DOCSLIB.ORG

Censorship, Collaboration, and the Construction of Authorship in Early

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Censorship, Collaboration, and the Construction of Authorship in Early Censorship, Collaboration, and the Construction of Authorship in Early Modern Theatre Gabriella Edelstein A thesis submitted to fulfil requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences The University of Sydney 2019 I certify that the intellectual content of this thesis is the product of my own work and that all the assistance received in preparing this thesis and its sources have been acknowledged. This thesis has not been submitted for any degree or other purposes. Gabriella Edelstein Abstract This thesis argues that censorship is central to early modern authorial self-construction and that the regulation of drama should be part of an understanding of dramatic collaboration. Over the last twenty years, literary scholarship has paid increasing attention to the collaborative processes involved in early modern theatrical production. Despite this interest, there has yet to be an account of how dramatic censorship operates as part of the collaborative model, or how censorship affected authorship. This thesis explores the relationship between authorship and political authority, so as to reconsider who is an author and why. By engaging with textual and literary analysis, this thesis reveals how plays were shaped by a culture of collaborative censorship. I have chosen four collaboratively written and censored plays so as to consider the relationship between writing and regulation. From this starting point, I examine the ways that authorship is constructed both within plays and outside of them in early modern as well as our own contemporary culture. I begin with a survey of censorship and collaboration criticism in my Introduction and offer a way of reading early modern drama through collaborative censorship. In Chapter One, I consider the role of credit in Ben Jonson, George Chapman, and John Marston’s Eastward Ho! and how this system of social and financial exchange produced the playwrights’ collaborative and singular modes of authorship. In Chapter Two, I examine the role of scribes and censors as collaborative agents, if not authorial figures, in John Fletcher and Philip Massinger’s The Tragedy of Sir John Van Olden Barnavelt. In Chapter Three, I suggest that service relations are central to dramatic collaboration, and are what prompted the censorial revision of Fletcher, Massinger, and Nathan Field’s The Honest Man’s Fortune. Finally, in Chapter Four, I consider how several models of collaborative authorship have constructed different editions of Sir Thomas More. Each chapter demonstrates how reading a i collaborative play through censorship, or a censored play through collaboration, can reveal the workings of dramatic production, the relationships between playwrights, and the construction of the authorial self. By being attentive to the relationship between censorship and collaboration, I argue that the regulation of drama was fundamental to dramatic production and the authorship of dramatic texts. ii Acknowledgements First, I would like to express my sincere thanks to my supervisor, Dr Huw Griffiths, who has been a source of guidance throughout my academic career. Learning from Huw has been one of the greatest joys of writing this thesis. I will be forever grateful for his generosity, availability, wisdom, and especially for introducing me to the plays of John Fletcher. I also wish to thank my auxiliary supervisor, Professor Liam Semler, for his interest in my project. His insightful comments and kind words were a source of comfort. I am also indebted to Professor Lucy Munro from King’s College London for her inspirational teachings during my Master’s and for her offerings of encouragement and support. I am also grateful for the Australian Government Research Training Program scholarship that funded my research. In addition, I extend my sincere thanks to the members of the Early Modern Literature and Culture group at the University of Sydney who helped me develop my arguments. I could not have completed this thesis without the care and support of my family and friends. To Claudette Palomares and Sophie Frazer, without their equally erudite and heartfelt conversations I would be left bereft. To Yana Smagarinsky, Sarah Segal, Tal Chodos, Ben Strum, Emma Rapaport, Emily Hilton, and Danni Maryasin, for the comfort, love and joy they bring to friendship. And finally, to Lauren Weber, Shima Shahbazi, and Lauren Cantos for their intellectual and emotional encouragement. Thank you to my family who have been a source of strength and unconditional love. To my father, David, and mother, Karyn, who have shown an enduring and sincere interest in my work. A special thank you goes to Karyn for proof reading this thesis. Any remaining mistakes are my own. Thank you to my siblings Michaella and Jonathan, for their ebullience. And thank you to my grandparents, Sheila, Pauline and Victor, for their presence and love. Finally, thank you to Francesco, for his love that moves the sun and the other stars. iii Contents Abstract i Acknowledgements iii Introduction: Reading for Collaborative Censorship 1 Interpreting the censored playwright 1 Understanding early modern dramatic censorship 8 Approaches to early modern collaborative authorship 16 Reading for collaborative censorship 28 1 Collaborating on Credit: Eastward Ho! And the Death of the Co-Author 35 The censorship of Eastward Ho! 39 Eastward Ho! and the culture of credit 48 Collaboration and the language of deflected authorship 69 2 Collaboration, Interrupted: Authority and the Manuscript of The Tragedy of Sir John Van Olden Barnavelt 79 The personal and political contexts of Sir John Van Olden Barnavelt 86 Scribal work and dramatic purpose 97 Collaborative revision in the Sir John Van Olden Barnavelt manuscript 104 3 Sharing Pages: Censorial Service in The Honest Man’s Fortune 119 The texts of The Honest Man’s Fortune 123 Cultures of service in early modern England 131 “Oh what a scoffe might men of woemen make, / yf they did knowe this boye” 143 Censorial service in The Honest Man’s Fortune manuscript 155 4 The Rest is Scilens: Editorial Approaches to Collaboration and Censorship in Sir Thomas More 166 Collaborative censorship in The Booke of Sir Thomas Moore 171 Editorial approaches to Hand C in Sir Thomas More 180 Sir Thomas More at Shakespeare’s quatercentenary 192 Conclusion 204 Bibliography 211 Introduction: Reading for Collaborative Censorship Let the interpreter beware: for none euer h[e]ard me make Allegories of an idle text. - Thomas Nashe, Pierce Penilesse his supplication to the diuell1 Interpreting the censored playwright Over the last twenty years, literary scholarship has paid increasing attention to the collaborative processes involved in early modern dramatic production.2 This work created new models of authorship by questioning the totalising influence of the playwright, which has revealed the dispersed authority of scribes, compositors, actors, and others in the production of both performed and printed plays. The dramatic output of the most famed playwrights of the period has come under intense scrutiny in the hopes of uncovering these agents.3 Once these agents have been found, however, questions still remain about the extent to which they hold authorial influence over a text. Whilst literary critics have worked to make sense of collaboration in print 1 Thomas Nashe, Pierce Penilesse his supplication to the diuell (London: Printed by Abell Ieffes, for I. B[usby], 1592), sig. ¶2. 2 The recent critical interest in collaboration has resulted in three sometimes overlapping avenues: theoretical, practical, and attribution focused. Jeffrey Masten’s controversial Textual Intercourse: Collaboration, Authorship, and Sexualities in Renaissance Drama (Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997) instigated a new debate over the place of collaboration in early modern drama. Criticism is still coming to terms with this important book, and other scholars have since tried to find new ways to conceptualise collaboration. Gary Taylor, for example, has read collaborative writing as a type of artisanal creation in “Artiginality: Authorship after Postmodernism,” in The New Oxford Shakespeare: Authorship Companion, ed. Taylor and Gabriel Egan (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016) (NOS hereafter). Collaboration has, more broadly, been accepted as the playmaking practice within the companies, such as in Heather Anne Hirschfeld in Joint Enterprises: Collaborative Drama and the Institutionalization of the English Renaissance Theatre (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2004), and David Nicol in Middleton and Rowley: Forms of Collaboration in the Jacobean Playhouse (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2012). Other critics have considered collaboration in relation to Shakespeare’s authorial style, such as Jeffrey Knapp in Shakespeare Only (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009). The major interest in collaboration, however, is in relation to Shakespearean attribution, see Brian Vickers in Shakespeare, Co-Author: A Historical Study of Five Collaborative Plays (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002) as a starting point. 3 The most recent example of this phenomenon is the NOS: Authorship Companion. 1 and performance, one significant area has yet to receive due attention: censorship.4 The regulation of early modern drama allowed for a greater dispersal of authority than has previously been assumed. Similarly to scribes, compositors, and actors, the Master of the Revels had the literary authority to alter a play’s shape and language.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • THE ALCHEMIST THROUGH the AGES an Investigation of the Stage
    f [ THE ALCHEMIST THROUGH THE AGES An investigation of the stage history of Ben Jonson's play by JAMES CUNNINGHAM CARTER B.Sc., University of British Columbia, 196 8 A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT. OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS in the Department of English We accept this thesis as conforming to the required standard THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA October 1972 In presenting this thesis in partial fulfilment of the requirements for an advanced degree at the University of British Columbia, I agree that the Library shall make it freely available for reference and study. I further agree that permission for extensive copying of this thesis for scholarly purposes may be granted by the Head of my Department or by his representatives. It is understood that copying or publication of this thesis for financial gain shall not be allowed without my written permission. Department of The University of British Columbia Vancouver 8, Canada Date 27 QclAtt ii ABSTRACT THE ALCHEMIST THROUGH THE AGES An Investigation of the Stage History of Ben Jonson's Play This study was made to trace the stage history of The Alchemist and to see what effect theatrical productions can have in developing critical awareness of Jonson's dramatic skill in this popular play. Therefore an attempt has been made to record all performances by major companies between 1610 and 197 0 with cast lists and other pertinent information about scenery/ stage action and properties. The second part of the thesis provides a detailed analysis of four specific productions considered in light of their prompt books, details of acting and production, and overall critical reception.
    [Show full text]
  • The English Lyrics of the Henry VIII Manuscript
    The English Lyrics of the Henry VIII Manuscript by RAYMOND G. SIEMENS B. A. (Hons), The University of Waterloo, 1989 M.A., The University of Alberta, 1991 A THESIS SUBMITTED LN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES, Department of English We accept this thesis as conforming to the required standard THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA May 20, 1997 ©R.G. Siemens, 1997 In presenting this thesis in partial fulfilment of the requirements for an advanced degree at the University of British Columbia, I agree that the Library shall make it freely available for reference and study. I further agree that permission for extensive copying of this thesis for scholarly purposes may be granted by the head of my department or 'by his or her representatives. It is understood that copying or publication of this thesis for financial gain shall not be allowed without my written permission. /7 v. Department of The University of British Columbia Vancouver, Canada Date DE-6 (2788) Abstract The Henry VIII MS (BL Additional MS 31,922)—a song book with lyrics by Henry VIII, Thomas Wyatt, William Cornish, and other literary figures of the early Henrician court—is a document that contributes greatly to a critical understanding of the connections between poetry, patronage, and power in early Renaissance society because of the prominence of its chief author, the King himself, and the manuscript's reflection of literary, social, and political elements of the early Tudor court. Acknowledging that the contents of the Henry VIII MS have been thoroughly treated as "words for music" by the musicologist John Stevens, whose Music and Poetry in the Early Tudor Court and Music at the Court of Henry VIII are the standard works in the area, my thesis builds on existing scholarship to treat the lyrics of H chiefly as "words," as literary texts.
    [Show full text]
  • AN EXAMINATION of PLAYS in MANUSCRIPT ET ME Begin by Stating As Clearly As I Can the Purpose L.4 of This Exploratory Study
    TEXTUAL DEGENERATION OF ELlZABETHAN AND STUART PLAYS: AN EXAMINATION OF PLAYS IN MANUSCRIPT ET ME begin by stating as clearly as I can the purpose l.4 of this exploratory study. It has seemed to me that in accounting for variation among Elizabethan and post-Eliza- bethan dramatic texts too little weight has been given to the activities of prompters and actors as compared with those of printers and copyists. According to R. B. McKerrow and Evelyn Albright,l the incompetence of printers has been greatly exaggerated, and the defense they offer seems sound and just, and, as for copyists, they seem, as a class, to have been the most efficient of those who worked on plays. On the other hand, the conditions of play production, now, in the Elizabethan age and in general, are such as not only to pro- voke alteration of texts but to necessitate it. The simplest in- vestigation of the history of Shakespeare on the stage (and on the screen) will reveal habitual and not infrequently vio- Ient modifications of his texts and even of his intentions. A visit to a production lot will convince any visitor that the pro- ducer feels free to alter the script without any reference to the author or what he has written. I remember a conversa- tion in 1908 with Eugene Walter, whose Paid in Full was then en uogue, and of hearing him describe without the least of- fense, indeed with pride, the great changes made in his play when it was produced on Broadway, Stage aIterations are and have been since the Elizabethan age and before the merest commonplace and by no means inconsiderable.
    [Show full text]
  • •Ÿcattle of This Colourâ•Ž
    Early Theatre 15.1 (2012) Pamela Allen Brown ‘Cattle of this colour’: Boying the Diva in As You Like It Shakespeare may have written for an all-male stage, but his plays are full of women who relish acting. ‘Bring us to this sight, and you shall say / I’ll prove a busy actor in their play’ (3.4.54–5), says Rosalind, as eager as Bot- tom or Hamlet to get into the act.1 Why such stress on female theatricality on a womanless stage? My theory is that As You Like It and other plays show the imprint of the ground-breaking actresses who took the lead in Italian professional troupes decades before Shakespeare’s debut. A startling innova- tion when they appeared in Commedia dell’Arte companies in mid-century, women soon performed in scripted and improvised plays in every genre. A few directed their troupes and became international stars, sought after by royal patrons throughout Europe. News reached London from diplomats, travelers, and players, and in the 1570s Italian players appeared several times at Elizabeth’s court, culminating in the 1578 visit of an arte troupe that included actresses.2 English playwrights responded quickly to the challenge. From the late 1570s, writers created exotically histrionic ‘women’ who seize the stage to deliver passionate arias of love and despair, scheme with virtuosic flair, and display elegant wit and rhetorical sophistication. Major female roles grew longer than ever before, while expanding in range, significance, and com- plexity. Lyly, Kyd, and Marlowe placed unprecedented demands on the boy player, calling for displays of rhetorical mastery, feats of actorly control, and torrents of passion and frenzy.
    [Show full text]
  • Object Like Theirs Is Self-Perpetuation
    Lehigh Preserve Institutional Repository Mapping significance : geographical musings on the three "hoe" plays Blaisdell, Theodore A. 1997 Find more at https://preserve.lib.lehigh.edu/ This document is brought to you for free and open access by Lehigh Preserve. It has been accepted for inclusion by an authorized administrator of Lehigh Preserve. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Blaisdell, Ted , Mapping Significance­ Geographical Musings on the Three "Hoe" Plays. June 1, 1997 ' Mapping Significance . Geographical Musings on the three "Hoe" Plays by Ted Blaisdell J A Thesis Presented to the Graduate and Research Committee of Lehigh University in Candid.acy for the Degree of Master ofArts in English Lehigh University April, 1997 TABLE OF CONTENTS ... Abstract Page 1 Text -- "Mapping Significance" Page 2 Bibliography Page 39 11 Abstract for "Mapping Significance" This study examines the use oftopography as a stylistic device in the Jacobean City Comedies. Beginningwith an examination ofthe critical history of this device and its relevance to current New Historical approaches to literary criticism, the paper then focuses specific attention on Westward Hoe, Eastward Hoe, and Northward Hoe, three collaborative City Comedies whose geographic· sensitivity with respect to the London river trade is revealed in their titles. The authors' employed the language ofposition and direction to provide relevance and depth to their plots and their characterizations. The authors portray London as a hub ofvirtue surrounded by the relative "viciousness" ofthe Suburbs and the Liberties. This characterization ofLondon as the center ofvirtue rests on a set of values valorizing the capitalistic principles offree trade and private property.
    [Show full text]
  • The Senses in Early Modern England, 1558–1660
    The senses in early modern England, 1558–1660 Edited by Simon Smith, Jacqueline Watson, and Amy Kenny MANCHESTER 1824 Manchester University Press Simon Smith, Jackie Watson, and Amy Kenny - 9781526146465 www.manchesteruniversitypress.co.ukDownloaded from manchesterhive.com at 09/27/2021 05:33:41PM via free access The senses in early modern England, 1558–1660 Simon Smith, Jackie Watson, and Amy Kenny - 9781526146465 Downloaded from manchesterhive.com at 09/27/2021 05:33:41PM via free access MUP_Smith_Printer.indd 1 02/04/2015 16:18 Simon Smith, Jackie Watson, and Amy Kenny - 9781526146465 Downloaded from manchesterhive.com at 09/27/2021 05:33:41PM via free access MUP_Smith_Printer.indd 2 02/04/2015 16:18 The senses in early modern England, 1558–1660 edited by simon smith, jackie watson and amy kenny Manchester University Press Simon Smith, Jackie Watson, and Amy Kenny - 9781526146465 Downloaded from manchesterhive.com at 09/27/2021 05:33:41PM via free access MUP_Smith_Printer.indd 3 02/04/2015 16:18 Copyright © Manchester University Press 2015 While copyright in the volume as a whole is vested in Manchester University Press, copyright in individual chapters belongs to their respective authors, and no chapter may be reproduced wholly or in part without the express permission in writing of both author and publisher. Published by Manchester University Press Altrincham Street, Manchester M1 7JA www.manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data applied for isbn 978 07190 9158 2 hardback First published 2015 The publisher has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or any third-party internet websites referred to in this book, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.
    [Show full text]
  • Theater and Neighborhood in Shakespeare's
    ENGLISH 8720: Theater and Neighborhood in Shakespeare’s London Spring Semester 2013 Professor Christopher Highley Classroom: Scott Lab N0044 Class time: Fri 11:10-2:05 Office: Denney 558; 292-1833 Office Hours: Wed 10-2 and by appointment [email protected] Class Description: This class will examine the different theatrical neighborhoods of Early Modern London in which the plays of Shakespeare and his contemporaries were performed. We will pay special attention to three neighborhoods: Southwark, on the south-bank of the River Thames, was home to the Globe, the Rose, and several other ampitheaters; Blackfriars, an ex-monastic Liberty inside the walls of the City, was home to indoor theaters; and Clerkenwell, northwest of the City, was the location of the Fortune and Red Bull playhouses. When and for what reasons was playing first attracted to these areas? What political, economic, demographic, and social conditions allowed playing to survive here? What local neighborhood pressures shaped the identity and fortunes of these venues? Did the location of a playhouse determine the composition of its audience and thus the kinds of plays performed? Did playwrights build awareness of the playhouse neighborhood into their plays? We will read representative plays from each of the theaters we study (for exxmple, Jonson's The Alchemist, and Beaumont’s Knight of the Burning Pestle for the Blackfriars), but we will also devote much of our attention to the social and theatrical documents that reveal how theaters functioned within specific neighborhoods. We will look at the documents of royal, metropolitan, and ecclesiastical authorities, along with petitions of neighborhood residents, contemporary accounts of playgoing, and anti-theatrical tracts.
    [Show full text]
  • Playwright and Minister
    PLAYWRIGHT AND MAN OF GOD: RELIGION AND CONVENTION IN THE COMIC PLAYS OF JOHN MARSTON by Blagomir Georgiev Blagoev A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Graduate Department of English University of Toronto © Copyright by Blagomir Georgiev Blagoev (2010) PLAYWRIGHT AND MAN OF GOD: RELIGION AND CONVENTION IN THE COMIC PLAYS OF JOHN MARSTON Blagomir Georgiev Blagoev Doctor of Philosophy Graduate Department of English University of Toronto 2010 ABSTRACT John Marston’s literary legacy has inevitably existed in the larger-than-life shadows of his great contemporaries William Shakespeare and Ben Jonson. In the last two centuries, his works were hardly taken on their own terms but were perceived instead in overt or implicit comparison to Shakespeare’s or Jonson’s. As a result, Marston’s plays acquired the lasting but unfair image of haphazard concoctions whose cheap sensationalism and personal satire often got them in trouble with the authorities. This was the case until recently, especially with Marston’s comic drama. Following revisionist trends, this study sets out to restore some perspective: it offers a fresh reading of Marston’s comic plays and collaborations—Antonio and Mellida, What You Will, Jack Drum’s Entertainment, The Dutch Courtesan, The Malcontent, Parasitaster, Eastward Ho, and Histrio-Mastix—by pursuing a more nuanced contextualization with regard to religious context and archival evidence. The first central contention here is that instead of undermining political and religious authority, Marston’s comic drama can demonstrate consistent conformist and conservative affinities, which imply a seriously considered agenda. This study’s second main point is that the perceived failures of Marston’s comic plays—such as tragic ii elements, basic characterization, and sudden final reversals—can be plausibly read as deliberate effects, designed with this agenda in mind.
    [Show full text]
  • Witches Before Flying
    International Journal of Literature and Arts 2014; 2(5): 155-172 Published online September 20, 2014 (http://www.sciencepublishinggroup.com/j/ijla) doi: 10.11648/j.ijla.20140205.14 ISSN: 2331-0553 (Print); ISSN: 2331-057X (Online) Witches before flying Shokhan Rasool Ahmed English Department, University of Sulaimani, Sulaimani/Kurdistan- Iraq Email address: [email protected] To cite this article: Shokhan Rasool Ahmed. Witches before Flying. International Journal of Literature and Arts. Vol. 2, No. 5, 2014, pp. 155-172. doi: 10.11648/j.ijla.20140205.14 Abstract: This paper examines Shakespeare’s Macbeth (1606), and The Late Lancashire Witches (1634) by Thomas Heywood and Richard Brome, and considers in detail the witch scenes in both plays and their stage directions during their entrances and exits. The witches in the Jacobean Macbeth of the First Folio, do not explicitly fly in the stage directions. However, they do in the Restoration Macbeth, namely in Davenant’s second Quarto (1674). The question to be raised here is: what evidence is there in the pre-Restoration Macbeth that the witches flew? In order to explore this, we must consider what performance spaces were used for Macbeth in the Jacobean period. Shakespeare’s Macbeth, and Heywood and Brome’s The Late Lancashire Witches form an interesting comparison since they were both revised by other writers. The Late Lancashire Witches has not received as much scholarly attention as the other witch plays discussed here. Therefore, as a comparative study, this paper will also discuss the joint authorship of Heywood and Brome in The Late Lancashire Witches and the stage directions of the witch scenes.
    [Show full text]
  • Horton1987.Pdf (4.307Mb)
    This thesis has been submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for a postgraduate degree (e.g. PhD, MPhil, DClinPsychol) at the University of Edinburgh. Please note the following terms and conditions of use: • This work is protected by copyright and other intellectual property rights, which are retained by the thesis author, unless otherwise stated. • A copy can be downloaded for personal non-commercial research or study, without prior permission or charge. • This thesis cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the author. • The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the author. • When referring to this work, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given. The Effectiveness of the Stylometry of Function Words in Discriminating between Shakespeare and Fletcher Thomas Bolton Horton Ph D University of Edinburgh 1987 rj Abstract A number of recent successful authorship studies have relied on a statistical analysis of language features based on function words. However, stylometry has not been extensively applied to Elizabethan and Jacobean dramatic questions. To determine the effectiveness of such an approach in this field, language features are studied in twenty-four plays by Shakespeare and eight by Fletcher. The goal is to develop procedures that might be used to determine the authorship of individual scenes in The Two Noble Kinsmen and Henry VIII. Homonyms, spelling variants and contracted forms in old-spelling dramatic texts present problems for a computer analysis.
    [Show full text]
  • Simon Smith Music's Mobility
    University of Birmingham The many performance spaces for music at Jacobean indoor playhouses Smith, Simon DOI: 10.1017/9781316488768.003 License: Other (please specify with Rights Statement) Document Version Peer reviewed version Citation for published version (Harvard): Smith, S 2017, The many performance spaces for music at Jacobean indoor playhouses. in D Lindley & B Barclay (eds), Shakespeare, Music and Performance. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. 29-41. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316488768.003 Link to publication on Research at Birmingham portal Publisher Rights Statement: This material has been published in revised form in Shakespeare, Music and Performance edited by Bill Barclay, David Lindley https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316488768.003. This version is free to view and download for private research and study only. Not for re- distribution or re-use. © Cambridge University Press. General rights Unless a licence is specified above, all rights (including copyright and moral rights) in this document are retained by the authors and/or the copyright holders. The express permission of the copyright holder must be obtained for any use of this material other than for purposes permitted by law. •Users may freely distribute the URL that is used to identify this publication. •Users may download and/or print one copy of the publication from the University of Birmingham research portal for the purpose of private study or non-commercial research. •User may use extracts from the document in line with the concept of ‘fair dealing’ under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 (?) •Users may not further distribute the material nor use it for the purposes of commercial gain.
    [Show full text]
  • It Would, to Put It Mildly, Be Nice to Know More About the Backstage Oper- Ations of a Playing Company Like the Chamberlain’S Men Or the Admiral’S in the Later 1590S
    Early Theatre 10.1 (2007) ANDREW GURR The Work of Elizabethan Plotters, and 2 The Seven Deadly Sins It would, to put it mildly, be nice to know more about the backstage oper- ations of a playing company like the Chamberlain’s Men or the Admiral’s in the later 1590s. About the company that Shakespeare joined in 1594 we are unlikely ever to know much more than the few hard facts now current can tell us. But given Henslowe’s Diary with its intricate records of the day-by- day operations of Edward Alleyn and his company, there is better reason to hope for some clarification of the extraordinary processes that helped fifteen or more players to put six different plays on stage every week and to run a repertory consisting of more than thirty plays each year. Regrettably little about that uniquely high-speed process has come out so far, and this study of the backstage book-keeper and stage management will not take it very much further. But, as the chronic optimists say, every little helps. The Admiral’s company must have had several helpers for the staging of their plays besides the costumiers, to whom the Henslowe papers note pay- ments, and the property men. The difficulties of reading the Diary start there. Were the backstage workers employed by Henslowe himself as owner of the playhouse the company rented, or were they members of the company, hired and paid by the sharers? None of the stage hands is named in the accounts, though there are some bonds signed by hired men who were players.
    [Show full text]