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The Seating of Andrea's Ghost and Revenge in The Spanish Tragedy
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 July 2009
Extract
Arthur Freeman's rediscovery and publication of an Elizabethan dramatic manuscript, which he calls “The Argument of Meleager” would seem to make an important and as-yet-unnoticed difference to a continuing discussion regarding The Spanish Tragedy: did Andrea's Ghost and the Spirit of Revenge originally sit on opposite sides or corners of the platform stage, or “aloft” in a gallery? A detail in the Meleager MS may settle the question, for its evidence suggests that the two Inductor-Presenter-Chorus characters sat in the gallery. Additional light on the controversy is shed by Frances A. Yates's theories about the physical conditions of the public stage.
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- Copyright © American Society for Theatre Research 1974
References
* TS will consider for publication notes up to 1500 words in length, including footnotes. Notes may be in the conventional article format or may be brief, previously unpublished documents with commentary.
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10 Ibid., p. 130.
11 James IV may also have been played in Henslowe's Rose. Though it is not entered in Henslowe's Diary, the Diary does record performances of all Greene's other plays except Alphonsus (c. 1587, too early for mention). There is also a reference to “Andersones Sewte” in Henslowe's inventory (Foakes & Rickert, ed., Henslowe's Diary, p. 317). Greg, W. W. (Henslowe Papers [London, 1907], p. 114)Google Scholar calls it a reference to an actor named Anderson, as do Foakes and Rickert also (p. 317, n. 6). They add that there is no evidence that James IV belonged to the Admiral's Men. Still, one may suspect that the “Sewte” was for the character Sir Cuthbert Anderson in James IV. Moreover, the Queen's Men are known to have played at times (certainly in 1594) in the Rose, and we know that a Queen's player named John Adams acted the clown Adam in A Looking Glass (performed several times at the Rose) and Oberon in James IV. The evidence for his participation in the latter play is the speech-prefix substitution of “Adams” for “Oberon” in a single line of one of the quartos. See Chambers, , Eliz. Stage, III, 330Google Scholar.
12 Cf. the Introduction to A Warning for Fair Women (1599):“…a filthie whining ghost /…a leather pilch,/ Comes screaming like a pigge half stickt,/ And cries Vindicta, revenge, revenge.…”
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