Stage Directions
The stage directions are more enigmatic. Not only are added and
changed stage directions no commoner in corrected areas than elsewhere,
they actually occur in corrected areas noticeably less frequently than we
should expect if they were randomly distributed. Only 34% of added and
changed directions are found in corrected areas, suggesting the inverse of
the
expected relationship. The number of directions involved is too large for
this
proportion to be dismissed as insignificant. And the situation is not
meaningfully alleviated by assuming that the more trivial changes were
introduced by compositors. Even if we exclude another possibly
untrustworthy group, the scene-break directions, we are left with a similar
situation for the remaining minority of mid-scene directions. It is in their
interaction with Table 2 that the added and changed directions can usefully
be divided into two groups. In the first 1000 lines, 63% of them occur in
corrected areas; this distribution is almost
certainly random, as the area has a greater than average amount of
correction. But only 20% of the altered directions in the rest of the text
occur in corrected areas. Even though corrected areas account for only 36%
of this second half of the play, this dissociation—only 1 altered
direction in
5 occurring in an area which shows signs of corrections to
dialogue—is
unlikely to be random.
