30 January, 1593 - Friar Bacon

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

Henslowe writes: R at frier bacon the 30 of July Jenewaye 1593 ... xij^s

In modern English: Received at Friar Bacon, 30^th January, 1593 ... 12 shillings

From the title page of a prose tale of Friar Bacon, 1629,
which was re-used for the 1630 edition of the play.

Today, Lord Strange's Men revived their magical fantasy about the wizard Friar Bacon. This play may have been Robert Greene's Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay, or it may have been the anonymous John of Bordeaux; you can read more about it in the entry for 19th February, 1592.

As with Sir John Mandeville, which they staged a couple of day ago, the company is continuing to perform old plays like Friar Bacon that result in a largely empty Rose theatre. One theory I've already mentioned is that they're performing the plays that had proved popular on tour, and hadn't had time to prepare alternatives for the more sophisticated (or jaded) London audience. Given that the company may have already known that they would be returning to touring soon, perhaps they had been deliberately keeping these old plays fresh in their minds, preparing for a return to the road,

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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