Revived with Care

This book presents a ground-breaking, comprehensive study of the modern performance history of plays in the John Fletcher canon, excluding his collaborations with Shakespeare. It examines how seventeen of Fletcher's plays have been interpreted in British productions.

Autorentext

Peter Malin is an independent scholar with a particular interest in the performance of early modern drama. A retired school teacher, his educational publications include A Level study guides on The Winter's Tale, The Merchant of Venice, The Alchemist, 'Tis Pity She's a Whore, The Duchess of Malfi and The White Devil. He has contributed theatre and book reviews to Early Theatre, ROMARD, Cahiers Élisabéthains and bloggingshakespeare.com. His article '"Entertaining Strangers": 50 Years of Shakespeare's Contemporaries at the RSC' appeared in Shakespeare (2012), and he contributed a chapter on the performance history of The Spanish Tragedy to the Arden 'Critical Reader' on the play (2016). He also writes poetry and short fiction; his story 'End of Days' was the winning entry in the 2017 English Heritage ghost story competition.

Inhalt

Preface and acknowledgements; Notes on the text; Introduction: 'Their care was good that did revive this play'; 1. 'Bum-fiddled with a bastard': misconstruing The Chances; 2. 'You should have kept your legs close then': misogynistic discourse in The Coxcomb and Bonduca; 3. 'There is another way, if you could hit on't': sexual, social and political behaviours in The Scornful Lady and The Humorous Lieutenant; 4. 'A poem and a play too!': The Faithful Shepherdess and the possibility of poetic drama; 5. 'What pretty new device is this?': confronting the transgressive in The Maid's Tragedy; 6. 'Wooing and wiving? Hang it!': performance, power and sexual politics in Rule a Wife and Have a Wife and The Wild-Goose Chase; 7. 'Am I not your king? If ay, then am I not to be obeyed?': Philaster, A King and No King and the depoliticizing of tragicomedy; 8. 'You looked with my eyes when you took that man': re-visioning The Maid's Tragedy; 9. 'A man of arms, and daunted with a lady?': women in power and colonial excursions in The Island Princess, The Woman's Prize and The Sea Voyage; 10. 'Turn this man woman, or this woman man': deconstructing gender in The Custom of the Country, Love's Cure and The Woman Hater; Appendix 1: the plays in the John Fletcher canon; Appendix 2: British Fletcher productions 18852020; Bibliography; Index