the pit and galleries early, to secure places, amused themselves
variously before the performance began: they drank ale, smoked, fought
for apples, cracked nuts, chaffed the boxes, and a few read the cheap
publications of the day that were hawked in the theatre. It was a rough
and unsavory audience in pit and gallery, but it was a responsive one,
and it enjoyed the acting with little help to illusion in the way of
scenery. In fact, scenery did not exist, as we understand it. A board
inscribed with the name of the country or city indicated the scene of
action. Occasionally movable painted scenes were introduced. The interior
roof of the stage was painted sky-blue, or hung with drapery of that
tint, to represent the heavens. But when the idea of a dark, starless
night was to be imposed, or tragedy was to be acted, these heavens were
hung with black stuffs, a custom illustrated in many allusions in
Shakespeare, like that in the line,

"Hung be the heavens in black, yield day to night"

To hang the stage with black was to prepare it for tragedy. The costumes
of the players were sometimes less niggardly than the furnishing of the
stage, for it was an age of rich and picturesque apparel, and it was not
difficult to procure the cast-off clothes of fine gentlemen for stage
use. But there was no lavishing of expense. I am recalling these details
to show that the amusement was popular and cheap. The ordinary actors,
including the boys and men who took women's parts (for women did not
appear on the stage till after the Restoration) received only about five
or six shillings a week (for Sundays and all), and the first-class actor,
who had a share in the net receipts, would not make more than ninety
pounds a year. The ordinary price paid for a new play was less than seven
pounds; Oldys, on what authority is not known, says that Shakespeare
received only five pounds for "Hamlet."