Sunday 6 March 2016

6 March, 1592 - Four Plays in One

Here's what Lord Strange's Men performed at the Rose playhouse on this day, 424 years ago...

Henslowe writes: R at iiij playes in one the 6 of marche 1591 ... xxxjs vjd

In modern English: Received at Four Plays in One, 6th March 1592 ... 31 shillings and sixpence.
Four Plays in One is another lost play and we know almost nothing about it, except that it was ... four plays in one. It must have been a collection of one-act plays, perhaps linked by some kind of narrative device, and there are several examples of these in the period. There are lost Elizabethan plays called Three Plays in One and Five Plays in One. Thomas Middleton's one-act Yorkshire Tragedy (1607) was once part of an otherwise lost Four Plays in One. John Fletcher and his team wrote Four Plays, or Moral Representations, in One around 1614. But these Jacobean examples are not the lost Elizabethan play.

Unfortunately that's all I can tell you. It was four plays in one. Not five plays. Not three plays. But four plays. In one! Bargain!

FURTHER READING



Four Plays in One information


Henslowe links



Comments?


Did I make a mistake? Do you have a question? Have you anything to add? Please post a comment below!


No comments:

Post a Comment