A Jovial Crew
Encyclopedia
A Jovial Crew, or the Merry Beggars is a Caroline era stage play, a comedy
written by Richard Brome
. 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 and A Jovial Crew "outrank all but the best of Jonson
."
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
, John Tatham
, and Alexander Brome
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).
in Drury Lane
in 1641. That theatre had recently returned to the management of Brome's friend and colleague William Beeston
, after a period under the control of their rival Sir William Davenant
. 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
authorities closed the London theatres on September 2, 1642, at the start of the English Civil War
.
The play was revived early in the Restoration
era, and proved an enduring favourite with its audience. Samuel Pepys
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
and the Duke's Company
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
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
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
(comparable to a modern musical): in 1731
, Matthew Concanen
, Edward Roome, 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
in the Swan Theatre at Stratford-upon-Avon
in 1992, in a modern adaptation by playwright Stephen Jeffries.
The U.S. Premiere of the play was performed by La Marque High School in 1994 to award-winning acclaim throughout the state of Texas, achieving Best Actress (Jennifer Gover Foster for Rachel) and Best Supporting Actress (Shawna Daniel Vercher for Patrica) honors for the cast in various festivals and shows.
, which employed a retreat from society into nature to reflect back upon the social world. Pastoral
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 and "merry beggars" began to fill its place. The Beaumont and Fletcher
play Beggars' Bush
(c. 1612–13?; revised by Massinger
c. 1622) was a key development in this direction. Ben Jonson's 1621 masque
The Gypsies Metamorphosed
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
, 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
' Slang Beggars' Songs (1610) to Daniel Defoe
'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.
and cuckoo
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
, "and see the Adamites 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
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
device of a play within a play
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 recognizes 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 neighbor 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 Wrought-on'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.
s and vagabond
s and sturdy beggar
s wandering and lurking in the country, to the great trouble and terror of the same." 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 —
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
of a new social order, seem to presage the radical social movements of the coming Commonwealth
era, the Levellers
and Diggers and others. The idealization 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 August 27, 1661, was attended by both King Charles II
and his brother the Duke of York
, eventually to reign as James II
. The version of the play they saw most likely had any political rough edges smoothed away.
Comedy
Comedy , as a popular meaning, is any humorous discourse or work generally intended to amuse by creating laughter, especially in television, film, and stand-up comedy. This must be carefully distinguished from its academic definition, namely the comic theatre, whose Western origins are found in...
written by Richard Brome
Richard Brome
Richard Brome 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, indicate that Brome started out as a servant of Jonson, in some capacity...
. First staged in 1641
1641 in literature
The year 1641 in literature involved some significant events.-Events:*Pierre Corneille marries Marie de Lampérière.*Sir William Davenant is convicted of high treason.*Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon becomes an advisor to King Charles I of England....
or 1642
1642 in literature
The year 1642 in literature involved some significant events.-Events:*May - John Milton marries Marie Powell.*September 2 - The theatres in London are closed by the Puritan government; the "lascivious mirth and levity" of stage plays are to "cease and be forborn" for the next eighteen years, during...
and first published in 1652
1652 in literature
The year 1652 in literature involved some significant events.-Events:* John Milton loses the last of his eyesight during the year. His wife Mary dies on May 5.-New books:*Anonymous - Eliza's Babes, or the Virgin's Offering...
, 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 and A Jovial Crew "outrank all but the best of Jonson
Ben Jonson
Benjamin Jonson was an English Renaissance dramatist, poet and actor. A contemporary of William Shakespeare, he is best known for his satirical plays, particularly Volpone, The Alchemist, and Bartholomew Fair, which are considered his best, and his lyric poems...
."
Publication
The play was first published in 1652, in a quartoBook size
The size of a book is generally measured by the height against the width of a leaf, or sometimes the height and width of its cover. A series of terms is commonly used by libraries and publishers for the general sizes of modern books, ranging from "folio" , to "quarto" and "octavo"...
printed by James Young for the booksellers Edward Dod and Nathaniel Ekins. The volume contains Brome's dedication of the play to Thomas Stanley
Thomas Stanley (author)
Sir Thomas Stanley was an English author and translator.-Life:He was born in Cumberlow, Hertfordshire, the son of Sir Thomas Stanley of Cumberlow, Hertfordshire and his wife, Mary Hammond. Mary was the cousin of Richard Lovelace, and Stanley was educated in company with the son of Edward Fairfax,...
. The quarto also features prefatory verses composed by James Shirley
James Shirley
James Shirley was an English dramatist.He belonged to the great period of English dramatic literature, but, in Lamb's words, he "claims a place among the worthies of this period, not so much for any transcendent genius in himself, as that he was the last of a great race, all of whom spoke nearly...
, John Tatham
John Tatham
John Tatham was an English dramatist of the mid-seventeenth century.Little is known of him. He was a Cavalier who hated the Puritans — and the Scots;he invented a dialect which he claimed was their vernacular tongue...
, and Alexander Brome
Alexander Brome
Alexander Brome was an English poet.He was by profession an attorney, and was the author of many drinking songs and of satirical verses in favor of the Royalists and in opposition to the Rump Parliament...
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 TheatreCockpit 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 christened The Phoenix....
in Drury Lane
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....
in 1641. That theatre had recently returned to the management of Brome's friend and colleague William Beeston
William Beeston
William Beeston was a 17th century actor and theatre manager, the son and successor to the more famous Christopher Beeston.-Early phase:...
, after a period under the control of their rival Sir William Davenant
William Davenant
Sir William Davenant , 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 both the Caroline and Restoration eras and who was active both before and after the English Civil...
. 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
Puritan
The Puritans were a significant grouping of English Protestants in the 16th and 17th centuries. Puritanism in this sense was founded by some Marian exiles from the clergy shortly after the accession of Elizabeth I of England in 1558, as an activist movement within the Church of England...
authorities closed the London theatres on September 2, 1642, at the start of the English Civil War
English Civil War
The English Civil War was a series of armed conflicts and political machinations between Parliamentarians and Royalists...
.
The play was revived early in the Restoration
English Restoration
The Restoration of the English monarchy began in 1660 when the English, Scottish and Irish monarchies were all restored under Charles II after the Interregnum that followed the Wars of the Three Kingdoms...
era, and proved an enduring favourite with its audience. Samuel Pepys
Samuel Pepys
Samuel Pepys FRS, MP, JP, was an English naval administrator and Member of Parliament who is now most famous for the diary he kept for a decade while still a relatively young man...
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
King's Company
The King's Company was one of two enterprises granted the rights to mount theatrical productions in London at the start of the English Restoration. It existed from 1660 to 1682.-History:...
and the Duke's Company
Duke's Company
The Duke's Company was one of the two theatre companies that were chartered by King Charles II at the start of the English Restoration era, when the London theatres re-opened after their eighteen-year closure during the English Civil War and the Interregnum.The Duke's Company had the patronage of...
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
Theatre Royal, Drury Lane
The Theatre Royal, Drury Lane is a West End theatre in Covent Garden, in the City of Westminster, a borough of London. The building faces Catherine Street and backs onto Drury Lane. The building standing today is the most recent in a line of four theatres at the same location dating back to 1663,...
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
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 satirical ballad opera to remain popular today...
in 1728
1728 in music
- Events :*Giuseppe Tartini opens a school for violinists in Padua.*Johann Georg Pisendel begins studying composition under Johann David Heinichen.*Domenico Scarlatti returns to Rome, where he meets his first wife....
. In turn, the great success of Gay's work may have inspired the adaptation of A Jovial Crew into a similar ballad opera
Ballad opera
The term ballad opera is used to refer to a genre of English stage entertainment originating in the 18th century and continuing to develop in the following century and later. There are many types of ballad opera...
(comparable to a modern musical): in 1731
1731 in music
-Events:*The Academy of Vocal Music changes its name to the Academy of Ancient Music.*Jean-Philippe Rameau meets his patron, La Pouplinière.*Antonio Stradivari makes a viola that will be owned a hundred years later by Niccolò Paganini....
, Matthew Concanen
Matthew Concanen
-Life:He studied law in Ireland but travelled to London as a young man, and began writing political pamphlets in support of the Whig government. He also wrote for newspapers including the London Journal and The Speculatist. He published a volume of poems, some of which were original works and some...
, Edward Roome, and Sir William Yonge
William Yonge
Sir William Yonge, 4th Baronet KCB FRS , English politician, was the son of Sir Walter Yonge, and great-great-grandson of Walter Yonge of Colyton , whose diaries , more especially four volumes now in the British Museum Sir William Yonge, 4th Baronet KCB FRS (ca. 1693 – 10 August 1755), English...
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
Royal Shakespeare Company
The Royal Shakespeare Company is a major British theatre company, based in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England. The company employs 700 staff and produces around 20 productions a year from its home in Stratford-upon-Avon and plays regularly in London, Newcastle-upon-Tyne and on tour across...
in the Swan Theatre at Stratford-upon-Avon
Stratford-upon-Avon
Stratford-upon-Avon is a market town and civil parish in south Warwickshire, England. It lies on the River Avon, south east of Birmingham and south west of Warwick. It is the largest and most populous town of the District of Stratford-on-Avon, which uses the term "on" to indicate that it covers...
in 1992, in a modern adaptation by playwright Stephen Jeffries.
The U.S. Premiere of the play was performed by La Marque High School in 1994 to award-winning acclaim throughout the state of Texas, achieving Best Actress (Jennifer Gover Foster for Rachel) and Best Supporting Actress (Shawna Daniel Vercher for Patrica) honors for the cast in various festivals and shows.
Genre
A Jovial Crew partakes of a long-standing tradition of "green world comedy" in English Renaissance theatreEnglish Renaissance theatre
English Renaissance theatre, also known as early modern English theatre, refers to the theatre of England, largely based in London, which occurred between the Reformation and the closure of the theatres in 1642...
, which employed a retreat from society into nature to reflect back upon the social world. Pastoral
Pastoral
The adjective pastoral refers to the lifestyle of pastoralists, such as shepherds herding livestock around open areas of land according to seasons and the changing availability of water and pasturage. It also refers to a genre in literature, art or music that depicts such shepherd life in an...
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 and "merry beggars" began to fill its place. The Beaumont and Fletcher
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 ....
play Beggars' Bush
Beggars' Bush
For the old military barracks in Dublin, Ireland, see Beggars BushBeggars' 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 and Date:...
(c. 1612–13?; revised by Massinger
Philip Massinger
Philip Massinger was an English dramatist. His finely plotted plays, including A New Way to Pay Old Debts, The City Madam and The Roman Actor, are noted for their satire and realism, and their political and social themes.-Early life:The son of Arthur Massinger or Messenger, he was baptized at St....
c. 1622) was a key development in this direction. Ben Jonson's 1621 masque
Masque
The masque was a form of festive courtly entertainment which flourished in 16th and early 17th century Europe, though it was developed earlier in Italy, in forms including the intermedio...
The Gypsies Metamorphosed
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...
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
The Spanish Gypsy is an English Jacobean tragicomedy, dating from 1623. It is interesting to modern readers, students, and scholars principally because of the question of its authorship....
, 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
Samuel Rowlands , English author of pamphlets in prose and verse, which reflect the follies and humours of the lower middle-class life of his time, seems to have had no contemporary literary reputation; but his work throws considerable light on the development of popular literature and social life...
' Slang Beggars' Songs (1610) to Daniel Defoe
Daniel Defoe
Daniel Defoe , born Daniel Foe, was an English trader, writer, journalist, and pamphleteer, who gained fame for his novel Robinson Crusoe. Defoe is notable for being one of the earliest proponents of the novel, as he helped to popularise the form in Britain and along with others such as Richardson,...
'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 phegmatic man, works to cheer up his neighbor, 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 nightingaleNightingale
The Nightingale , also known as Rufous and Common Nightingale, is a small passerine bird that was formerly classed as a member of the thrush family Turdidae, but is now more generally considered to be an Old World flycatcher, Muscicapidae...
and cuckoo
Cuckoo
The cuckoos are a family, Cuculidae, of near passerine birds. The order Cuculiformes, in addition to the cuckoos, also includes the turacos . Some zoologists and taxonomists have also included the unique Hoatzin in the Cuculiformes, but its taxonomy remains in dispute...
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, London
Hyde Park is one of the largest parks in central London, United Kingdom, and one of the Royal Parks of London, famous for its Speakers' Corner.The park is divided in two by the Serpentine...
, "and see the Adamites 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
Beadle
Beadle, sometimes spelled "bedel," is a lay 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....
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
The term "metatheatre", coined by Lionel Abel, has entered into common critical usage; however, there is still much uncertainty over its proper definition and what dramatic techniques might be included in its scope...
device of a play within a play
Story within a story
A story within a story, also rendered story-within-a-story, is a literary device in which one narrative is presented during the action of another narrative. Mise en abyme is the French term for a similar literary device...
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 recognizes 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 neighbor 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 Wrought-on'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 rogueRogue (vagrant)
A rogue is a vagrant person who wanders from place to place. Like a drifter, a rogue is an independent person who rejects conventional rules of society in favor of following their own personal goals and values....
s and vagabond
Vagabond (person)
A vagabond is a drifter and an itinerant wanderer who roams wherever they please, following the whim of the moment. Vagabonds may lack residence, a job, and even citizenship....
s and sturdy beggar
Sturdy beggar
Sturdy beggar is a former British English legal expression for someone was fit and able to work but begged or wandered for a living instead. Sometimes men willing to work but unable to find work were lumped into the same category....
s wandering and lurking in the country, to the great trouble and terror of the same." 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 offendors, 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
Utopia
Utopia is an ideal community or society possessing a perfect socio-politico-legal system. The word was imported from Greek by Sir Thomas More for his 1516 book Utopia, describing a fictional island in the Atlantic Ocean. The term has been used to describe both intentional communities that attempt...
of a new social order, seem to presage the radical social movements of the coming Commonwealth
Commonwealth of England
The Commonwealth of England was the republic which ruled first England, and then Ireland and Scotland from 1649 to 1660. Between 1653–1659 it was known as the Commonwealth of England, Scotland and Ireland...
era, the Levellers
Levellers
The Levellers were a political movement during the English Civil Wars which emphasised popular sovereignty, extended suffrage, equality before the law, and religious tolerance, all of which were expressed in the manifesto "Agreement of the People". They came to prominence at the end of the First...
and Diggers and others. The idealization 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 August 27, 1661, was attended by both King Charles II
Charles II of England
Charles II was monarch of the three kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland.Charles II's father, King Charles I, was executed at Whitehall on 30 January 1649, at the climax of the English Civil War...
and his brother the Duke of York
Duke of York
The Duke of York is a title of nobility in the British peerage. Since the 15th century, it has, when granted, usually been given to the second son of the British monarch. The title has been created a remarkable eleven times, eight as "Duke of York" and three as the double-barreled "Duke of York and...
, eventually to reign as James II
James II of England
James II & VII was King of England and King of Ireland as James II and King of Scotland as James VII, from 6 February 1685. He was the last Catholic monarch to reign over the Kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland...
. The version of the play they saw most likely had any political rough edges smoothed away.
External links
- Richard Brome Online http://www.hrionline.ac.uk/brome/ contains a scholarly edition of this play, including textual and critical introductions.
- A Jovial Crew online.