Finally, we have a clear signal for characters to leave the stage. The prince sends his knights off stage with the instruction to provide him with “three noise of musicians.” However, the next stage direction marks an entrance for the prince. How can he enter when he is already on the stage speaking to Oxford and his knights? This has been read as a sign that the text is corrupt as the stage directions defy basic stage logic: how can a character enter when he is already on stage? In directing this section, I tried to find a creative solution that would satisfy the majority of the stage directions recorded in the surviving text.
Click here to see how this section of the scene was performed on the tavern stage [Link to stage one, part two 38:12-40:36 ]
Once the clip finishes return the reader to this page
You will note that we decided the prince should exit with his companions when he says he will “stand aside”. This was not necessary since the principle of simultaneous staging tells us that it would have been perfectly acceptable to an Elizabethan audience to have two sets of characters on stage at the same time acting as if they are in different locations. But it made more sense of Oxford’s subsequent entrance which is marked in the text and for which we are clearly intended to imagine that he is coming from the prince to the king. When Oxford “goeth” to the prince he finds him at the entrance to the stage and is able to turn back his companions as if preventing them from entering the chamber of the king.
At this point in our production the location imagined on stage has become the chamber of the king and the tiring house at the back could be said to represent a corridor outside that chamber or an anteroom. Such literalist thinking starts to be redundant in the face of such a fluid and metaphorical attitude to the relationship between the stage and the imagined locations of the action. In hindsight it might have been better if the porter had poked his head through stage left and exited the same way as his entrance builds an association between one door and the king, and our production immediately breaks that connection by having the king enter through the other door. However, the associations between doors, stage and imagined locations are constantly changing and our audience seemed to accept this and play along with the action as it was presented to them.
Our prince made sense of the stage direction “Enter the prince with a dagger in his hand” by stepping off stage to shout after his companions, and then re-entering with dagger drawn. This may not have been entirely necessary but it allowed us to perform a version that satisfied the majority of the directions recorded in the text. Of course, we were only able to do this by adding exits that were not indicated by the text. Our interpretation is not definitive, nor does the text have historical authority as it is clearly incomplete, but for our production we tried to treat the text with as much respect as possible as our project was an exercise in theatrical history. To hear more about our project as an exercise in theatrical history click here [link to sound recording of us talking about it?]
Click here to watch this section again. At the end of the video bring up the following final comments:
The remainder of the scene is pretty straight forward from the point of view of stage movement. The prince exits and then speaks without re-entering, but this can be easily resolved by having him re-enter before his line. We did have an issue here with our blocking protocol because this false exit took place behind the king’s throne and when the prince re-entered most of the audience could not get a clear look at him. It was also clumsy having him cross behind his father whom he feels he has failed so deeply at this point. Click here to watch this in action [Link to stage one, part two: 43:18-44:01]
At the end of the video clip the following comes up in the comments window:
In our later performances working on the university stage we decided to have the prince exit stage left and re-enter stage left, much like the porter did stage right. Since the prince is the next character to enter, there is no possibility of traffic problems at the curtain and such instances proved to make regular exceptions to our blocking protocol as the productions developed.
Click here to watch this inaction [Link to Al noaud 35:02-35:39]
This blocking works much better as the king and the prince can see each other at the moment of his re-entry and the audience can see the prince. You may be wondering at this point about the king’s sick chair which has not been mentioned in the text but is a striking part of our production.
Move onto Blocking Part 2: The Sick Chair
-- StaceyWheal - 21 Jun 2007- (comment from StaceyWheal - 06 Jul 2007 17:01:51): use chapters