''A Jovial Crew, or the Merry Beggars'' is a
Caroline
Caroline may refer to:
People
* Caroline (given name), a feminine given name
* J. C. Caroline (born 1933), American college and National Football League player
* Jordan Caroline (born 1996), American (men's) basketball player
Places Antarctica
* ...
era stage play, a comedy written by
Richard Brome
Richard Brome ; (c. 1590? – 24 September 1652) was an English dramatist of the Caroline era.
Life
Virtually nothing is known about Brome's private life. Repeated allusions in contemporary works, like Ben Jonson's ''Bartholomew Fair'', ind ...
. First staged in 1641 or 1642 and first published in 1652, it is generally ranked as one of Brome's best plays, and one of the best comedies of the Caroline period; in one critic's view, Brome's ''
The Antipodes
''The Antipodes'' is a Caroline era stage play, a comedy written by Richard Brome c. 1636. Many critics have ranked ''The Antipodes'' as "his best play...Brome's masterpiece," and one of the best Caroline comedies – "gay, imaginative, and sp ...
'' and ''A Jovial Crew'' "outrank all but the best of
Jonson Jonson is a surname, and may refer to:
* Ben Jonson (c. 1572 – 1637), English Renaissance dramatist, poet and actor
* Fredric Jonson (born 1987), Swedish professional football player
* Gail Jonson (born 1965), former medley and butterfly swimmer
...
."
Publication
The play was first published in 1652, in a
quarto
Quarto (abbreviated Qto, 4to or 4º) is the format of a book or pamphlet produced from full sheets printed with eight pages of text, four to a side, then folded twice to produce four leaves. The leaves are then trimmed along the folds to produc ...
printed by James Young for the booksellers Edward Dod and Nathaniel Ekins. The volume contains Brome's dedication of the play to
Thomas Stanley. The quarto also features prefatory verses composed by
James Shirley
James Shirley (or Sherley) (September 1596 – October 1666) was an English dramatist.
He belonged to the great period of English dramatic literature, but, in Charles Lamb's words, he "claims a place among the worthies of this period, not so m ...
,
John Tatham
John Tatham ( fl. 1632–1664) was an English dramatist of the mid-17th century. He was a strong Cavalier.
Hatreds
Little is known of Tatham personally. He was a Cavalier, with a hatred of the Puritans and of the Scots – he went so far as to ...
, and
Alexander Brome
Alexander Brome (1620 – 30 June 1666) was an English poet.
Life
Brome was by profession an attorney, and was the author of many drinking songs and of satirical verses in favour of the Royalists and in opposition to the Rump Parliament. In 166 ...
among others. The play was Brome's most popular work during its own historical era, and was reprinted in 1661 (by bookseller Henry Brome), 1684 (by Joseph Hindmarsh), and 1708 (C. Brome).
Performance
The title page of the first edition states that the play debuted at the
Cockpit Theatre
The Cockpit was a theatre in London, operating from 1616 to around 1665. It was the first theatre to be located near Drury Lane. After damage in 1617, it was named The Phoenix.
History
The original building was an actual cockpit; that is, a st ...
in
Drury Lane
Drury Lane is a street on the eastern boundary of the Covent Garden area of London, running between Aldwych and High Holborn. The northern part is in the borough of Camden and the southern part in the City of Westminster.
Notable landmarks ...
in 1641. That theatre had recently returned to the management of Brome's friend and colleague
William Beeston
William Beeston (1606? – 1682) was an English actor and theatre manager, the son and successor to the more famous Christopher Beeston.
Early phase
William was brought up in the theatrical world of his father; he became an actor, and also his ...
, after a period under the control of their rival Sir
William Davenant
Sir William Davenant (baptised 3 March 1606 – 7 April 1668), also spelled D'Avenant, was an English poet and playwright. Along with Thomas Killigrew, Davenant was one of the rare figures in English Renaissance theatre whose career spanned bot ...
. In his dedication to Stanley in the 1652 quarto, Brome states that ''A Jovial Crew'' "had the luck to tumble last of all in the epidemical ruin of the scene" — which has been interpreted to mean that the play was the last work acted before the
Puritan
The Puritans were English Protestants in the 16th and 17th centuries who sought to purify the Church of England of Catholic Church, Roman Catholic practices, maintaining that the Church of England had not been fully reformed and should become m ...
authorities closed the London theatres on 2 September 1642, at the start of the
English Civil War
The English Civil War (1642–1651) was a series of civil wars and political machinations between Parliamentarians (" Roundheads") and Royalists led by Charles I ("Cavaliers"), mainly over the manner of England's governance and issues of re ...
.
The play was revived early in the
Restoration
Restoration is the act of restoring something to its original state and may refer to:
* Conservation and restoration of cultural heritage
** Audio restoration
** Film restoration
** Image restoration
** Textile restoration
* Restoration ecology
...
era, and proved an enduring favourite with its audience.
Samuel Pepys
Samuel Pepys (; 23 February 1633 – 26 May 1703) was an English diarist and naval administrator. He served as administrator of the Royal Navy and Member of Parliament and is most famous for the diary he kept for a decade. Pepys had no mariti ...
recorded seeing multiple performances of the play in his Diary – twice in 1661, and again in 1662 and in 1669. The play remained in the active repertory when the
King's Company
The King's Company was one of two enterprises granted the rights to mount theatrical productions in London, after the London theatre closure had been lifted at the start of the English Restoration. It existed from 1660 to 1682, when it merged wit ...
and the
Duke's Company
The Duke's Company was a theatre company chartered by King Charles II at the start of the Restoration era, 1660. Sir William Davenant was manager of the company under the patronage of Prince James, Duke of York. During hats period, theatres b ...
joined to form the United Company in 1695. The publication of the play's fourth edition in 1708 was motivated by a revival at
Theatre Royal, Drury Lane
The Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, commonly known as Drury Lane, is a West End theatre and Grade I listed building in Covent Garden, London, England. The building faces Catherine Street (earlier named Bridges or Brydges Street) and backs onto Dr ...
that year.
In what may be a case of mutual influence, John Gay might have drawn upon ''A Jovial Crew'' when he created his ''
Beggar's Opera
''The Beggar's Opera'' is a ballad opera in three acts written in 1728 by John Gay with music arranged by Johann Christoph Pepusch. It is one of the watershed plays in Augustan drama and is the only example of the once thriving genre of satiri ...
'' in 1728. In turn, the great success of Gay's work may have inspired the adaptation of ''A Jovial Crew'' into a similar
ballad opera The ballad opera is a genre of English stage entertainment that originated in the early 18th century, and continued to develop over the following century and later. Like the earlier '' comédie en vaudeville'' and the later ''Singspiel'', its disti ...
(comparable to a modern musical): in 1731,
Matthew Concanen
Matthew Concanen (1701 – 22 January 1749) was a writer, poet and lawyer born in Ireland.
Life
Concanen studied law in Ireland but travelled to London as a young man, and began writing political pamphlets in support of the Whig government. ...
,
Edward Roome Edward Roome (died 1729) was an English lawyer, known as one of the writers of the comic opera ''The Jovial Crew''.
Roome was the son of an undertaker for funerals in Fleet Street in London, and was brought up to the law. In October 1728 Roome suc ...
, and Sir
William Yonge produced their adaptation, ''The Jovial Crew''. In this musical form, the work remained a staple of the English stage for the next half-century, and was performed as late as 1791.
The play was staged by the
Royal Shakespeare Company
The Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) is a major British theatre company, based in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England. The company employs over 1,000 staff and produces around 20 productions a year. The RSC plays regularly in London, St ...
in the Swan Theatre at
Stratford-upon-Avon
Stratford-upon-Avon (), commonly known as just Stratford, is a market town and civil parish in the Stratford-on-Avon district, in the county of Warwickshire, in the West Midlands region of England. It is situated on the River Avon, north-we ...
in 1992, in a modern adaptation by playwright Stephen Jeffries.
Genre
''A Jovial Crew'' partakes of a long-standing tradition of "green world comedy" in
English Renaissance theatre
English Renaissance theatre, also known as Renaissance English theatre and Elizabethan theatre, refers to the theatre of England between 1558 and 1642.
This is the style of the plays of William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe and Ben Jonson ...
, which employed a retreat from society into nature to reflect back upon the social world.
Pastoral
A pastoral lifestyle is that of shepherds herding livestock around open areas of land according to seasons and the changing availability of water and pasture. It lends its name to a genre of literature, art, and music (pastorale) that depicts ...
was a prior form of such drama, though as the seventeenth century wore on, pastoral came to seem an ever-more dated form; and the alternative of plays on
gypsies
The Romani (also spelled Romany or Rromani , ), colloquially known as the Roma, are an Indo-Aryan ethnic group, traditionally nomadic itinerants. They live in Europe and Anatolia, and have diaspora populations located worldwide, with sign ...
and "merry beggars" began to fill its place. The
Beaumont and Fletcher
Beaumont and Fletcher were the English dramatists Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher, who collaborated in their writing during the reign of James I (1603–25).
They became known as a team early in their association, so much so that their jo ...
play ''
Beggars' Bush
''Beggars' Bush'' is a Jacobean era stage play, a comedy in the canon of John Fletcher and his collaborators that is a focus of dispute among scholars and critics.
Authorship
The authorship and the date of the play have long been debated by ...
'' (c. 1612–13?; revised by
Massinger Massinger is a surname. Notable people with the surname include:
* Philip Massinger (1583–1640), English dramatist
* William Massinger
William Massinger (1514/15–1593/94) was an English politician.
Life
He was the eldest son of Thomas Massi ...
c. 1622) was a key development in this direction. Ben Jonson's 1621,
masque
The masque was a form of festive courtly entertainment that flourished in 16th- and early 17th-century Europe, though it was developed earlier in Italy, in forms including the intermedio (a public version of the masque was the pageant). A masque ...
''
The Gypsies Metamorphosed
''The Gypsies Metamorphosed'', alternatively titled ''The Metamorphosed Gypsies'', ''The Gypsies' Metamorphosis'', or ''The Masque of Gypsies'', was a Jacobean era masque written by Ben Jonson, with music composed by Nicholas Lanier. It was fi ...
'' is also worth noting, since Brome was a self-styled follower of Jonson. Several works in the canon of
Thomas Dekker and his collaborators, notably ''
The Spanish Gypsy
''The Spanish Gypsy'' is an English Jacobean tragicomedy, dating from around 1623. The play was likely a collaboration between several dramatists, including Thomas Middleton, William Rowley, Thomas Dekker, and John Ford. Like Shakespeare's los ...
'', belong in the same category. Indeed, Brome's play is only one item in a literature on beggars and their habits and music that grew throughout the century, from
Samuel Rowlands
Samuel Rowlands (c. 1573–1630) was an English author of pamphlets in prose and verse which reflect the follies and humours of lower middle-class life in his day. He seems to have had no literary reputation at the time, but his work throws much ...
' ''Slang Beggars' Songs'' (1610) to
Daniel Defoe
Daniel Defoe (; born Daniel Foe; – 24 April 1731) was an English writer, trader, journalist, pamphleteer and spy. He is most famous for his novel ''Robinson Crusoe'', published in 1719, which is claimed to be second only to the Bible in its ...
's ''The Complete Mendicant'' (1699).
Brome's contribution to this literature has attracted the attention of specialist scholars, for its songs and for its preservation of the particular linguistic forms of the Caroline underclass.
Synopsis
The play's opening scene introduces Oldrents and Hearty, two rural gentlemen and landowners. Oldrents is a generous and warmhearted countryman, who represents the best of the traditional order of England; but he is depressed and pre-occupied with a fortune-teller's prediction, that his two daughters will become beggars. Hearty, a younger and temperamentally more phlegmatic man, works to cheer up his neighbour, and Oldrents tries to adopt a lighter demeanor. Oldrent's steward Springlove enters, to present the bookkeeping accounts and the keys of the estate, and to request leave to follow the beggars about the countryside for the spring and summer. Oldrents is unhappy about this: he wants his young steward to behave more conventionally, more like a gentleman — and offers to furnish him with funds and a servant ("Take horse, and man, and money") for respectable travelling. Yet Springlove rebels at this conventionality. The bird calls of the
nightingale
The common nightingale, rufous nightingale or simply nightingale (''Luscinia megarhynchos''), is a small passerine bird best known for its powerful and beautiful song. It was formerly classed as a member of the thrush family Turdidae, but is no ...
and
cuckoo
Cuckoos are birds in the Cuculidae family, the sole taxon in the order Cuculiformes . The cuckoo family includes the common or European cuckoo, roadrunners, koels, malkohas, couas, coucals and anis. The coucals and anis are sometimes separ ...
call him to vagabondage. (The play's stage directions repeatedly refer to summer birdsong.) As Oldrent's steward, Springlove has been a friend to the local beggars, feeding them generously and furnishing their needs; and once he joins them it turns out that he is something of a leader among them.
Oldrents' daughters Rachel and Meriel are shown with their childhood sweethearts and suitors Vincent and Hilliard. The two young women deplore their father's depressed mood, and the staid order of their lives; they long for "liberty." Vincent proposes "a fling to London" to take in the races at
Hyde Park
Hyde Park may refer to:
Places
England
* Hyde Park, London, a Royal Park in Central London
* Hyde Park, Leeds, an inner-city area of north-west Leeds
* Hyde Park, Sheffield, district of Sheffield
* Hyde Park, in Hyde, Greater Manchester
Austra ...
, "and see the
Adamites
The Adamites, or Adamians, were adherents of an Early Christian group in North Africa in the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th centuries. They wore no clothing during their religious services. There were later reports of similar sects in Central Europe during ...
run naked afore the Ladies" — but the young women are determined to go in the opposite direction, and join the "stark, errant, downright beggars." They challenge their suitors to join them, and the young men can hardly refuse; they link up with Springlove's band, and enjoy his protection and guidance. It is their "birthright into a new world."
Their initial efforts at the vagabond life are uneven, however; sleeping rough in the straw of a barn is less comfortable than a bed at home. When they try to beg, they employ the elaborate and courtly language they're used to, and ask for ridiculous sums, 5 or 10 or 20 pounds. Yet they persist with the beggars, and the play shows Springlove and his companions in their activities and celebrations. Oldrents is distressed to find that his daughters have left home; but Hearty prevails upon him to persist in his efforts to be cheerful.
The plot thickens with the introduction of Amie and Martin. Amie has fled from the home of her uncle and guardian, Justice Clack, to avoid an arranged marriage with the ridiculous Talboy; she is escorted by the justice's clerk Martin, Hearty's nephew. They have disguised themselves in the clothing of the common people, and travelled toward Hearty's country estate – though they are pursued by Clack's son Oliver and by
beadle
A beadle, sometimes spelled bedel, is an official of a church or synagogue who may usher, keep order, make reports, and assist in religious functions; or a minor official who carries out various civil, educational, or ceremonial duties on the ...
s and other officers. Martin wants to marry Amie himself, though she sours on the idea as she travels with him and learns more of his character. Once Amie meets Springlove, she quickly falls in love with him. Oliver, chasing Amie, meets Rachel and Meriel; he is attracted to them, and propositions them. He also gets into a disagreement with Vincent and Hilliard, which threatens to lead them to the "field of hnour" and a duel.
Oliver visits the estate of Oldrents, and makes him aware of the pursuit of Amie – thereby drawing Oldrents and Hearty into the matter. The pursuing authorities round up many of the beggars and take them into custody, bringing them to Justice Clack. Oldrents and Hearty arrive at Clack's home; the beggars arrange to stage a play for the gentlemen. (As with his earlier ''The Antipodes'', Brome incorporates the
metatheatrical Metatheatre, and the closely related term metadrama, describes the aspects of a play that draw attention to its nature as drama or theatre, or to the circumstances of its performance. "Breaking the Fourth Wall" is an example of a metatheatrical dev ...
device of a
play within a play
A story within a story, also referred to as an embedded narrative, is a literary device in which a character within a story becomes the narrator of a second story (within the first one). Multiple layers of stories within stories are sometimes c ...
into ''A Jovial Crew''. Brome exploits the traditional equation of "strolling players" with vagabonds, by letting his vagabonds function as actors.) Oldrents is offered a choice of plays, with titles like ''The Two Lost Daughters'', and ''The Vagrant Steward'', and ''The Beggar's Prophecy''. The old man recognises all of them as versions of his own life, and rejects them, as "a story that I know too well. I'll see none of them." He finally settles on ''The Merry Beggars'' — but that too proves to be a version of his tale.
The beggars' playlet reveals that Oldrents' grandfather had taken advantage of a neighbour named Wrought-on, acquiring his land and reducing the man the beggary. The Patrico, the leader of the beggars, turns out to be the grandson of that Wrought-on; he is also the fortune-teller who had given Oldrents the original forecast of his daughters' beggary. And the Patrico also explains Oldrents' strangely strong affection for Springlove: the young beggar/steward is Oldrents' illegitimate son, born of a beggar-woman who was Patrico's sister. The family linkage allows the play's reconciliation: Oldrents embraces his son, and restores Wrought-on's property. Rachel and Meriel are ready to leave vagabondage and settle down with Vincent and Hilliard, as Springlove is with Amie. (Martin and Talboy have to reconcile themselves to continued bachelorhood, at least for the present; Hearty assures his nephew Martin that he'll help him find a wife. And the young people agree with Oliver to forget about the potential duel, and about the fact that Oliver propositioned the two Oldrents daughters for twelvepence apiece.) The play's complications yield to a happy ending.
Relevance
While Brome's ''A Jovial Crew'' had links with the theatre and literature of its period, the play also drew upon actual events and the social realities of its era. The tumultuous years leading up to the start of the Civil War saw some significant economic dislocations; local authorities in England complained of "the great number of
rogues and
vagabond
Vagrancy is the condition of homelessness without regular employment or income. Vagrants (also known as bums, vagabonds, rogues, tramps or drifters) usually live in poverty and support themselves by begging, scavenging, petty theft, temporar ...
s and
sturdy beggar
In historical English law, a sturdy beggar was a person who was fit and able to work, but begged or wandered for a living instead. The Statute of Cambridge 1388 was an early law which differentiated between sturdy beggars and the infirm (handic ...
s wandering and lurking in the country, to the great trouble and terror of the same."
[Cressy, p. 354; see also pp. 347–78.] Brome's play provided at least a limited recognition of this socio-economic underside of Caroline England.
''A Jovial Crew'' incorporates the type of political satire that is not unusual in dramas of its era. Justice Clack is portrayed as a dictatorial windbag. His "rule" is "to punish before I examine," by the mere facial expressions of the unfortunates brought before him —
:I have taken a hundred examinations i' my days of felons, and other offenders, out of their very countenances; and wrote them down ''verbatim'', to what they would have said. I am sure it has serv'd to hang some of 'em, and whip the rest.
Yet Brome goes farther in ''A Jovial Crew'' than most dramatists of his era ever dared. His genteel characters find their comfortable lives intolerably oppressive, and long for liberty and freedom, even that of beggars. The references to the Adamites, and to a ''
Utopia
A utopia ( ) typically describes an imaginary community or society that possesses highly desirable or nearly perfect qualities for its members. It was coined by Sir Thomas More for his 1516 book ''Utopia (book), Utopia'', describing a fictional ...
'' of a new social order, seem to presage the radical social movements of the coming
Commonwealth
A commonwealth is a traditional English term for a political community founded for the common good. Historically, it has been synonymous with "republic". The noun "commonwealth", meaning "public welfare, general good or advantage", dates from the ...
era, the
Levellers
The Levellers were a political movement active during the Wars of the Three Kingdoms who were committed to popular sovereignty, extended suffrage, equality before the law and religious tolerance. The hallmark of Leveller thought was its populis ...
and
Diggers
The Diggers were a group of religious and political dissidents in England, associated with agrarian socialism. Gerrard Winstanley and William Everard, amongst many others, were known as True Levellers in 1649, in reference to their split from ...
and others. The idealisation of the beggars' life, as unrealistic as it is, appears to point to a profound social dissatisfaction.
How much of this came through during stage performances of the play? Perhaps not much, especially after the Restoration of the monarchy in 1660. The second of the performances noted by Pepys, on 27 August 1661, was attended by both King
Charles II and his brother the
Duke of York
Duke of York is a title of nobility in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. Since the 15th century, it has, when granted, usually been given to the second son of English (later British) monarchs. The equivalent title in the Scottish peerage was Du ...
, eventually to reign as
James II James II may refer to:
* James II of Avesnes (died c. 1205), knight of the Fourth Crusade
* James II of Majorca (died 1311), Lord of Montpellier
* James II of Aragon (1267–1327), King of Sicily
* James II, Count of La Marche (1370–1438), King C ...
. The version of the play they saw most likely had any political rough edges smoothed away.
References
Notes
* Cressy, David. ''England on Edge: Crisis and Revolution, 1640–1642''. Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2006.
* Haaker, Ann, ed. ''Richard Brome. A Jovial Crew'', Lincoln, NE University of Nebraska Press, 1968.
* Keenan, Siobhan. ''Acting Companies and Their Plays in Shakespeare's London''. London: Arden, 2014. 164-8.
* Logan, Terence P., and Denzell S. Smith, eds. ''The Later Jacobean and Caroline Dramatists: A Survey and Bibliography of Recent Studies in English Renaissance Drama''. Lincoln, NE, University of Nebraska Press, 1978.
* Plomer, Henry Robert. ''A Dictionary of the Booksellers and Printers Who Were at Work in England, Scotland and Ireland from 1641 to 1667''. The Bibliographical Society/Blades, East & Blades, 1907.
* Ribton-Turner, Charles John. ''A History of Vagrants and Vagrancy, and Beggars and Begging''. London, Chapman and Hall, 1887.
* Sanders, Julie. "Beggars' Commonwealths and the Pre-Civil War Stage: Suckling's ''The Goblins'', Brome's ''A Jovial Crew'', and Shirley's ''The Sisters''." ''Modern Language Review'', Vol. 97 No. 1 (January 2002), pp. 1–14.
* Schultz, William Eben. ''Gay's Beggar's Opera: Its Content, History, and Influence''. New Haven, CT, Yale University Press, 1923.
External links
*
''Richard Brome Online''contains a scholarly edition of this play, including textual and critical introductions.
''A Jovial Crew'' online.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Jovial Crew, A
English Renaissance plays
Plays by Richard Brome
1641 plays