The Revenger's Tragedy is an anonymous masterpiece of tragic burlesque first staged in 1607 and produced at a crucial phase in Jacobean theatre with Hamlet, Measure for Measure, Volpone and King Lear all recently performed. Written with vivid imagery, the play contains energetic, high-spirited action and brooding, slow-paced scenes on the subjects of death, revenge and evil, culminating in an unexpected ironic climax. Its hero, Vindice, desires to avenge the death of his betrothed. Operating in disguises he provokes discord among his enemies so that they...
The Revenger's Tragedy is an anonymous masterpiece of tragic burlesque first staged in 1607 and produced at a crucial phase in Jacobean thea...
The Tragedy of Mariam, the Fair Queen of Jewry is a Jacobean closet drama by Elizabeth Tanfield Cary. First published in 1613, it was the first work by a woman to be published under her real name. Never performed during Cary's lifetime, and apparently never intended for performance, the Senecan revenge tragedy tells the story of Mariam, the second wife of Herod. The play exposes and explores the themes of sex, divorce, betrayal, murder, and Jewish society under Herod's tyrannous rule. A new introduction includes recent criticism and new developments in theatre history and...
The Tragedy of Mariam, the Fair Queen of Jewry is a Jacobean closet drama by Elizabeth Tanfield Cary. First published in 1613, it was the fi...
The Alchemist is a sublimely accomplished satirical farce about dreams of self-refinement: people want to transform themselves into something nobler, richer, more powerful, and more virile just as base metal was touted to be transformed into gold in the alchemical process.
First performed in 1610 and set in the same contemporary London time period, the plot revolves around scheming con artists during their master's absence from the house. Face, Subtle and Doll Common dupe a series of 'customers' whose desire for aggrandizement leads them to believe in the existence of the fabled...
The Alchemist is a sublimely accomplished satirical farce about dreams of self-refinement: people want to transform themselves into something noble...
The Alchemist is set during a plague epidemic in the Liberty of Blackfriars in 1610 and was first performed on tour in 1610 by the company whose London home at Blackfriars was temporarily closed due to a plague epidemic. The play is a sublimely accomplished satirical farce about people's diverse dreams of self-refinement: they all want to transform themselves into something nobler, richer, more powerful, more virile, just as base metal was supposed to be transformed into gold in the alchemical process. During their master's absence from the house, the con-artists Face, Subtle and...
The Alchemist is set during a plague epidemic in the Liberty of Blackfriars in 1610 and was first performed on tour in 1610 by the company w...
Carnival time in The Rover is a period when prohibitions are temporarily removed, privileges and rank suspended, and women - from convent girls to courtesans - take the initiative. Featuring multiple plot lines, which deal with the adventures of a group of love-struck Englishmen in Naples, Aphra Behn's play explores issues of love, trickery and deception, forced marriage, male power, fidelity, and the excesses of sexual passion. Hers is a male-dominated society, but one with a clear-sighted portrayal of the female predicament.
The play is widely taught on A Level courses as...
Carnival time in The Rover is a period when prohibitions are temporarily removed, privileges and rank suspended, and women - from convent gi...
Francis Bacon described revenge as a 'kind of wild justice'. Then as now, early modern playwrights and their theatre-going public were fascinated by the anarchic energies that a desire for retribution unleashes. Rather than rehearsing familiar conventions, each of these plays presents a unique social and cultural milieu where dark fantasies of revenge are variously played out.
In Kyd's The Spanish Tragedy a grieving father seeks public justice for the murder of his son by envious princelings. When his attempts are thwarted he turns a court spectacle of murder into the...
Francis Bacon described revenge as a 'kind of wild justice'. Then as now, early modern playwrights and their theatre-going public were fascinated b...
'He's a fool that marries, but he's a greater fool that does not marry a fool.'
This bawdy, hilarious, subversive and wickedly satirical drama pokes fun at the humourless, the jealous, and the adulterous alike. It features a country wife, Margery, whose husband believes she is too naive to cuckold him; and an anti-hero, Horner, who pretends to be impotent in order to have unrestrained access to the women keen on 'the sport'. A number of licentious and hypocritical women request Horner's services - the country wife among them.
The Country Wife has provoked...
'He's a fool that marries, but he's a greater fool that does not marry a fool.'
This bawdy, hilarious, subversive and wickedly satiric...
The sharpest, funniest comedy about money and morals in the 17th century is still the sharpest and funniest about those things in the 21st. The full play text is accompanied by incisive commentary notes which communicate the devastating comic energy of Volpone’s satire. The introduction provides a firm grounding in the play’s social and literary contexts, demonstrates how careful close-reading can expand your enjoyment of the comedy, shows the relevance of Jonson’s critique to our modern economic systems, and provides a clear picture of how the main relationships in the play function...
The sharpest, funniest comedy about money and morals in the 17th century is still the sharpest and funniest about those things in the 21st. The full ...
“The next good mood I find my father in, I’ll get him quite discarded” With these chillingly offhand words, Beatrice-Joanna, the spoilt daughter of a powerful nobleman, plots to get rid of the family servant who has crossed her once too often. The Changeling’s vivid tale of sexual appetite, repulsion, betrayal and lunacy remains one of the most compelling tragedies of the 17th century. Exposing the vexed relationship between servants and masters, setting notions of `change’ against the revelation of psychological ‘secrets’ as ways of explaining human behaviour, and exploring...
“The next good mood I find my father in, I’ll get him quite discarded” With these chillingly offhand words, Beatrice-Joanna, the spoilt daught...
Arguably the most perfectly poised of Restoration wit comedies, The Man of Mode is a finished exercise in dramatic sprezzatura, or nonchalance, matching the beguiling ‘easiness’ and ‘complaisance’ of its central character. The play's imaginative brilliance depends upon its author's ability to hint at the dark abyss of passion and emotional violence at whose edge the modish denizens of the town perform their graceful ballet. Its seemingly casual construction and wanton breaches of comic decorum mask a ferocious artistic control designed to upset the complacency of the audience’s...
Arguably the most perfectly poised of Restoration wit comedies, The Man of Mode is a finished exercise in dramatic sprezzatura, or nonchalance, matchi...
