The Bard's Boards?
I thought this link might be of interest to WOLers:
https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2023/oct/05/boards-trodden-by-shakespeare-found-under-floor-of-norfolk-guildhall
https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2023/oct/05/boards-trodden-by-shakespeare-found-under-floor-of-norfolk-guildhall
Thu, 5 Oct 2023 09:29 am
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The touring groups or troupes of Commedia (Troubadours) travelled as far as Western France but never actually travelled on their tours as far as the British Isles. On a small number of occasions however they did perform at court with the invitation of the reigning monarch or some English aristocrat but never did they perform publicly in the streets, in pageants or the theatres as dramas or masques. The narrative plot of the Tempest bears some similarities to several Commedia plays, for example “La Nave” (The Ship), “Il Mago” (The Magician), and “Tres Satiri” (Three Satyrs). The Shakespeare research academic, Allardyce Nicholl draws comparison of the storyline of The Tempest with an Italian play entitled “Arcadia Incantada” (The Enchanted Arcadia). William Thomas’s “History of Italy” (1549) mentions a certain Duke of Genoa, Prospero Adorno who could have been the inspiration for Shakespeare’s own character of Prospero in the “Tempest”, and who was deposed in 1460 and returned sixteen years later to rule as deputy for the Duke of Milan. A recorded visit of Italian Commedia d’elle Arte actors to perform in Nottingham as early as 1573 was followed a year later from an account in “Court Revels” of a performance for the Queen at Windsor and Reading. Furthermore, on the 27th February 1576 one Italian troupe performed at court while another under Drousiano was given dispensation to perform during Lent in 1578. William Shakspere of Stratford-upon-Avon would have been a young boy of nine to twelve years-old during those rare occasions. While the Earl of Oxford having failed to escape to the continent in 1574, was finally allowed to tour France, Germany and Italy in April 1576 and with at the age of twenty-six with his own acting company performed several plays at the English court having spent a year touring in Padua, Verona, Venice and Sienna. The Elizabethan play “Two Gentlemen of Verona”, revived by William Davenant with the title “The Rivals” (later attributed to William Shakespeare) bears some similarity, especially with the clownish characters, Launce and Speed to a Commedia play entitled “Flavio Tradito”. An early version of which has been recorded as performed at Whitehall (19th February 1577) in the “Revels Accounts” as “The Historie of Titus and Gissipus” based on Bocaccio’s novella. Precise historical and geographical detail in the play suggests a direct personal experience or knowledge in Northern Italy of the canal network in Lombardy and an actual reference to “Saint Gregory’s Well”, which was a customary staging post on any pilgrimage or journey from the north to Milan. But the biggest anomaly encountered by academics is Pantino’s outburst in Act Two, scene three when he scolds Lance for tarrying and in danger of missing the boat which Proteus intends to board from Verona to Milan, they being both land-locked cities with no tidal flows?
“Lance away, away! Aboard! (found in King's Lynn)
Thy master is shipped, and thou art to post after with oars
What’s the matter? Why weepest thou, man?
Away ass, you’ll lose the tide, if you tarry any longer
...Tut, man, I mean thou’lt lose the flood, and,
In losing the flood, lose thy voyage, and
In losing thy voyage, lose thy master, and, in losing thy master,
Lose thy service, and, in losing thy service-“
For want of a nail, the board was lost, for want of a board, the stage was lost, for want of a stage, the play was lost, for want of a play, a playwright lost!
“Lance away, away! Aboard! (found in King's Lynn)
Thy master is shipped, and thou art to post after with oars
What’s the matter? Why weepest thou, man?
Away ass, you’ll lose the tide, if you tarry any longer
...Tut, man, I mean thou’lt lose the flood, and,
In losing the flood, lose thy voyage, and
In losing thy voyage, lose thy master, and, in losing thy master,
Lose thy service, and, in losing thy service-“
For want of a nail, the board was lost, for want of a board, the stage was lost, for want of a stage, the play was lost, for want of a play, a playwright lost!
Sat, 7 Oct 2023 10:38 am
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