Charting the Landscape of Loss

Abstract

Why does a company's repertorial context matter? Because Shakespeare's plays were performed alongside the plays (lost and extant) in the commercial companies' repertories and because Shakespeare was writing his own plays to fit within that repertory context. Some of these must also have been the plays in which Shakespeare, as an actor, was performing. The diary of Philip Henslowe, theatrical impresario and manager of the Rose and Fortune playhouses, is indispensable as a source of relevant historical information on the repertories in London. Henslowe's theatrical accounts pertain to performances by multiple companies between -,  and his expenditure on behalf of the Admiral's and the Earl of Worcester's Men between -. The data about performances, takings, inventory lists and expenditure on costumes and playbooks is the most detailed account of company commerce from the period. In this chapter, I consider the finances of the Admiral's, Strange's and Sussex's Men as preserved in Henslowe's diary, with a view to comparing lost and extant plays in terms of the highest number of performances, the highest average takings and the single most profitable performances. If there is any truth to the suggestion made by older generations of scholars that lost plays were mere filler and that their failure to appear in print is an index of their perceived quality, I would expect to see such valuations reflected in the three financial measures I explore, but the results do not support such a conclusion. Instead, one of the key claims I make is that lost plays performed significantly better (financially) and were of greater value to a commercial company than scholars have traditionally acknowledged.Unfortunately, Henslowe only documents the plays of Shakespeare's company, the Lord Chamberlain's Men, for a brief period of eleven days in June  (see Chapter ). To appreciate the nature and extent of loss in  I.e. the Queen's Men, the Lord Strange's Men, the Earl of Sussex's Men, the Lord Admiral's Men, the Earl of Pembroke's Men and even the Lord Chamberlain's Men for a brief period in .