Sometimes we are sitting on the near side of the family board.

Or we are gossiping whispering neighbors, of the shoemaker, we will say, with our noses pressed against the pane of a metaphoric window.
Take for contrast the old-fashioned stage production showing the room and work table of a shoemaker.

As it were the whole side of the house has been removed.

The shop is as big as a banquet hall.

There is something essentially false in what we see, no matter how the stage manager fills in with old boxes, broken chairs, and the like.