Panel 1: Commercial Theatre and The Dutch Courtesan
9:45-11:15AM | Chair: Elizabeth Pentland (York, CA)
Speaker 1: Lucy Munro (KCL), ‘Marston, The Dutch Courtesan, and Theatrical Profit’
Munro, an expert in children’s playing companies, explored The Dutch Courtesan in light of the Clifton Star Chamber case, in which Henry Clifton sued the Queen’s Revels/Blackfriars company for the abduction of his son Thomas. Henry Evans, choirmaster of the company, was permitted by royal patent to impress boys into service as choristers. Clifton’s dispute was that the company, recognizing the saleability of boys actors who could also sing, was using the boys for purposes outside of the terms of their patent, for personal gain.
Munro reminded us that Marston became an investor in the company in 1603, only three years following the Star Chamber ruling. The Dutch Courtesan, written in 1604, seems to speak to the controversy. Marston’s comedy frequently blurs the edges between musical act interludes and the play proper, with Freevill entering 2.1 already singing, Mulligrub asking for ‘Master Creak’s noise’ at the end of act 3, and Cockledemoy calling for music at the end of act 4. Significantly, singing in the play also tends to occur across genders – men sing to women, and women to men, often in scenes of wooing (Freevill’s song to Beatrice in 2.1) or seduction (Francheschina’s songs to Freevill and Malheureux in acts 1 and 2. Franceschina is even called ‘siren’ in 1.2, a word signifying dangerous sexual seduction. The Dutch Courtesan connects the sex worker and the boy actor – both seek to provide pleasure and profit. Reading Freevill’s song to Beatrice in this context might make us question his motives and the sincerity of his love.
Starting with The Dutch Courtesan’s Italian-named characters – Franceschina, Beatrice, Crispinella, Putana/Putifer – Tom Bishop explored potential Anglo-Italian connections in the play. He sang for us a comical rendition of the Italian folk song ‘La Bella Franceschina’, before relating how the song’s narrative is a set piece of commedia dell’arte, revolving around three common figures – Zanni the trickster servant, the master Pantalone, and the beautiful lover Franceschina, who was typically played by men in Italian drama. Later versions of the story would add the clown Arlecchino who, as Pantalone’s rival, would carry a dagger resembling Pantalone’s characteristic codpiece – suggesting the elderly Master’s humiliation as a cuckold. These love rivalries and themes of betrayal and jealousy are echoed in the Franceschina-Freevill-Malheureux-Beatrice plot. However, Marston oddly places his Franceschina in a brothel – a low place for the beautiful daughter character. It is as though Marston attempts to put her in her place.
And yet, Franceschina’s behaviour in The Dutch Courtesan also resembles that of the celebrated prima donnas of commedia. She particularly shares characteristics with ‘Isabella’, the wilful and attractive young daughter of Pantalone, who was frequently played by Italian prima donnas. Franceschina’s rages at Freevill, Beatrice, and Malheureux echo the famous madness scenes of Isabella, and notably, both figures are known for their art in singing. The play ends, however, with Franceschina condemned and led to severest prison – it is as though Marston, having drawn from Italian sources, closes the play with an act of resistance against Italian theatre practices. Bishop concluded with an analogous reading of The Dutch Courtesan’s Crispinella, whose name suggests Italian roots, but is ultimately a name made up by the English Marston. Crispinella skilfully deploys the Italian rapra (rapier wit), but one can also trace her name to the Latin for ‘wavering’ (both Italy and England lay claim to Rome as their historical and cultural forebears). Crispinella’s flirtatious wit also recalls Juvenal’s poem about a woman musician who plays on her lover’s plectrum, dances in bars, and generally embodies the spirit of the ‘good life’. Bishop argued that Crispinella is a ‘Janus character’ – both Italian and English, and another example of Marston’s attempt to profit from the popular commedia tradition while denying its foreign roots.