ABSTRACT
Jean Rousset put it succinctly 50 years ago. There are two forms of marine drama: in one, theatre goes to the water; in the other, water comes to the theatre.1 Much of this book deals with the first of these. I would like to look briefly at the second, ‘dry-land’ theatre, or one part of dry-land theatre. Not, that is to say, at the simulations of watery things on the decorated floats of processions and pageants, and not at shows in princely courtyards and ducal playhouses where actual water was occasionally piped in for special events: at Aleotti’s Teatro Farnese in Parma, for example. Rather, my concern is with sea-and river-scenes from the 1580s to the 1690s played out on illusionistic indoor stages that were wholly dry, or where the only water to be found was in butts that good theatre-practice required should be kept permanently full backstage in case of fire.2
