Admiral's Men Research Articles

Building the Fortune

THE INTERNATIONAL SHAKESPEARE GLOBE CENTRE HAS as one of its main aims the reconstruction of the first Globe playhouse close to its original site. As principal historical adviser to the architect, I have tried to ensure that the building currently going up on Bankside is as like the original as can be, though anyone familiar with the difficulties, both philosophical and technical, that bristle from such an enterprise will know that its success can only be a matter of degree. One must wryly concede that Shakespeare's own theater exists only in the mud beneath the Anchor Brewery site, and our reconstruction will be something else. But if we are to do it at all, we must do it well. We need to know everything that the archaeologists can tell us, and everything too that can be found among the documents. To that end I have made a study of the building accounts of the Fortune playhouse, erected in 1600 by Peter Street, the carpenter who had-most would agree-spent part of the previous year putting up the Globe. It is well known that the contract for the Fortune cites the Globe as Street's model, to be followed in this or that particular in matters of specification and design. What we can learn about the building process at the Fortune site in Golden Lane may therefore have useful implications for our understanding of the Globe and may help direct its reconstruction. On 8 January 1600, Edward Alleyn and Philip Henslowe signed their famous contract for the Fortune, agreeing with Street to pay him ?440 for the construction and partial finishing of its timber frame, the job to be completed by 25 July. The playhouse was up and working before the end of the year, for the Admiral's Men began their winter season there between 11 November and 14 December.' Besides the contract itself, we have three sets of accounts connected with the erection of the building: a series of notes mainly in Henslowe's hand, written on the back of the contract and dated from 8 January to 11 June; an itemized record of dimensioned timber, undated but for one entry of 2 August; and an entertainment account mostly listing Henslowe's breakfasts and dinners with the builder between 24 May and 8 August.2 These documents show that the building process began as soon as the contract had been signed, and that it continued through the spring and early summer; but they are not very clear about the date of completion. Sums were advanced to Street and to others, usually on

Reply to MacD. P. Jackson

Both Jackson and I construct fictions in order to explain the origins of the additionslips now in the manuscript of The Second Maiden's Tragedy. We agree that Middleton probably sold his original manuscript of the play to the King's Men, who had a scribe make a fair copy transcript for use as a promptbook. According to Jackson's version, Middleton continued to tinker with his script after he had turned it over to the players. (If so, he managed to do this without leaving a trace of his handwriting the extant manuscript.) It is important to remember that one of the addition-slips, which was added after the play had been cast, appears designed to correct a theatrical problem that was found in Middleton's script: the exit and immediate reentry of the same characters. Anne Lancashire suggests that the writer of this additional passage may have provided it on specific instructions from the prompter.1 Perhaps Middleton was under some sort of contractual obligation to make himself available to the King's Men in case any such last minute revisions were required. However, the available evidence from the period suggests that, when an acting company needed to revise a new play, the playwright who patched up the text was not necessarily the original author, even when he was available. William Haughton, for instance, figures so prominently in Henslowe's Diary that there can be little doubt that he spent much of his time with the Admiral's Men at the Rose. But shortly after Henslowe received the finished manuscript of Haughton's Friar Rush and the Proud Woman of Antwerp, the theatre owner made a payment not to Haughton but to Henry Chettle for mendinge the script.2 According to my version of events, Middleton had no further contact with the company after he sold them his manuscript. When the King's Men determined that some revisions had to be made in the promptbook, I can see no reason why they would have bothered to seek out the play's author (even though he may have lived only half a mile away).3 The task of making necessary revisions during the early stages of production probably fell to whoever happened to be hand. Someone who worked over the Second Maiden's manuscript had handwriting that looks remarkably similar to Shakespeare's. So it is possible that Shakespeare was one of the King's Men involved in the revision, and he may even have been responsible for the additional passages. Either of these two fictions might represent what actually happened in the fall of 1611. Or both might be completely wrong. One reasonable test of their validity is how well each accommodates the manuscript evidence. Specifically, I noticed some minor spelling disparities in the manuscript. These have now been corrected and modified somewhat by Jackson, but the fact remains that a few words are spelled one way in the

<i>From</i> The Closest Possible Union

FROM THE CLOSEST POSSIBLE UNION / Joanna Scott HOW MANY SPECIES? Surely as many as there are stars in the heavens, from lice glued onto a strand of hair to powerful gnats which can pierce a man's boot, from aphid cows enslaved by ants to weevils napping comfortably inside curled poplar leaves. The library contains information on the most mysterious varieties, I shall not be bored. I doubt the captain has leisure to study his books—he is as tireless, as attentive as the harpy, our figurehead, that hideous, slack-breasted, bearded old maid who guides our ship. My brother has asked me to bring him an ivory tooth,which, he explained, must with my own hands be torn from a live elephant's jaw because, he said, at the instant of the animal's death a brown mucus is secreted, the ivory forever marred. I am not sure how it is to be done; I will have a native help me. My sister has asked for gold. My dear mother wants only an honest account of my voyage day by day. She has met the captain herself, and she considers him a gentle, sophisticated man, despite his reputation. She said I would learn much from him if I applied myself. I expect I will be full-grown four months from now, when we've completed the voyage. The men think they have signed for a three-year whaling cruise. Only the captain, the chief mate, the surgeon, and myself know the truth. Though I am the youngest on board, I have been privileged both with the secret of our actual purpose and with a private berth directly across from the stateroom. I suppose it couldn't have been otherwise, since my father is the Charles Beauchamp's primary financier. Papa has instructed the captain to make me into a sailor, to spare nothing. The captain is an admirable man with a handsome beard and forbidding eyebrows which meet at a sharp diagonal, indeed, which seem a pair of locust wings implanted on his forehead. He takes his brandy at every meal, including breakfast. I am sure I shall like him very much. That I was on an American Guineaman I knew, but whether I would ever wake from it I could not tell, so I struggled both to free myself from this confusion and to shake my shoulders loose from the talons of the harpy, that vile wooden bird studded with snails and barnacles. She tried to pry me from my mother's arms, I heard my The Missouri Review · 9 father's voice: "It wiU be light soon." When I thrashed off my blanket I sUpped further into the unyielding dark, time itself meant to torment, dangling me between yesterday and tomorrow. My body has not yet adjusted to the dreadful rolling. I managed to set my feet upon the floor and stumbled through the galley, up the companionway ladder to the deck, but once there I did not reach the rail in time, midway across I threw my arm around the ship's beU, coUapsed to my knees, and retched whUe we sUd over the quivering, aspic sweUs. I expected to find the pink Uning of my stomach crumpled in a heap upon the planks. I hope it does not take long to earn favor with this element. I wiped my lips with my nightshirt cuff, then I leaned over the raU, invited the velvet wind to caress me, searched for constellations but there were none in the black-plated ceiling, looked for land and was comforted by a brownish crag windward, which I first mistook for my continent's shoreline but was, I realized, nothing but the cloud of a loitering squall. In a sty lodged beneath the forecastle head half a dozen grunts complained of their discomfort. The halyard rings clanked against the masts, the canvas snapped and fluttered, and I tried to flatten the lumpy waters with a determined wish—Zie still!—but of course I had no influence. So I peeled off my nightdress, and on my knees, with the smock wadded in my hands, the chiU wind prickling my arms, I wiped...

Rank and class among the Asante and Fante in the nineteenth century

Opening ParagraphThe starting point of this article is what I see as the contrasting contemporary Asante and Fante views about the admirable man. The Asante say of such a man that ‘ose ohene’, lit. ‘he is like a chief’; the Fante say of him that ‘oye krache dodo’, lit. ‘he is extremely well educated’. For the Asante the ‘ohene’ remains the model of social achievement, while for the Fante it is the apparently well educated who lives and behaves like a ‘gentleman’ who is the model of social excellence.These statements about what may be called the ‘ideal’ man among the two Akan sub-groups express the actual social position of traditional rulers and educated persons among them (Sarbah, 1897,1906; Casely-Hayfordj 1903; Manoukian, 1950: 9). The Asante respect a traditional ruler, known as nana, of any rank, more than an educated person, whatever his degree of education. For the Fante it is the reverse. An Asante, however well educated or rich, aims at some kind of chiefship as the supreme index of social achievement. The Fante aims at the acquisition of repute as a highly educated man.

The Boys' Friend

NO TRIBUTE to the gallant R. M. Ballantyne could have been greater than the action of the boys of Harrow School who, upon receiving the news of his death in 1894, spontaneously decided to start a collection so that a monument might be erected to perpetuate his fame. To them, as indeed to so many nineteenth‐century boys, Ballantyne was that admirable man who had provided them with the sort of adventure stories for which they craved.

The Real War of the Theatres. Shakespeare's Fellows in Rivalry with the Admiral's Men, 1594-1603. Repertories, Devices and Types.

The Real War of the Theatres. Shakespeare's Fellows in Rivalry with the Admiral's Men, 1594-1603. Repertories, Devices and Types.

The Real War of the Theaters: Shakespeare's Fellows in Rivalry with the Admiral's Men, 1594-1603

The Real War of the Theaters: Shakespeare's Fellows in Rivalry with the Admiral's Men, 1594-1603

Look About You and The Disguises

Fleay's suggestion that Look About You, acted by the Admiral's Men at the Rose, was written in 1599, April 17—May 26, must be rejected. He advances but two plausible arguments: (1) the title-page (1600) states that the play was “lately” acted; (2) Wadeson's comedy of The Honourable Life of the Humorous Earl of Gloucester (1601)—possibly but not necessarily a sequel to Look About You—would seem to indicate a date of 1599 or 1600 for the latter play. But “lately acted” on a title-page means little; and even if in this case it was correctly used, it may indicate only a revival of the play. Fleay's opinion must be discounted on much weightier evidence.

New Facts About Henry Porter

Henry porter and his one extant play, The Two Angrie Women of Abingdon, are included in nearly all the catalogues of dramatists since 1600, but none of them give us any information about the man, although Francis Meres in 1598 mentioned him along with Shakespeare as “the best for comedy amongst us,” and critics since that time have compared the Two Angrie Women not unfavorably with Shakespeare's early comedies. The popularity of Porter's plays may be inferred from the fact that he appears no less than twenty-four times between 1596 and 1599 in Henslowe's accounts with the Admiral's Men. The extent of his dramatic work is not accurately determined, but five plays are credited to him alone or to him in collaboration with Chettle or Ben Jonson.