Of the poverty of the
early stage, in the matter of scenic decorations, there is abundant
evidence. Fleckno, in his "Short Discourse of the Stage," 1664, by
which time movable scenery had been introduced, writes: "Now for the
difference between our theatres and those of former times; they were
but plain and simple, with no other scenes nor decorations of the
stages but only old tapestry, and the stage strewed with rushes."
The simple expedient of writing up the names of the different places,
where the scene was laid in the progress of a play, or affixing a
placard to that effect upon the tapestry at the back of the stage,
sufficed to convey to the spectators the intentions of the author.
"What child is there," asks Sir Philip Sidney, "that, coming to a play
and seeing Thebes written in great letters on an old door, doth
believe that it is Thebes?" Oftentimes, too, opportunity was found in
the play itself, or in its prologue, to inform the audience of the
place in which the action of the story is supposed to be laid. "Our
scene is Rhodes," says old Hieronymo in Kyd's "Spanish Tragedy," 1588.
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