Read Not Dead performance, photo: Andy Bradshaw
September 19, 2008
Each year, Globe Education offers staged readings of little-known plays written between 1567 and 1642 by Shakespeare’s contemporaries. This week, the Globe announced the next four plays to be presented in the Read Not Dead series between October and December 2008. The series, which began in 1994, has given audiences the unique opportunity see more than 150 plays that might otherwise have never been performed. The staged readings are presented by leading actors and directors in the Globe Education Theatre in Bear Gardens.
Below is the list of Read Not Dead Performances for the Autumn/Winter 2008 Season
Selected Sundays 15.00 to c18.00
The Doubtful Heir (1639) by James Shirley
Sunday 26 October
Smuggled out of Murcia as a baby to protect him from his tyrannous uncle, Ferdinand
returns as an adult to challenge the right to the throne of his cousin, Olivia. With him,
disguised as a page, is his childhood sweetheart, Rosania. Will the rights of the
‘doubtful heir’ be recognised? Will Ferdinand be free to marry Rosania? First
performed in Dublin under the title Rosania, or Love’s Victory, and later revived in
London by the King’s Men, Shirley’s tragicomedy skilfully dramatises the competing
demands of politics and romance.
A Challenge for Beauty (1635) by Thomas Heywood
Sunday 9 November
Isabella, the proud queen of Spain and Portugal, refuses to believe that any woman
alive can challenge her for beauty and virtue. Lord Bonavida rashly disputes her
claim, and finds himself facing eternal banishment if he cannot find a paragon to
match her. His choice lights on the Englishwoman Helena, but the queen will not
surrender without a fight. A Challenge for Beauty shows an elder statesman of
English drama trying his hand at the fashionable style of the mid 1630s.
The Northern Lass (1629) by Richard Brome
Sunday 23 November
Constance, the ‘northern lass’, arrives in London, where she fatefully encounters Sir
Philip Sparrow, and becomes embroiled in the knight’s romantic entanglements.
Mistaken identity, madness, and numerous disguises follow. Praised by Jonson,
Dekker and Ford on its publication in 1632, Brome’s witty and touching comedy, with
its appealing heroine, was a popular hit on the Caroline stage, and remained in the
theatrical repertory well into the eighteenth century.
The Lover’s Melancholy (1628) by John Ford
Sunday 7 December
‘The commonwealth is sick; ’tis more than time / That we should wake the head
thereof’. Palador, Prince of Cyprus, is consumed by a deep melancholy following the
death of his despotic father, while the old Lord Meleander has sunk into madness
following the attempted rape and subsequent disappearance of his daughter,
Eroclea. With a little help from Burton’s Anatomy of Melancholy, Ford’s play details
the political and psychological ramifications of a tyrant’s actions on the next
generation.
Venue: Globe Education Centre Theatre, 58 Park Street, SE1
Tickets: £8 (£5 FoSG/concs/students)
RARELY PLAYED
Maggy Williams and Diana Devlin present introductions to the Read Not Dead performances.
Selected Sundays 12noon to 14.00
Venue: Nancy W Knowles Lecture Theatre, Shakespeare’s Globe, 21 New Globe
Walk, SE1 9DT
Tickets: £13 (£10 FoSG/concs/students) includes ticket to the Read Not Dead performance.
Web Resources:
Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre
