Folio Comparision: Act II, Scene 2 Main Menu - HomePage - The Play - Folio Comparisons
ANGELO.  Go to; let that be mine, Do you your office, or give up your place, And you shall well be spared.      PROVOST.  I crave your honors pardon: What shall be done sir, with the groaning Juliet? She's very near her hour.      ANGELO.  Dispose of her To some more fitter place; and that with speed.      SERVANT.  Here is the sister of the man condemn'd Desires access to you.      ANGELO.  Hath he a sister?      PROVOST.  Ay my good lord, a very virtuous maid, And to be shortly of a sister-hood, If not already.      ANGELO.  Well: let her be admitted, See you the fornicatress be removed, Let have needful, but not lavish means, There shall be order for't.   ENTER LUCIO and ISABELLA    PROVOST.  Save your honor.      ANGELO.  Stay a little while: y'are welcome: what's your will?      ISABELLA.  I am a woeful suitor to your honor, Please but your honor hear me.
This scene provides another example of the delayed entry that enables the long cross demanded by the physical characteristics of the Globe. Note the built-in delay between the stage direction for the entrance of Isabella and Lucio and her first line to Angelo. Also pay particular attention to Angelo's line to the Provost: "Stay a little while" and how Angelo shifts attention mid-line to Isabella. Critics point out and question why Angelo wants the Provost to remain. From a staging perspective, this creates a focus and blocking challenge. Where does the Provost go? Later in the scene, the Provost says "Pray heaven she wins him." This apparently is an aside (although there is no stage direction as such) and Lucio has a number of speeches that are also apparently asides. For these asides to work, where must the Provost and Lucio be in relation to the audience as well as to Angelo?
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