ABSTRACT
Backstage at the Globe Theatre, the actors are in their customary tizzy: chasing down lost props, adjusting capes and swords, running over lines once more, checking the “plot” for entrance cues. Two factors add to the confusion: not only is the Company trying out a new play, but they’re staging it in a new theater. Moving in, getting settled, and shaking out the kinks has cut rehearsal time even more than usual; this performance will no doubt be subject to “thribbling” by the actors. The play’s author has put much effort into writing a worthy inaugural vehicle, and finds it difficult to be patient with improvisation: “Master Shakespeare, pray do not chide if I must hack Calpurnia’s lines—I am suffering with the ague.” “Nay, Will, what is this— Et tu, ‘Brute’? Can I not just say, And thou’, ‘like an honest Englishman?” “Sir, a word with you. Who is this Cinna the poet I am to play, and for what cause do the people attack him? I am something of a poet myself, and I could add a brief dying speech … What’s that? They attack him for his bad verses?”
