‘Thou Laidst No Sieges to the Music-Room’: Anatomizing Wars, Staging Battles

Summary

In this article, I want to review evidence, from the early modern period, for the staging of siege scenes in particular, and battle sequences in general. This reveals that playhouse combats were often ritualized or emblematized, and very often minimalized. It is plausible that they were less prominent than in many contemporary stage productions and in most screen versions. Filmmakers, in order to satisfy contemporary demands for spectacle, can film on location and exhibit the vasty fields of France, but they also tend to magnify the battles, making them both more life-like and more climactic than they originally were.