Lighting the Shakespearean Stage, 1567-1642 (review)

Lighting the Shakespearean Stage, 1567-1642. By R. B. Graves. Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press, 1999. Pp. x + 275. $44.95 cloth.

In his recent book Shakespeare's Language, Frank Kermode coolly coins the term "lighting scene" to describe "an episode a little aside from the main movement of the story that is meant to illustrate a particular aspect of it. . . ."¹ Kermode's trope readily evokes experience-based images. Modern lighting techniques play an integral role in staging the story, concentrating viewers' attention, delineating time and place, reinforcing themes, and conveying mood. However, Kermode's remark also illustrates how modern stage lighting inhabits the hermeneutic imagination of readers. In Lighting the Shakespearean Stage, 1567-1642, R. B. Graves analyzes factors governing illumination in public and private playhouses, summoning his readers to envision atmospheric and material circumstances of early modern drama in a different light. Graves's assessment of technical data, historical evidence, and textual allusion becomes critically linked to intriguing questions about aesthetic inference.

Graves built this volume on three journal articles published in the 1980s on aspects of daylight in indoor playhouses, theatrical lighting at court, and on "property lights" and special effects. To probe comparative characteristics of indoor versus outdoor stage illumination and question whether contrasting modes of light signal differences in staging, he here adds technical background about artificial lighting "utensils" (118) and practices as well as detailed analysis of variables applicable to outdoor performance. Testing historical evidence, he also introduces findings from experiments conducted at the new Globe and in surviving sites of Tudor performance, such as the great halls at Hampton Court and Middle Temple. Graves cites passages from scripts or other documentary sources, often triangulating textual reference with architectural and technical data to create a palpable impression of performance environments.

Graves's discussion of outdoor playhouses cursorily differentiates among London venues but concentrates on the first and second Globes. He reasons that stage, yard, and galleries were largely protected from direct exposure to sunlight during performances, even in a playhouse without a stage cover (for example, the first phase of the Rose). Graves concludes, "The general picture of the amphitheaters that emerges is one of a well-shaded stage with neither artificial light for general illumination nor the extreme contrasts of light and dark due to direct sunlight" (123). In order "to make intelligent surmises about the amount and kind of light that illuminated [outdoor] stages" (86), Graves took light measurements at London's new Globe. Although Graves collected his data in 1995 on a temporary "workshop" stage, his rough findings support a reasonable hypothesis: Shakespeare's audiences viewed action in "subdued" and "ungovernable" light; performances in the outdoor playhouses, subject to vicissitudes of weather and changing times of sunset, were never brilliantly illuminated. Afternoon playgoing in the new Globe confirms Graves's observation that the stage may seem relatively murky when portions of the house are illumined by direct sunshine. When natural illumination at this "reconstructed" playhouse ceases to support a comfortable level of visibility (in the evening or when veiled by clouds), electric "simulated daylight" brightens the arena and (especially) the stage.

Graves demonstrates that final acts in original playhouses were frequently presented in fading light. He marshals evidence that, particularly before 1594, plays did not begin until "after evening prayer," as late as four o'clock in the afternoon. In autumn, even a performance starting at two o'clock may have ended in or past twilight, leaving the play's close in near or utter darkness. Were artificial lights employed in these conditions? Graves considers the possibility that "cressets" (113ff) or other luminaires may have been used on outdoor stages but concedes, "[g]iven the lack of clear evidence, it is impossible to say with assurance that artificial lights were or were not used at the ends of amphitheater performances" (118). Did the gloom of failing light produce an atmospheric effect that influenced aesthetic reception? Although he muses that "it is difficult to...