ABSTRACT
Like laughter, weeping is an action very frequently performed on the early modern stage. Dessen and Thomson’s Dictionary of Stage Directions, for instance, reports over 100 instances of weeping as an explicit stage direction in English drama from the period 1580-1642. Dessen and Thomson’s initial overview runs as follows:
Over 100 SDs call for a figure to weep or presumably to simulate weeping, sometimes with happiness, more often in fear, entreaty or sorrow; usually the figure is a woman, and often she, or another calls attention to the weeping which the audience is unlikely to see.1
