Thomas Heywood's Theatre, 1599–1639
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THOMAS HEYWOOD’S THEATRE, 1599-1639 In this major reassessment of his subject, Richard Rowland restores Thomas Heywood – playwright, miscellanist and translator – to his rightful place in early modern theatre history. Rowland contextualizes and historicizes this important contemporary of Shakespeare, locating him on the geographic and cultural map of London through the business Heywood conducts in his writing. Arguing that Heywood’s theatrical output deserves the same attention and study that has been directed towards Shakespeare, Jonson, and more recently Middleton, this book looks at three periods of Heywood’s creativity: the end of the Elizabethan era and the beginning of the Jacobean, the mid 1620s, and the mid to late 1630s. By locating the works of those years precisely in the political and cultural conflicts to which they respond, Rowland initiates a major reassessment of the remarkable achievements of this playwright. Rowland also pays attention to Heywood in performance, seeing this writer as a jobbing playwright working in an industry that depended on making writing work. Finally, the author explores how Heywood participated in the civic life of London in his writings beyond the playhouse. Here Rowland examines pamphlets, translations, and the sequence of lord mayor’s pageants that Heywood produced as the political crisis deepened. Offering close readings of Heywood that establish the range, quality and theatrical significance of the writing,Thomas Heywood’s Theatre, 1599-1639 fits a fascinating piece into the emerging picture of the ‘complete’ early modern English theatre. Richard Rowland is Senior Lecturer in Drama and English, University of York, UK. Studies in Performance and Early Modern Drama General Editor’s Preface Helen Ostovich, McMaster University Performance assumes a string of creative, analytical, and collaborative acts that, in defiance of theatrical ephemerality, live on through records, manuscripts, and printed books. The monographs and essay collections in this series offer original research which addresses theatre histories and performance histories in the context of the sixteenth and seventeenth century life. Of especial interest are studies in which women’s activities are a central feature of discussion as financial or technical supporters (patrons, musicians, dancers, seamstresses, wigmakers, or ‘gatherers’), if not authors or performers per se. Welcome too are critiques of early modern drama that not only take into account the production values of the plays, but also speculate on how intellectual advances or popular culture affect the theatre. The series logo, selected by my colleague Mary V. Silcox, derives from Thomas Combe’s duodecimo volume, The Theater of Fine Devices (London, 1592), Emblem VI, sig. B. The emblem of four masks has a verse which makes claims for the increasing complexity of early modern experience, a complexity that makes interpretation difficult. Hence the corresponding perhaps uneasy rise in sophistication: Masks will be more hereafter in request, And grow more deare than they did heretofore. No longer simply signs of performance ‘in play and jest’, the mask has become the ‘double face’ worn ‘in earnest’ even by ‘the best’ of people, in order to manipulate or profit from the world around them. The books stamped with this design attempt to understand the complications of performance produced on stage and interpreted by the audience, whose experiences outside the theatre may reflect the emblem’s argument: Most men do use some colour’d shift For to conceal their craftie drift. Centuries after their first presentations, the possible performance choices and meanings they engender still stir the imaginations of actors, audiences, and readers of early plays. The products of scholarly creativity in this series, I hope, will also stir imaginations to new ways of thinking about performance. Thomas Heywood’s Theatre, 1599-1639 Locations, Translations, and Conflict RICHARD ROWLAND University of York, UK First published 2010 by Ashgate Publishing Published 2016 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017, USA Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business Copyright © Richard Rowland 2010 Richard Rowland has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Rowland, Richard, 1955- Thomas Heywood’s theatre, 1599-1639 : locations, translations, and conflict. – (Studies in performance and early modern drama) 1. Heywood, Thomas, d. 1641–Criticism and interpretation. 2. Heywood, Thomas, d. 1641–Settings. 3. Heywood, Thomas, d. 1641– Political and social views. I. Title II. Series 822.3-dc22 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Rowland, Richard, 1955- Thomas Heywood’s theatre, 1599-1639 : locations, translations, and conflict / by Richard Rowland. p. cm. – (Studies in performance and early modern drama) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-7546-6925-8 (alk. paper) 1. Heywood, Thomas, d. 1641–Criticism and interpretation. I. Title. PR2577.R69 2010 822’.3–dc22 2009027383 ISBN 9780754669258 (hbk) For three remarkable Rowlands Don 1921-1987 Rene 1917-2003 Marjorie 1919-2008 Contents List of Figures ix Acknowledgments xi Introduction 1 PART I Heywood’s English Landscapes 1 A ‘London that yee see hourely’: Heywood, Stow, and the Invention of the City Staged 21 2 Moving inside(s): Heywood’s Divided Households 85 PART II Staging Roman Comedy in Stuart London Introduction: Stages of Translation in Early Modern England 157 3 Of ‘coyne and prtious marchandyse’: Trade and Slavery in The Captives 173 4 ‘Some Mirth, some Matter’: The Innovative Tragicomedy of The English Traveller 203 5 Out of the Dripping Pan, into the Fire: Loves Mistris 233 PART III Street Theatre 6 London’s Peaceable Estate? The Pageants 301 Index 371 List of Figures 1.1 Heywood’s hand in The Book of Sir Thomas More: British Library MS Harley 7368, fol. 7a By permission of the British Library 32 1.2 Detail from the ‘Agas’ map: laundering in Moorfields, also featuring Gresham House, the Royal Exchange, and Drapers’ Hall By permission of the City of London Libraries and Archives 33 1.3 Interior of Crosby Place By permission of English Heritage, NMR 53 1.4 Detail from the ‘Agas’ map: Bishopsgate and St Helen’s (S. Elen), Crosby Place, and Leathersellers’ Hall; the Boar’s Head lay about 500 metres east of ‘Cry chur’ By permission of the City of London Libraries and Archives 55 2.1 Kenn Sabberton (Jenkin) in the RSC production of A Woman Killed With Kindness, 1991 By permission of Leah Gordon 113 2.2 Anthony Hopkins (Frankford) and Joan Plowright (Anne), in the National Theatre production of A Woman Killed With Kindness, 1971 By permission of Zoe Dominic Photography 124 2.3 Michael Maloney (Frankford) and Saskia Reeves (Anne) in the RSC production of A Woman Killed With Kindness, 1991 By permission of Leah Gordon 132 2.4 The humiliation of Anne: Joan Plowright in the National production of A Woman Killed With Kindness, 1971 By permission of Zoe Dominic Photography 133 2.5 Servants and gentry mourn separately in the Northern Broadsides production of A Woman Killed With Kindness, 2003 By permission of Nobby Clark 148 x Thomas Heywood’s Theatre, 1599–1639 3.1 The manuscript of The Captives, British Library MS Egerton 1994, fol. 70b By permission of the British Library 175 5.1 Apollo and Marsyas, from Antonio Tempesta, Metamorphoseon sive Transformationum Ovidianarum ([Antwerp]: 1606) By permission of Stephen Orgel 263 5.2 Apollo and Midas, from Antonio Tempesta, Metamorphoseon sive Transformationum Ovidianarum ([Antwerp]: 1606) By permission of Stephen Orgel 271 Acknowledgments First, the institutions. I would like to acknowledge that the completion of this book was greatly facilitated by the award of an Arts and Humanities Research Council grant. Parts of Chapter Four appeared in Michael Cordner, Peter Holland and John Kerrigan (eds), English Comedy (1994), and I am grateful to Cambridge University Press for granting permission to reproduce some of that material here. An earlier and shorter version of Chapter Three appeared in Modern Language Review, 90:3 (1995), published by the Modern Humanities Research Association. This book has been a long time in the making, and perhaps inevitably some of those to whom I owe a serious debt of gratitude are no longer around to receive due thanks. I mentioned Don Fowler, Don McKenzie and Jeremy Maule in my last book, and do so again, but sadly two more figures who have been important influences have disappeared recently. When I did my Masters’ degree I was taught by Tony Nuttall, and not only did I learn something really significant in every class but in the TLS he described my first publication (the essay out of which Chapter Four of this book eventually evolved) as ‘thumpingly good’ – not a moment any budding academic would easily forget. John Stephens was a fine scholar of eighteenth-century philosophy and bibliography, and he taught me much of what I know about the materiality of early printed books, but at the end of hours spent wrestling with those texts he would also provide welcome relaxation with discussions of music, and on really difficult days would simply place a CD of Klemperer or Schnabel next to the drinks he’d already bought. His acts of kindness are sorely missed, and the Bodleian seems empty without him. I have three very long-standing debts.