Beyond Shakespeare
Producing every since play written in English prior to 1642, with 38 exceptions. Dropping pods and videos - beyondshakespeare.org
- ♟️Meanwhile, over on the pod we're having a chat about A Game at Chess by Thomas Middleton. Again. Yes, again. We're like a dog with a bone, we're not gonna stop. A lovely discussion about a performance of the play from last year. #discussion #chess #history #drama audioboom.com/posts/882200...
- Some fun things about The Book of Sir Thomas More, which the internet has been talking about of late. 74% of the surviving text is written by Anthony Munday. Literally. He might have worked on it with someone else, say Chettle, but he LITERALLY wrote it out. Then the text had some rewrites...
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View full threadSo, when discussing X's play Sir Thomas More, remember that 74% of the play is by Anthony Munday, 26% is rewritten by several hands, and one of those hands contributed 5% of the text, which was itself based on text by Anthony Munday. So... kinda think X might basically be Anthony Munday here.
- 🎟️All of which is to say - hey, would you like to spend 7 hours finding out how complicated the text of The Book of Sir Thomas More is? A full performance of the text, discussion, sources, play-within-a-play and a whole lot... ahem... more. www.ticketsource.co.uk/beyondshakes...
- These are called Additions, but they are all rewrites of scenes, much of which survives in the manuscript in their original form, except for the pages removed to make way for the rewrites. The rewrites are pretty similar in form to the original by Munday, the plotting remains broadly the same.
- One of these rewrites is in a hand labelled as D. This rewrite must follow the outline of the original scene by Munday. Unless Munday had More try to stop the rioting by riding a unicycle and telling jokes, it's a polish/tidy up of Munday's work. This addition amounts to about 5% of the text.
- Early modern friends - what’s your favourite, oddest, or most obscure onstage animal or creature? Play, pageant, masque, etc. Thinking of Cymbeline’s eagle, Dog in Witch of Edmonton, crocodile and snake in Locrine, Henslowe’s animal props, snakes in St Patrick, swans in 7 Champions, all the bears…
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- Memories for the cats they used to make the costumes possibly. Not a good day for cat kind.
- Edward VI got to see the opening of The Lion King for his pre coronation royal entry, and had a Masque of Cats towards the end of his reign.
- The snail in Thersites is good value for your money. There's also a tapeworm who possibly makes an entrance... via an entrance.
- The horse in Thomas of Woodstock is great. Doesn't say anything, but he's a good listener.
