stage was like and what its conventions were.

At the various Festivals and in dramatic museums
models of the famous Globe playhouse are on exhibition,
but a comparison of these models shows interesting varia-
tions in external shape, details of architecture, and in the
stage itself. The plain fact of the matter is that we have
no exact factual knowledge of the Globe. We do know,
however, the contract for the building of the Fortune
Theatre in 1599 and that contract twice mentions the
Globe. Peter Streete, the building contractor, had only
recently undertaken the demolition of the Theatre, the
first home of Shakespeare's company, the Lord Chamber-
lain's Men, and had transported the materials to the South
bank where he had erected the Globe. The Fortune, ac-
cording to the contract was rectangular, but the Globe
was either round or polygonal, so the dimensions of the
former tell us nothing about the Globe. In speaking of the
stairs, passageways (Conveyances), and divisions of the
galleries, the Fortune contract says that these are to be
"as are made & contryved in and to the late erected
Plaiehowse on the Banck in the saide parishe of Ste Saviours
called the Globe." After specifying the length (Fortie and
Three foote of lawfull assize), and the breadth (to extende
to the middle of the yarde of the saide howse) and other
details of the stage, the contract continues, "and the saide
Stadge to be in all other proporcions contryved and fash-
ioned like vnto the Stadge of the Saide Plaie howse called
the Globe." These two references plus the rather uncer-
tain evidence of several views of London constitute all the
specific knowledge that we have concerning the "Globe
Plaiehowse. Thus all we can say about the Globe is that
it had a platform stage surrounded on three sides by
spectators who stood in the pit or sat in the galleries.

Two familiar features of practically all reconstruc-
tions are an inner stage curtained off and an upper stage.
There is no mention of these areas in the Fortune con-
tract, but they have been postulated upon certain details
in the plays of Shakespeare and other Elizabethans. In

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