Backstage
BEHIND THE WINGS
The backstage area of the London theatres of this period was large —
far larger than the area devoted to the entire front of the house. So at least
it appears from surviving floor plans of Drury Lane, Covent Garden, and the
King’s. No floor plan of the Haymarket seems to have been preserved, if,
that is, one was ever drawn at all. The most accurate and comprehensive
of these plans arc those made at an undetermined date by the architect
and scene designer, William Capon, of Covent Garden theatre as it appeared
previous to its extensive alteration in 1792 by Henry Holland.^ They
reveal, first, the area containing the stage. This area measured fifty-six feet
from wall to wall, with the stage situated exactly in the middle of it. The
stage, i.c. the proscenium opening, being thirty-six feet wide, ten feet
therefore existed, behind the wings, on all its three backstage sides.
The walls just referred to were, of course, interior walls. On the other
side of these walls were corridors that entirely encircled the stage and its
contiguous areas behind the scenes. All three corridors gave direct access
to a series of dressing rooms, and, on the left hand side of the building,
adjacent to the private entrance to the theatre used by the royal family,
to the greenroom. This room was the general meeting place of the players
before, during, and after the performance, of their friends, of authors,
musicians, and painters ; it was sometimes used for rehearsals; it was the
scene of parties and festivities — it was, in short, to the members of a
permanent repertory company as indispensable as were the drawing rooms
in their own homes. A second, somewhat smaller greenroom, intended for
the use of minor actors, chorus singers and supernumeraries in general, had
been installed in this theatre previous to the opening of the 1788-89 season.
It is to be supposed that the dressing rooms corresponded, in the main,
to those of to-day, but no pictorial or written account of them has survived.
Those actors and actresses who could afford it had each his or her own private
dresser. Throughout almost her entire professional life Mrs Siddons’s
212 These MS drawings were first reproduced in an article describing them, written by
their present owner, Robert Eddison, “Capon, Holland and Covent Garden,” Theatre Note¬
book, xiv (1959), 17-20.
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