19 JULY 1935, Page 24

Sidelights on Stage History

Those Nut-Cracking Elizabethans. By W. J. LawrCned,

' (Argonaut Press. 10s. bd.)

WHAT is it that gives to certain affairs of history—the move- ments of the Roman legions, or the transactions of the Elizabethan and Jacobean Stage—their peculiar fascination and air of immediacy ? Whatever it is, the quality is nowhere better exploited, as all good Elizabethans know, than in Mr. W. J. Lawrence's studies of the Elizabethan Playhouse and the Pre-Restoration Stage. He can always convince WS reader that the scholar's problem, be it of trap-doors or steam, curtains, is of vital importance, and that its solution is the most exciting of detective stories; white, best of all perhape,' those great authorities who presume to disagree with him. are made to appear such grotesque little per: o -lieges, marching with ridiculous deterntination to the attack, and toppling. as ridiculously over beneath his genial irony.

In this, Mr. Lawrence's latest collection of papers, the pur- suit is still exhilarating as ever, the dissenting critics still advance like circus dwarfs to the same ignominious bouleverse- tnent. And yet—is it only that the enthusiasm of discovery be us, the readers, is grown less ?—the problems no longer seem so all-important, or the facts unearthed so far-reaching in their' implications. There are, for instance, several studies of stage-1 properties and stage-practice, after the manner of the earlier series ; but such an essay as Bells in Elizabethan Drama. has neither the calibre nor the reverberations of the Stage-Traps in a former volume, while the treatment of Bygone Sage Furniture seems perfunctory beside that once given to the subsidiary question of the "State."

The essay on stage furniture, indeed, is little more than a "pleasant conceited history" of stage-hands, from Shake- speare's time to our own; and there are several others among these papers which do not rise above this agreeable "historian'S gossip "—that, for instance, which traces the theatrical 'line from the " mutes " of the seventeenth and eighteenth Ceni. turies, through " supernumeraries." and "extra ladies and gentlemen," to the " supers " of today ; Or the emusing Evolution of the 'Tragic Carpet. Equally occasional are those studies which; like the title:essay, deal with single details of Elizabethan- behaviour, or with single -points of controversy such as double-titles, or the oddity of the Dumb,show. iri Hamlet—this last an entertaining and ingenious essay, but surely much ado about nothing !

The greater ,number of essays .in this .volume are, in short, disappointingly slight from the scholar's point of view, though as fascinatieg as ever to . the ordinary, inquisitive however, which have a greater reader. There are Still some, than entertainment value. The paper on Bearers for the DecuF is a worthy addition to Mr. Lawrence's studies of Elizabethan production,. and' there is good reading in this account of the dramatists' valiant attempts to dispose of the body, even to the turning of the traverse into a river by the aid of a property moss-bank, and sinking the remains • in the inner-stage. Or was it an even more effective dumping-ground.? It was Mr: Lawrence himself who taught us long ago to cry " grave-trap " whenever a river was mentioned. •

Apart from this essay, the scholar must be grateful for twq most valuable hints. First, the tracing of the " private playhouse " to its source in an evasion of the Act of December; 1574, which deeieed the licensing (and taxing) of publie performances, but exempted those held " withoute publiquei or comen collection of money of the auditorie " and in "the pryvide house, dwellings; or lodging 'a anie nobleman, Citiron or gentleman." Second, the drawing attention to that corn-, mon factor Of all Bad Quartos and abbreviated plays, the transposition of speeches and oven whole scenes, and its sug.; gested explanation : that the plays were thus transcribed for the regular provincial companies, whose small personnel necessitated frequent doublings, and consequent manipulation of the text to avoid meetings between the doubled characters. This is a valuable suggestion, but it is no more. For Mr. Lawrence does not attempt to answer the questions which such a theory raises ; chief of all, how the transcriber came to ' be allowed free access to plays usually so jealously guarded by the original performers.

Finally, there is the essay on Massinger's punctuation, which will probably be the most reverently received of this collection. . • Mr. Lawrence has discovered that Massinger had the peculiar habit of pointing his stage-directions with full-stops between each phrase. Two uses can be made of this discovery. With . its aid, Massinger's finger can be detected in hitherto un- suspected pies ; and here undoubtedly is a new playground for those who enjoy the game of robbing • Peter to pay Paul. More important, it is possible by it to test the accuracy with which Jacobean printers set up the punctuation of their copy. .Mr. Lawrence concludes from the evidence that they were not .meticulous ; but more research is needed before anything certain is deduced from their attitude to so eccentric a pointing as Massinger's. • . Before handing this book over to the reader, mention 'should be made of the pleasant facsimiles of title-pages with .which it is illustrated. But why choose, for reproduction on the cover, a specimen which must apparently be bowdlerizell .before it can attain to that high position, though allowed 't6 .remain in all its sinfulness inside the book ?