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Promptbooks and Publication
As is no doubt evident from my last few posts, I’ve been looking into Francis Gentleman and his work on John Bell’s 1774 edition of Shakespeare quite a lot. I’m now writing my ideas up, and – as ever in this process – there’s quite a lot that won’t fit into my chapter. This includes…
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The Contrivances
Harry Carey’s The Contrivances has a problem: the severe lack of what I will call dramatic tension. Admittedly, as an afterpiece to be performed in a rowdy and perhaps intellectually satiated theatre, I suppose suspense is not an absolute requirement. Still, it would have been nice, not least because this plot is once more along…
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The Non-Juror
Colley Cibber’s The Non-Juror is a bit of an odd comedy. Nicholas Rowe’s prologue, however, gives the gist: Tonight, ye Whigs and Tories both be safe, Nor hope, at one another’s cost, to laugh: We mean to souse old Satan and the Pope; They’ve no relations here, nor friends we hope. To expand on this,…
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The Chaplet
Shorn of its music and most likely spectacular stage business and sets, Boyce’s “musical entertainment” took me five minutes to read. The Chaplet represents the vicissitudes of two couples: Damon and Laura, Palaemon and Pastora. “Scene: a Grove”, and everything is very pastoral indeed. The play opens with Damon abandoning his love Laura to go…
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The Suspicious Husband
I’d been looking forward to reading Dr Benjamin Hoadly’s comedy, and I wasn’t disappointed. The plot goes something like this: Bellamy loves Jacintha, the daughter of Mr and Mrs Strictland; Mr Strictland is the jealous husband and does all he can to stop Jacintha marrrying Bellamy; meanwhile, Frankly loves Clarinda, whom he saw at Bath…
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The Mock Doctor
This afterpiece, again by Fielding, is a translation-adaptation of Molière’s Le médecin malgré lui. I don’t know the Molière version well enough to give a good comparison, so will just make observations on this text while the memory of it is fresh. The plot is easy to relate: Gregory, a woodman, is forever getting into…
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As You Like It
I could write a great deal about this play, but will try and limit myself to a single section of non-eighteenth-century matters. After all, this play is rather special: there weren’t many of Shakespeare’s comedies performed during Garrick’s tenure at Drury Lane, as tragedies, as they are now, were the hot ticekts. Nevertheless both As…
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The Anatomist
Ravenscroft’s play is another short afterpiece, being a mere two acts long. The plot, based on Crispin Médecin is easily summarised as well: Old Gerald and his son, Young Gerald, both love Angelina, the daughter of Monsieur le Médecin, a French doctor and anatomist. Young Gerald is aided by his servant Crispin, Old Gerald by…
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The Miser
This is Fielding’s translation of Molière’s L’Avare. The American edition from 1823 I found online, opens its preface with observations that “This piece is a plagiarism from Molière, but it might well pass for a tree of English growth, for the characters are copies from nature, and nature is everywhere the same.” Intriguing as the…
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The Lover his own Rival
I’ve decided that I quite like reading afterpieces: they are – of course – not long, many of them still have some decent jokes in them, and – as is the case here – they have some usefully clear titles. This play turns on the competition of two men, one young, called Clerimont (our hero),…