Adaptations of Shakespeare

An Anthology of Plays from the 17th Century to the Present

Daniel Fischlin, Mark Fortier, Daniel Fischlin, Mark Fortier

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9780415198936
• eBook ISBN: 9781134692095
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Literary Criticism
• Index: Literature

Shakespeare's plays have been adapted or rewritten in various, often surprising, ways since the seventeenth century. This groundbreaking anthology brings together twelve theatrical adaptations of Shakespeares work from around the world and across the centuries. The plays include The Woman's Prize or the Tamer Tamed John Fletcher The History of King Lear Nahum Tate King Stephen: A Fragment of a Tragedy John Keats The Public (El P(blico) Federico Garcia Lorca The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui Bertolt Brecht uMabatha Welcome Msomi Measure for Measure Charles Marowitz Hamletmachine Heiner Müller Lears Daughters The Womens Theatre Group & Elaine Feinstein Desdemona: A Play About a Handkerchief Paula Vogel This Islands Mine Philip Osment Harlem Duet Djanet Sears Each play is introduced by a concise, informative introduction with suggestions for further reading. The collection is prefaced by a detailed General Introduction, which offers an invaluable examination of issues related to

The Woman’s Prize; or the Tamer Tamed

John Fletcher

Introduction

John Fletcher was born in Sussex in 1579. His father was the future bishop of London, and Fletcher was educated at Cambridge starting in 1591. Around 1606 he began to work in the theatre in London, most famously in collaboration with Francis Beaumont on such plays as The Maid’s Tragedy and the tragicomedy Philaster. Fletcher also collaborated with other dramatists, such as Philip Massinger, and wrote plays on his own. The Woman’s Prize is Fletcher’s work alone and most likely dates from 1611. Around 1612 Fletcher began collaborating with Shakespeare, who was near the end of his career: on the lost play Cardenio, on The Two Noble Kinsmen, and probably on Henry VIII. After Shakespeare’s retirement, Fletcher succeeded him as the principal playwright for the King’s Men, the foremost theatre company of the period. Fletcher has the distinction, therefore, of being Shakespeare’s adapter, collaborator, and successor. The complexities of influence and exchange between the two men are discussed at length by Christopher Leech (144–168), who concludes: ‘Our image of Shakespeare will be truer if we do not put out of our minds the closeness of his relationship with Fletcher in the last years of his working life.’ Fletcher died in 1625.

The Woman’s Prize is a sequel to Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew – Charles Squier calls it a ‘spinoff’ (120). Petruchio and Katherine’s marriage was stormy and she is now dead. Petruchio marries Maria, a young woman who sets out to avoid the patriarchal domination and cruelty for which Petruchio has become famous. Fletcher’s play concerns her successful struggle to tame Petruchio and his ongoing exasperation at her actions. The Woman’s Prize is set not in Padua but in London, and other than a few familiar names there is little direct detail or circumstance taken from Shakespeare. Molly Easo Smith, however, writes of ‘Fletcher’s pervasive commentary on Shakespeare’ and asserts, ‘characters and situations in The Woman’s Prize seem closely modelled on The Shrew, and Fletcher’s calculated intertextual glance comments [on], rewrites, and undermines the ideological assumptions in Shakespeare’s play’ (39). One of the revampings that has been noted is Fletcher’s borrowing of female solidarity from Aristophanes’ Lysistrata (Ferguson: 12–13): in The Woman’s Prize, too, women band together in refusing sexual relations with men in order to make the men submit to their agenda. The women in The Taming of the Shrew – especially Katherine – are much more isolated from each other than they are in Fletcher’s sequel. In obvious ways, therefore, Fletcher’s play presents itself in relation to Shakespeare’s as its reversal or opposite, with the triumph of its women over its men.

The Taming of the Shrew and The Woman’s Prize were presented together in remountings before the court of Charles I in 1633. At this time, The Woman’s Prize initially ran afoul of the Master of the Revels, in his capacity as censor, for its ‘oaths, prophaness, and ribaldrye’ (Ferguson: 22); at court, however,...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgements
• General Introduction
• The Woman’s Prize; or The Tamer Tamed
• The History of King Lear
• King Stephen: A Dramatic Fragment
• The Public (El público)
• The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui
• uMabatha
• Measure for Measure
• Hamletmachine
• Lear’s Daughters
• Desdemona: A Play About a Handkerchief
• This Island’s Mine
• Harlem Duet
• Further Adaptations