Tudor Drama Blather

Having read around 20 plays by Shakespeare's contemporaries, I recently ordered a copy of J.M. Manly's 1894 edition of Specimens of the Pre Shakesperean Drama V2. This collection starts with a play I had always wanted to read because of its screwy title- Ralph Roister Doister. Unfortunately, the play isn't as entertaining as its title seems to promise. Nicholas Udall wrote this one in 1553, and the entire work is in rhyming couplets. While I enjoy a little bit of rhyming couplet such as Shakespeare displays in early works (the exchanges between Talbot and his son in Henry VI), an entire play's worth is a bit strained. No one ever approaches that real conversational tone so necessary for fully-rounded characters. Ralph himself is a thin, "stock" character of the swaggering coward type, lacking all the charm and rascally wit that could have made him into a Falstaff or Toby Belch. There is one good extended joke in the play revolving around a letter that, depending upon its punctuation, changes meaning radically.
Manly's third selection is Preston's 1569 play Cambises, again in rhyming couplets. The intro to this bizarre little number was later mocked by Shakespeare in Hamlet: "a lamentable tragedy filled with pleasant mirth" ! Anyone expecting to get a good take on ancient Persian history in this work will be extremely disappointed. Most of the action involves stock characters whacking each other, not unlike a punch-and-judy puppet show.
Things get a bit more interesting with Manly's 4th selection Gorboduc, by Sackville and Norton. This one is from 1561 and features, finally, blank verse in pentameter. However, the authors are writing before George Gascoigne's 1575 work urging the use of Iambic, so that the work lacks that rolling rhythm that would elevate it to the level of Marlowe and Shakespeare. The dialogue in this play, at times, comes agonizingly close to greatness, but never quite clears the hurdle.
Manly's 4th pick, Campaspe, by John Lyly, begins to approach "hot stuff" status. I had read Lyly's Endymion several months ago, and while these plays are very slow in pace, and simple in plot, they display an interest in beautiful language missing from Manly's previous selections. Lyly's ponderous pace and preciosity of language, however, create works that come across as set-pieces in a display case, lacking the wild immediacy of a Shakespeare or Marlowe.
I am now reading Manly's 5th play, Robert Greene's James the IV, and, even though Greene will be remembered forever for those nasty things he said about the "upstart" Shakespeare, his plays are very readable and enjoyable. There might even be some paintings in some of Greene's works......
Anyway, Manly's very interesting offerings have not, thus far, come anywhere close to demanding visualizations. Nothing in his first 4 picks has screamed "paint me!", so I am continuing to work on my new painting of Orsino from Twelfth Night. Having spent three days drawing with my white charcoal pencil on an umber-primed panel of 24" X 18", I have finally begun to paint. I always start with the most boring section of the work, so I am painting a strip of wall about 2 inches high between the tapestry and the floor. I want to keep this one pretty dark, so I am shading everything darker toward the edges in an attempt to keep the light centered around my seated figure. So far, so good. On my next Blather installment I want to get into my recent readings on Henry VIII and his religious settlement, a subject that my millions of adoring fans will undoubtedly be awaiting with baited breath. Stay tuned.
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