of Much Ado About Nothing), or even occasionally under it ( Antony and Cleopatra , 4.3). Some actors were themselves musicians: the performers of Feste (in Twelfth Night) and Ariel (in The Tempest ) must sing and, probably, accompany themselves on lute and tabor (a small drum slung around the neck). Though traditional music has survived for some of the songs in Shakespeare’s plays (such as Ophelia’s mad songs, in Hamlet ), we have little music which was certainly composed for them in his own time. The principal exception is two songs for The Tempest by Robert Johnson, a fine composer who was attached to the King’s Men.
Shakespeare’s plays require few substantial properties. A ‘state’, or throne on a dais, is sometimes called for, as are tables and chairs and, occasionally, a bed, a pair of stocks (King Lear , Sc. 7/2.2 ), a cauldron ( Macbeth, 4.1), a rose brier ( I Henry VI, 2.4), and a bush ( Two Noble Kinsmen , 5.3). No doubt these and other such objects were pushed on and off the stage by attendants in full view of the audience. We know that Elizabethan companies spent lavishly on costumes, and some plays require special clothes; at the beginning of 2 Henry IV , Rumour enters ‘painted full of tongues’; regal personages, and supernatural figures such as Hymen in As You Like It (5.4) and the goddesses in The Tempest (4.1), must have been distinctively costumed; presumably a bear-skin was needed for The Winter’s Tale (3.3). Probably no serious attempt was made at historical realism. The only surviving contemporary drawing of a scene from a Shakespeare play, illustrating Titus Andronicus (reproduced on the following page), shows the characters dressed in a mixture of Elizabethan and classical costumes, and this accords with the often anachronistic references to clothing in plays with a historical setting. The same drawing also illustrates the use of head-dresses, of varied weapons as properties—the guard to the left appears to be wearing a scimitar—of facial and bodily make-up for Aaron, the Moor, and of eloquent gestures. Extended passages of wordless action are not uncommon in Shakespeare. Dumb shows feature prominently in earlier Elizabethan plays, and in Shakespeare the direction ‘alarum’ or ‘alarums and excursions’ may stand for lengthy and exciting passages of arms. Even in one of Shakespeare’s latest plays, Cymbeline, important episodes are conducted in wordless mime (see, for example, 5.2-4).
Towards the end of Shakespeare’s career his company regularly performed in a private theatre, the Blackfriars, as well as at the Globe. Like other private theatres, this was an enclosed building, using artificial lighting, and so more suitable for winter performances. Private playhouses were smaller than the public ones—the Blackfriars held about 600 spectators—and admission prices were much higher—a minimum of sixpence at the Blackfriars against one penny at the Globe. Facilities at the Blackfriars must have been essentially similar to those at the Globe since some of the same plays were given at both theatres. But the sense of social occasion seems to have been different. Audiences were more elegant (though not necessarily better behaved); music featured more prominently.
8. A drawing, attributed to Henry Peacham, illustrating Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus
It seems to have been under the influence of private-theatre practice that, from about 1609 onwards, performances of plays customarily marked the conventional five-act structure by a pause, graced with music, after each act. The need to trim the candles was a practical reason for introducing act breaks. Previously, though dramatists often showed awareness of five-act structure (as Shakespeare conspicuously does in Henry V, with a Chorus before each act), public performances seem to have been continuous, making the scene the main structural unit. None of the editions of Shakespeare’s plays printed in his lifetime (which