Conclusion
This chapter examines the implications the turn-taking approach for our understanding of early modern performance practices. On the one hand, Shakespearean dialogue is full of subtle effects of timing and sequence that would seem to call for careful rehearsal and a detailed knowledge of the script. On the other hand, everything we know about early modern theatre suggests it was performed with minimal rehearsal by actors who did not necessarily know when, or from where, their next cue would arrive. This apparent mismatch I call ‘the performability gap’. The question is how it can be bridged. The explanation provided by Simon Palfrey and Tiffany Stern—that Shakespeare’s plays are designed to make artistic capital from their own under-rehearsal—does not entirely solve the problem. The second half of the chapter speculates about how else we might account for the gap.