ABSTRACT
It is generally accepted that the stages in the early modern playhouses had a reasonably standard set of features that could be drawn into performance to perform a range of fictional functions-different 'spaces' that were available to become 'places'. The tiring house wall was perhaps a discrete architectural element, a straight wall that was part of a separate stage-tower structure inside the polygon. However in some playhouses it was angled, that was merely a continuation of the geometry of the polygonal playhouse. If the vertical displacement between stage and gallery can be exploited to signify the vertical displacement between two places in the fiction, a similar operation can occur in relation to the trapdoor. The trapdoor gives access to a secret underground passage from Eleazar's lodging to the royal chambers: EleazarStir Eugenia. Dessen and Thompson indicate the ways in which the trapdoor can be employed to create unseen counter-places below the level of the stage.
