"At Three Doores", "At Three Seuerall Doores", and "At the Middle Dore": Three Stage Directions Referring to Three Stage Doors

It is generally agreed among theatre historians that most London commercial playhouses of the early modern period (both outdoor and indoor) had three openings in the tiring-house wall, that is, two flanking doors and a "discovery space" between them. Tim Fitzpatrick, however, takes the view that the London playhouses of the time had only two doors in the tiring-house façade, as in the Swan sketch, either of which could serve for "discoveries", and no opening in the centre but instead a "concealment space", created, only when needed, by a curtain hung on a rod in front of the angled tiring-house wall (34-43). His two-door theory is becoming influential. In a survey of discoveries on the medieval and early modern stage, Janette Dillon mentions his theory, when she reminds us of the need "to bear in mind that the presence or positioning of a discovery-space must have varied between playhouses, depending on the number of stage doors and the number of angles of the playhouse walls" (200). Leslie Thomson addresses this issue in an appendix to her book Discoveries on the Early Modern Stage: "Was There a Central Opening in the Tiring House Wall?" (213-41). In evaluating the main arguments for and against a central opening, she agrees with Fitzpatrick's argument that there is no unqualified evidence to support the existence of such a fixture in any playhouse. She concludes:

While the absence of evidence is not necessarily evidence of absence, it is surely significant that no unequivocal reference to a central opening exists in stage directions, which, after all, are not simply descriptions but prescriptions for performance by players in a physical space.

(239)

Because of the paucity of external evidence, the play texts themselves, and especially the original stage directions, have been the most important source of information about the staging conditions of the playhouses of early modern London. The extant plays written between 1580 and 1642 for performance at London professional playhouses provide no more than three stage directions that explicitly refer to three doors, excepting atypical directions in Thomas Nabbes's Covent Garden (1633-34, Queen Henrietta's Men at the Cockpit in Drury Lane) which specify the doorway through which characters enter or exit by using the term "scene" in an idiosyncratic way: "by the right Scoene"; "by the left Scoene"; "by the middle Scoene" (B1r, B2v, C3r, and throughout).¹ And, in addition to these three explicit directions, several implicit directions and staging requirements of plays have also been used as evidence for a central opening (see, for example, Gurr, "Doors at the Globe" 61-65). Thomson has dismissed even these explicit directions as insufficient evidence. While respecting her thorough knowledge of early modern stage directions, I would still like to examine her, and Fitzpatrick's, discussions of the explicit references in order to see if we should accept her conclusion.

In what follows, I shall first look at how Fitzpatrick and Thomson deal with the three explicit directions, making occasional comments mainly on what might be questionable. I shall then analyse their reasons for rejecting the directions, and then go on to see if it is possible to challenge their assumptions. And I shall finally offer my view as to whether we should also give up treating the directions as important evidence for a central opening.

Three explicit stage directions

The explicit directions are found in the following three plays:

1. 1. Anonymous, The Maid's Metamorphosis (1600, Children of Paul's at Paul's playhouse), printed in 1600.

2. 2. Thomas Heywood, The Four Prentices of London (1601-07, Worcester's Men at the Rose?), printed in 1615, probably from authorial papers. (For arguments for an earlier date of composition [1594], see Gasior xiv-xv; Niayesh 34-35. For the nature of the printer's copy, see Wiggins with Richardson 1351.)

3. 3. Ben Jonson, George Chapman, and John Marston, Eastward Ho! (1604-05, Children of the Queen's Revels at the Blackfriars²), printed in 1605, from the authors' papers...