''The Ambitious Stepmother'' is a 1700
tragedy by the British writer
Nicholas Rowe. It was his debut play. Rowe set his play in
Biblical
The Bible (from Koine Greek , , 'the books') is a collection of religious texts or scriptures that are held to be sacred in Christianity, Judaism, Samaritanism, and many other religions. The Bible is an anthologya compilation of texts of a ...
times, but it had strong subtexts of the contemporary questions about the British succession that led to the
Act of Settlement in 1701.
[Engel & McGirr p.122] At the court of Persia,
Amestris schemes against her stepson
Artaxerses
Artaxerxes I (, peo, π πΌπ«π§πππ ; grc-gre, αΌΟΟΞ±ΞΎΞΟΞΎΞ·Ο) was the fifth King of Kings of the Achaemenid Empire, from 465 to December 424 BC. He was the third son of Xerxes I.
He may have been the "Artasyr ...
.
The original cast included
John Verbruggen
John Baptista Verbruggen, d. 1708, was an English actor working in London. Verbruggen is first mentioned as a member of the United Company in a Lord Chamberlain's warrant in 1688. His name does not appear in any cast lists until October 1690. T ...
as Artaxerses,
Barton Booth as Artaban,
Thomas Betterton as Memnon,
John Bowman as Magas,
George Pack as Cleanthes,
Elizabeth Barry as Artemisa,
Elizabeth Bowman as Cleone and
Anne Bracegirdle
Anne Bracegirdle (possibly 167112 September 1748) was an English actress.
Biography
Bracegirdle was born to Justinian and Martha (born Furniss) Bracegirdle in Northamptonshire. She was baptised in Northampton on 15 November 1671, although her to ...
as Amestris.
References
Bibliography
* Burling, William J. ''A Checklist of New Plays and Entertainments on the London Stage, 1700-1737''. Fairleigh Dickinson Univ Press, 1992.
* Francus, Marilyn. ''Monstrous Motherhood: Eighteenth-Century Culture and the Ideology of Domesticity''. JHU Press, 2012.
* Engel, Laura & McGirr, Elaine M. ''Stage Mothers: Women, Work, and the Theater, 1660β1830''. Bucknell University Press, 2014.
1700 plays
Plays by Nicholas Rowe
West End plays
Tragedy plays
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