The Captain (play)

Last updated

The Captain is the title of a Jacobean era stage play, a comedy written by Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher. It was originally published in the first Beaumont and Fletcher folio of 1647.

Contents

Performance and publication

The play was acted at Court by the King's Men during the Christmas season of 1612–13 (the season that saw the lavish celebration of the wedding of King James I's daughter Princess Elizabeth with Frederick V, Elector Palatine); the company performed the play again at Court in May 1613. The partial cast list published with the play in the second Beaumont and Fletcher folio of 1679 mentions Richard Burbage, Henry Condell, William Ostler, and Alexander Cooke. Since Ostler joined the King's Men almost certainly in 1609, the play is judged to have originated in the 1609–12 period. [1]

The play was revived in the Restoration era, but does not seem to have been particularly popular, or to have been staged often. [2]

Authorship

The consensus of scholarship agrees on the authorship of the play. Unlike some other Beaumont and Fletcher plays such as A King and No King, The Maid's Tragedy, and The Woman Hater, in which Beaumont is the dominant partner, The Captain shows Fletcher's hand predominating. Cyrus Hoy, in his survey of authorship problems in the canon of Fletcher and his collaborators, produced this breakdown between the two playwrights' respective shares: [3]

Fletcher – Acts I, II, and III; Act IV, scenes 1–3; Act V, 1–2;
Beaumont – Act IV, 4;
Beaumont and Fletcher – Act V, 3–5

— a schema that agrees with the conclusions of earlier critics. [4]

The play

Commentators who object to the ethical and moral tone of works in the Beaumont/Fletcher canon have found The Captain to be a prime offender. Critic Robert Ornstein castigated the incest scene in The Captain for its "disgusting prurience." [5]

The Captain tells a story with clear general resemblances to the earlier The Woman Hater; the earlier play might be considered Beaumont's version, and the later one Fletcher's, of the same dramatic concept. Jacomo, the title character of The Captain, is another misogynist, and the heroine Frank loves him and finds a way to reform him and win him. (In each play, the misogynistic protagonist gets bound to a chair by the play's coterie of female characters.) In the parallel plot, Julio and Angelo are both in love with the "cunning wanton widow" Lelia.

The play is notable for its overt challenge to its audience's expectations and sense of plausibility. At the end, Julio engages in a surprise marriage to Frank's witty friend Clora; and his boon companion Angelo comments wryly:

If a marriage
Should be thus slobber'd up in a play,
Ere almost anybody had taken notice
You were in love, the spectators would take it
To be ridiculous. (V,v)

Related Research Articles

Rollo Duke of Normandy, also known as The Bloody Brother, is a play written in collaboration by John Fletcher, Philip Massinger, Ben Jonson and George Chapman. The title character is the historical Viking duke of Normandy, Rollo. Scholars have disputed almost everything about the play; but it was probably written sometime in the 1612–24 era and later revised, perhaps in 1630 or after. In addition to the four writers cited above, the names of Nathan Field and Robert Daborne have been connected with the play by individual scholars.

Francis Beaumont English playwright (1584–1616)

Francis Beaumont was a dramatist in the English Renaissance theatre, most famous for his collaborations with John Fletcher.

Beaumont and Fletcher

Beaumont and Fletcher were the English dramatists Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher, who collaborated in their writing during the reign of James I (1603–25).

John Fletcher (playwright) English Jacobean playwright

John Fletcher (1579–1625) was a Jacobean playwright. Following William Shakespeare as house playwright for the King's Men, he was among the most prolific and influential dramatists of his day; during his lifetime and in the early Restoration, his fame rivalled Shakespeare's. He collaborated on writing plays with Francis Beaumont, and also with Shakespeare on three plays.

The Custom of the Country is a Jacobean stage play, a tragicomedy written by John Fletcher and Philip Massinger, originally published in 1647 in the first Beaumont and Fletcher folio.

Cupid's Revenge is a Jacobean tragedy written by Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher. It was a popular success that influenced subsequent works by other authors.

The Laws of Candy is a Jacobean stage play, a tragicomedy that is significant principally because of the question of its authorship.

The Beaumont and Fletcher folios are two large folio collections of the stage plays of John Fletcher and his collaborators. The first was issued in 1647, and the second in 1679. The two collections were important in preserving many works of English Renaissance drama.

Four Plays, or Moral Representations, in One is a Jacobean era stage play, one of the dramatic works in the canon of John Fletcher and his collaborators. Initially published in the first Beaumont and Fletcher folio of 1647, the play is notable both for its unusual form and for the question of its authorship.

The Spanish Curate is a late Jacobean era stage play, a comedy written by John Fletcher and Philip Massinger. It premiered on the stage in 1622, and was first published in 1647.

The Double Marriage is a Jacobean era stage play, a tragedy written by John Fletcher and Philip Massinger, and initially printed in the first Beaumont and Fletcher folio of 1647.

<i>The Maid in the Mill</i>

The Maid in the Mill is a late Jacobean era stage play, a comedy written by John Fletcher and William Rowley. It was initially published in the first Beaumont and Fletcher folio of 1647.

Beggars' Bush is a Jacobean era stage play, a comedy in the canon of John Fletcher and his collaborators that is a focus of dispute among scholars and critics.

Love's Pilgrimage is a Jacobean era stage play, a tragicomedy by Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher. The play is unusual in their canon, in that its opening scene contains material from Ben Jonson's 1629 comedy The New Inn.

The Woman Hater, or, The Hungry Courtier is an early Jacobean era stage play, a comedy by Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher. One of the earliest of their collaborations, it was the first of their plays to appear in print, in 1607.

The Coxcomb is an early Jacobean era stage play, a comedy written by Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher. It was initially published in the first Beaumont and Fletcher folio of 1647.

Love's Cure, or The Martial Maid is an early seventeenth-century stage play, a comedy in the canon of John Fletcher and his collaborators. First published in the Beaumont and Fletcher folio of 1647, it is the subject of broad dispute and uncertainty among scholars. In the words of Gerald Eades Bentley, "nearly everything about the play is in a state of confusion...."

<i>A King and No King</i> 17th-century play by Beaumont and Fletcher

A King and No King is a Jacobean era stage play, a tragicomedy written by Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher and first published in 1619. It has traditionally been among the most highly praised and popular works in the canon of Fletcher and his collaborators.

<i>The Scornful Lady</i>

The Scornful Lady is a Jacobean era stage play, a comedy written by Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher, and first published in 1616, the year of Beaumont's death. It was one of the pair's most popular, often revived, and frequently reprinted works.

The Noble Gentleman is a Jacobean era stage play, a comedy in the canon of John Fletcher and his collaborators that was first published in the first Beaumont and Fletcher folio of 1647. It is one of the plays in Fletcher's canon that presents significant uncertainties about its date and authorship.

References

  1. ↑ E. K. Chambers, The Elizabethan Stage, 4 Volumes, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1923; Vol. 3, p. 226.
  2. ↑ Arthur Colby Sprague, Beaumont and Fletcher on the Restoration Stage, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press, 1926; pp. 52, 74, 122.
  3. ↑ Terence P. Logan and Denzell S. Smith, eds., The Later Jacobean and Caroline Dramatists: A Survey and Bibliography of Recent Studies in English Renaissance Drama, Lincoln, NE, University of Nebraska Press, 1978; p. 61.
  4. ↑ E. H. C. Oliphant, The Plays of Beaumont and Fletcher: An Attempt to Determine Their Respective Shares and the Shares of Others, New Haven, Yale University Press, 1927; p. 167.
  5. ↑ Ornstein quoted in Logan and Smith, p. 36.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.