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 of the main stage, at the corner of the aperture and at right angles to its plane. The accompanying diagrams will perhaps make my notion of the inner stage clearer.

B. OCTAGONAL THEATRE (e.g. Globe; size of Fortune)

It has been suggested, by me as well as by others, that the inner stage may have been raised by a step or two above the outer stage. On reflection, I now think this unlikely. There would be none too much height to spare, at any rate if the height of the alcove was determined by that of the spectators' galleries. The only stage-direction which suggests any such arrangement is in the Death of Robin Hood, where the King sits in a chair behind the curtains, and the Queen ascends to him and descends again. But even if the tire-man put up an exalted seat in this case, there need have been no permanent elevation. The missing woodcut of the Anglo-German stage at Frankfort in 1597 is said to have shown a raised inner stage;