The Staircases of the Frame: New Light on the Structure of the Globe

Summary

Considering the shortage of pictorial evidence relating to the Elizabethan stage and theatres, it is surprising that more attention has not been paid to the sketches included among the Alleyn-Henslowe papers at Dulwich College. The existence of these drawings was brought to the attention of scholars by W. W. Greg in his edition of some of those papers in 1907. In a headnote to Article 14 of Volume I of the manuscripts (an autograph letter from Philip Henslowe to Edward Alleyn dated 28 September 1593), Greg remarked that the letter also contained ‘several pen and ink sketches on the outer leaf, one apparently for some scenery in perspective’. In spite of the interest of such sketches to theatre historians, the drawings were not reproduced. Nor, indeed, did Greg make further reference to them either in Henslowe Papers or in the much fuller commentary on Henslowe’s ‘diary’ published a year later.

It was not until 1960 that the general reader had an opportunity to judge for himself the significance of any of the pictures. In that year R. A. Foakes and R. T. Rickert published one of the sketches which they hesitantly identified as a drawing of an Elizabethan stage (Fig. 1). A year later the same sketch was reproduced in their edition of Henslowe's Diary. Their commentary on the drawing is a model of circumspection.