The chapter begins by marking out the boundaries of ‘early Jonson’ with reference to theatre hist... more The chapter begins by marking out the boundaries of ‘early Jonson’ with reference to theatre history and bibliography, before providing recorded responses to Jonson in the contemporary theatre. It identifies 1597 as a key year in his dramatic development, particularly pointing to the influence of George Chapman on Jonson’s playwriting and on popular London theatre more generally. The Case Is Altered, Jonson’s first extant performed play, is analysed in detail, with special attention paid to his presentation of households on the stage (the carefully delineated status of the steward, his lord, and other servants), and integral use of properties, costume and objects in stage business. The conclusion points to Jonson’s skill in crafting little worlds within the theatre, and in bringing London onto the stage
Offstage and Onstage Drama: New Approaches to Richard Brome Richard Brome had his dramatic debut ... more Offstage and Onstage Drama: New Approaches to Richard Brome Richard Brome had his dramatic debut in Ben Jonson's play, Bartholomew Fair, where he is described by the Stage-keeper in the Induction as skulking about backstage: 'But for the whole play, will you ha' the truth on't? I am looking, lest the poet hear me, or his man, Master Brome, behind the arras. It is like to be a very conceited scurvy one, in plain English' (Induction, 6-9). 1 So Jonson immortalizes Brome as being backstage, literally and metaphorically within his master's shadow. Beginning with Edward Phillips, writing twenty three years after the playwright's death, critical evaluation preserves Brome's literary and social status as Jonson's servant. For many years he has remained a shadowy figure in the tiring house and in Jonson's service, even electing servitude as a frame of self-reference. 2 The introduction to Matthew Steggle's seminal work on Brome, Place and Politics on the Caroline Stage, identifies several good reasons why this relatively neglected Caroline playwright deserves attention. Among them are Brome's complex, stimulating, and entertaining plays; his relationship with key dramatists and poets (including his time in Jonson's service); the variety of his literary legacy and its theatrical afterlife; legal evidence, contributing towards Renaissance scholars' knowledge of the working lives of theatre professionals; and his rare status and example as a servant writer. 3 This list summarizes many excellent reasons for studying Brome's work and life, and the dramatic and biographical importance highlighted by Steggle is reflected in the four varied essays which follow. 4 The first paper concerns Brome's contract with the Salisbury Court theatre, while the latter three take an individual Brome play as their subject: The English Moor, The Antipodes, and The Weeding of Covent Garden. Each essay considers Brome and his writing from a different angle: Eleanor Collins reexamines Brome's theatre contract with the King's Revels company and the Salisbury Court
John H. Astington's book opens with Edward Alleyn's establishment of the College of God's Gift in... more John H. Astington's book opens with Edward Alleyn's establishment of the College of God's Gift in Dulwich, funded by Alleyn's success in the theatre business. For modern theatre historians, Dulwich College (as it is now named) has preserved the gift of Alleyn's papers and Philip Henslowe's invaluable accounts. The school is an appropriate and representative symbol of the book's main themes: pedagogy, theatre history, success in stage playing, and relationships amongst the acting community. Another theme that pervades the book is benefaction and inheritance, an attempt to legitimize the player's art beyond permanent theatre architecture and company patronage. Astington likens early modern actor training to an informal (i.e. unbound by law) apprenticeship. As much as he notes Alleyn's beneficence he also points out that this success was based on the multiple efforts of those who came before; as a result of the increased opportunities open to those talented at acting, the writing of drama and organization of theatre all changed radically as the profession developed and gained momentum. In chapter one, Astington evocatively explores attitudes towards players and sensitively tries to pinpoint this transient craft: 'The art of acting is to provide a physical something, visible, audible, and memorable, to give force and body to what on paper is merely "a speech"' (18). He discusses early modern names for and descriptions of performing as a way in to examining how it was conceived; he considers 'natural' acting (and how its definition changed through time), acting as a mirror, counterfeiting and its etymological variations, and the notion of actors as shadows and their art as 'limning' or painting. Drawing on multiple sources, Astington works hard to capture this transient process. The writing moves quickly from sources such as
Locating the Queen's Men presents new and groundbreaking essays on early mod... more Locating the Queen's Men presents new and groundbreaking essays on early modern England's most prominent acting company, from their establishment in 1583 into the 1590s. Offering a far more detailed critical engagement with the plays than is available elsewhere, this volume ...
Offstage and Onstage Drama: New Approaches to Richard Brome Richard Brome had his dramatic debut ... more Offstage and Onstage Drama: New Approaches to Richard Brome Richard Brome had his dramatic debut in Ben Jonson's play, Bartholomew Fair, where he is described by the Stage-keeper in the Induction as skulking about backstage: 'But for the whole play, will you ha' the truth on't? I am looking, lest the poet hear me, or his man, Master Brome, behind the arras. It is like to be a very conceited scurvy one, in plain English' (Induction, 6-9). 1 So Jonson immortalizes Brome as being backstage, literally and metaphorically within his master's shadow. Beginning with Edward Phillips, writing twenty three years after the playwright's death, critical evaluation preserves Brome's literary and social status as Jonson's servant. For many years he has remained a shadowy figure in the tiring house and in Jonson's service, even electing servitude as a frame of self-reference. 2 The introduction to Matthew Steggle's seminal work on Brome, Place and Politics on the Caroline Stage, identifies several good reasons why this relatively neglected Caroline playwright deserves attention. Among them are Brome's complex, stimulating, and entertaining plays; his relationship with key dramatists and poets (including his time in Jonson's service); the variety of his literary legacy and its theatrical afterlife; legal evidence, contributing towards Renaissance scholars' knowledge of the working lives of theatre professionals; and his rare status and example as a servant writer. 3 This list summarizes many excellent reasons for studying Brome's work and life, and the dramatic and biographical importance highlighted by Steggle is reflected in the four varied essays which follow. 4 The first paper concerns Brome's contract with the Salisbury Court theatre, while the latter three take an individual Brome play as their subject: The English Moor, The Antipodes, and The Weeding of Covent Garden. Each essay considers Brome and his writing from a different angle: Eleanor Collins reexamines Brome's theatre contract with the King's Revels company and the Salisbury Court
Analytical studies of book production in dramatic metaphors most commonly make reference to print... more Analytical studies of book production in dramatic metaphors most commonly make reference to printing technologies and book replication and dissemination. This essay reconsiders the new bibliography by extending its scope to include bookbinding, with especial attention paid to Richard Brome's 1638 play The Love-Sick Court. In act 4, Doris the maid rejects Geron's advances: 'We are not yet one volume, both bound up / And clasped together'. I consider this claim in the light of courtship and marriage with particular analysis of the process of bookbinding (from personal practical experience) in relation to the sacrament of marriage. The essay pays additional attention to the close synergies between paper and clothing, and the trope of book/woman. Act 4, scene 1 of The Love-Sick Court (1638) develops the common early modern trope of book/woman by peppering the pedant Geron's wooing of Doris with pedagogical and bibliographical references. 1 Other literary instances link metaphorically the opening of a book and a woman's legs, perhaps in an attempt to theorize in gendered terms the relatively recent introduction of printing technologies. This example from Richard Brome extends the trope by likening marriage-often referred to in marriage tracts as 'binding'to the process of bookbinding. Amongst other marital binding metaphors, the Brome example is rare: Sid Ray's study discusses various forms, including glue, knots, grafting, yoking, fetters, and knitting, but not bookbinding. 2 Thus Brome's usage is doubly important in imaginatively exploring two tropes: marriage/binding and woman/book. With specific examination of The Love-Sick Court, I explore figurative use of the book and its significance in relation to gender and marriage through the practical labour of bookbinding, and the implied presentation of women as objects of consumption and products of the male attitude towards ownership in marriage.
Early Theatre: A Journal associated with the Records of Early English Drama, 2019
This is the first edition of A Woman Killed with Kindness since Martin Wiggins's edition for Oxfo... more This is the first edition of A Woman Killed with Kindness since Martin Wiggins's edition for Oxford World's Classics in 2008. Margaret Jane Kidnie's new edition of the play reminds readers of Lukas Erne's point that Heywood was 'The second most published playwright [after Shakespeare]' with forty-nine editions to his name (according to Erne's calculations), and that his 'prominence in print is easily overlooked' (69). Kidnie notes that Heywood never published his work in folio (unlike that of some of his contemporaries) which 'in part' explains how 'Only about one-tenth of Heywood's putative 220 plays are extant', despite Francis Meres noting him as being 'the best for comedy' in 1598 (64-5). Heywood wrote the play at a crucial moment of national and theatrical disruption: soon after Henslowe made the final payments for the writing of the play, Elizabeth I died. The theatres closed and remained so through a period of plague, after which Worcester's men became the Queen's men and moved north of the river (72). The introduction provides an accessible discussion of a range of issues pertinent to the play's subject matter and context (such as household dynamics, marriage and adultery, and the source material), as well as consideration of Heywood's writing and the circumstances of the play's earliest performances. The edition does well to be mindful of both the play as a printed text (and its evolution in print) and as a performed script. Discussion of staging issues is thorough and clear. The edition is interested in both modern and original performance possibilities, supplemented with helpful reflection on Heywood's stagecraft and performance history. There is a full discussion of the play's performance history with images from six different productions, from the earliest in 1913 (directed by Jacques Copeau) to the National Theatre production in 2011 (directed by Katie Mitchell). Kidnie includes succinct information concerning both textual and performance issues throughout the on-page annotations. There is also a helpful section on the play's sources and its status as a 'domestic tragedy' (including a history of that discussion and its usefulness as a label). Kidnie points out that 'Ideologically and theatrically, the term "domestic tragedy", at least as it relates to Heywood's play, seems simultaneously too vague and too constraining' because the term has unhelpful modern associations which might
The Knight of the Burning Pestle Presented by the Shakespeare Institute Players at the Shakespear... more The Knight of the Burning Pestle Presented by the Shakespeare Institute Players at the Shakespeare Institute, Stratford-upon-Avon. March 18-20, 2004. Directed and designed by Heather Violanti. Fights by Joe Curdy, Lezlie Cross, David Hartwig. Musical composition by Kelly Steele and Joe Curdy. Dance by Beth Gregory. Special costume design and construction by Kelly Steele. With Robert Beshere (Citizen), Heloise Senechal (Nell), Peter Orford (Rafe), Jeanette Bruckshaw (Tim), Naomi Staples (George), Barbara Santana (Stage Manager), Lezlie Cross (Venturewell), Joe Curdy (Jasper), Kelly Steele (Luce), David Hartwig (Master Humphrey, Barber, Sergeant), Brian Willis (Master Merrythought), Sarah Cummins (Mistress Merrythought), Jessica Foster (Michael, George Greengoose), Tracy Thong (dancing girl, captive woman), Mary Partridge (Pompiona, Tapster), and others. "The Knight of the Burning Pestle is many things," begins Heather Violanti's program note. "A play-within-a-play,...
The chapter begins by marking out the boundaries of ‘early Jonson’ with reference to theatre hist... more The chapter begins by marking out the boundaries of ‘early Jonson’ with reference to theatre history and bibliography, before providing recorded responses to Jonson in the contemporary theatre. It identifies 1597 as a key year in his dramatic development, particularly pointing to the influence of George Chapman on Jonson’s playwriting and on popular London theatre more generally. The Case Is Altered, Jonson’s first extant performed play, is analysed in detail, with special attention paid to his presentation of households on the stage (the carefully delineated status of the steward, his lord, and other servants), and integral use of properties, costume and objects in stage business. The conclusion points to Jonson’s skill in crafting little worlds within the theatre, and in bringing London onto the stage
Offstage and Onstage Drama: New Approaches to Richard Brome Richard Brome had his dramatic debut ... more Offstage and Onstage Drama: New Approaches to Richard Brome Richard Brome had his dramatic debut in Ben Jonson's play, Bartholomew Fair, where he is described by the Stage-keeper in the Induction as skulking about backstage: 'But for the whole play, will you ha' the truth on't? I am looking, lest the poet hear me, or his man, Master Brome, behind the arras. It is like to be a very conceited scurvy one, in plain English' (Induction, 6-9). 1 So Jonson immortalizes Brome as being backstage, literally and metaphorically within his master's shadow. Beginning with Edward Phillips, writing twenty three years after the playwright's death, critical evaluation preserves Brome's literary and social status as Jonson's servant. For many years he has remained a shadowy figure in the tiring house and in Jonson's service, even electing servitude as a frame of self-reference. 2 The introduction to Matthew Steggle's seminal work on Brome, Place and Politics on the Caroline Stage, identifies several good reasons why this relatively neglected Caroline playwright deserves attention. Among them are Brome's complex, stimulating, and entertaining plays; his relationship with key dramatists and poets (including his time in Jonson's service); the variety of his literary legacy and its theatrical afterlife; legal evidence, contributing towards Renaissance scholars' knowledge of the working lives of theatre professionals; and his rare status and example as a servant writer. 3 This list summarizes many excellent reasons for studying Brome's work and life, and the dramatic and biographical importance highlighted by Steggle is reflected in the four varied essays which follow. 4 The first paper concerns Brome's contract with the Salisbury Court theatre, while the latter three take an individual Brome play as their subject: The English Moor, The Antipodes, and The Weeding of Covent Garden. Each essay considers Brome and his writing from a different angle: Eleanor Collins reexamines Brome's theatre contract with the King's Revels company and the Salisbury Court
John H. Astington's book opens with Edward Alleyn's establishment of the College of God's Gift in... more John H. Astington's book opens with Edward Alleyn's establishment of the College of God's Gift in Dulwich, funded by Alleyn's success in the theatre business. For modern theatre historians, Dulwich College (as it is now named) has preserved the gift of Alleyn's papers and Philip Henslowe's invaluable accounts. The school is an appropriate and representative symbol of the book's main themes: pedagogy, theatre history, success in stage playing, and relationships amongst the acting community. Another theme that pervades the book is benefaction and inheritance, an attempt to legitimize the player's art beyond permanent theatre architecture and company patronage. Astington likens early modern actor training to an informal (i.e. unbound by law) apprenticeship. As much as he notes Alleyn's beneficence he also points out that this success was based on the multiple efforts of those who came before; as a result of the increased opportunities open to those talented at acting, the writing of drama and organization of theatre all changed radically as the profession developed and gained momentum. In chapter one, Astington evocatively explores attitudes towards players and sensitively tries to pinpoint this transient craft: 'The art of acting is to provide a physical something, visible, audible, and memorable, to give force and body to what on paper is merely "a speech"' (18). He discusses early modern names for and descriptions of performing as a way in to examining how it was conceived; he considers 'natural' acting (and how its definition changed through time), acting as a mirror, counterfeiting and its etymological variations, and the notion of actors as shadows and their art as 'limning' or painting. Drawing on multiple sources, Astington works hard to capture this transient process. The writing moves quickly from sources such as
Locating the Queen's Men presents new and groundbreaking essays on early mod... more Locating the Queen's Men presents new and groundbreaking essays on early modern England's most prominent acting company, from their establishment in 1583 into the 1590s. Offering a far more detailed critical engagement with the plays than is available elsewhere, this volume ...
Offstage and Onstage Drama: New Approaches to Richard Brome Richard Brome had his dramatic debut ... more Offstage and Onstage Drama: New Approaches to Richard Brome Richard Brome had his dramatic debut in Ben Jonson's play, Bartholomew Fair, where he is described by the Stage-keeper in the Induction as skulking about backstage: 'But for the whole play, will you ha' the truth on't? I am looking, lest the poet hear me, or his man, Master Brome, behind the arras. It is like to be a very conceited scurvy one, in plain English' (Induction, 6-9). 1 So Jonson immortalizes Brome as being backstage, literally and metaphorically within his master's shadow. Beginning with Edward Phillips, writing twenty three years after the playwright's death, critical evaluation preserves Brome's literary and social status as Jonson's servant. For many years he has remained a shadowy figure in the tiring house and in Jonson's service, even electing servitude as a frame of self-reference. 2 The introduction to Matthew Steggle's seminal work on Brome, Place and Politics on the Caroline Stage, identifies several good reasons why this relatively neglected Caroline playwright deserves attention. Among them are Brome's complex, stimulating, and entertaining plays; his relationship with key dramatists and poets (including his time in Jonson's service); the variety of his literary legacy and its theatrical afterlife; legal evidence, contributing towards Renaissance scholars' knowledge of the working lives of theatre professionals; and his rare status and example as a servant writer. 3 This list summarizes many excellent reasons for studying Brome's work and life, and the dramatic and biographical importance highlighted by Steggle is reflected in the four varied essays which follow. 4 The first paper concerns Brome's contract with the Salisbury Court theatre, while the latter three take an individual Brome play as their subject: The English Moor, The Antipodes, and The Weeding of Covent Garden. Each essay considers Brome and his writing from a different angle: Eleanor Collins reexamines Brome's theatre contract with the King's Revels company and the Salisbury Court
Analytical studies of book production in dramatic metaphors most commonly make reference to print... more Analytical studies of book production in dramatic metaphors most commonly make reference to printing technologies and book replication and dissemination. This essay reconsiders the new bibliography by extending its scope to include bookbinding, with especial attention paid to Richard Brome's 1638 play The Love-Sick Court. In act 4, Doris the maid rejects Geron's advances: 'We are not yet one volume, both bound up / And clasped together'. I consider this claim in the light of courtship and marriage with particular analysis of the process of bookbinding (from personal practical experience) in relation to the sacrament of marriage. The essay pays additional attention to the close synergies between paper and clothing, and the trope of book/woman. Act 4, scene 1 of The Love-Sick Court (1638) develops the common early modern trope of book/woman by peppering the pedant Geron's wooing of Doris with pedagogical and bibliographical references. 1 Other literary instances link metaphorically the opening of a book and a woman's legs, perhaps in an attempt to theorize in gendered terms the relatively recent introduction of printing technologies. This example from Richard Brome extends the trope by likening marriage-often referred to in marriage tracts as 'binding'to the process of bookbinding. Amongst other marital binding metaphors, the Brome example is rare: Sid Ray's study discusses various forms, including glue, knots, grafting, yoking, fetters, and knitting, but not bookbinding. 2 Thus Brome's usage is doubly important in imaginatively exploring two tropes: marriage/binding and woman/book. With specific examination of The Love-Sick Court, I explore figurative use of the book and its significance in relation to gender and marriage through the practical labour of bookbinding, and the implied presentation of women as objects of consumption and products of the male attitude towards ownership in marriage.
Early Theatre: A Journal associated with the Records of Early English Drama, 2019
This is the first edition of A Woman Killed with Kindness since Martin Wiggins's edition for Oxfo... more This is the first edition of A Woman Killed with Kindness since Martin Wiggins's edition for Oxford World's Classics in 2008. Margaret Jane Kidnie's new edition of the play reminds readers of Lukas Erne's point that Heywood was 'The second most published playwright [after Shakespeare]' with forty-nine editions to his name (according to Erne's calculations), and that his 'prominence in print is easily overlooked' (69). Kidnie notes that Heywood never published his work in folio (unlike that of some of his contemporaries) which 'in part' explains how 'Only about one-tenth of Heywood's putative 220 plays are extant', despite Francis Meres noting him as being 'the best for comedy' in 1598 (64-5). Heywood wrote the play at a crucial moment of national and theatrical disruption: soon after Henslowe made the final payments for the writing of the play, Elizabeth I died. The theatres closed and remained so through a period of plague, after which Worcester's men became the Queen's men and moved north of the river (72). The introduction provides an accessible discussion of a range of issues pertinent to the play's subject matter and context (such as household dynamics, marriage and adultery, and the source material), as well as consideration of Heywood's writing and the circumstances of the play's earliest performances. The edition does well to be mindful of both the play as a printed text (and its evolution in print) and as a performed script. Discussion of staging issues is thorough and clear. The edition is interested in both modern and original performance possibilities, supplemented with helpful reflection on Heywood's stagecraft and performance history. There is a full discussion of the play's performance history with images from six different productions, from the earliest in 1913 (directed by Jacques Copeau) to the National Theatre production in 2011 (directed by Katie Mitchell). Kidnie includes succinct information concerning both textual and performance issues throughout the on-page annotations. There is also a helpful section on the play's sources and its status as a 'domestic tragedy' (including a history of that discussion and its usefulness as a label). Kidnie points out that 'Ideologically and theatrically, the term "domestic tragedy", at least as it relates to Heywood's play, seems simultaneously too vague and too constraining' because the term has unhelpful modern associations which might
The Knight of the Burning Pestle Presented by the Shakespeare Institute Players at the Shakespear... more The Knight of the Burning Pestle Presented by the Shakespeare Institute Players at the Shakespeare Institute, Stratford-upon-Avon. March 18-20, 2004. Directed and designed by Heather Violanti. Fights by Joe Curdy, Lezlie Cross, David Hartwig. Musical composition by Kelly Steele and Joe Curdy. Dance by Beth Gregory. Special costume design and construction by Kelly Steele. With Robert Beshere (Citizen), Heloise Senechal (Nell), Peter Orford (Rafe), Jeanette Bruckshaw (Tim), Naomi Staples (George), Barbara Santana (Stage Manager), Lezlie Cross (Venturewell), Joe Curdy (Jasper), Kelly Steele (Luce), David Hartwig (Master Humphrey, Barber, Sergeant), Brian Willis (Master Merrythought), Sarah Cummins (Mistress Merrythought), Jessica Foster (Michael, George Greengoose), Tracy Thong (dancing girl, captive woman), Mary Partridge (Pompiona, Tapster), and others. "The Knight of the Burning Pestle is many things," begins Heather Violanti's program note. "A play-within-a-play,...
In this chapter, Malvolio’s authority as steward will be viewed through the prism of Viscount Mon... more In this chapter, Malvolio’s authority as steward will be viewed through the prism of Viscount Montague’s Household Book of 1595, ‘A booke of orders, and rules established [...] for the better direction and governemente of my howseholde’. Montague lists his servants, their duties and his rules for the management of them and the household. It provides a detailed description of the activities and responsibilities of his servants, particular to their specific role, and prioritizes the steward, whom Edward Cahill notes occupies ‘the blurred line between responsibility and authority’, as most important in the household. In the light of this, Malvolio’s interactions and conduct in Twelfth Night will be examined, to gain a deeper understanding of the performance of domestic authority on the early modern stage.
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