“As it was Played in the Blackfriars”: Jonson, Marston, and the Business of Playmaking

Abstract

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“…Like Marston's Franceschina, performance itself, seductive and hypocritical, becomes a polluting import with its comic love-triangles, disguises, revenges, pan-European popular song, and the disruptive cosmopolitanism of overseas mercantile or commercial ventures destroying honest English businesses. 8 Among other factors intervening in English life (status of gender, class, trade, or religion), the Dutch sect, the Family of Love, plays a defining role in The Dutch Courtesan's fictional world. In 'Sensuality, Spirit, and Society in The Dutch Courtesan and Lording Barry's The Family of Love', Sophie Tomlinson discusses two different theatrical representations of Familism, Marston's (1605), particularly in the Mulligrub plot, and Barry's (1608), the latter virtually 'in dialogue ' (p. 71) with the earlier play, and probably written much closer in time to Marston's first performance and subsequent printing of The Dutch Courtesan.…”

“…Jonson went on to do something similar in the 1601 quarto of Cynthia's Revels, the 1602 quarto of Poetaster, and the 1607 quarto of Volpone, with its famous prefatory essay and its dedication of the volume to the 'two universities'. 8 Notably on the title page of Every Man Out, Jonson calls himself 'the Author' -an unusual word in the printed drama of this period, which more normally refers to play 'makers' or eventually 'playwrights'. (The term 'dramatist' doesn't crop up until the 1640s.…”

“…7 Indeed, the two characters in the play who have the most recognizably 'real' names are the diametric antagonists of the main plot: the English gentleman, Freevill, and the Dutch courtesan, Franceschina. 8 Freevill's name is easy to move into moral territory as indicating his applauded ability to choose between his 'frou', as he calls Franceschina, and his fiancée, Beatrice. But his is nonetheless a fully proper English name, listed in Burke's Peerage from the reign of Henry III.…”

“…This sensationalized view of the Family flourished in inverse proportion to the group's decreasing cultural visibility as the seventeenth century wore on. 8 The Family of Love charts a successful love intrigue between the impecunious Gerardine and Maria, the closely confined niece of the mercenary, promiscuous Doctor Glister. Their romance plays out against the backdrop of two citizen households, the Glisters and the Purges.…”

“…1 Doubting his intentions, Mary Faugh at first refuses, prompting Cocledemoy to launch into a wittyif somewhat elliptical and truncated -defence of his plans to profit from the theft. 'Restitution is Catholic', he says, 'and thou know'st we love -', but he leaves this thought hanging in the air, again insulting his lover as a 'worshipful clyster-pipe' and commenting on her profession (8)(9)12). Mary Faugh parries the insults of this 'foulest-mouthed, profane, railing brother', the first ironic phrase hinting at her sectarian identity, and then proudly professes her calling, 'a bawd that covers a multitude of sins', and her religious identity, 'one of the family of love … none of the wicked that eat fish o'Fridays' (14)(15)(18)(19)(20).…”