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The Malcontent and Other Plays
This edition brings together Marston's five major plays in one volume. Included here are Antonio and Mellida, Antonio's Revenge, The Malcontent, Measure for Measure, The Dutch Courtesan, and Sophonisba . Under the general Editorship of Michael Cordner , the texts of the plays have been newly
edited and are presented with modernized spelling and punctuation. This edition provides a critical introduction based on an informed understanding of the texts as scripts for the stage.
edited and are presented with modernized spelling and punctuation. This edition provides a critical introduction based on an informed understanding of the texts as scripts for the stage.
428 pages, Paperback
First published October 9, 1997
About the author
John Marston
129 books7 followersJohn Marston was an English poet, playwright and satirist during the late Elizabethan and Jacobean periods. His career as a writer lasted a decade, and his work is remembered for its energetic and often obscure style, its contributions to the development of a distinctively Jacobean style in poetry, and its idiosyncratic vocabulary.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
October 27, 2023
Antonio and Mellida has moments in it of real poetry, some really powerful language and some fabulous scenes. However, as a play, it is strangely lacklustre, with one of those endings so beloved of Renaissance playwrights where the bad guy suddenly turns good (having been compared to Lucifer pretty much throughout) and everything is happy at the end. Nothing seems to have mattered much.
Antonio, too, is slightly tiresome: a cross between Romeo and Hamlet, but not as interesting as either. Rather than him marrying Mellida, you just want to give him a slap.
There are some laugh-out-loud lines, and Mellida's cousin Rosaline (a Beatrice wannabe) is particularly good.
Okay: Antonio's Revenge comes somewhat strangely as a sequel to Antonio and Mellida. Piero, having been a bit Dr Evil in the first play, becomes completely unhinged in the sequel, and one gets the feeling that Marston has recently re-read both The Spanish Tragedy and Titus Andronicus, and possibly seen a performance of Quarto 1 of Hamlet, and stolen some scenes wholesale from these plays, and then said "Shall we take this up a notch?". This is a cross between Grand Guignol and a dog's dinner.
Antonio, likewise, from the start of Act Two, seems more than somewhat doolally. One can quite see why Titus, Hieronimo and Hamlet are the revengers we remember, and Antonio not so much.
On the other hand, some of the descriptive passages, particularly of night-time, are fabulous, and one gets the feeling that Shakespeare had this script by him while writing Macbeth: there are some very definite verbal echoes of this play in that. And whoever wrote The Revenger's Tragedy seems to have done the same.
The Malcontent is often billed as Marston's masterpiece, and one can see why. Funny (there are some wonderful insults, and some ludicrous scenes) and there is some lovely Machiavellian evil from the character Mendoza. Good ultimately triumphs (I don't think I'm giving any spoilers here) and everyone ends up with the correct wife at the end, and there is a lot of smut from the "bawd" Maquerelle and the virgin wives.
Originally performed by the Boy's Company of St Paul's, it is clear that the amount of smut and filth "children" were allowed to perform in those days (in a Church school) was way more than you'd let them get away with now, and people paid way more to see children perform this than to see adult actors do the plays of Shakespeare or Marlowe. When I was growing up, I'd watch Carry On films which were full of smut and innuendo: the world has changed.
The men in The Dutch Courtesan are largely shits, the women basically cool. Crispinella is (for 1600) something of a feminist icon, cool, witty, cutting etc. Franceschina, the "courtesan", is really hard done by. Basically, Freevill, having sown his wild oats with her (and she seems to have thought it was a proper relationship), dumps her to pursue the richer and more respectable Beatrice. She then attracts his bestie Malheureux, and says she'll be his lover if he kills Freevill: he agrees, but then reneges on the promise still expecting to get his end away. Sex by deception: isn't there a word for that?
Nobody in this play comes out with any honour, except possibly Crispinella, and maybe her potential boyfriend Tysefew.
The only question is who we are supposed to like. I am on Franceschina's side. She has been completely shafted.
An interesting view of the 1600 sex industry, all performed by teenage boys. Hmmmm.
Sophonisba is really a very interesting play, and one that makes one think how different we are from the people of 1608. Here is a play, performed by children (well, teenage boys) which has within it a girl practically losing her virginity onstage, a pretty violent attempted rape scene and a scene of a man so mad with lust that he has sex with a witch from the earth.
I thought, as it started, that it would be too Senecan, with unchanging characters (the Keith Sturgess introduction suggested so) but, after all that, it becomes a proper tragedy. She continues to escape from the clutches of the evil Syphax, only to pluck defeat from the jaws of victory in the final scene, which is (in my opinion) really moving.
Great.
Antonio, too, is slightly tiresome: a cross between Romeo and Hamlet, but not as interesting as either. Rather than him marrying Mellida, you just want to give him a slap.
There are some laugh-out-loud lines, and Mellida's cousin Rosaline (a Beatrice wannabe) is particularly good.
Okay: Antonio's Revenge comes somewhat strangely as a sequel to Antonio and Mellida. Piero, having been a bit Dr Evil in the first play, becomes completely unhinged in the sequel, and one gets the feeling that Marston has recently re-read both The Spanish Tragedy and Titus Andronicus, and possibly seen a performance of Quarto 1 of Hamlet, and stolen some scenes wholesale from these plays, and then said "Shall we take this up a notch?". This is a cross between Grand Guignol and a dog's dinner.
Antonio, likewise, from the start of Act Two, seems more than somewhat doolally. One can quite see why Titus, Hieronimo and Hamlet are the revengers we remember, and Antonio not so much.
On the other hand, some of the descriptive passages, particularly of night-time, are fabulous, and one gets the feeling that Shakespeare had this script by him while writing Macbeth: there are some very definite verbal echoes of this play in that. And whoever wrote The Revenger's Tragedy seems to have done the same.
The Malcontent is often billed as Marston's masterpiece, and one can see why. Funny (there are some wonderful insults, and some ludicrous scenes) and there is some lovely Machiavellian evil from the character Mendoza. Good ultimately triumphs (I don't think I'm giving any spoilers here) and everyone ends up with the correct wife at the end, and there is a lot of smut from the "bawd" Maquerelle and the virgin wives.
Originally performed by the Boy's Company of St Paul's, it is clear that the amount of smut and filth "children" were allowed to perform in those days (in a Church school) was way more than you'd let them get away with now, and people paid way more to see children perform this than to see adult actors do the plays of Shakespeare or Marlowe. When I was growing up, I'd watch Carry On films which were full of smut and innuendo: the world has changed.
The men in The Dutch Courtesan are largely shits, the women basically cool. Crispinella is (for 1600) something of a feminist icon, cool, witty, cutting etc. Franceschina, the "courtesan", is really hard done by. Basically, Freevill, having sown his wild oats with her (and she seems to have thought it was a proper relationship), dumps her to pursue the richer and more respectable Beatrice. She then attracts his bestie Malheureux, and says she'll be his lover if he kills Freevill: he agrees, but then reneges on the promise still expecting to get his end away. Sex by deception: isn't there a word for that?
Nobody in this play comes out with any honour, except possibly Crispinella, and maybe her potential boyfriend Tysefew.
The only question is who we are supposed to like. I am on Franceschina's side. She has been completely shafted.
An interesting view of the 1600 sex industry, all performed by teenage boys. Hmmmm.
Sophonisba is really a very interesting play, and one that makes one think how different we are from the people of 1608. Here is a play, performed by children (well, teenage boys) which has within it a girl practically losing her virginity onstage, a pretty violent attempted rape scene and a scene of a man so mad with lust that he has sex with a witch from the earth.
I thought, as it started, that it would be too Senecan, with unchanging characters (the Keith Sturgess introduction suggested so) but, after all that, it becomes a proper tragedy. She continues to escape from the clutches of the evil Syphax, only to pluck defeat from the jaws of victory in the final scene, which is (in my opinion) really moving.
Great.
June 11, 2024
Plot was juicy. Malevole is MESSYYY and made sure to air out ALL the dirty laundry 🤭
I do believe the plot dragged on a bit and the ending scene that was satisfactory was just one page long 😭. But I really enjoyed The Malconent
I do believe the plot dragged on a bit and the ending scene that was satisfactory was just one page long 😭. But I really enjoyed The Malconent
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews