18 January, 1595 - The Ranger's Comedy

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

Henslowe writes: y^e 19 of Jenewary 1594 ... R at the Rangers comodey ... xv^s 

In modern English: [18^th] January, 1595 ... Received at The Ranger's Comedy ... 15 shillings

An Elizabethan hunting scene: one
of the possible subjects of this play

Today, for the last time, the Admiral's Men revived their lost Ranger's Comedy. We do not know what this play was about, as the word could refer to a gamekeeper, a rake, a wanderer, or an organizer of troops. You can read more about it in the entry for 2 April.

Today is a strange day. The company has finally returned to The Ranger's Comedy, a play they have left unperformed since October. Ever since its successful first performances at the Rose in June, the play has been declining in popularity to truly embarrassing levels, becoming one of the worst-performing plays at the Rose. Today, the players have brought it back after nearly three months - but only for its swan song, as they will never perform it again.

If the audience was aware that this was the play's last hurrah, they were not sentimental about it - today's performance received the lowest box office of this week at the Rose.

Just for fun, here's a graph of the play's fortunes over time:

What's next?

There will be no blog entry tomorrow because 19th January was a Sunday in 1595 and the players did not perform. For some reason, no performance is recorded for the Monday either. Henslowe's Diary ... as a Blog! will thus return on the 21st; see you then!

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?

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