption the more readily since the Folio's entrances and exits in this play are defective. The Clown undoubtedly departs at V. ii. 27, but the Folio gives him no "exit". Parolles departs at V. ii. 59, again without an "exit , and he has a premature "enter" at V. iii. I57, in addition to his correct entrance at line 230. (I3) Timon of Athens I. i-ii (Apemantus). Although the Folio gives Apemantus no "exit" in I. i prior to the general exodus at the scene's end, he clearly leaves the stage at line 282, eleven lines before the end of the scene. Furthermore, he has a delayed entrance in the scene that follows. The stage direction, after calling for the entrances of the Steward, Lord Timon, Ventidius, and Athenian lords, concludes with "Then comes, dropping after all, Apemantus, discontentedly, like himself." (I4) Timon of Athens, II. ii-III. i (Flaminius). In spite of the absence of any "exit" direction for Flaminius at II. ii. 203, he manifestly leaves Timon's house at that point, having been dispatched to the house of Lord Lucullus to ask for a loan of fifty talents on behalf of his master. His departure at line 203 gives him 39 lines to go from one house to the other, and to be already waiting in the home of Lord Lucullus when the next scene begins. (i5) Cymbeline V. iii-iv (Posthumus and the Gaoler). The last line of dialogue in Scene iii is spoken by the Second Captain: "Bring him [Posthumus] to th' King." Then come these stage directions: "Enter Cymbeline, Belarius, Guiderius, Arviragus, Pisanio, and Romane Captives. The Captaines present Posthumus to Cymbeline, who delivers him over to a Gaoler. / Scena Quarta. / Enter Posthumus, and Gaoler." Obviously, something is missing. "Bring him to th' King" implies a departure and a removal to a This content downloaded from 217.112.157.113 on Fri, 23 Sep 2016 11:24:19 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 14 SHAKESPEARE QUARTERLY different place, and consequently a clearance of the stage scene. The entrance of Cymbeline and his retinue implies new scene, in the course of which the Captains present Posth who delivers him over to the Gaoler. Then Cymbeline an captives leave the stage, and after their going the Folio resum "Enter Posthumus, and Gaoler." Again, as in the Hamlet and All's Well sequences already discussed, an "enter" is presumed to imply a nonexistent prior "exeunt omnes" and the end of a scene; and again, as in those instances, I believe that assumption to be incorrect. I suggest, on the contrary, that the "Enter" is erroneous, that the stage has not previously been cleared, and that the "Scena Quarta" comes at the wrong place; and I make these conjectures the more confidently since the Folio is inconsistent in dividing Cymbeline into scenes: twice it fails to mark scene divisions where stage clearances occur, and once it inserts a division where no clearance existsY I suggest, in other words, that Posthumus and the Gaoler did not leave the stage at the end of the present-day V. iii; instead, they remained on the stage continuously, and V. iv followed V. iii without change of place or stage, and without lapse of time. Both scenes were necessarily played upon the outer stage, V. iii as on a battlefield, and V. iv not as in a jail, as nearly all modern texts have it, but as in an open place where Posthumus could be shackled to a freestanding post so that the ghosts could circle him round as he lay sleeping, and on a stage to which Jupiter could descend on an eagle's back from the stage heavens. If this conjecture is correct, the action is continuous and reentrances do not occur. As I have said, something is obviously missing. Perhaps a scene or part of a scene was eliminated in order to make a place for or to find additional time for the Vision, which most critics regard as an interpolation.'0 The deleted material, which presumably included the Captains' speeches in presenting Post- humus to the King and the King's in delivering him to the Gaoler, cannot be restored, but what remains should manifestly be rearranged as follows: 2 Captain. Lay hands on him: ... bring him to th' King. Exeunt omnes. Scena Quarta Enter Cymbeline, Belarius, Guiderius, Arviragus, Pisanio, and Romane Captives. Then enter the two Captaines with Posthumus. They present Posthumus to Cymbeline, who delivers him over to two Gaolers. Exeunt all except Posthumus and Gaolers. Gaoler shackles Posthumus to a stake. I. Gao. You shall not now be stolne, You have lockes upon you: So graze, as you finde Pasture. 2. Gao. I, or a stomacke. 9 The Folio fails to insert scene divisions at II. iv. i52 and IV. ii. ioo, in spite of stage clearances. On the other hand, it breaks the scene at I. i. 69, although the new arrivals are certainly in sight, and probably are on the stage, before the stage's prior occupants depart. Modern texts follow the lead of the Folio at IV. ii. ioo and I. i. 69, but not at II. iv. i52. 10 Many editors, including Pope, Johnson, and Steevens, have rejected the Vision as being spurious, and the majority of present-day critics endorse their view. Kittredge (Complete Works, p. I33I) thinks that a part of the Vision may be genuine, but Chambers (William Shakespeare, 1, 486) rejects it altogether. This content downloaded from 217.112.157.113 on Fri, 23 Sep 2016 11:24:19 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms THEIR EXITS AND REENTRANCES 15 (i6) The Winter's Tale I. i-ii (Camillo). Entrances in The Winter's Tale are "massed", and Camillo's inclusion in the stage direction at the head of I. ii therefore means nothing more than that he enters at some time during the course of the scene. His name comes at the end of the list of those that enter, and this, in a massed entrance, may be taken to indicate that he enters after the rest. Furthermore, he does not speak until line 2io, and his entry presumably comes at that point upon his being summoned by Leontes. An interval of more than two hundred lines thus separates his entrance in I. ii from his departure at the end of I. i. On the basis of the foregoing analyses, it seems likely that not one of the sixteen episodes involved an immediate reentrance as performed on Shakespeare's stage. I summarize the certainties and probabilities as follows: In The Tempest, an act intermission separated the departure of Prospero and Ariel from their return. In four instances the supposed reenterer made his exit well before the earlier scene came to an end. He did so in the sequences that I have numbered 6, 9, 13, and I4+ In five instances he did not return to the stage until after the later scene had begun. A delayed reentrance is clearly intended in 4, IO, I3, and i6, is probable in 7, and is possible in I and 2. In five instances-numbers 5, 8, II, i2, and i5-the action probably ran continuously through from the first scene into the second, with the suspected reenterers remaining on the stage and not reentering at all. In two instances-numbers 2 and 3-the respective quartos fail to show reentrances that exist in the Folio, and in this respect it seems probable that the quartos, rather than the Folio, tell how the incidents were presented on the contemporary stage. Shakespeare's habitual avoidance of reentrances in his pre-Blackfriars plays constitutes evidence that the public playhouses did not have act intermissions. Conversely, the unmistakable reentry in The Tempest, and the similar reentrances in dozens of plays written by other Blackfriars dramatists, are an indication that intermissions were customary at Blackfriars and presumably at other private playhouses also; and in their frequency and wide distribution they are as a matter of fact a more persuasive demonstration of private-playhouse intermissions than are the relatively infrequent specifications of entr'acte music and dance. Modern texts of Shakespeare's plays provide additional examples of reentry, at points where editors have interpolated scene divisions that Shakespeare never intended. The post-Restoration editors were unaware that some changes of dra- matic place, as for instance a removal from a street or garden to a nearby interior, could be effected in the Elizabethan playhouse by having the actors walk from the outer stage to the rear stage while remaining in view of the audience. But the advent of theatrical scenery had changed all that. Representational scenery demanded that a change of dramatic place be evidenced by a change of scenic background and thus that the scene be ended; and basing their editorial practices upon the theatrical conditions of their own day rather than Shakespeare's, the editors have sometimes mistakenly cleared the stage and ended the This content downloaded from 217.112.157.113 on Fri, 23 Sep 2016 11:24:19 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms i6 SHAKESPEARE QUARTERLY scene, and then have begun a new scene with the same characters reentering. Faulty reentrances arising from this cause are to be found in Romeo and Juliet I. iv-v (the Maskers); 2 Henry IV, IV. i-ii (the insurgent forces), and IV. iv-v (the King, Warwick, Clarence, and Gloucester); Julius Caesar IV. ii-iii (Bru- tus and Cassius); Measure for Measure III. i-ii (the Duke); Henry VIII, V. ii-iii (Cranmer); etc. Garden City, New York This content downloaded from 217.112.157.113 on Fri, 23 Sep 2016 11:24:19 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
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