"The Stage of Shakespere."

Professor G. P. Baker '87 gave a lecture on "The Stage of Shakespere" last evening in the Lecture Room of the Fogg Museum. He first showed by the stereopticon some old prints of the Bankside, Southwark, and traced the development of the first regular theatre from the circular open-air structures in which bear and bull baiting spectacles were given. The drama, Professor Baker said, had its beginnings in the church, where scripture stories were popularized by acting on festival days.

After the bear-baiting resorts had furnished the site and circular form of the theatres, the interior was suggested by the inn-yards of that day, in which plays were often given. First came the Rose Theatre, then the Globe, and the Hope. The Fortune was built for the Lord Admiral's company of players, and the contract states that is should be constructed like the Globe. The stage in Sanders is based largely on the plans for the Fortune.

In this theatre, the inner, outer, and upper stages were developed from existing conditions, the gallery and a small roof protecting the players from the rain. Three curtains were used, the "travers," which separated the inner from the outer stage, the "arras," which concealed the entrances to the inner stage, and a long curtain drawn across the upper stage or gallery.

Contrary to the prevalent incorrect ideas about the indication of a scene by a placard saying "This is a town," there were elaborate ornamentations and effective scenic devices in the later Elizabethan theatres.

In closing, Professor Baker said that today audiences are not brought into sufficiently close and intimate relations with the players, the stage-setting is considered of first importance, then the costumes, the actors next, and the play last. In the elder time all this was reversed, and the play with its interpretation stood out clearly, "when Burbage acted, and when Shakespere wrote."