Discoveries on the Early Modern Stage

Book excerpt: "This is a study of the dramatic use, treatment, and staging of performed 'discoveries' - actions which the theatre is uniquely able to exploit visually and explore verbally. The motif of discovery - in the now almost obsolete sense of uncovering or disclosing - is prominent in the language and action of Elizabethan, Jacobean, and Caroline plays. Visual discoveries are used repeatedly through the period by virtually every playwright, regardless of company or venue. These discoveries are of two different but related kinds: the disguise discovery - the removal of a disguise to uncover identity; and the discovery scene - the opening of curtains or doors to reveal a place or the removal of a lid or cover to effect a disclosure. This is the first analysis of staged discoveries as such; in it I show how and why these actions are essential to the way a play dramatizes and explores such interrelated matters as deception, privacy, secrecy, and truth; knowledge, justice, and renewal"--