The stage storm still bursts upon the
drama from time to time; the theatre is still visited in due course by
its rainy and tempestuous season; and thunder and lightning are, as
much as in Addison's time, among the favourite devices of our
playwrights, "put in practice to fill the minds of an audience with
terror." The terror may not be quite of the old kind, but still it
does well enough.
CHAPTER XXVI.
"DOUBLES."
The "doubling" of parts, or the allotment to an actor of more
characters than one in the same representation, was an early necessity
of theatrical management. The old dramatists delighted in a long
catalogue of _dramatis personae_. There are some fifty "speaking parts"
in Shakespeare's "Henry V.," for instance; and although it was usual
to press even the money-takers into the service of the stage to figure
as supernumerary players, there was still a necessity for the regular
members of the troupe to undertake dual duties. Certain curious stage
directions cited by Mr. Payne Collier from the old extemporal play of
"Tamar Cam," mentioned in Henslowe's "Diary" under the date of
October, 1602, afford evidence of an early system of doubling.
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