In section two, 'Text', the first chapter is Emma Smith's 'Reading Shakespeare's
Stage Directions', in which she wants to 'reinstate
stage directions in early Shakespeare texts as the property of readers, and as understood instances of a different mode of narration in printed playbooks' (97).
(1) For plentiful examples see the entries for thrust, throne, bed, scaffold, and canopy in A Dictionary of
Stage Directions in English Drama, 1580-1642.
II Tamburlaine's
stage directions and speeches describing the
Stage direction: David Radok, conductor: Marko Ivanovic.
Variation in the number and length of
stage directions was often linked to how much violent action was shown on the stage, as opposed to being narrated.
Question 2 has generated for me what seems a never-ending study of the
stage directions that have survived in the early manuscripts and printed editions, a study enhanced by my colleague, Leslie Thomson, who compiled a database of over twenty-two thousand items from professional plays that formed the basis of our 1999 dictionary.
She falls dead and the heroine performs an exorcism, waking her up by spraying water on her as indicated in the
stage direction. (69) In Yanmen guan Cunxiao da hu, a tiger is seen dashing forward (Ban hu shang chong ke) and harassing a flock of sheep, and the hero, a shepherd, beats the tiger to death (Zheng mo da si hu ke) and throws it (Zheng mo diu hu ke) across a river.
Evans also uses scene-division, and follows Williams in his
stage direction. Jowett, similarly to Wilson, clears the stage with They march about the stage and [exeunt].
From the
stage direction, not the text, we learn that Hamlet has become aware that Polonius and Claudius are spying on him and that Ophelia is in on it.
Q2's version is a line shorter, and lacks a
stage direction: