Published online by Cambridge University Press: 17 April 2020
Theatrically, there is nothing amateurish about Arden of Faversham, and recognition of Shakespeare’s authorship of the middle scenes of Arden is likely to impact classroom curriculums and theatrical repertoires. Drawing on the author’s experience directing the play, this essay challenges the claim by Martin Wiggins that Arden was written by an anonymous amateur who did not understand costume requirements or the limitations of boy actors playing female roles. It shows that Arden was carefully designed to give the actor playing Alice a long rest in mid-play, and that the role was well within the range of boy actors in the late 1590s and early seventeenth century. We know less about the outstanding female impersonators of the 1580s, but Richard Burbage began his long career as a boy, and as an adolescent could have played a demanding role like Alice.
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.