File - Shakespeare4alltime

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