Staging a scene from Hamlet

The stage on Shakespeare's Globe, London.

Much of the reconstruction in this image, derived from the New Globe theatre, is conjectural. What we know and what we guess about the stage is discussed on an earlier page..

The following pages illustrate a sequence of scenes from Hamlet, indicating how the doors and trapdoor might have been used. The act and scene breaks we are accustomed to in discussing Shakespeare were added by later editors (beginning with those who produced the First Folio); the earliest editions of Hamlet indicated no breaks at all in the action.

• The parts of the theatre and stage
• A scene performed...