The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 18.0111 Thursday, 8 February 2007
[1] From: Bradley G. Robbert <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Wednesday, 7 Feb 2007 14:09:07 -0600
Subj: RE: SHK 18.0101 Stage Money
[2] From: Alan Dessen <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Wednesday, 7 Feb 2007 17:27:29 -0500 (EST)
Subj: Re: SHK 18.0101 Stage Money
[1]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: Bradley G. Robbert <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Wednesday, 7 Feb 2007 14:09:07 -0600
Subject: 18.0101 Stage Money
Comment: RE: SHK 18.0101 Stage Money
Whenever gold (or silver) coins are called for, be they in plain view or
in bags, I've always found it easiest to use Mardi Gras doubloons, which
are never in short supply down here. Of course if taking a trip down
here and catching some in person from an upcoming parade isn't doable,
you can also order some online. I just found a 50 piece assortment for
$6.95 from Accent Annex, which is a local distributor.
http://www.accentannex.com/doubloons-asst-50-pcs-p-30.html?zenid=92923b622defc73729d1e490b31dcb65
Even when shaken in a bag they have that nice coin sound (particularly
helpful in a smaller theatre setting). Hope this helps.
[2]-------------------------------------------------------------
From: Alan Dessen <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Wednesday, 7 Feb 2007 17:27:29 -0500 (EST)
Subject: 18.0101 Stage Money
Comment: Re: SHK 18.0101 Stage Money
Will Sharpe raises an interesting question about money or gold as a prop
in plays such as *The Jew of Malta* and *Volpone* - and I wish I had an
answer. Our s.d. dictionary entries provide a lot of tantalizing
signals (see also the relatively sparse usages of *treasure*) that
include scripted entrances "with a ladle full of molten gold" and "with
his gold and a scuttle full of horsedung," but I cannot supply any
information about how such effects would have been achieved in those
first productions (and I do not recall any helpful bits in Henslowe's
papers). Here is a typical example of the gap between then and now
(with or without recourse to *presentism*). Playwrights, players, and
playgoers knew the coded signals for realizing gold and money onstage,
whether through bags/purses or discoveries or some combination thereof,
but, as with so many comparable effects, the authors of the surviving
stage directions did not feel it necessary to spell out (for us) how to
do it. Rather, they (especially those dramatists attached to a theatre
company - e.g., Shakespeare, Heywood, Fletcher, Massinger) could trust
the expertise of their player-colleagues. In my formulation, we as
readers today are eavesdropping on a conversation in a coded language
that we will never fully understand.
I would be delighted if others could fill in the blanks, as is sometimes
the case with a s.d. such as "Exit corpse" or "organs play and covered
dishes march over the stage" where the attendants who carry the bier (in
*Richard III*, 1.2) or dishes (in *Mad World My Masters*) are elided,
but often we can only conjecture about what those Elizabethan and
Jacobean playgoers actually saw.
Good luck in the search.
Alan Dessen
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