This introductory article situates the collection ‘Space on the Early Modern Stage’ (Cahiers Elisabéthains 88) within the context of existing scholarship on the staging practices and architecture of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century playhouses. Pointing to the impact that reconstructed theatres have had on scholars' interest in the relationship between space and performance, it argues that, nonetheless, work in this area remains comparatively fragmented. It then outlines the various ways in which the collection develops scholarship in this emerging field by considering how the practical conditions of staging – both within and beyond the commercial playhouses – shaped the spatial grammar of early modern performance.
This article explores the ways in which clowns disturb both spatial and generic decorum within early modern drama, and examines the ideological implications of those disturbances. With a particular focus on plays set in the Mediterranean, it demonstrates how clown-figures, through a variety of techniques, refocus attention on the performance space even at moments when plays seem most concerned with the real geographical locations they present. The article ends by considering the impact of clowning on plays' capacities to construct what John Gillies has influentially called a ‘geography of difference’.
The Travels of the Three English Brothers, a collaborative play by John Day, George Wilkins, and William Rowley first performed at the Red Bull Theatre in 1607, stages the adventures of the three Sherley brothers Thomas, Anthony, and Robert, focusing in particular on Anthony's tour around Europe as the ambassador of Shah Abbas I of Persia. Anthony was seeking to bring Christendom and Persia into an alliance that would encircle the Ottoman Empire – a political programme deeply controversial in a London that enjoyed strong trade links with the Ottoman Porte. Travels, which was commissioned by Thomas Sherley, sets out to influence public perception of the three brothers. Its defence of the Sherleys, this article argues, is fundamentally intertextual: the playwrights deliberately associate their heroes with preceding stage‐heroes (often, the protagonists of plays staged at the Red Bull). Imposing generic principles on real historical narratives, Travels' playwrights shape the actions of the deeply individualistic Sherley brothers so that they resemble the undertakings of the patriotic heroes of popular dramatic romances such as Guy of Warwick and The Four Prentices of London. Not altogether successfully, they present the Sherleys as national heroes who deserve their countrymen's appreciation.
Focusing on early modern plays that stage encounters between peoples of different cultures, this book asks how a sense of geographical location was created in early modern theatres that featured minimal scenery. While previous studies have stressed these plays’ connections to a historical Mediterranean in which England was increasingly involved, this book demonstrates how their dramatic geography was shaped through a literary and theatrical heritage. Reading canonical plays including The Merchant of Venice, The Jew of Malta, and The Tempest alongside lesser-known dramas such as Soliman and Perseda, Guy of Warwick, and The Travels of the Three English Brothers, Dramatic Geography illustrates, first, how early modern dramatists staging foreign worlds drew upon a romance tradition dating back to the medieval period, and second, how they responded to one another’s plays to create an ‘intertheatrical geography’. These strategies, the book argues, shape the plays’ wider meanings in important ways, and could only have operated within the theatrical environment peculiar to early modern London: one in which playwrights worked in close proximity, in one instance perhaps even living together while composing Mediterranean dramas, and one where they could expect audiences to respond to subtle generic and intertextual negotiations. In reassessing this group of plays, the book brings into conversation scholarship on theatre history, cultural encounter, and literary geography; it also contributes to current debates in early modern studies regarding the nature of dramatic authorship, the relationship between genre and history, and the continuities that run between the fourteenth and seventeenth centuries.
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