2 January, 1593 - The Jew of Malta

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

Henslowe writes: R at the Jewe the 1 of Janewary 1592 ... lvj^s

In modern English: Received at The Jew, 2^nd January, 1593 ... 56 shillings

Caravaggio's portrait of the Grand

Master of the Knights of Malta,

1607-8.

(You may be wondering why Henslowe records the year as 1591, not 1592. He's probably just being absent minded, because he'll switch to 1593 in a few days.)

Anyway, today, Lord Strange's Men chose to revive their much-loved play The Jew of Malta. This is a hard-to-categorize comic tragedy which is best thought of as a satire on hypocrisy in religion; you can read more about it in the blog entry for 26th February 1592.

The Jew of Malta had been one of the biggest hits of the previous season at the Rose, regularly achieving high-than-average box office. Today's performance was no exception, so we are once again see Londoners thronging to see the plays they had missed during the closure of the theatres.

Henslowe links

• Transcript of this page of the Diary (from W.W. Greg's 1904 edition)
• Facsimile of this page of the Diary (from the Henslowe-Alleyn Digitisation Project)

Comments?

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