THE PLATFORM STAGE
THE width of the Globe platform stage (hereafter to be called "the platform" has already been considered in an earlier chapter. It was there pointed out that, in an octagonal building designed with 12-foot bays (measured on the inside of the frame) arranged two to each section of the octagon, the distance from the middle post of one section to the corresponding middle post of the next section but one would measure 41 feet.*
The depth of the Globe platform is nowhere specifically referred to; but if, like the Fortune platform, it extended to "the middle of the yard," it was 29 feet deep. At the Fortune, where the yard was square and of slightly smaller dimensions, the platform was 27 ½ feet deep.1 This difference in depth, though immaterial, is in keeping with the subsequent tendency of the platform to shrink to an "apron stage" as the inner stages (from which our modern proscenium-type stage developed) grew in size, flexibility, and importance.2
The dimensions given in the Fortune contract for the platform -- "And which Stadge shall conteine in length [i.e. width] ffortie and Three foote of lawfull assize and in
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Publication information:
Book title: The Globe Playhouse:Its Design and Equipment.
Edition: 2nd.
Contributors: John Cranford Adams - Author.
Publisher: Barnes & Noble.
Place of publication: New York.
Publication year: 1961.
Page number: 90.
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