The Tamer Tamed

A Brief Chat with the editor of The Tamer Tamed

Celia R. Daileader is a professor of English at Florida State University where she specializes in Renaissance literature, feminist theory, and critical race studies.  In 2006, she and Gary Taylor co-authored the Revels Students' Edition of John Fletcher's The Tamer Tamed, or The Woman's Prize which is the edition FSU is currently utilizing for its production this month.  For more information about Dr. Daileader and a complete list of her publications, please visit http://www.english.fsu.edu/faculty/cdaileader.htm.

As a sneak preview of what’s to come at the Symposium – which includes a full interview of Dr. Celia Daileader as moderated by  the head of FSU’s playwriting program, Dan Dietz – Aaron Thomas, dramaturg of FSU’s production of The Tamer Tamed, posed a few thoughtful and intriguing questions to Dr. Daileader via email.  Dr. Daileader is currently in Italy where she is teaching for FSU’s study abroad program.

AT:  What about John Fletcher in general and The Tamer Tamed in particular did you find interesting? What drew you to him?

CD: It was my discomfort with the ending of Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew, which has the heroine submit to male dominance, that initially drew me to Fletcher and The Tamer Tamed.  Having learned that one of Shakespeare's contemporaries wrote a "reply" to Shrew that reversed the outcome of Shakespeare's so-called comedy, I couldn't wait to read it.  Then I liked the play so much I went on to read a number of other plays by Fletcher (some co-authored with Francis Beaumont), many of which I also found surprisingly "modern" both in terms of style and content.

AT: Are there any other of Shakespeare's contemporaries that interest you? 

CD: Yes.  I am passionately in love with Thomas Middleton who, like Fletcher, is fascinated by questions of gender and power, and also like Fletcher populates his plays with strong female characters.  For instance, Middleton co-authored with Thomas Dekker a play called The Roaring Girl, the heroine of which wears men's clothing, shuns marriage, and can hold her own in a duel.  In short, she kicks ass.  Just as do Maria and Bianca in The Tamer Tamed.

AT: The plot of The Tamer Tamed certainly plays off of Shakespeare's Taming of the Shrew, but it also seems to be a kind of adaptation of Aristophanes's ancient Greek text Lysistrata. Would Fletcher have had access to that play? Were there other plays from the time period that used ancient Greek texts as springboards?

   

CD: Yes.  Our introduction to the Revels edition of Fletcher's play highlights Lysistrata as one of Fletcher's inspirations, while also discussing ways in which Fletcher departed from Aristophanes.  There is no doubt that Fletcher read and was inspired by the play.  In general, the classics greatly influenced English Renaissance drama, but in fact most of the known classical sources for the genre are Roman, not Greek.  So in his use of Aristophanes Fletcher was again breaking the mold. 

AT: In your book Eroticism on the Renaissance Stage, you mention the overwhelming amount of food and eating imagery in The Tamer Tamed. Could you talk a little bit about what you think this means, or why Fletcher might have included this?  

CD: The chapter on Fletcher in my first book emphasizes the role of what Renaissance scholars term the “carnivalesque” in the play’s imagery and action.  The carnivalesque is a discourse with its origins in the folk traditions connected to the Medieval church calendar with its alternating periods of fasting and feasting.  During periods of festival the common people in Medieval Europe indulged in fleshly pleasures and celebrated the body and its appetites in public ritual.  You can see vestiges of this in the tradition of Mardi Gras in

New Orleans

or the Italian equivalent of Carnivale.  Why does this discourse saturate The Tamer Tamed?  Because alongside the traditions celebrating the body—which Medieval Christian doctrine subordinated to the spirit—one observed rituals that flaunted the usual social hierarchies.  As Renaissance theorist Mikhail Bakhtin argues in his influential book, Rabelais and His World, the carnivalesque celebrates a “topsy turvey” world, where a beggar can be king and a woman wear pants.  Thus, Fletcher’s play, in representing “women on top,” does so in language that also valorizes the flesh.  For millennia in western thought women were associated with the flesh and its appetites (the wife representing the “body” in a marriage of which the husband was the “head”).  At the same time, women were the ones responsible for the preparation of food in the household, and for catering to the appetites of their children and families.  So women’s relationship to food and eating was complex and fraught.  And indeed this is still the case, as the continuing epidemic of eating disorders amongst women underscores. 

AT: We're setting our production of The Tamer Tamed in Italy, where Taming of the Shrew is set. Are there any connections between England in the 17th century and Italy in the 17th century that our audiences might find interesting?

This is a very timely question for me, as I am answering it from Florence, where I am teaching a course called "Shakespeare and Italy in FSU's study abroad program.  The connections between Italy and England in the Renaissance are mammoth: arguably, England owes its Renaissance to Italy Shakespeare in particular was fascinated with Italy; some of his best-loved plays are set in Italy and/or the Mediterranean: Romeo and Juliet, The Tempest, Othello, Merchant of Venice, to name just a few.  (For the sake of brevity, I’ll leave aside the Roman plays, which are of course also relevant but differ somewhat in focus.)  So setting Tamer Tamed in Italy makes sense.  On the other hand, I do personally find it interesting that Fletcher altered the setting in his response to Shakespeare’s play, moving the action to (And in fact, there are a striking number of references to local topography in the text, and I’ll be interested to see whether those references are cut or altered in FSU’s production.)  I wonder, for instance, if Shakespeare’s Italian setting in The Taming of the Shrew made its apparently antifeminist message “safer” to English audiences.  Kind of like, “Oh, we know those how those nasty Italians treat their wives. . . .”  So English audiences could vicariously enjoy the spectacle of a spirited woman being broken by her husband, while also congratulating themselves for their greater civility.   Fletcher seemed to want to remove this buffer, and make the play’s politics more edgy.  With regard to the FSU production of Tamer, I don’t think the stakes are quite as high, in that the geo-political dividing lines are drastically different now (otherwise I wouldn’t be participating in this on-line discussion from Italy!). 

For a full interview with Dr. Daileader, as well as other interesting and informative presentations on Fletcher’s play and the theatre of the English Renaissance, please join us for the Symposium on Saturday, February 23, 1:00p-4:00p, at the School of Theatre in the Fine Arts Building.

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.

Theatre Becomes Professional!  …And Government Regulated!

An introduction to Elizabethan and Jacobean theatre

In 1576, carpenter/aspiring actor James Burbage built the first permanent theatre – rather cleverly called The Theatre – allowing actors and playwrights to finally make a living doing what they did best. At the same time, Elizabeth I was gradually consolidating the power of the throne so that she and her successor, James I, came to reign nearly as absolute monarchs.  The theatre was among the institutions of which they gained control. By then end of Elizabeth’s life, for better or worse, the British government officially ruled over the performing arts.

Hi-diddle-dee-dee, an actor's life for me!

When Queen Elizabeth I came to the throne in 1558, any gentleman could have a troupe of actors, but if you were one of those rebellious actors not employed by a gentleman, you were classified as a vagabond and subject to severe penalties.  Because such acting troupes could tour, actors were not closely supervised (apparently “kid wranglers” did not exist in Elizabethan England) and many illegal troupes were formed.  This angered Elizabeth who, in 1572, declared it illegal for any one below the rank of baron – including noble women who were allowed to have their own troupes – to maintain an acting company. 

We know of at least 100 acting companies that existed during 1572-1642, and all were either adult companies or  boys’ companies (led by an adult managing director).  The adult companies were organized on the sharing system in which risks and profits were divided among any of the actors who had bought shares within the company.  As an actor you needn’t buy any stock, but if you did, you had to put up a sizeable chunk of money in advance and commit yourself to the troupe for a minimum of three years.  You also received the prime roles – in other words, the tradition of buying one’s way into the business began as early as the Elizabethan era.  Indeed, Shakespeare was just such a clever businessman – he got his start as a shareholder and actor for the Chamberlain’s Men. 

During James I’s reign (when The Tamer Tamed was first produced), only companies with a royal patent were allowed to put up shop in the London area:  the King’s Men, Prince Henry’s Men, and the Elector Palatine’s Men (the king’s son-in-law). 

Similar to many regional theatres in the US today, adult companies employed acting apprenticeship programs.  Each company typically had 4-6 apprentices who were each assigned to the best and most well-known actors within the company.  Such apprenticeships could last anywhere from 3-12 years and some boys entered them as early as age ten and remained into their early twenties.  These boys played all of the women’s roles, as it was illegal for women to be on the stage at this time.

Want to see Elizabethan acting companies in action?  Check out the 1998 star-studded, award-winning Shakespeare in Love in which Elizabeth I (Judi Dench) and Richard Burbage (Martin Clunes) make cameos.  And though it takes place a bit later, just as Charles II decreed women were allowed to act, Stage Beauty (2004), starring Claire Danes as a wardrobe mistress who desperately longs to act, and Billy Crudup, who plays the cross-dressing actor she falls in love with, offers a general flavor of theatre at the time.

To Privatize or not to Privatize…

In London at this time, acting troupes would perform in one of two types of theatres.  The most frequented was the open-air (public) theatre, which was built for the masses. There were also smaller, indoor (private) theatres that admitted and catered to only the aristocracy.  A whopping thirteen theatres existed in and around London between 1567 and 1623.

The earliest of the professional theatres that we are aware of was called The Red Lion. Built by Burbage’s brother-in-law in 1567, its fate is unknown, hence tradition dubbing The Theatre as the first playhouse.  The general design of public playhouses such as The Red Lion and The Swan (pictured to the left) was inspired by the inns and gaming arenas (used primarily for bull and bear baiting, among other entertaining activities) where acting troupes had performed before dedicated structures were built for them. The Rose (1587-1606) dominated London’s South Bank until some shrewd businessman came along and built The Globe across the street. The most famous of the public theatres (due to its association with Shakespeare), The Globe was built in 1599, burned to the ground in 1613 during a production of Shakespeare & Fletcher’s Henry VIII, was rebuilt in 1614, and then thought to have been torn down in 1644 by the Puritans. 

The Globe and other outdoor theatres were round, or many-sided, open-roofed, wooden buildings with large platform stages that had doors and balconies at the rear. Performances were typically given in the afternoons so as to ensure good lighting.  The yard was always filled with working class Londoners who, standing, surrounded all three sides of the stage, accounting for up to a third of the audience (the Rose held up to approximately 2,000, while The Globe held almost 3,000!).  These groundlings paid a penny for the performance.  To obtain benched seating in the galleries, they paid a penny more, and a third penny would afford them the luxury of cushioned seats in the boxes.  For six pennies, one could purchase an opulent seat in the Lords’ Rooms. If a new play was on the bill, there was a good chance the fees would be doubled. 

Women were welcome to attend the theatre, but they had to be wary of standing in the yard, as women who did so were looked upon as having certain reputations.

The private theatres such as the Blackfriars Playhouse that Shakespeare’s company utilized in addition to the Globe (and where The Tamer Tamed may very well have premiered), offered more intimate experiences for the wealthy and held audiences of about 600.  These indoor performances were lit by candles and torches though most performances did occur during the afternoon. More risqué shows like The Tamer Tamed or Middleton and Dekker’s The Roaring Girl were ideal for these private theatres.

  Hankering for that Elizabethan play-going experience today?

Luckily for us, we can fully experience what theatre was like in 17^th century England (well, as fully as one can without all those rowdy groundlings!):  A replica of The Globe was constructed in 1997 (see view of its stage to the right) and a reconstruction of The Rose (on its original site and foundation) has been in progress since 1989.  If you can’t manage a trip across the pond this year, the Shakespearean theatre experience is just a road-trip away:  Staunton, Virginia boasts the world’s only re-creation of Shakespeare’s indoor theatre, the Blackfriars Playhouse, and thanks to that ingenious roofing idea, it operates year-round!

Check ’em out on the web:

The Rose: www.rosetheatre.org.uk/

The Globe: www.shakespeares-globe.org/

The Blackfriars: www.americanshakespearecenter.com/blackfriars-playhouse/

Or, if you’d prefer an experience that’s even closer to home, pick up Joseph Papp and Elizabeth Kirkland’s Shakespeare Alive!, a lively and very readable history of the Elizabethan stage (published by Bantam Books in 1988).  In addition, most of the information included here (and more!) can be found in the volumes on general theatre history by Oscar Brockett, Gerald Eades Bentley, and E.K. Chambers.

Coming Attractions to the SOT Blog…

Be sure to check back next Monday for a “What’s On” of early 17^th century London theatre: 

            •  Jacobean vs. Elizabethan drama

            •  Popular playwrights of the day

            •  The Tamer Tamed’s competition