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Three Renaissance Travel Plays: The Travels of the Three English Brothers, the Sea Voyage, the Antipodes
This volume brings together three little-known plays that convey vividly the fascination in early seventeenth-century England with travel and exploration. In their different ways they are all dramas of wandering and adventure and they explore the great diversity of responses in the period to the lures of tourism and colonial expansion and to challenges posed by the encounter with exotic places and peoples.
- GenresGrad SchoolDrama
Hardcover
First published August 1, 1995
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
September 11, 2023
I am really not sure what these plays have in common, or why they're grouped together.
The Sea Voyage is great fun, and one of those stories that has a clear message: gold will not buy you happiness (though perhaps sex will). Underrated comedy that should be performed more often. As with a lot of Renaissance plays, the last scene restores the patriarchy at the end of a world-turned -upside-down narrative that is laugh out loud at times.
The Travels of Three English Brothers, though: oh mercy, what a pile. I am afraid I gave up after two scenes. Important that we see what terrible plays from the Renaissance looked like: written on contract so that people would give financial support for the Sherley brothers, the characterisation is paper-thin, the presentation of Shia Islam (a combination of Sun-worship, primitivism and barbarity) is (and probably was at the time) offensive, and the brothers themselves are pretty odious. Apart from the quite amusing, over the top racist lines, the language is pretty shonky too. If you really want to read a Jacobean Islamophobic play, can I suggest A Christian Turn'd Turk from about ten years later, which is (truth to say) jaw-droppingly offensive, but at least amusing with it, a well-told story, and with a number of well-written characters in it.
As you can see, I don't quite get WHY Anthony Parr and Revels Plays bothered to edit The Three English Brothers, and really don't get how it links to The Sea Voyage.
I think I was giving The Antipodes a five-star review until the last Act (which I'll come to in a bit, so SPOILER if you don't want to read on) despite the play being over-stuffed with ideas.
Much of Act Four is like a precursor to Swift's Gulliver's Travels, pointing out the ludicrousness of contemporary British society by exposing us to exact opposite: it is very funny and has the cultural disquiet of someone exposed to a culture totally out of his depth and (I think deliberate criticism of Empire-making and colonialism) imposing his own alien values on it (because he can).
It makes constant jokes at the expense of actors, playwrights ("poets"), statesmen, magistrates, courtiers, and it is very funny. Packed with double entendres like a classic Carry On movie, there are lots of "Ooo-er missis" "Phnaar phnaar" lines.
The last Act, though, takes a massive swerve. Having been a bit (very) flirty in earlier scenes, Lord Letoy turns into a potential rapist in a scene that (it is difficult to see) is like The Rape of Lucrece or the seduction of Isabella played for (?) laughs. Even though he pulls back at the last minute, and the whole thing is revealed to be a test, it is very difficult to recover from that, back to the happy ending that Brome clearly wants us to see. Reading it (and I imagine watching it) can't help but make me feel queasy.
And I get the impression Brome knows this: there is an unresolved story about Barbara in the narrative, which, in her last interaction with Letoy, makes it clear that Letoy is not the fun-filled character that everyone else sees. He has seduced her, got her pregnant (twice), made her fall hopelessly in love with him, then dumped her. His response: to call her a prostitute.
I know that Renaissance attitudes to gender are not my own, but having laughed a lot for the first four Acts, I was actually upset by the ending. Was that Brome's purpose? To present a play where you laugh for three hours, only to leave the theatre feeling queasy? To show that we allow powerful rapists and seducers because they are amusing and attractive? It is noticeable that Diana has almost no lines after the attempted rape scene. Is she as traumatised as we are supposed to be? Am I imposing a twenty-first century reading on a play that was just supposed to be "a bit of fun"?
The Sea Voyage is great fun, and one of those stories that has a clear message: gold will not buy you happiness (though perhaps sex will). Underrated comedy that should be performed more often. As with a lot of Renaissance plays, the last scene restores the patriarchy at the end of a world-turned -upside-down narrative that is laugh out loud at times.
The Travels of Three English Brothers, though: oh mercy, what a pile. I am afraid I gave up after two scenes. Important that we see what terrible plays from the Renaissance looked like: written on contract so that people would give financial support for the Sherley brothers, the characterisation is paper-thin, the presentation of Shia Islam (a combination of Sun-worship, primitivism and barbarity) is (and probably was at the time) offensive, and the brothers themselves are pretty odious. Apart from the quite amusing, over the top racist lines, the language is pretty shonky too. If you really want to read a Jacobean Islamophobic play, can I suggest A Christian Turn'd Turk from about ten years later, which is (truth to say) jaw-droppingly offensive, but at least amusing with it, a well-told story, and with a number of well-written characters in it.
As you can see, I don't quite get WHY Anthony Parr and Revels Plays bothered to edit The Three English Brothers, and really don't get how it links to The Sea Voyage.
I think I was giving The Antipodes a five-star review until the last Act (which I'll come to in a bit, so SPOILER if you don't want to read on) despite the play being over-stuffed with ideas.
Much of Act Four is like a precursor to Swift's Gulliver's Travels, pointing out the ludicrousness of contemporary British society by exposing us to exact opposite: it is very funny and has the cultural disquiet of someone exposed to a culture totally out of his depth and (I think deliberate criticism of Empire-making and colonialism) imposing his own alien values on it (because he can).
It makes constant jokes at the expense of actors, playwrights ("poets"), statesmen, magistrates, courtiers, and it is very funny. Packed with double entendres like a classic Carry On movie, there are lots of "Ooo-er missis" "Phnaar phnaar" lines.
The last Act, though, takes a massive swerve. Having been a bit (very) flirty in earlier scenes, Lord Letoy turns into a potential rapist in a scene that (it is difficult to see) is like The Rape of Lucrece or the seduction of Isabella played for (?) laughs. Even though he pulls back at the last minute, and the whole thing is revealed to be a test, it is very difficult to recover from that, back to the happy ending that Brome clearly wants us to see. Reading it (and I imagine watching it) can't help but make me feel queasy.
And I get the impression Brome knows this: there is an unresolved story about Barbara in the narrative, which, in her last interaction with Letoy, makes it clear that Letoy is not the fun-filled character that everyone else sees. He has seduced her, got her pregnant (twice), made her fall hopelessly in love with him, then dumped her. His response: to call her a prostitute.
I know that Renaissance attitudes to gender are not my own, but having laughed a lot for the first four Acts, I was actually upset by the ending. Was that Brome's purpose? To present a play where you laugh for three hours, only to leave the theatre feeling queasy? To show that we allow powerful rapists and seducers because they are amusing and attractive? It is noticeable that Diana has almost no lines after the attempted rape scene. Is she as traumatised as we are supposed to be? Am I imposing a twenty-first century reading on a play that was just supposed to be "a bit of fun"?
September 25, 2010
These three plays definitely capture the essence of travel during the English Renaissance. It's interesting to see how some true events as in the Three Brothers play are modified not only to fit the stage but to play up the Sherleys and their adventures. The Sea Voyage is my favorite of the three because I enjoy that subtle, dark humor. All three plays emphasize the patriarchal order as well as "the Other" - nothing new, but it's interesting that they're almost always themes. Reading ahead of time "Amazons, Savages & Machiavels: Travel & Colonial Writing in English, 1550-1630" (an anthology edited by Andrew Hadfield) made these plays very interesting and thought-provoking. The plays connect to many of the true travel narratives.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews