Locating the Queen's Men, 1583-1603: Material Practices and Conditions of Playing / Edition 1

by Holger Schott Syme, Helen Ostovich, Andrew Griffin

Overview

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 situates the company in the theatrical and economic context of their time. The essays gathered here focus on four different aspects: playing spaces, repertory, play-types, and performance style, beginning with essays devoted to touring conditions, performances in university towns, London inns and theatres, and the patronage system under Queen Elizabeth. Repertory studies, unique to this volume, consider the elements of the company's distinctive style, and how this style may have influenced, for example, Shakespeare's Henry V. Contributors explore two distinct genres, the morality and the history play, especially focussing on the use of stock characters and on male/female relationships. Revising standard accounts of late Elizabeth theatre history, this collection shows that the Queen's Men, often understood as the last rear-guard of the old theatre, were a vital force that enjoyed continued success in the provinces and in London, representative of the abiding appeal of an older, more ostentatiously theatrical form of drama.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780754666615
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	05/28/2009
Series:	Studies in Performance and Early Modern Drama Series
Edition description:	1
Pages:	284
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.19(h) x (d)

About the Author

Helen Ostovich is an Emeritus Professor in the Department of English and Cultural Studies at McMaster University, Canada. Holger Schott Syme is Assistant Professor of English at the University of Toronto, Canada. Andrew Griffin, Assistant Profressor, University of California Santa Barbara, USA

Table of Contents

Contents: Locating the Queen's Men: an introduction, Helen Ostovich; Holger Schott Syme and Andrew Griffin; Part 1 In and Out of London: On the road and on the wagon, Barbara D. Palmer; The Queen's Men in Elizabethan Cambridge, Paul Whitfield White; Motives for patronage: the Queen's Men at New Park, October 1588, Lawrence Manley; London inns as playing venues for the Queen's Men, David Kathman; 'The curtain is yours', Tiffany Stern. Part 2 The Repertory on Page and Stage: The start of something big, Roslyn L. Knutson; Page wit and puppet-like wealth: orality and print in Three Lords and Three Ladies of London, Ian Munro; Truth, poetry, and report in The True Tragedy of Richard III, Brian Walsh; The Famous Victories and the 1600 quarto of Henry V, Richard Dutton. Part 3 Figuring Character: On-stage allegory and its legacy: The Three ladies of London, Alan C. Dessen; Usury on the London stage: Robert Wilson's Three Ladies of London, Lloyd Edward Kermode; Appropriations of the popular tradition in The Famous Victories of Henry V and The Troublesome Raigne of King John, Karen Oberer; Male birth fantasies and maternal monarchs: the Queen's Men and The Troublesome Raigne of King John, Tara L. Lyons. Part 4 From Script to Stage: When is the jig up—and what is it up to?, William N. West; Facial hair and the performance of adult masculinity on the early modern English stage, Eleanor Rycroft; Performing the Queen's Men: a project in theatre historiography, Peter Cockett, Bibliography; Index.

Editorial Reviews

’Locating the Queen’s Men, 1583-1603 is a vital and expansive contribution to repertory studies and serves as a microcosmic representation of current interests in the scholarship of early modern drama.’ Shakespeare 'This volume seeks a better understanding of the dominant adult theatre company in 1580s London, the decade in which Shakespeare began acting and, perhaps, writing. It is a remarkable fusion of archival, historical, and performance-based research: it not only builds from and extends Scott McMillin and Sally-Beth MacLean's The Queen's Men and Their Plays and rethinks the information gathered together in the multivolume and ongoing Records of Early English Drama, but it is also informed by a theatrical experiment in which a group of actors staged Queen's Men plays in repertory on a short tour... This is an incisive collection of essays, and it will be fascinating to see how future scholars and performers will respond.' Journal of British Studies

From the Publisher