Unworthy Scaffolds: A Theory for the Reconstruction of Elizabethan Playhouses

Summary

In the many attempts that have been made during the last fifty years to establish a convincing reconstruction of the Shakespearian public playhouse the main force of effort and controversy has nearly always ranged around that area at the back of the stage which we call the ‘tiring-house façade’. The uses and appearance of this feature have occupied the keenest attention of reconstructors ever since the publication of the de Witt sketch of the Swan Playhouse, in 1888–particularly, of course, because this famous drawing tended so unhelpfully to disagree with certain theories held at that time, just as it has done, in one way or another, with all other theories held ever since. In their various assessments of the tiring-house façade most reconstructions disagree with one another, except in their universal, though somewhat apologetic, disagreement with the observations of Johannes de Witt. Yet while students have been concentrating with more and more eagerness upon this area of disagreement, they have accepted without much question a number of preconceived opinions about the nature of the actual stage, the platform structure, itself. In estimating the character of the Elizabethan theatre we are constantly being betrayed by the habits of our modern theatrical experience. We try, seemingly in very spite of our better knowledge, to find some sort of a proscenium somewhere upon the Elizabethan stage; to open up an inner-stage, no matter how questionable the evidence for its existence, and to thrust back into it a greater and greater portion of the action of the Elizabethan plays. In this way the tiring-house façade has seemed, like a magnet, to draw back both actors and students alike into itself, leaving the great stage before it empty and unattended.