So in Cymbeline there is the extended vision of Posthumous, which is given with detailed stage directions:
Solemn music. Enter, as in an apparition, Sicilius Leonatus, father to Posthumous, an old man, attired like a warrior; leading in his hand an ancient matron, his wife, and mother to Posthumous, with music, before them. Then, after other music, follows the two younger Leonati, brothers to Posthumous, with wounds as they died in the wars. They circle Posthumous round, as he lies sleeping. (5.4.29 SD)
His family laments what has happened to Posthumous and call on Jupiter to relieve him:
Jupiter descends in thunder and lightning, sitting upon an eagle. He throws a thunderbolt. The ghosts fall on their knees. (92 SD)16
Later Jupiter demands “Mount, eagle, to my palace crystalline” and Ascends (113 and SD). It is a theatrical tour de force, drawing on extended music, rolling of cannonballs offstage for thunder, fireworks or a banner quickly drawn across the stage for lightning, and what was very likely an impressive “squib” for the thunderbolt. Amid all this Jupiter descends upon an eagle, on which he later re‐ascends.
This differs in two particulars from what we have observed earlier at the Globe: the length, variety and/or complexity of the music called for, and the descent machinery. As I shall suggest, these are characteristic of plays expressly written for the Blackfriars. Yet, at 3264 lines, Cymbeline is over 50 percent longer than the 1908 lines of The Malcontent as the boys staged it at the Blackfriars; it is even 30 percent longer than the 2531 lines with which The Malcontent was staged at the Globe. This seems odd if we assume that Blackfriars performances also included music. We may note that Simon Forman says nothing at all about Jupiter or a descent in his record of the play as he saw it. Is it likely that he would overlook such a spectacular scene? (see p. 320, Note 15). But he says nothing, either, about anyone being pursued by a bear, or Hermione’s statue “coming to life,” in The Winter’s Tale. Who can say why he recorded – or omitted – precisely what he did? This does, however, leave open the possibility that Cymbeline was not staged at the Globe as the text we have prescribes. Spectacular as the descent might be, it is not strictly necessary. If Hymen could simply enter as he does in As You Like It (5.4), or Pericles have his vision of Diana without a scripted descent (5.1), Jupiter could certainly make an impressive entrance without pulleys.
There is yet another possibility, but before exploring that it is time to look at plays from this period that have survived in texts very probably intended for Blackfriars performance. Of Shakespeare’s plays two in particular suggest themselves: they are within 100 lines of the length of the original Malcontent and they both call for descents. One of them quite explicitly calls for a wider range of music than we have encountered with any earlier play. These are The Tempest and, more surprisingly, Macbeth. Latterly I shall look at a play that somehow defies the length constraints; possibly the pre‐show concert was not a feature of every performance. The Two Noble Kinsmen is some 2800 lines long, but undoubtedly a Blackfriars play.
The Tempest is 2015 lines long and contains some of the most detailed stage directions of any Shakespeare play, a great majority of them involving sound of one kind or another. It opens with “A tempestuous noise of thunder and lightning heard ” (1.1.0 SD). In the second scene, “Enter Ferdinand; and Ariel, invisible, playing and singing” (1.2.377 SD);17 when his song reaches the word “burden” [refrain], the direction is Burden, dispersedly (385 SD) – it is picked up by other supposed spirits, probably in the tiring‐house. In Act 2, “Enter Ariel playing solemn music” (2.1.185 SD) and again “Enter Ariel, with music and song” (298 SD). In the next scene, “Enter Caliban with a burden of wood. A noise of thunder heard” (2.2.0 SD) and “Enter Stephano, singing” (41 SD). When Stephano and Trinculo try to sing together, Caliban recognizes “That’s not the tune” and Ariel obliges: “Ariel plays the tune on a tabor and pipe” (125 SD). When Prospero turns his magic on the king and his party “solemn and strange music; Prospero on the top, invisible” and “Enter several strange shapes, bringing in a banquet, and dance about it with gentle actions of salutations; and inviting the king etc. to eat, they depart” (3.3.17 SD and 19 SD). But then “Thunder and lightning. Enter Ariel, like a harpy, claps his wings upon the table, and with a quaint device the banquet vanishes” (52 SD). The masque which Prospero’s spirits stage in Act 4 starts with “Soft music” (4.1.59 SD) and shortly “Juno descends” (72 SD), apparently taking nearly thirty lines of dialogue before she alights; as the masque turns to dancing, “Enter certain reapers, properly habited. They join with the nymphs in a graceful dance, towards the end whereof Prospero starts suddenly, and speaks; after which, to a strange, hollow, and confused noise, they heavily vanish” (139 SD). In the next scene, Stephano, Trinculo and Caliban receive less courtly treatment: “A noise of hunters heard. Enter divers spirits, in shape of dogs and hounds, hunting them about, Prospero and Ariel setting them on” (256 SD). As Prospero pursues his course with Alonso and the others, “Ariel sings and helps to attire him” (5.1.87 SD), changing his “magic robes” (5.1.0 SD) for his finery as Duke of Milan. The last piece of theatrical magic is “Here Prospero discovers Ferdinand and Miranda, playing at chess” (172 SD).
As Gurr and Ichikawa observe: “Its off‐stage music, its songs, its two spectacles (a banquet visited by a harpy and a masque), its lack of fights or fireworks, the large proportion of scenes that call for few players on stage, in later years all became standard features of the plays written for indoor venues” (2000, 38). Yet the play is almost on a par with The Devil’s Charter in exploiting its playhouse’s resources – the discovery space, saved till the end (as usual, little happens within it, Ferdinand and Miranda speak from its mouth); a trap – perhaps more sophisticated than the one at the Globe – allowing the banquet to vanish “with a quaint device.” The trap may also explain how the nymphs, reapers and goddesses of the masque “vanish heavily.” (Smoke would be a useful accessory here, and they certainly knew how to use it). There is no conventional use of an upper stage scripted, but Prospero appears at one point “on the top,” which seems to point to an even higher spot above the tiring house, possibly a lantern in the ceiling of the building, a genuinely commanding height. The musicians are called upon to provide Solemn and strange music and soft music, to accompany dancing, and possibly to provide the strange, hollow, and confused noise, while noise‐effects men behind the scenes are kept busy with the thunder and the sounds of hunters, and lightning flashes either with fireworks or with banners. And of course there is the descent, splendid with Juno in her chariot pulled by her sacred peacocks (“Her peacocks fly amain”: 4.1.74).
When we turn to Macbeth there are two features which point to the version as we have it being prepared for the Blackfriars. One is the remarkable brevity: at 2084 lines it is over a thousand lines shorter than Othello, King Lear, Antony and Cleopatra, Coriolanus, or Hamlet, the length that we associate with the indoor theatre. It is one of very few Shakespeare plays, and the only tragedy, that can comfortably be performed within the traditional “two hours” traffic of the stage even today. More tellingly, however, it is apparent that the play has been revised. The play originally dates from circa 1606, since it has allusions to the Gunpowder Plot of the year before; and Simon Forman records having seen it at the Globe on April 20, 1611, presumably in its original form (Rowse, 1974, 308).
But in 3.5 and again in 4.1 the text calls for songs for Hecate and the three witches, only the titles of which are given in the printed version, “Come away, come away” (3.5.36) and “Black spirits” (4.1.44). Those songs are given in full in Thomas Middleton’s tragicomedy, The Witch (circa 1615–16). And it is reasonable to infer that someone – possibly Middleton himself – incorporated them into a revised version of Shakespeare’s play, perhaps at about the same time, giving us the version of the text that we now have. When we look, in particular, at “Come away, come away” in its full original setting we see that it accompanies both a descent and an ascent: “A spirit like a cat descends” (3.5.47.0) and Hecate departs with that spirit:
Now I go, now I fly,
Malkin, my sweet spirit, and I.
O, what a dainty pleasure ’tis
To ride in the air
When the moon shines fair.
(59–63)18
The truncated version we have in the Shakespeare text has Hecate saying “My little spirit, see,/Sits in a foggy cloud and stays for me” (34–5). There is no other explanation of the “little spirit,” so it is reasonable to suppose that the whole sequence with Middleton’s spirit cat was reproduced there, with descent and ascent. And this marks the play as we have it, like The Witch, as probably a Blackfriars one.
I did, however, mention yet another possibility, which further complicates all this guesswork. That is that the Globe might have been adapted (perhaps in the extensive plague breaks of 1608–10), the more readily to allow effects from Blackfriars‐orientated plays to be achieved in the amphitheater. As the company contemplated how to make best use of two playhouses, it would certainly have made sense to ensure that as much of their repertoire as possible could be played in both venues. That is, descent machinery might have been installed and some provision made to house the musicians – answering the question of how the consort were employed during the summer months, when it would seem they exclusively used the Globe. In the Prologue to the folio version of Every Man In His Humour (1616) Jonson derides how the “creaking throne comes down the boys to please” in plays other than his own, making it seem like a traditional feature of popular theatre. But, as we have seen, the surviving record of the Globe’s repertoire, and certainly of Shakespeare’s plays, makes no demands on such a facility until after the company’s acquisition of the Blackfriars. Such texts may therefore actually reflect solely Blackfriars, or they may indicate that the Globe installed equipment for descents around this time.19
Housing for the musicians is an issue in itself. So long as the King’s Men used the Theatre, Curtain, or Globe there was no call to make special provision for them – trumpeters and drummers would perform on stage, or within the tiring house, as would those who played an occasional flute or lute. But once they had the Blackfriars and its consort separate provision would have to have been made. Indeed, we might assume that there was already such provision in the playhouse as they acquired it from the boys. But some new thinking might have been necessary at the Globe, if indeed the consort also served there in some capacity.
There are several references in the era to “music houses” or “music rooms,” in both public and private playhouse, though none in a public playhouse earlier than circa 1610. Antonio’s Revenge (circa 1600), for example, requires that “While the measure is dancing, Andrugio’s Ghost is placed betwixt the music houses” (5.5.17.2–3 SD). This was at the Paul’s playhouse where, as E. K. Chambers puts it, “there was at the back of the stage a ‘musick tree,’ which apparently rose out of a ‘canopie’ and bore a ‘music house’ on either side of it” (ES, 2: 557). Middleton’s A Chaste Maid in Cheapside (? 1613), the only play specifically known to have been written for the Swan, contains the direction “there is a sad song in the music‐room” – but see p. 10 (5.4.0 SD; 2007b). And Jasper Mayne specifically praised Jonson, after his death, that “Thou laidst no sieges to the music room” (Jonsonus Virbius, 1638).
This last strongly suggests that music rooms might be on the same level as upper stages which, in addition to permitting windows or balcony scenes, were sometimes used to represent the battlements of a besieged town or castle. So, for example, “Richard appeareth on the walls” (3.3.61.3–4) and talks to Northumberland in Richard II, and “Enter Henry the Sixth and Richard, with the Lieutenant, on the walls” in Richard III (5.6.0 SD). In The Devil’s Charter, as we saw, the action could be much more athletic and involve the use of scaling ladders. Mayne’s point is that Jonson did not write plays that called for such derring‐do – and as a result did not disturb the musicians in the music room. But he may indirectly be telling us that when plays did call for such action they cleared the music room temporarily for those purposes. That would mean that they would not have to disturb the spectators in the lords’ rooms, which were also apparently on the same level as the upper stage, who would however have an unusually good view of the action. In respect of the Blackfriars, however, it should be said that there is no evidence of lords’ rooms being used after the King’s Men took over: Dekker’s joke that the fashion of the gentry for sitting on the stage had rendered them theatrical “suburbs” may have been only too apt (see p. 295, 298). They may still have been there but ceased to have pride of place, making them less worthy of mention. This may also have made it easier to install a music room on that level.