A Dictionary of Stage Directions in English Drama 1580–1642 by Alan C. Dessen, Leslie Thomson (review)

380 letters in canada 2001 university of toronto quarterly, volume 72, number 1, winter 2002/3 (STEPHEN GUY-BRAY) Alan C. Dessen and Leslie Thomson. A Dictionary of Stage Directions in English Drama 1580B1642 Cambridge University Press 1999. xvi, 290. US $69.95 This dictionary is an essential book for anyone interested in Elizabethan drama or theatre. Here is a typical entry: safeguard an outer skirt or petticoat worn by a woman to protect her skirt when riding and therefore (along with boots, spurs, riding wands, riding cloaks) an indicator that a figure has recently completed a journey or is about to undertake one: >the men booted, the gentlewomen in cloaks and safeguards= (Merry Devil of Edmonton, B1r); like other items of riding costume the safeguard can be linked to haste or weariness: >Jane in haste, in her riding cloak and safeguard, with a pardon in her hand= (2 Edward IV, 139); see also Roaring Girl, 2.1.154. The headwords are drawn almost exclusively from stage directions. The definition accords with OED, but the real value of the entry is its collecting of examples which point towards a convention of stage signals. Crossreferences alert us to related headwords as well. In this case, the link to >boots= and journeys will be recognized by everyone familiar with Alan Dessen=s other work. Indeed, Dessen=s now well established arguments underpin fundamental decisions about this book, such as the proposition that the sheer spread of examples provides a shared >theatrical vocabulary= so widespread as to minimize the usual need for careful distinctions based on textual provenance, particular playhouses, or other specific circumstances . Owners of this volume will soon start annotating their copies. For instance, the headword >rosemary= has a cross-reference to >wedding= (its usual referent, not Ophelia=s remembrance), which itself also mentions >Bride Cake.= I have written >bride= and >bride-cake= in my copy as new headwords, with a scribbled cross-reference back to >wedding.= The absence of a headword for >bride= must be ascribed to the decision to exclude most generic persons and the one-off extravagances of masques, but it is unfortunate that the discussion of >hair= is therefore almost entirely about madness and despair, with no mention of Jonson=s stage direction in Hymenaei, >a personated Bride, supported, her hayre flowing loose, xxxxxxxxxx humanities 381 university of toronto quarterly, volume 72, number 1, winter 2002/3 sprinckled with grey,= without any cross-reference between >hair= and >wedding.= The mention of >wedding knives= in the dialogue of King Edward III (2.2.171) constitutes another item in my proliferating marginalia around >wedding.= The rationale for excluding almost all dialogue amplification of words found in stage directions is thoroughly explained in the introduction, but is sometimes regrettable. Under >melancholy,= for instance, we are told that >the fourteen examples provide no indication of how the actor is to achieve the effect.= However, dialogue offers hints at how an actor might achieve the effect: for instance, with dishevelled clothing >indicating a careless desolation= (As You Like It, 3.2.381), and >Musing and sighing, with [his] arms across= (Julius Caesar, 2.1.240); such clues might judiciously be included more often. A cross-reference here to >book= would also have helped: >a book frequently conveys a state of contemplation, prayer or melancholy in the figure who enters with it, most famously in AEnter Hamlet reading on a Book.@= Nevertheless, the cross-referencing and comparisons encouraged by the format are this work=s great strengths. For instance, Romeo and Juliet has a Q1 entry direction for Paris >with flowers and sweet water= (5.3.0.1); >sweet= means perfumed, but how was this evident to a spectator at the play? Dessen and Thomson, under >water,= list this example alongside one from Antonio and Mellida, 3.2.24: >a casting-bottle of sweet water in his hand, sprinkling himself.= Reference to the text of Romeo and Juliet makes clear that Paris is not narcissistically perfuming himself, but rather the tomb where Juliet lies; what the dictionary adds is the information that Paris might have conveyed a visual signal by carrying the >sweet water= in a >casting-bottle.= This is illuminating for general...