Fletcher’s Contemporaries:  A “What’s On” in 17^th Century London

During the reign of James I (1603-1625), English drama went through some subtle changes. Tragicomedy replaced the Tragedy in popularity, perhaps due to its (rather contrived) happy endings and focus on the melodramatic rather than on genuine emotion. English audiences were flocking to the theatre for thrills and chills, not for profound insights or complex characterizations.  Despite this seeming disappearance of “serious” theatre at the time, playwriting was becoming more and more advanced.  Playwrights more skillfully offered exposition, condensed the action into fewer and more concise scenes, cleverly weaved and built complications to surprising climaxes, and varied the tone between tame and turbulent within each play.  Below is a sampling of some of these plays and playwrights. Of course, this list is not exhaustive – we figured you already knew about that Shakespeare guy, for example. These are just some of the lesser known gems.

Elizabeth Carey’s The Tragedy of Mariam (1585-1639)

The only woman you’ll find on this list of playwrights, Carey’s The Tragedy of Mariam (written in 1602-04) was, in 1613, the first play by an Englishwoman to ever be published, so you must forgive her for never obtaining a production of the play during her lifetime. A closet drama, Mariam is often compared to Webster’s The Duchess of Malfi because of their similar portrayals of spirited and courageous women. Carey was the first Englishwoman to write a tragedy and also the first to write a history play, The History of the Life, Reign and Death of Edward II (1627). In addition, Carey wrote hymns, poems and translated others’ works into various languages. She was quite the woman in her time (shown to the right in a 17^th century wash drawing by Athow from a painting by Paul Van Somer).

John Webster (c. 1580-1634)

Webster wrote about fourteen plays including some collaborative efforts with Dekker, Heywood, Middleton, and Rowley. The White Devil and The Duchess of Malfi are his most famous works, though all his plays are greatly admired for their compelling poetic style and well-drawn characters. They are generally criticized, however, for rather dark tones and stories – tales that encompass worlds of corruption that destroy the protagonists without ever proffering them any kind of insight, deep or otherwise. Possibly because of the existence of the Black Death during his childhood (his father was a wagon driver who picked up the victims of the disease), death and blood are frequent themes of Webster’s, as is the law (which he studied, though never practiced); his characters are often abused by the hierarchy of the court system. Regarded as a writer with flashes of brilliance, he was poorly received by both critics and audiences of his time, but contemporary scholars have given him his due: he is now often considered second only to Shakespeare due to his powerful dramatic style. 

The White Devil (1609-1612)

First staged at the Red Bull Theatre in 1612, John Webster's The White Devil is a story of extreme passion and shadowy revenge loosely based on a sensational event that occurred in Italy in the 1580s. The play centers on the love affair between the equally unscrupulous Duke of Brachiano and Vittoria Corombona. Vittoria is both a vicious and sympathetic heroine attempting to endure a deeply corrupt society in which people both good and evil are drawn into murky schemes of treacherous desire, political conspiracy, and bloody retribution.

The Duchess of Malfi (1613-14)

This tragic play was first preformed at The Globe in 1614. Based on an Italian novella, Webster’s play revolves around the strong-willed and noble ruler of Malfi who, in love with her steward, secretly and defiantly marries him against the wishes of all the men in her life – including a duke and a cardinal who command her to remain a widow. The Duchess is a fabulously spirited and complex woman in this, one of Webster’s greatest works.

Francis Beaumont (c. 1584-1616)

Beaumont studied law, but probably never practiced, as he met Ben Jonson shortly after completing his schooling and thus began his career in verse and eventually in the theatre.  Beaumont, however, is best known in conjunction with John Fletcher – the two playwrights collaborated so often and with such success that around 1609 they replaced Shakespeare as the chief dramatists of the King’s Men; in fact, during this time, their works were much more popular than the Bard’s. Beaumont was known for his strong plots, while Fletcher was seen as the skillful contributor of the poetic verse. Beamont’s best-known work, however, is one that he more than likely wrote entirely on his own (though some claim Fletcher had a hand in it): The Knight of the Burning Pestle.

The Knight of the Burning Pestle (c. 1607)

Upon opening at the Blackfriars, Knight was not well-received. Some current scholars claim this was because it was too avant-garde for its time; others speculate that audiences simply missed the satire of the merchant class or that they simply wanted a good old-fashioned romance.  Either way, it was revived during the Restoration with success, though it then fell back into obscurity for almost two hundred years (one of the most recent productions at the Barbican Center in London in 2005 received mixed reviews). Despite its ups and downs, Knight is the most frequently revived play in the Fletcher-Beaumont canon.

Some believe that this popular work was possibly a response to Don Quixote since Cervantes’s book was by that time being circulated throughout England, but others think that Knight was simply a response to prevalent traditions and customs in England. Either way, this burlesque of middle-class taste in theatre is a hilarious play-within-a-play that incorporates a couple whose loud interference causes a troupe of players to improvise more and more in order to keep the play going.

Thomas Dekker (c. 1570-1632) and Thomas Middleton (1580-1627)

Dekker penned 46 plays, ranging in topics from romantic comedies to satires to tragicomedies, and critics of the time were never entirely sure if he was a trailblazer who bravely experimented within the form or if he simply did not know how to write drama properly. We, of course, now think it was definitely the latter. His writing partner was Thomas Middleton who, educated at Oxford, originally wrote for more elite genres, but switched to the popular upon graduation. Looking on himself as a poor scholar, Middleton always elicited sympathy for the working classes, which is exemplified in his and Dekker’s most popular work, The Roaring Girl.

The Roaring Girl

Written for Prince Henry’s Men at the Fortune (the Globe’s main rival), The Roaring Girl was originally performed there in 1611. T.S. Eliot was one of the first contemporary critics to champion this mostly disregarded play, which is a fictionalized dramatization of the life of Mary Frith. It tells the story of Moll Cutpurse (as she was popularly known) who had a reputation as an outspoken, daring woman (remember that discussion of the scolding brides?). Extremely topical at the time, it engaged one of the period’s most controversial issues: women dressing as men. The transgressive practice sparked much debate because society connected a woman’s more masculine change of clothing with her desire to change her social status. It seems Moll Frith was one of our earliest feminists.

Thomas Heywood (c. 1574-1641)

Thomas Heywood was the most prolific English playwright of the time – by a long shot.  He had a hand in the writing of well over two hundred plays and his career spanned from the last decade of the 16^th century to almost the outbreak of the Civil War in 1642. We don’t know much about his life before he became an actor with the Admiral’s Men in 1598, but we do know that he was of gentle birth and probably studied at Cambridge for a time where he generally considered himself a classicist. When he began his career as a dramatist, he was what we would today call a true artist: he did not believe in the commerciality of theatre, and was greatly skeptical of publication, out of both fear of censure, as well as the corruption of subsequent wealth. Stated in his own words (in an “Address to the Reader” in a 1608 publication of The Rape of Lucrece):  “Though some have used a double sale of their labours, first to the stage and after to the press, for my own part I proclaim myself ever faithful to the first and never guilty of the last.” 

A Woman Killed with Kindness (1603)

What some consider a dated play in our feminist age, A Woman Killed with Kindess tells the story of John and Anne Frankford, both paragons of virtue and kindness until John foolishly takes in Master Wendoll who, taken with Anne’s charms, persuades her to accept him as a lover. Of course, the action is complicated with all sorts of sub-plots, but this domestic tale ends in tragedy when John discovers his wife’s infidelity, and though he generously forgives her, Anne starves herself to death. Though clearly a warning tale to women as to how they should behave, Heywood’s play is greatly admired today for its powerful movement with the various plots and his ability to avoid overly poetic language, thereby maintaining realistic and unaffected emotions.

Ben Jonson (1572-1637)

The first “poet laureate” of England, Jonson is widely considered one of the finest Elizabethan playwrights after Shakespeare, and we know more about his life than any other playwright of the period. Growing up in London, he was the son of a poor pastor, but had the great fortune of meeting a “friend” who put him through school at Westminster where he studied under the famous historian William Camden, though he never finished his schooling. Jonson seemed to try a hand in everything before settling in the theatre, including bricklaying and volunteering to fight for the war. It was during his time as a strolling player that the troupe he acted for was handed an unfinished satirical play, The Isle of Dogs, by Thomas Nashe; it was completed (without consent, as the story goes) by the young Jonson who consequently spent some time in the gaol for fabricating such a “lewd” play. This was only the first time that Jonson would find himself in such trouble. It is this colorful life that led to a collection of work known for its realistic and unusually unsympathetic characters, and its concern for reforming faults in human character. It is Jonson who widely popularized the “comedy of humours” through his use of character types, and he is most well-known for his plays Volpone and The Alchemist.

Volpone

Set in Venice – the place many Englishmen considered a den of decadence and sin – the play tells the story of the extravagant nobleman and con artist, Volpone, who cunningly foils the plot of three fortune hunters all desiring his money, while he simultaneously falls in love with a beautiful young married woman who virtuously refuses to give in to his advances. With a foundation in Greek and Roman comedy and those forms’ well-known stock characters, Volpone (shown above in an illustration by Aubrey Beardsley for an 1898 edition of the play) is a tale of greed and lust, both wickedly funny and morally upright. 

Cyril Tourner (c. 1575-1626)

Though generally accredited to Tourner, The Revenger’s Tragedy was entered into the Stationer’s Register in October of 1607 without the listing of an author.  The only play we know for certain to be penned by Tourner is The Atheist’s Tragedy, and due to its strange spelling and general features, a scholarly leap was made, crediting The Revenger’s Tragedy to Tourner based on these slight similarities.  Other scholars, however, have attributed the play to Thomas Middleton because of the playwrights’ comparable language and spelling, while still others believe the play to be the work of John Marston due to dramatic style, tone and theme.  Despite all the contrasting scholarship, custom has deemed Tourner the author for reference purposes. 

The Revenger’s Tragedy

What’s interesting about this play is that despite all the Elizabethan playwrights it is associated with, The Revenger’s Tragedy does not lie within the Elizabethan tradition of revenge tragedy that was established two decades prior in Thomas Kyd’s The Spanish Tragedy – Revenger’s incorporates much more comedy than its predecessor. Set in a decadent Italian court, The Revenger’s Tragedy tells a thrilling, witty, violent, and sexy tale. The Duke's son has attempted to rape the virtuous Gloriana and her death prompts her betrothed Vindice to swear vengeance on the Duke's family (Sweeney Todd, anyone?). Vindice’s merciless plan is aided by the lusts and ambitions of the rest of the family, and it all ends very much like Hamlet (hint: it’s not exactly a happily ever after type of tale).  Because Queen Elizabeth I was often referred to as “Gloriana” (see Edmund Spenser’s epic poem The Faerie Queen for another such reference), the play is considered by many to be a political commentary deploring the corruption of James I’s court as compared to the Golden Age of the Virgin Queen.