46 CHILDREN OF THE CHAPEL AT BLACKFRIARS 
But if at Blackfriars the stage had been modeled after those 
of the public theatres with an aisle of six feet or even of three — 
feet between stage and galleries, the stage would have been but 
about 13 to 19 feet wide,—too narrow for acting, even with no 
spectators sharing it. 
So the Blackfriars stage was through necessity built on a plan 
of its own. The aisle-space as well as the gallery-space at right 
and left had to be utilized as the wings of the new-style stage. — 
The width of the hall allowed the limit of 46 feet as the width 
of this extended stage. It was this construction that gave Black- 
friars a stage roomy enough for unhampered acting and at the 
same time allowed gallants to occupy coveted places “on the 
stage’ at right and left cf the actors, in the full admiration of 
the house; but without “wronging the general eye’' or obstruct- 
ing the view of any one. 
When the Blackfriars custom of sitting on the stage was im- 
ported into France,? it carried with it also the form of stage- — 
structure on which it originated. The arrangement of seats at 
the sides of the stage in French theatres as shown by the testi- 
mony of Tallemant des Réaux,’? Moliere,* Voltaire,® and Goethe,® 
is therefore reflexively contributive to a correct conception of 
the stage-structure at Blackfriars. In the evidences from per- 
formances at Blackfriars,? Dekker’s The Guls’ Horn-Booke,? and 
other sources,® the stage-patrons occupied the same level as 
the actors. This fact is likewise shown by the testimony of the 
above chief French contemporaries of the custom on the Paris 
stage. Goethe, however, who saw the last of this practice in a 
French theatre at Frankfurt in 1759, reports that the seats at the 
sides of the stage there were ranged on a slope slightly above 
the stage level, but with special reservations still on the stage for 
officers and other people of importance. 
The galleries of Blackfriars as of its foreign followers ended 
at the line of the stage-front,—just where our evolved first pri- 
vate boxes now are.’ But there was no wall, nothing more than 
*Infra, 131". "Infra, 132-134. 
2 Infra, 143-47. STHFrG: ASB V 1407, ADs 
oe 143°, ‘Infra, 132". 132°. 342° 443% 
Infra, 143%. Infra, 146°. 
® Infra, 145%, 1457. 1 Supra, 42-43, and plat, 50-51. 
°Infra, 146°. 
160 
lal ts Bsa Dae | te Beatle Maile 
