[Sally Barnden]

I’m just catching up with everyone’s comments on Act One – Act Two certainly accelerates the plot, with an abrupt pivot into magical rather than romantic/political territory.

Joan Go-too’t is reminding me of the Jailer’s Daughter from Two Noble Kinsmen – perhaps primarily just because she is apparently a working class woman cruelly rejected by a high-status man, but the combination of comedy and tragedy feels familiar from Fletcher/Shakespeare as well.

And the magic battle! It would be fascinating to see a staging of this. For me the obvious comparison is Prospero interrupting his own display of magical prowess in The Tempest, but the competitive aspect here raises the stakes (“what? at a non-plus, sir?” is an amazing putdown from the Hermit). I’d be interested to hear what people think about the choice of Trojan mythology for the demonic display. It’s classical and therefore pagan, but often seems to get co-opted by Christian characters elsewhere in EM drama?

“Think of your sea-crab, sir, I pray” is such a fabulous exit line…

 

[Sally Barnden]

Hello! My name is Sally. I’ve never read this play before, but I’m interested in early modern drama and its afterlives.

My work is on archives of mostly-Shakespeare performances since the Restoration–I’ve worked on performance photography, and I’m currently working on a project with the Royal Collections and trying to think about letters, commonplace books and diaries as kinds of performance archive. My pronouns are she/her/hers. When I’m not doing this kind of thing I like hiking and (like Brandi above!) I’ve been taking a lot of cat photos lately.

[Sally Barnden]

Yes to all of this! I wonder what role Uter’s costume plays as well–from Joan’s description, we’ve been told to expect a man with ‘most rich attire,’ a feather in his hat (and ‘excellent hangers,’ ha ha etc) – does Uter walk on stage matching the description? And he gives forty or so lines of Petrarchan-ish yearning before suddenly becoming violent and abusive.

[Author]

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