Documents of Shakespearean Performance:
Stage, Page, and Manuscript in Early Modern England

“‘More wittily penned, then wysely staged’: Middleton and the Spanish Match”
Dr. Kate Ellis (Bath Spa University)

11 February 2013
5:30 – 7:30 p.m.
Room 234
Institute of English Studies
Senate House
London

Admission is free and all are warmly invited to attend
http://events.sas.ac.uk/ies/seminars/316/

In August 1624, the King’s Men performed Middleton’s A Game at Chesse at the Globe Theatre. The play, a thinly-veiled allegory of the previous year’s failed Spanish match between Prince Charles and the Spanish Infanta, was controversial in its representation of current affairs of state, as well as its depiction of two living monarchs, a portrayal strictly forbidden in theatrical productions. However, the play did not sit outside the events it portrayed. Due to the way in which news circulated through early modern society, Middleton was able to draw upon a rich tapestry of source material, oral, written and printed and, in turn, the immediacy of the play’s creation and performance to the events it reflected led it to become part of the same communicative network. This paper will explore A Game at Chesse’s place in a cultural framework comprising theatrical performance, oration, libel, manuscript and print, operating in a very specific political climate in 1624-25.

Documents of Shakespearean Performance: Stage, Page, and Manuscript in Early Modern England (series)
Since the publication of Tiffany Stern’s ground-breaking Shakespeare in Parts (2007) and Documents of Performance in Early Modern England (2009), the question of how Shakespeare’s plays were transmitted from manuscript to print has re-emerged as central to discussions of Shakespeare and the printed book. These seminars will feature leading and emerging scholars in Shakespeare studies and focus attention on the impact that the “new” theatre history has had on how we now understand the origins and histories of early printed play texts.