Cognition in the Globe: Attention and Memory in Shakespeare's Theatre by Evelyn B. Tribble (review)

The question motivating Tribble's book is "seemingly simple": "How did they do it?" (1). That is, how did the playing companies of early modern London manage the cognitive demands of their fast-paced performance schedule? The answer to this question, for Tribble, lies in the three fields of study on which she draws: distributed cognition, situated cognition, and extended mind theory. As she explains, "These fields hold in common a view that 'cognition' is not a brain-bound activity, but rather is 'unevenly distributed across social, technological, and biological realms'" (2). Tribble bases her reading not on the accomplishments of individuals— which, she argues, unfairly tend to dominate considerations of the question with which she begins her book—but in the social, cultural, and professional "systems" that produce these accomplishments (2). Swift and clearly written, Tribble's book provides theater historians not with new conclusions about the mechanics of theatrical practice—most of the conclusions she cites have been made by others—but with a new way of distinguishing between such conclusions. The book also offers scholars outside the humanities a fascinating case study in distributed cognition, one attuned (as, Tribble notes, such accounts tend not to be) to historical contingency and literary content. Like Jonathan Gil Harris's Untimely Matter in the Time of Shakespeare, Tribble's book pursues something more complex than an objects-based historicism. Tribble considers not just the stuff of the past but changing patterns of thought shaped, indeed constituted, by historically specific physical and cultural environments. A criticism sometimes leveled at cognitive studies is that it ignores culture; setting aside the fact that this critique oversimplifies a varied and complex field, one might note that distributed cognition not only demands attention to historical contingency but also allows historicism to understand not just one historical period but many. One way of understanding historical and cultural difference, Tribble maintains, is to trace the different means of thinking contained in different cognitive artifacts.

Central to the book is a critique of what Tribble calls the "deficit model" of historical research (60). Past practices, such as the casting of male apprentices in female roles and the use of preparation methods other than lengthy full-cast rehearsals, are frequently treated as if they are inadequate predecessors to or rudimentary versions of modern practices. Rather than wonder how early modern theater professionals managed in the absence of such modern theatrical practices as a lengthy rehearsal period or the guidance of a director, Tribble explores how the materials and practices of the early modern theater enabled skilled performance—how actors in this theater succeeded not in spite of, but because of and by means of, practices that seem strange to the modern eye.

The three substantial chapters of Tribble's book explore three different features of the early modern playing environment which contribute to the players' expertise. She begins with the physical environment, in which she includes the playing space, plots, playbooks, and parts. Her goal, here and elsewhere, is to assess "competing claims" (31) about early modern theatrical practice using the principles of distributive cognition: like the crew of a naval vessel (an analogy to which she returns frequently, drawing on the research of anthropologist Ed Hutchins on group cognition on naval vessels), the playing company would tend to choose those external aids which simplify and aid their complex tasks. (The title of Hutchins's book—to which Tribble's title alludes—is Cognition in the Wild.) The right tools simplify the players' choices, shaping their attention, and supplementing the existing expertise of the playing company. Tribble does not assume that theatrical practices were formulaic; rather, they are dynamic and attuned to shifting professional requirements.

In her second chapter, Tribble explores the use of language to promote memory and attention, providing insights from cognitive studies of verse and gesture. She argues that the verse led players...