The Revenger's Tragedy
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The Revenger's Tragedy is a Jacobean revenge tragedy performed in 1606 and published in 1607. A vivid and often violent portrayal of lust and ambition in an Italian court, the play typifies the satiric tone and cynicism of much Jacobean tragedy. The play fell out of favor at some point before the restoration of the theaters in 1660; however, it has experienced a minor revival in the twentieth century among directors and playgoers who appreciate its affinity with the temper of modern times (Wells, 106).
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[edit] Context
The Revenger's Tragedy belongs to the second generation of English revenge plays. It keeps the basic Senecan design brought to English drama by Thomas Kyd: a young man is driven to revenge an elder's death, which was caused by the villainy of a poweful older man; the avenger schemes to effect his revenge, often by morally questionable means; he finally succeeds in a bloodbath that costs him his own life as well. However, the author's tone and treatment are markedly different from the standard Elizabethan treatment in ways that can be traced to both literary and historical causes. Already by 1606, the enthusiasm that accompanied James I's assumption of the English throne had begun to give way to the beginnings of dissatisfaction with the perception of corruption in his court. The new prominence of tragedies that involved courtly intrigues seems to have been partly influenced by this dissatisfaction.
This trend towards court-based tragedy was confluent with a change in dramatic tastes toward the satiric and cynical, beginning before the death of Elizabeth I but becoming ascendant in the first decade of the sixteenth century. The episcopal ban on verse satire in 1599 appears to have impelled some poets to a career in dramaturgy (Campbell, 3); writers such as John Marston and Thomas Middleton brought to the theaters a lively sense of human frailty and hypocrisy. They found congenial ground in the newly revived children's companies, the Blackfriars Children and Pauls Children (Harbage, passim); these indoor venues attracted a more sophisticated crowd than that which frequented the theaters in the suburbs.
While The Revenger's Tragedy was apparently performed by an adult company at the Globe Theatre, its bizarre violence and vicious satire mark it as influenced by the dramaturgy of the private playhouses.
[edit] Characters
- Vindice, the revenger, frequently disquised as Piato (There is some dispute as to whether his name is Vindice or Vindici)
- Hippolito, Vinidice's brother, sometimes called Carlo
- Castiza, their sister
- Gratiana, mother of Vindice, Hippolito, and Castiza
- The Duke
- The Duchess, the duke's second wife
- Lussurioso, the duke's son from an earlier marriage, and his heir
- Spurio, the duke's second son, a bastard
- Ambitioso, the duchess's first son
- Supervacuo, the duchess's middle son
- Junior Brother, the duchess's third son
- Antonio, a discontent lord
- Piero, a discontent lord
- Nobles, allies of Lussurioso
- Lords, followers of Antonio
- The duke's gentlemen
- Two Judges
- Spurio's two Servants
- Four Officers
- A Keeper
- Dondolo, Castiza's servant
- Nencio and Sordido, Lussurioso's servants
- Ambitioso's henchman
[edit] Themes
The play portrays a decaying moral and political order and demonstrates a nostalgia for the Elizabethan era. Vindice, the revenging protagonist, explicitly links economic problems with the issue of female chastity in several of his speeches. While the play uses this in part to analyze women themselves - their inherent weakness, which eventually leads to heavenly grace - it is also clearly looking back to Elizabeth, the 'Virgin Queen.' The power structure depicted at the play's outset is corrupt and morally bankrupt. The plot follows Vindice's quest to undo this new order, responsible for the death of his beloved and unfit to rule. The thought of unseating a ruler, deeply troubling to Shakespeare, was seized upon with glee by the anonymous author of The Revenger's Tragedy.
In 1607, the Midlands Insurrection occurred. It was the largest mass revolt since the Northern Rebellion of 1569: thousands rose up in protest against the enclosure of public spaces by wealthy landowners. The rebellions were brutally suppressed; hundreds of people were hanged. Since The Revenger's Tragedy is the story of how two malcontents destroy a dynasty of noble dukes, earls, and lords, it was perhaps wise of the author to remain anonymous.
It is interesting -- in this context of imminent rebellion -- to compare The Revenger's Tragedy with Shakespeare's Coriolanus, probably published in 1607. Shakespeare addresses the rebels' grievances (shortages and the high price of corn) but his hero is Coriolanus, who disdains and suppresses them. Vindici in The Revenger's Tragedy appears, at least to a modern reader, as a social rebel, who declares, delightedly, "Great men were gods - if beggars couldn't kill 'em!"
Ignored for many years, and viewed by some critics as the product of a diseased mind, The Revenger's Tragedy was rediscovered, and often performed as a black comedy, during the 20th century. A film version, Revengers Tragedy, was made in 2002.
[edit] Authorship
The play was published anonymously in 1607; the title page of this edition announced that it had been performed "sundry times" by the King's Men (Loughrey and Taylor, xxv). A second edition, also anonymous (actually consisting of the first edition with a new cover glued in place), was published later in 1607. The play was first attributed to Cyril Tourneur by Edward Archer in 1656; the attribution was seconded by Francis Kirkman in lists of 1661 and 1671 (Gibbons, ix). Tourneur was accepted as the author despite Archer's unreliability and the length of time between composition and attribution (Greg, 316). Edmund Kerchever Chambers cast doubt on the attribution in 1923 (Chambers, 4.42), and over the course of the twentieth century a considerable number of scholars argued for attributing the play to Middleton (Gibbons,ix). Critics who support the Middleton attribution point to thematic and stylistic similarities to Middleton's other work, to the differences between The Revenger's Tragedy and Tourneur's other known work, The Atheist's Tragedy, and to circumstantial evidence suggesting Middleton's authorship (Loughrey and Taylor, xxvii). Skeptics argue that this tragedy is unlike Middleton's other work of the early years of the century, and that internal evidence including some idiosyncrasies of spelling points to Tourneur (Gibbons, ix). In the absence of solid external evidence, attribution is likely to remain uncertain (Schoenbaum, 213); however, a tentative consensus appears to have formed around Middleton as the most likely author.
[edit] Performance History
After its initial run, there is no record of The Revenger's Tragedy in performance by professionals until the twentieth century. It was produced at the Pitlochry Festival Theatre in 1965. The following year, Trevor Nunn produced the play for the Royal Shakespeare Company; Ian Richardson played Vindice. Executed on a shoestring budget (designer Christopher Morley had to use the sets from the previous year's Hamlet), Nunn's production earned largely favorable reviews.[1]
In 1987, Di Trevis revived the play for the RSC at the Swan Theatre; Antony Sher played Vindice.
[edit] Trivia
The Mirror Universe version of "The Merchant of Venice" is said to be as blatant and sensationalist as The Revenger's Tragedy in Diane Duane's Star Trek: The Next Generation novel Dark Mirror (ISBN 0-671-79377-2).
The characters in Pamela Dean's "Tam Lin" perform the play.
[edit] References
- Campbell, O.J. Comicall Satyre and Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida. San Marino, Ca.: Huntington Library Publications, 1938.
- Chambers, E.K. The Elizabethan Theatre. Four Volumes. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1923.
- Foakes, R.A. Shakespeare; the Dark Comedies to the Last Plays. London: Routledge, 1971.
- Gibbons, Brian, editor. The Revenger's Tragedy. New Mermaids Edition. New York: Norton, 1967.
- Greg, W.W. "Authorship Attribution in the Early Play-lists, 1656-1671." Edinburgh Bibliographical Society Transactions 2 (1938-1945).
- Harbage, Alfred. Shakespeare and the Rival Traditions. Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press, 1952.
- Loughrey, Brian and Neil Taylor. Five Plays of Thomas Middleton. New York: Penguin, 1988.
- Wells, Stanley. "The Revenger's Tragedy Revived." The Elizabethan Theatre 6 (1975).
[edit] External links
