The Stage
SCENERY
I He principal elements that constitute the staging of a play: the
general details of the performance itself, the acting, the scenery, the lighting,
the costuming do not exist independently of each other. But for purposes
of clarity, particularly in regard to the differences existing between eighteenth-
century practices and those of to-day, it has seemed best to discuss these
subjects one by one.
As the audience was assembling, the orchestra, or, as it was more
commonly referred to, the band, was playing various selections of music.
This it did at two, and sometimes at three separate intervals over a period of
about half an hour: the “first music,” the “second,” and the “third.” The
beginning of the music was heralded by the ringing of the prompter’s bell,
and it was concluded by the bell being vigorously rung again. These
manoeuvres, in particular the last, had two objects: cues for the starting
and the stopping of the music, and giving the final warning to the audience
since obviously the house lights could not be lowered — -that the per-
formances were about to begin.
Between the audience and the proscenium arch, with its large, green
proscenium curtain, was the sunken pit in which the orchestra sat, and
beyond which lay the area known, at least in theatrical history, as the
forestage. (I am reminded by Professor Allardyce Nicoll that this part of the
stage was never referred to as the “apron” until about 1900. Even the term
forestage” was seldom, possibly never, employed in the eighteenth century,
Le' everything from the footlights to the furthest upstage piece of scenery
WdS called, and quite properly, merely “the stage.”) In any event, this
area was one of the first importance in every production of every evening’s
entertainment. From it were heard prologues, epilogues, announcements
°f changes of play; on it took place not only songs, monologues, incidental
dances and other forms of intermediary activity, but also a considerable part
°f t*1e action of the play proper. At moments of stress or tension in the
unfolding of the plot the actors would want to be in as close proximity as
possible to the audience, and would advance well beyond the proscenium
arch to deliver an important speech, whether a soliloquy or not. On either
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