THE ANTIPODES
A COMEDY.

The Persons in the Play

[Link]
BLAZE*n1444 A complex name derived from a number of appropriate nuances of the words, ‘blaze’ and ‘blazon’, all of which define the character’s work, temperament and function within the drama. ‘Blaze’ as noun may carry the sense of a brilliant display, while, used as a verb, it conveys the action of proclaiming aloud, to trumpet abroad, to make known. ‘Blazon’ is a heraldic term, meaning, as a noun, a shield or coat of arms displaying armorial bearings and, as verb, to describe in set heraldic language and iconography. Blaze as a character is an effervescent talker, who presents the credentials and achievements of Doctor Hughball in appropriate ways to attract Joyless’s custom.	a herald painter*n1445 one who paints coats of arms and armorial bearings
JOYLESS	an old country gentleman
[DOCTOR] Hughball*n1446 The name is derived from ‘bolus’, ‘bole’ or ‘ball’, all related medical terms for a large pill.	a doctor of physic
BARBARA*n1447 From the Latin, meaning ‘barbarous things’, but also used as a mnemonic term, designating in logic a universal, affirmative proposition. An actor might make much of this seeming contrast, since the role offers a woman whose ideas and behaviour are challenging at times for their nonconformity but who is always life-affirming.	wife to Blaze
MARTHA*n1448 The name is emblematic of domestic efficiency, deriving from the contrast of Lazarus’s sisters in the New Testament, where Mary follows spiritual pursuits while Martha (somewhat begrudgingly) runs the household. The term is used here ironically, since this Martha is denied the possibility of fulfilling her domestic ideal as mother.	wife to Peregrine
LETOY*n1449 The use of the French article ‘le’ allows for the character’s French lineage, which is made much of in his first scene, but the real force of the name is contained in ‘toy’ in two of the many senses of the word as noun and verb: game, amusement, plaything, entertainment, play; and then to wanton, flirt, dally amorously. These are the character’s traits and his functions in the drama.	a fantastic lord
QUAILPIPEn1450 A pipe that emits a note akin to that produced by the female quail (the smallest member of the partridge family of game birds) which was designed to attract the birds into a net for capture. Scott Kastan and Proudfoot cite Dekker’s Wonderful Year* (1603), where a Justice squeezes his nose between fore-finger and thumb to produce a high nasal whine, which is described as ‘that quaile-pipe voice’. The character is by profession a curate and the name indicates to the actor what kind of voice he should deploy in the role.	his curate
PEREGRINE	son to Joyless
DIANAn1451 The name of the moon-goddess, emblem of chastity. Jonson (in the Hymn that opens 5.6. of Cynthia's Revels*) describes her as ‘huntress, chaste and fair’, bringing into one phrase the range of her attributes. The name was frequently applied to Elizabeth I, as virgin queen, so was popularly known, even by the date of Brome’s play. It would alert the wary and informed spectator about the likely resolution of the plot, despite much of the character’s behaviour earlier in the play.	wife to Joyless
BYPLAY*n1452 A theatrical term used to describe a plot, effect or situation developed alongside the main action, just as the character so named enjoys attracting attention through his brilliant ability at improvisation often at the expense of the rest of the cast and their efforts, hence his conceit at always upstaging his colleagues.	a conceited*n1453 Here both senses are applicable to the character as represented: vain or ingenious and witty. servant to Letoy
TRUELOCK*n1454 The associations of the word are complex. Like a true-love-knot, the true-lock was a tress of hair given as a token of fidelity in love, as emblem of trustworthiness. Appropriately given Letoy’s longstanding friendship with Truelock, the term indicates too a bond of trust and affection, while the final component of the word, ‘lock’, indicates the enduring secrecy involved in the particular bond between these two men, a locking away in the breast or heart of information given in absolute confidence.	a close friend to Letoy
Followers*n1455 Servants, members of a retinue attending an aristocrat of the Lord Letoy	who are actors in the byplay

The Prologue.

[Enter the PROLOGUE*.]

2PrologueOpinion†, which our author cannot court,

(For the dear daintiness† of it) has of late†

From the old way of plays possessed† a sort†

Only to run to those that carry state

In scene magnificent* and language high,†

And clothes worth all the rest, except the action.

And such are only good, those leaders cry;

And into that belief draw on a faction

That must despise all sportive,† merry wit,

Because some such great play had none in it.

[Link] But it is known (peace to their memories!)

The poets late sublimèd† from our age*,

Who best could understand, and best devise

Works that must ever live upon the stage,

Did well approve, and lead this humble way,

Which we are bound to travel* in tonight;

And, though it be not traced† so well as they

Discovered it by true Phoebean* light,

Pardon our just ambition yet that strive

To keep the weakest branch* o’ th’ stage alive.

[Link] I mean the weakest in their great esteem,

That count all slight† that’s under us or nigh†;

And only those for worthy subjects deem,

Fetched or reached at (at least) from far or high,

When low and home-bred subjects have their use,

As well as those fetched from on high or far;

And ’tis as hard a labour for the muse†

To move the earth as to dislodge a star.

See yet those glorious plays; and let their sight

Your admiration† move; these, your delight.[The PROLOGUE exits.]

ACT ONE

1.1*

The four episodes which comprise the opening scene are a masterly exercise in dramatic exposition. Spectators are not only introduced to the main characters but also in a variety of subtle ways to the main themes that the comedy will develop and examine. The very first speech by Blaze establishes that we are in Brome’s own contemporary London close to the time of the play’s composition: reference is made to the recent plague that had kept the theatres closed for over a year; visitors like Joyless and his family are steadily returning to London. We learn that the family’s visit is in quest of a cure for Joyless’s son’s seeming madness at the hands of a doctor whom the ever expansive Blaze extols as both highly successful and unique in his methods. Blaze proffers numerous instances of Doctor Hughball’s successes in curing varying degrees of folly, distraction and eccentricity. The social range of these examples gives Brome occasion for some pithy comic satire, which subtly teaches the audience how they should read the ensuing scenes and acts as having a decided contemporary relevance. Blaze unwittingly lets slip in the conversation that he has himself been a patient of Hughball’s in quest of a cure for jealousy and a desperate fear of being cuckolded. The Doctor joins them and the focus of the dialogue changes to the history and nature of Peregrine’s particular madness, as Hughball questions Joyless over his son’s condition. Peregrine lives in a fantasy world fed by his reading of travel books, and not even marriage to the comely Martha can restore to him a proper sense of reality. The whole family is found to be dysfunctional: Martha, denied sexual fulfilment, is gravely disturbed, while Joyless himself, newly wed to a much younger woman, Diana, is as possessed with jealousy as Blaze had once been. Significantly there are, however, no indications that Diana has been affected to any degree by the various passionate manias that bedevil the house into which she has married. The Doctor with brusque efficiency promises a general cure to all before Blaze’s wife, Barbara, joins them, who is clearly troubled by Peregrine’s antics and his obsession with Mandeville, whose book of travels has become his personal Bible. The men hurry off to cope with Peregrine’s “fit”, leaving Barbara to calm the distraught Martha, who now joins her. The young wife is subject to endlessly conflicting emotions, not knowing what role is expected of her in being both bride and maid. This is the first enacted portrayal of madness we have seen (as distinct from its being described to us) in the play and Barbara’s attempts to relate to and finally engage sympathetically with Martha show that compassion rather than shock or laughter bring the girl some measure of solace and inner peace. “Care”, as verb and noun, and the related “careful” (here deployed in the sense of caring) noticeably recur within the dialogue of the scene, referring to both Joyless’s attitude to Peregrine and Barbara’s to Martha; but Brome does not otherwise directly control an audience’s responses to what they watch. Joyless expressed amusement at catching out Blaze in an admission of his one-time jealousy, but within minutes of the playing time, he is himself revealed as a sufferer of the same condition. What gave Joyless the right to take a superior stance with Blaze? As in much of Jonson’s comedy writing, dramaturgical strategies make it difficult for spectators to adopt a precise or easy response to what they observe on the stage.

[Enter] BLAZE [and] JOYLESS.

3Blaze *To me, and to the City, sir, you are welcome,

And so are all about you: we have long

Suffered in want* of such fair company.

But now that time’s calamity* has given way,

Thanks to high† providence, to your kinder visits,

We are (like half-pined† wretches, that have lain

Long on the planks of sorrow, strictly tied

To a forced abstinence, from† the sight of friends)

The sweetlier filled with Joyless.

4JoylessAlas, I bring

Sorrow too much with me to fill one house,

In the sad number of my family.

5BlazeBe comforted, good sir. My house, which now

You may be pleased to call your own, is large

Enough to hold you all; and for your sorrows,

You came to lose ’em; and I hope the means

Is readily at hand: the doctor’s coming,

Who, as by letters I advertised† you,

Is the most promising man to cure your son

The kingdom yields; it will astonish you

To hear the marvels he hath done in cures

Of such distracted ones, as is your son,

And not so much by bodily physic (no!

He sends few recipes† to th’ apothecaries†*)

As medicine of the mind, which he infuses

So skilfully, yet by familiar ways,

That it begets both wonder and delight

In his observers, while the stupid† patient

Finds health at unawares.

6JoylessYou speak well of him:

Yet I may fear, my son’s long-grown disease

Is such he hath not met with.

7BlazeThen I’ll tell you, sir,

He cured a country gentleman that fell mad

For spending of his land before he sold it

(That is: ’twas sold to pay his debts). All went

That way, for a dead horse*, as one would say!

He had not money left to buy his dinner

Upon that whole-sale day. This was a cause

Might make a gentleman mad, you’ll say; and him

It did, as mad as landless squire could be;

This doctor by his art removed his madness,

And mingled so much wit among his brains

That, by the over-flowing of it merely,

He gets and spends five-hundred pound a year now,

As merrily as any gentleman

In Derbyshire; I name no man. But this

Was pretty well, you’ll say.

8JoylessMy son’s disease

Grows not that way.

9BlazeThere was a lady mad

(I name no lady) but stark† mad she was,

As any in the country, city, or almost

In court could be.

10JoylessHow fell she mad?

11BlazeWith study,

Tedious and painful study. And for what

Now, can you think?

12JoylessFor painting†, or new fashions.

I cannot think for the philosopher’s stone*.

13BlazeNo, ’twas to find a way to love her husband,

Because she did not, and her friends rebuked her.

14JoylessWas that so hard to find, if she desired it?

15BlazeShe was seven years in search of it and could not,

Though she consumed his whole estate by it.

16Joyless’Twas he was mad then.

17BlazeNo: he was not born

With wit enough to lose. But mad was she

Until this doctor took her into cure,

And now she lies as lovingly on a flockbed†

With her own knight, as she had done on down†

With many others (but I name no parties).

Yet this was well, you’ll say.

18JoylessWould all were well!

19BlazeThen, sir, of officers and men of place,†*

Whose senses were so numbed, they understood not

Bribes from due fees, and fell on praemunires†,

He has cured divers* that can now distinguish,

And know both when and how to take of both,

And grow most safely rich by’t. T’other day

He set the brains of an attorney† right,

That were quite topsy-turvy overturned

In a pitch o’er the bar*, so that (poor man)

For many moons† he knew not whether he

Went on his heels or’s head, till he was brought

To this rare doctor; now he walk’st* again,

As upright in his calling, as the boldest

Amongst ’em. This was well, you’ll say.

20Joyless’Tis much.

21BlazeAnd then for horn-mad† citizens, my neighbours,

He cures them by the dozens, and we live

As gently with our wives as rams with ewes.

22Joyless"We", do you say? Were you one of his patients?

23Blaze [Aside]* ’Slid†, he has almost catched† me! [To JOYLESS] No sir, no.

I name no parties, I! But wish you merry;

I strain† to make you so, and could tell forty

Notable cures of his to pass the time

Until he comes.

24JoylessBut pray, has he the art

To cure a husband’s jealousy?

25BlazeMine, sir, he did. [Aside] ’Sfoot!† I am catched again.*

26JoylessBut still you name no party! Pray, how long,

Good Master Blaze, has this so famous doctor,

Whom you so well set out,† been a professor?

27BlazeNever in public, nor endures† the name†

Of doctor, though I call him so, but lives

With an odd† lord in town, that looks like no lord.

My doctor goes† more like a lord than he.

Enter DOCTOR [Hughball].*

O welcome sir! I sent mine own wife for you:

Ha’ you brought her home again?

28DoctorShe’s in your house,

With gentlewomen, who seem to lodge here.

29BlazeYes, sir: this gentleman's wife, and his son’s wife:

They all ail† something, but his son (’tis thought)

Is falling into madness, and is brought

Up by his careful† father to the town here

To be your patient. Speak with him about it.

30DoctorHow do you find him, sir? Does his disease

Take him by fits, or is it constantly

And at all times the same?

31JoylessFor the most part

It is only inclining still† to worse,

As he grows more in days*. By all the best

Conjectures† we have met with in the country,

’Tis found a most deep melancholy†.

32DoctorOf what years is he?

33JoylessOf five and twenty, sir.

34DoctorWas it born with him? Is it natural†,

Or accidental†? Have you or his mother

Been so at any time affected?

35JoylessNever.

Not she unto her grave; nor I, till then,

Knew what a sadness meant, though since I have

In my son’s sad condition, and some crosses†

In my late marriage, which at further time

I may acquaint you with.

36Blaze [Aside]* The old man’s jealous

Of his young wife! I find him by the question

He put me to erewhile†.

37DoctorIs your son married?

38JoylessDivers* years since; for we had hope a wife

Might have restrained his travelling thoughts, and so

Have been a means to cure him; but it failed† us.

39DoctorWhat has he in his younger years been most

Addicted to? What study† or what practice†?

40JoylessYou have now, sir, found the question, which I think

Will lead you to the ground of his distemper†.

41DoctorThat’s the next† way to the cure. Come. Quickly, quickly.

42JoylessIn tender years he always loved to read

Reports of travels* and of voyages;

And when† young boys like him would tire themselves

With sports and pastimes and restore their spirits

Again by meat and sleep, he would whole days

And nights (sometimes by stealth) be on such books

As might convey his fancy round the world.

43DoctorVery good. On†.

44JoylessWhen he grew up towards twenty,

His mind was all on fire to be abroad;

Nothing but travel still was all his aim†;

There was no voyage or foreign expedition

Be said to be in hand*, but he made suit*

To be made one in it. His mother and

Myself opposed him still in all, and strongly

Against his will, still held him in*; and won

Him into marriage, hoping that would call†

In† his extravagant† thoughts, but all prevailed not,

Nor stayed him (though at home) from travelling

So far beyond himself that now, too late,

I wish he had gone abroad to meet his fate.

45DoctorWell, sir, upon good terms I’ll undertake*†

Your son: let’s see him.

46JoylessYet there’s more: his wife, sir.

47DoctorI’ll undertake her too. Is she mad too?

48BlazeThey’ll ha’ mad children then!

49DoctorHold you your peace.

50JoylessAlas, the danger is they will have none:

He takes no joy in her; and she no comfort

In him: for though they have been three years wed,

They are yet ignorant of the marriage-bed.

51DoctorI shall find her the madder of the two then.

52JoylessIndeed, she’s full of passion*, which she utters†

By the effects, as diversely as several†

Objects reflect upon her wand’ring fancy,

Sometimes in extreme weepings, and anon†

In vehement† laughter; now in sullen silence,

And presently† in loudest exclamations.

53DoctorCome, let me see ’em, sir. I’ll undertake

Her too. Ha’ you any more? How does your wife?

54JoylessSome other time for her.

55DoctorI’ll undertake

Her too; and you yourself, sir, by your favour†

And some few yellow spots* which I perceive

About your temples*, may require some counsel†.

Enter BARBARA.*

56Blaze [Aside]* So, he has found† him.

57JoylessBut my son, my son, sir?*

58BlazeNow, Bab, what news?

59BarbaraThere’s news too much within,

For any home-bred Christian understanding.

60JoylessHow does† my son?

61BarbaraHe is in travail*†, sir.

62JoylessHis fit’s upon him?

63BarbaraYes. Pray, Doctor Hughball,

Play the man-midwife, and deliver him

Of his huge tympany† of news: of monsters,

Pygmies*, and giants, apes, and elephants,

Gryphons and crocodiles, men upon women

And women upon men, the strangest doings!*

The foregoing outburst is an apt summary of how and why people in the 1630s still read Mandeville’s Travels, though it recounts the adventures of its author (some real, some fictitious, some based on literary expectation and precedent) in the mid-fourteenth century. Written originally in French and not published till 1496, the travelogue had rapidly undergone translation into Latin and most early modern European languages, works that expanded, contracted or reordered episodes in the telling at the whim of the individual translator. All the material contained in Barbara’s tight summary of Peregrine’s outpouring has a precise reference to Mandeville’s book, which recounts a visit through Europe to the Holy Land and Egypt, the near-East, India, China and Mongolia and varieties of minor territories en route and back. The geography, once deemed fantastic, is akin to that of the Mappa Mundi in Hereford Cathedral, where in schematised form the Holy Land and Jerusalem are placed in the exact centre while, to the south, Europe is divided from Africa by the Mediterranean into which flow from West and East respectively the Don (Danube) and the Nile, effectively dividing Asia off from the rest of the known world; the three separate land-masses of Europe, Africa and Asia are surrounded by an Ocean. Once Mandeville gets to the Andaman Islands (Chapter 22 in many versions) there follows a terse account of ‘the many different kinds of people in these isles’, which include ‘giants, foul and horrible to look at [who] have one eye only in the middle of their foreheads’; ‘people of small stature, like dwarfs, a little bigger than pygmies [who] have no mouth, but instead a little hole, and so when they must eat they suck their food through a reed or pipe’; and ‘people [who] are hermaphrodite, having the parts of each sex, and each has a breast on one side. When they use the male member, they beget children; and when they use the female, they bear children’ (‘men upon women, /And women upon men’). See The Travels of Sir John Mandeville, translated by C.W.R.D. Moseley (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 2005), p.137. Pygmies, seen on the way to Cathay, appear ‘very handsome and well proportioned for their size’; they scorn big men and ‘do marvellous work in silk and cotton’ (p.140). The elephants and their use in war when ‘castles’ bearing soldiers are tied on their backs are described in the previous chapter (p.133); the gryphons are described as having ‘the foreparts of an eagle and the hindparts of a lion’ and prodigiously strong talons (p.167); while the crocodile, ‘a kind of snake, brown on top of the back, with four feet and short legs and two great eyes’, is twice referred to, once in terms of a general description, once in terms of its habits in water and on land (pp.135 and 176). Most of the creatures described here are depicted in medieval bestiaries. What is of interest here is how small a range of pages from Mandeville is involved in the references; this suggests we are to suppose that Barbara has overheard Peregrine reading aloud out of his copy.

As far beyond all Christendom* as ’tis to’t.

64DoctorHow, how?

65BarbaraBeyond the moon and stars, I think,

Or Mount in Cornwall* either.

66Blaze [Aside]* How prettily† like a fool† she talks?

And† she were not mine own wife, I could be

So taken with her.

67Doctor’Tis most wondrous strange.

68BarbaraHe talks much of the kingdom of Cathaya*,

Of one Great Khan, and goodman† Prester John*,

(Whate’er they be) and says that Khan’s a clown

Unto the John he speaks of. And that John

Dwells up almost at Paradise*. But sure his mind

Is in a wilderness, for there he says

Are geese that have two heads apiece*, and hens

That bear more wool* upon their backs than sheep.

69DoctorO Mandeville! Let's to him. Lead* the way, sir.

70BarbaraAnd men with heads like hounds*.

71DoctorEnough, enough.

72BarbaraYou’ll find enough within, I warrant† ye.[DOCTOR, BLAZE and JOYLESS exit.]*

[Aside to audience]* And here comes the poor mad gentleman’s wife,

The following sequence poses a considerable challenge to the actor playing Martha: her nature has already been described at some length by Joyless when he was talking with the Doctor, and so the audience have some expectations of how she will present herself. She has been rather crudely judged as mad (noticeably by the three men in that earlier scene) and Joyless has justified his view by recounting how she is “full of passion”, possesses a “wand’ring fancy” and is prone to violent mood-swings, veering between “extreme weepings”, “vehement laughter”, “sullen silence” and “loudest exclamations” [AN 1.1.speech52]. Details in the ensuing encounter with Barbara indicate that such mood-swings prevail still in Martha. This raises the issue of an appropriate tone in the performance and the kinds of impact different tones will have on spectators. The scene begins with a long solo speech from Barbara as she watches Martha: it is noticeable that, though she too inclines to the view that Peregrine’s wife is “mad”, she qualifies that alienating term with the epithet, “poor”, indicating a measure of sympathy not shown by the men. We learn that Martha has been continuously pursuing Barbara, as if anxious for some kind of contact. For the director and the performers in the workshop, this posed the question of how intimate the scene should be or become as it progresses and the difficulty of establishing such intimacy while Martha is subject to her endlessly changing temperament. Beyond the question of intimacy was the further question: what degree of comedy should obtain? How funny should the scene be?

The relative positions of the two women within the playing space was initially explored, starting with the idea of keeping Barbara still throughout her speech so that the audience join her in watching Martha. At first Beth Vyse as Barbara was situated still at centre-stage and Hannah Watkins as Martha was encouraged to use all the rest of the stage. But how soon into the sequence does Martha become aware of Barbara watching her? Hannah suggested that an individual lost in herself would be too distracted to observe others in her vicinity; and the director asked her to develop this level of distraction. Some discussion ensued about the degree to which Barbara is speaking through direct address to spectators, when (as one of the actors pointed out) the convention is that such a speaker is momentarily in a world apart from the other characters in the play. If, he (Adam Kay) argued, this convention were exploited with Beth engaging directly with the audience, then Hannah as Martha would be free to use the whole stage area without necessarily becoming aware of Barbara till the latter suddenly chooses to speak to her. It was decided to begin with this set of premises and Beth was repositioned downstage to allow her freer and closer contact with the audience, although Brian Woolland as director asked her to focus her comments in such a way as not to try and take in the entire audience at once but to address small groups in front and to her sides in turn, so that her own movements in contrast with Martha’s would be relatively small and contained.

This established a divided focus for spectators between the two women (deployment of such a device runs throughout the play and is a particular feature of Brome’s dramaturgy): Beth’s eye-contact with spectators invited the focus on to her while the greater amount of activity evolved by Hannah demanded attention too, and spectators admitted to finding the imposed choice of focus so early in the scene too demanding (just as the camera in recording the workshop noticeably at this point cannot settle but shifts to and fro between performers). However it was decided to continue in order to see what impact this had on the move into contact between the two women, particularly when Martha’s mood-swings had an outlet. How loud, how “big” in performance terms, should those mood-swings be?

It is noticeable how the nature of Barbara’s looks to the audience now change and take on an air akin to desperation, as if she were looking for a way out of a difficult situation or for at the least some support, which it was agreed began to bring the audience into the predicament of Martha’s condition; consequently its social impact on others was now being explored. From this insight, it was decided to go back to the beginning and play the scene again with Barbara now still at centre-stage and Martha entering to her, intent on making contact but having difficulty in enunciating what she wants to say. The director instructed Beth to leave Martha space to speak but not long enough at first for her to gather her wandering wits to enable her actually to speak out of her misery.

This created the required divided focus while bringing the women into closer physical (though not psychological) proximity, but it left Hannah little room to establish the mood-swings which are the material of Barbara’s speech. As she had her back to much of the audience, the situation dictated that most spectators had to imagine how she was behaving from Barbara’s responses. Hannah admitted to finding it difficult to motivate being continually on the point of speaking while some inner impulse holds her back from doing so. However audience and director liked the overall effect of Martha being out of control but aware of the fact and seemingly trying to keep herself in control. This certainly gave impetus to Barbara’s comments about the “monstrous” nature of Martha’s condition. When Beth admitted to having difficulty with the transition in her long speech from factual description into the imagery of “the wolf within the flesh”, Liz Schafer suggested that Hannah as Martha provide her with the means to effect the transition by actually howling in her distraction and incapacity to communicate. While Hannah acquiesced in this, she felt this too would need motivating for her as an actress (even allowing for the character’s precarious levels of self-control). This was explored in discussion and the decision reached that Beth deliver the early part of her speech out of feminine sympathy for Martha and that this sudden access to compassion in another woman (“I guess her grief”) provoked in Martha a howl of relief and horror at the sudden offering of an opening to communicate her pain.

Steadily levels of the text were now beginning to have a connection and a purpose within the performance and the particular colouring of vocal tone was increasingly becoming a defining medium; but the interpretation had come a long way from the initial decision to play Barbara’s opening speech as direct address to spectators. However, Richard Cave and other editors felt that as the psychological implications deepened so the handling was getting altogether too sombre for a comedy. He proposed that the cast revert to the idea of Beth as Barbara being stationary in the centre of the playing space, leaving virtually the whole stage free for Martha to just take over as her own; and that it should be Barbara who is trying to bridge the gap between them. Further discussion led to the idea of Martha instead endeavouring to reach out to spectators but lacking the words to establish significant contact. In other words, she would appear to be attempting to establish direct address but repeatedly failing. This would be to put the audience in a similar relation to the character of Martha as Barbara’s. Brian Woolland instructed Hannah to use this new situation to disconcert the audience (“play right out with no holds barred”, he suggested) and keep the action on a cusp between the funny and the disturbing.

Martha’s performance here became to some degree a parody of what Barbara was saying about her, as if she were sitting in judgement on the excesses of her own behaviour and on anyone sympathising with her, while still not being able to restrain those excesses when they frustrated her attempts to make social contact. Brian Woolland next suggested that Hannah go wholly along with the idea that she is playacting here: that she should embody people’s expectations of her as “mad” out of desperation at having any other impact on them.

This version began to give a new dynamic to the scene and a wholly unexpected outburst of passion in Martha once she did establish a measure of contact with Barbara. At first perhaps in this reading Martha’s disconcerting relation with spectators (her threatening to invade their space) detracted from the impact of Barbara’s words; but that opening gave considerable momentum to the dialogue once contact with Barbara was established and it brought especially to Martha’s words a level of anger at all that her life lacked which her adult body and her intelligence knew she lacked in her marriage. Barbara speaks of Martha’s innocence but Martha deeply resents being locked into that state by being forcibly deprived of sexual experience with her husband. The performance was beginning to acknowledge both the absurdity of Martha’s predicament in being made to live out Peregrine’s fantasy and the pain of that condition. Having uncovered such layers in the text through performance, the group decided to move on further into the scene to the point where a relationship begins to be established between the two women. This commentary on the workshop continues from Martha's line, "Are you sure on't?" [AN 1.1.speech83].

Ent[er] MAR[THA].*

Almost as mad as he: she haunts me all

About the house to impart something to me.

Poor heart, I guess her grief and pity her.

To keep a maidenhead three years after marriage

Under wed-lock and key!* Insufferable! Monstrous!

It turns into a wolf† within the flesh,

Not to be fed with chickens and tame pigeons.

I could wish maids be warned by’t not to marry

Before they have wit to lose their maiden-heads

For fear they match with men whose wits† are past it.

What a sad look, and what a sigh was there!

[To MARTHA] Sweet Mistress Joyless, how is’t with you now?

73MarthaWhen I shall know, I’ll tell. Pray tell me first,

How long have you been married?

74Barbara [Aside]* Now she is on it.

[To MARTHA]* Three years, forsooth†.

75MarthaAnd truly so have I;

We shall agree I see.

76BarbaraIf you’ll be merry.

77MarthaNo woman merrier, now I have met with one

Of my condition. Three years married, say you? Ha, ha, ha!

78Barbara [Aside]* What ails she, trow?†

79MarthaThree years married. Ha, ha, ha.

80BarbaraIs that a laughing matter?

81Martha’Tis just my story.

And you have had no child; that’s still my story. Ha, ha, ha!

82BarbaraNay, I have had two children.

83MarthaAre you sure on’t?

The workshop continued by exploring the kind of relationship that is established between Barbara and Martha, while losing none of the passion and anger that had been found in Martha’s sensing that she is the victim of Peregrine’s fantasising. Brian Woolland, the director, wished to explore this ambiguity in Martha between an almost childish innocence and a knowing insight taught her by her body and senses, which are those of an adult woman. What the cast and the assembled audience of editors next discussed was the level of bawdy that begins to seep into the dialogue (the references to “something” and “anything” involved in the getting of children) and the degree to which this should be played up. As the two women become more intimate so they resort more to sharing personal experiences in relation to “women’s matters”, to child-getting, to sexuality and to erotic experience. Interestingly it is Martha’s direct questioning and open expression of her fraught experience that pushes the dialogue into discussions with a potential for bawdy. It was decided, chiefly by Hannah Watkins as Martha, not to articulate the bawdy archly or knowingly (a sharing of a joke between actress and spectator at the expense of the character) but to play for innocence and allow the audience to register the potential for bawdy in her words as indicating the exact difference between her perception and theirs. Similarly the talk of searching for babies under rosemary bushes may be the mark of Martha’s innocence in the audience’s eyes but it is also the measure of her private anguish. A crucial factor in this decision was Brome’s stage direction that at this point in the dialogue Martha should suddenly “weep”.

This extract from the workshop neatly establishes the growing intimacy between the women and, even more interestingly, that it is Martha who is proactive in moving their dialogue into ever more private matters. Noticeably, she is capable of distinguishing between the anger she feels at Peregrine and the confidence she feels with Barbara as another woman, and this awareness allows her to open herself to reveal what social proprieties would conventionally at the time have required her to suppress. To represent such growing insight and complexity of thinking in Martha, Brome resorts to some highly concise syntax, which on occasion catches the actress out. It is a syntax that deploys echoes, repetitions and internal rhymes as if Brome is trying to find a grammatical correlative for his character’s thought patterns. The break in the performance has been kept in here to illustrate this difficulty for the performer and the need for precision in delivery if spectators are to keep pace with where Martha’s erratic mind may be leading her. What next surfaces is her recollection of a “wanton maid”, who made pressing sexual advances on the young Martha and affected her “strangely”. This, it emerges, is Martha’s only erotic experience to date , and out of this recollection she suggests that she now “lie with” Barbara to repeat and develop her sexual awareness.

Brian Woolland next asked the actresses fully to play out the implications of the confidentiality, the secrecy of the sharing, but at the same time to find ways of bringing the audience into that intimacy by looking at specific spectators where the text appeared to allow such address. He also suggested that Martha, having established that level of engagement with Barbara, should become quite tactile, particularly after her memory of the wanton maid and as her scheme either to lie with Barbara or to encourage Peregrine to do so as a form of sexual therapy matures in her imagination. There was some debate between practitioners and editors about the precise significance of the word “strangely” and the precise degree of erotic experience that it intimates as having taken place. (“Strange” in the period often carries overtones of the foreign as if one were alienated from oneself, while in Jonson’s poems and masques it often signifies the wondrous, the out-of-the-ordinary.) Hannah Watkins as Martha was therefore asked to play that whole speech as if the memory grew more and more exciting in its recall, which then propels her into suggesting that she repeat the experience or something like it with Barbara. As Liz Schafer pointed out in the general discussion, this was to reverse the power structure in the scene, giving Martha a new status since she is proposing sex with another woman to Barbara of which Martha herself actually has experience but Barbara has not. The performers were encouraged to experiment with whether or not to look out to the audience through the sequence or to keep the whole scene inward to the two of them alone, fast enclosed in their own intimacy. The objective was to explore what tone would result from this handling and what kind of spectator-response would be provoked. The intention was to carry the scene through to its ending and the women’s exit. A trial run was disrupted several times by the cast asking for explanations about language and rhythm and so is not shown here. What happened was that Hannah, after Martha’s line “I think nobody hears us”, spoken softly as she glanced round the “auditorium”, never engaged again with spectators but focused her whole dialogue on Barbara, whose stage space she began increasingly to invade. Beth Vyse as Barbara found herself, as Martha’s schemes became wilder and wilder, continually looking out to the audience as if for some hold on commonsense and reassurance. She looked completely out of her depth. The problem with the sequence in that first attempt was that it was highly static with the two women simply facing each other until the exit. Building on this idea of Barbara’s growing reliance on the audience which she was asked to develop further, Brian Woolland suggested that as Martha became more tactile so Barbara should retreat from where her approaches might be leading. This degree of movement ensured that all members of the audience would see the proceedings from a variety of changing perspectives.

What became apparent from this experiment was how much funnier this final sequence became when the audience were invited to be involved through Barbara’s looks expressive of increasing alarm. There was no verbal direct address involved in this just very telling looks, which contrasted neatly with Martha’s exclusion of the audience from her private compact with Barbara, her confidentiality, her openness and her power to get her way. She was wholly focused on her intent to the point of obsession and oblivious of Barbara’s discomfort. Once sexual tensions entered the scene, it became genuinely humorous. What impressed about this last attempt was how the comedy had come to reside in Barbara and not in Martha: madness per se was not held up to ridicule. In a full rehearsal situation a cast would go back to the opening half of the scene to rework that in the light of this discovery; but work on the episode has been left here in two sections to highlight the shift of status and power within the scene, when Martha as one-time object of pity becomes a force to control events. Both characters undergo a carefully mapped transition as the scene progresses: having entered the scene as very separate individuals, they leave it as a pair. However, as Helen Ostovich pointed out in the ensuing discussion, the word “ease” in Barbara’s last lines is one that often in the Caroline period and earlier carried sexual connotations. The finality of her couplet is expressive of Barbara’s commitment to caring for Martha and her sexual education. The actress’s final backward glance at the audience from whom she had previously sought support carried more than a hint of dubiety at what precisely she was committing herself to, which subverted the confidence implicit in the couplet to hilarious effect. It was she and her glance not the forward-advancing Martha that won the last laugh.

Or does your husband only tell you so?

Take heed o’that, for husbands are deceitful.

84BarbaraBut I am o’the surer side: I am sure

I groaned for mine and bore ’em, when at best

He but believes he got ’em.

85MarthaYet both he

And you may be deceived, for now I’ll tell you,

My husband told me, fac’d me down† and stood† on’t,

We had three sons, and all great travellers,

That one had shook the Great Turk* by the beard.

I never saw ’em, nor am I such a fool†

To think that children can be got† and born,

Trained* up to men, and then sent out to travel,

And the poor mother never know nor feel

Any such matter. There’s a dream indeed!

86BarbaraNow you speak reason, and ’tis nothing but

Your husband’s madness that would put that dream

Into you.

87MarthaHe may put dreams into me, but

He ne’er put child, nor any thing* towards it yet,

To me to making. [She] weep[s].* Something,* sure, belongs

To such a work; for I am past a child

Myself to think they are found in parsley beds,

Strawberry banks or rosemary bushes, though

I must confess I have sought and searched such places,

Because I would fain† have had one.

88Barbara [Aside]* ’Las, poor fool!

89MarthaPray tell me, for I think nobody hears us,

How came you by your babes? I cannot think

Your husband got them you.

90Barbara [Aside]* Fool, did I say?

She is a witch, I think. [To MARTHA]* Why not my husband?

Pray can you charge† me with another man?*

This and similar passages, together with Barbara’s rather pert and flirtatious manner when in Letoy’s presence, suggest to Scott Kastan and Proudfoot that the lord may have in fact fathered her children and not Blaze and that this was the cure for Blaze's jealousy. There would appear to be some basis for such an interpretation, particularly given Barbara's remarkable outburst of sarcasm and rancour in the final act, when she supposes that Diana has replaced her in Letoy's regard [AN 5.2.speeches1071-1074]. But Brome does not develop the potential of such inferences into a clearly defined subplot. Adultery as a cure for jealousy is propounded by Letoy in the final act, but at that moment he is tempting Diana to break away from Joyless; the idea is not put into practice, though he forcefully presses his suit. Much of the action turns on the dangers that may attend an overly suspicious mind: Letoy, Blaze and Joyless are all seen as being guilty of holding such an attitude at some point in their lives; and it may be that Brome is to some degree challenging his audience to view what they watch as openly as possible. Suspicion has been a destructive agent in Letoy's marriage and looks like to be so in Joyless's. Blaze has learned to be accepting; his scenes with Barbara are woven through with affection and trust to a degree where they can jointly joke about his one-time fear of being cuckolded. That trust gives Barbara a freedom and independence of mind within their marriage that is surprisingly modern in its tenor and her flirtatiousness might be played as symptomatic of that freedom. Performers and director must explore this aspect of the play inventively in rehearsal and opt either to pursue consistency of characterisation for Barbara (and Letoy in his scenes with her) or to embrace the ambiguities consciously and leave their audiences guessing. It is noticeable that the presentation of Letoy's character darkens as the play develops and the vicious tone of his and Barbara's final remarks to each other may be a further subverting of his autocratic and patriarchal stance.

91MarthaNor with him neither. Be not angry, pray now.

For were I now to die, I cannot guess

What a man does in child-getting. I remember

A wanton† maid once lay with me, and kissed

And clipped†, and clapped† me strangely, and then wished

That I had been a man to have got her with child.

What must I then ha’ done, or (good now, tell me)

What has your husband done to you?

92Barbara [Aside]* Was ever

Such a poor piece† of innocence! Three years married?

[To MARTHA]* Does not your husband use to† lie with you?

93MarthaYes, he does use to lie with me, but he does not

Lie with me to use† me as he* should, I fear,

Nor do I know to teach him. Will you tell me?

I’ll lie with you and practise, if you please.

Pray take me for a night or two: or take

My husband and instruct him. But one night.*

Our country folks will say, you London wives

Do not lie every night with your own husbands.

94BarbaraYour country folks should have done well to ha’ sent

Some news by you; but I trust none told you there

We use to† leave our fools to lie with madmen.

95MarthaNay, now again you’re angry.

96BarbaraNo, not I,

But rather pity your simplicity.

Come, I’ll take charge and care of you.

97MarthaI thank you.

98BarbaraAnd wage my skill, against my doctor’s art†,

Sooner to ease† you of these dangerous fits,

Than he shall rectify† your husband’s wits.[BARBARA exits, followed by MARTHA, who speaks as she leaves.]

99MarthaIndeed, indeed, I thank you.

1.2**

[Enter] LETOY* [and] BLAZE.*

100LetoyWhy* brought’st thou not mine arms† and pedigree†

Home with thee, Blaze, mine honest herald’s painter*?

101BlazeI have not yet, my lord, but all’s in readiness,

According to the herald’s full directions.

102LetoyBut has he gone to the root*? Has he derived me

Ex origine, ab antiquo*? Has he fetched† me

Far enough*, Blaze?

103BlazeFull four descents† beyond

The conquest*, my good lord, and finds that one

Of your French ancestry came in with the Conqueror.

104LetoyJeffrey Letoy, ’twas he from whom the English

Letoys have our descent; and here have took

Such footing†, that we’ll never out† while France

Is France, and England England,

And the sea passable to transport a fashion.

My ancestors and I have been beginners

Of all new fashions in the court of England

From before Primo Ricardi Secundi*

Until this day.

105BlazeI cannot think, my lord,

They’ll follow you in this though.

106LetoyMark the end*,

I am without a precedent for my humour*.

But is it spread and talked of in the town?

107BlazeIt is, my lord, and laughed at by a many.

108[Letoy]*I am more beholding† to them than all the rest:

Their laughter makes me merry; others’ mirth,

And not mine own it is that feeds me, that

Battens† me as poor men’s cost* does usurers.

But tell me, Blaze, what say they of me, ha?

109BlazeThey say, my lord, you look more like a pedlar

Than like a lord, and live more like an emperor.

110LetoyWhy there they ha’ me right. Let others shine

Abroad† in cloth o’bodkin†; my broadcloth*†

Pleases mine eye as well, my body better.

Besides, I’m sure ’tis paid for (to their envy).

I buy with ready money; and at home here

With as good meat, as much magnificence†,

As costly pleasures, and as rare delights,

Can satisfy my appetite and senses,

As they with all their public shows† and braveries.†

They run at ring*, and tilt† ’gainst one another;

I and my men can play a match at football,

Wrestle a handsome† fall, and pitch† the bar†

And crack the cudgels*, and a pate† sometimes.

’Twould do you good to see’t.

111BlazeMore than to feel’t.*

112LetoyThey hunt the deer, the hare, the fox, the otter,

Polecats† or harlots, what they please, whilst I

And my mad grigs,† my men, can run at base†,

And breathe† our selves at barley-break† and dancing.

113BlazeYes, my lord, i’the country when you are there.

114LetoyAnd now I am here i’th’ city, sir, I hope

I please myself with more choice† home delights,

Than most men of my rank.

115BlazeI know, my lord,

Your house in substance† is an amphitheatre†

Of exercise and pleasure.

116LetoySir, I have

For exercises, fencing, dancing, vaulting,

And for delight, music of all best kinds;

Stage plays and masques* are nightly my pastimes.

And all within myself: my own men are

My music, and my actors; I keep not

A man or boy but is of quality†;

The worst can sing or play his part o’th’ viols†,

And act his part too in a comedy,

For which I lay my bravery† on their backs;

And where another lord undoes† his followers,

I maintain mine like lords. And there’s my bravery†.

Hautboys.† A service, as for dinner,† passes over the stage, borne by
many servitors, richly apparelled, doing honour* to LETOY as they pass.*

[All exit]

Now tell me, Blaze, look these like pedlar’s men?

117BlazeRather an emperor’s, my lord.

118LetoyI tell thee,

These lads can act the emperors’ lives all over,

And Shakespeare’s chronicled histories*to boot†,

And were that Caesar*, or that English Earl*

That loved a Play and Player so well, now living,

I would not be outvied† in my delights.

119BlazeMy lord, ’tis well.

120LetoyI love the quality†*

Of playing, I; I love a play with all

My heart, a good one: and a player that’s*

A good one too, withal*. As for the Poets,

No men love them, I think, and therefore

I write all my plays myself, and make no doubt

Some of the court* will follow

Me in that too. Let my fine lords

Talk o’ their horse-tricks† and their jockeys, that

Can out-talk them. Let the gallants boast

Their May-games†, play-games†, and their mistresses;

I love a play in my plain clothes, I,

And laugh upon the actors in their brave† ones.

Ent[er] QUAILP[IPE].

121Quailpipe *My lord, your dinner stays prepared†.

122LetoyWell, well,

Be you as ready with your grace†* as I

Am for my meat, and all is well. QUAIL[PIPE exits].* Blaze, we have rambled

From the main point this while: it seems by his letter*,

My doctor's busy at thy house. I know who’s there,

Beside. Give him this ring. Tell him it wants†

A finger. Farewell, good Blaze.*[LETOY exits.]*

123BlazeTell him it wants a finger! My small wit

Already finds what finger it must fit.[BLAZE exits.]

1.3*

The third scene returns the audience to Blaze’s house and introduces two new characters, who have been discussed but not yet seen. Initially the focus is on Peregrine and his obsession with travel, not within lands by that date accessible to English travellers in Europe, but to the mythical lands of the East and Africa ventured into only by the intrepid likes of Marco Polo and made famous in stories, largely fictional, by Mandeville. To feed his fantasies, the Doctor pretends to have journeyed there already himself, hoping thereby to win Peregrine’s trust as well as his admiration. Invited to choose anywhere on the globe to travel to, Peregrine settles on the Antipodes as being far further south than any voyage that Mandeville accomplished; and Hughball agrees to arrange for their instant departure. The doctor is rather a showman, as was evident from his first appearance in Scene One, and he has expressly desired Joyless and his wife, Diana, to be present at his meeting with Peregrine. This is partly to display his absolute command of both the situation and his patient; and partly, given the suspicion with which medicine and medics were still viewed by many in the 1630s, to be fitting witnesses of his skills in healing sick minds by means that in no way engage with magic, chicanery, or a dubious brutality (such as was often in the seventeenth-century meted out to persons judged insane). Again Brome shows his dramaturgical expertise in the way he continually brings father and step-mother into the dialogue and within the orbit of the audience’s attention. What enables him to do this is his superb portrayal of Diana, as a young, feisty woman, alert to all that is new in her experience in visiting London. She is a marvellously vivacious creation, full of enquiry and a keen intellect, who spars wittily with both her husband and Hughball, to a point where Joyless’s jealousy is provoked and the Doctor has to use his wits repeatedly to keep Diana from being dispatched to her room. What this ensures is that the twin themes of madness and jealousy (itself a form of madness, as the play steadily depicts it) are developed in a balanced fashion alongside each other with neither being privileged in a spectator’s awareness. Meticulously the dramaturgy shifts one’s interest back and forth between Peregrine and Diana; Joyless and the Doctor are cast at times as observers, the viewpoint and judgement of the former being influenced by his prevailing suspicion of Diana’s fidelity, while the latter creatively plays up to both Peregrine and Diana, encouraging their developing self-expression. The scene is at once comic and tense, especially once Diana’s imagination is released into the possibility of a world turned upside down where everything is the exact reverse of what may be experienced in England and in London. Quickly Diana perceives the ramifications of that concept and the impact it might have in terms of morals, social relations, politics and, most importantly, gender. She seems especially fascinated by the potential latent in reversals of gender-stereotyping. What horrifies Joyless is to Diana a source of intellectual and imaginative excitement, which her husband feels he must quell with patriarchal insistence. Hughball has noted Joyless’s profound care for his son’s welfare (which is continually brought to an audience’s attention) and uses this factor to keep Diana present, on the grounds that they must both stay with Peregrine as observers of the progress of the cure, if it is to be truly efficacious. But just exactly whose cure is being effected begins to be a crucial question. With Peregrine keen to start instantly on his travels, the Doctor proposes a toast to the success of their venture (the goblet contains a drug to send Peregrine into a deep sleep). Blaze meanwhile has arrived with the ring, which the Doctor contrives to drop near Diana, asking her to retrieve it. The scene ends with Peregrine seemingly encouraged in his mania and with Diana in possession of what the audience know to be Letoy’s ring. That various forms of comic chaos will ensue seems certain. Through Diana’s witty and flirtatious banter with Hughball about the nature of life in the Antipodes, Brome has begun confidently to develop the social satirical edge of his comedy, which he established in the opening scene and enhanced next through his portrayal of Letoy. Fantasy may increasingly be the play’s means, but satire of contemporary society seems with increasing certainty to be Brome’s end. *

Enter DOCTOR, PEREGRINE, [with] a book in his hand, JOYLESS [and] DIANA.

124DoctorSir, I applaud your noble disposition,

And even adore the spirit of travel in you,

And purpose to wait on† it through the world,

In which I shall but tread again the steps

I heretofore have gone.

125PeregrineAll the world o’er

Ha’ you been already?

126DoctorOver and under too.

127PeregrineIn the Antipodes?

128DoctorYes, through and through:

No isle nor angle† in that nether world,

But I have made discovery of. Pray, sir, sit.

[Aside to JOYLESS] And, sir, be you attentive: I will warrant

His speedy cure without the help of Gallen,

Hippocrates, Avicen, or Dioscorides.*

129DianaA rare man! Husband, truly I like his person

As well as his rare skill.

130JoylessInto your chamber!

I do not like your liking of men’s persons.

131DoctorNay, lady, you may stay. Hear and admire,

If you so please, but make no interruptions.

132Joyless [Aside to DIANA] And let no looser words, or wandering look

Bewray† an intimation of the slight

Regard you bear your husband, lest I send you

Upon a further pilgrimage than he

Feigns to convey my son.

133DianaOh, jealousy!

134DoctorDo you think, sir, to th’ Antipodes such a journey?

135PeregrineI think there’s none beyond it; and that Mandeville,

Whose excellent work this is, was th’ only man

That e’er came near it.

136DoctorMandeville went far.

137PeregrineBeyond all English legs that I can read of.

138DoctorWhat think you, sir, of Drake*, our famous countryman?

139PeregrineDrake was a didapper* to Mandeville.

Candish, and Hawkins, Frobisher*, all our voyagers

Went short of Mandeville. But had he reached

To this place here—yes, here—this wilderness,

And seen the trees of the Sun and Moon, that speak,

And told King Alexander of his death,* he then

Had left a passage ope† for travellers,

That now is kept and guarded by wild beasts,

Dragons and serpents, elephants, white and blue,

Unicorns, and lions of many colours,

And monsters more as numberless as nameless.

140DoctorStay there.

141PeregrineRead here else*. Can you read?

Is it not true?

142DoctorNo truer than I ha’ seen’t.

143DianaHa’ you been there, sir? Ha’ you seen those trees?

144DoctorAnd talked with ’em, and tasted of their fruit.

145PeregrineRead here again then: it is written here,

That you may live four or five hundred year.

146DianaBrought you none of that fruit home with you, sir?

147JoylessYou would have some of’t would you, to have hope

T’outlive your husband by’t.

148DianaI’d* ha’t for you,

In hope you might out-live your jealousy.

149DoctorYour patience both, I pray: I know the grief

You both do labour with, and how to cure it.

150JoylessWould I had given you half my land ’twere done.*

151DianaWould I had given him half my love* to settle

The t’other half free from encumbrances†

Upon my husband.

152DoctorDo not think it strange, sir:

I’ll make your eyes witnesses of more

Than I relate, if you’ll but† travel with me.

You hear me not deny that all is true

That Mandeville delivers of his travels,

Yet I myself may be as well believed.

153PeregrineSince you speak reverently of him, say on.

154DoctorOf Europe I’ll not speak, ’tis too near home:

What attracted us to workshopping this scene (from this line of the Doctor’s through to Diana’s “That is a trim, /Upside down, Antipodean trick indeed!” in speech 180) was Brome’s manipulation throughout of a sharply divided focus. The doctor is trying to win Peregrine’s confidence to the point where the younger man will trust him sufficiently to go travelling abroad under his instruction. But the doctor is a showman and has brought Joyless and his wife to watch the progress of the cure that Hughball is working on Peregrine: he wants an audience for his activities. The doctor begins to divide his attentions between his patient and Diana. This immediately establishes a metatheatrical situation where there is both an onstage and a theatre audience with the former watching the play of Peregrine and Hughball and the latter watching both that play and its onstage spectators. But the dividing line between actors and audience begins to be confused as Diana becomes increasingly involved imaginatively in the terms of the cure, once the doctor starts to conjure up by power of rhetoric the idea of a world beneath this one that is situated in the Antipodes, a world where everything runs contrary to what happens currently in seventeenth-century England. As Diana becomes more and more excited intellectually and imaginatively by the concept of an antipodean way of living, she poses the doctor innumerable questions to the point where Hughball has to divide his attentions between his patient and his intrusive onstage spectator. Joyless finds his wife’s behaviour intolerably forward. There is a need to find, therefore, a way of placing the characters within the playing space that allows the theatre audience a good view of both focal points of interest and to sustain interest in one focus when the immediate action embraces the other for a period of time. This is particularly the case with handling Peregrine: he is the occasion for bringing everyone into the space, yet continually and more pressingly as the action develops it is Diana who commands the doctor’s attention. Something, cast and director decided, had to engross Peregrine’s interest credibly and in a manner that did not marginalise him in the spectators’ awareness while the dialogue between Diana and Hughball took place. The opening stage direction for the scene prescribes that Peregrine should enter carrying a book; given the emphasis in the early parts of this scene on travel to the limits of the known world, it seemed to cast and director a strong possibility that the book would be some form of atlas. (It could be argued that the book is a copy of Mandeville's Travels, but as Anthony Parr in the introduction to his edition of Brome's comedy observes: "By 1599 [...] imported Dutch atlases were - at a price - available to armchair travellers (p.1)".) The complications involved in holding scripts and a book were such that the cast opted instead for an onstage globe (such were available in the seventeenth century). Later in the workshop Adam Kay as Hughball began to improvise also with the idea of a large wall map. The globe became an object of intense fascination for Peregrine who, retreating into his own world, emerged only to request more information from the doctor. This left Adam Kay, the actor playing the doctor, free to move between both centres of action as the text demanded. The following extract shows how this dynamic was quickly established.

What began to emerge as is evident in that extract is the degree to which the doctor’s growing preoccupation with Diana and hers with Hughball’s ideas excites Joyless’s jealousy. Adam chanced to steady himself when kneeling beside Beth Vyse who is playing Diana and placed his arm around her on the back of her chair, which Eleanor Lowe (Joyless) spontaneously pushed away. The laughter this provoked encouraged the three actors to build on the possibilities of this. What was becoming steadily clearer through performance was how Brome was using the scene and his divided focus of action to instruct audiences to realise that his play overall was to explore two separate, though linked plots: one centred on Peregrine (as most of the action till now has indicated), the other on Diana (a plot-line that only on this, her first appearance, starts to emerge). The decision to build on the conflicting relationships between Diana and Joyless and between Diana and the doctor not only established a new theme relating to jealousy within marriage but actively encouraged the cast to find levels of subtlety in Diana’s characterisation. In the next extract Beth’s first response as Diana to the doctor’s accounts of life in the Antipodes is one of sceptical disbelief which promptly changes into a genuine curiosity, as he proffers more details of the way of life in that new world. Brian Woolland, the director, intrudes into the playing with the suggestion that she play the line “Sure hell’s above ground then, in jealous husbands (speech 161)” not with her initial asperity to Joyless but wittily as an aside to Hughball, thus establishing a new level of intimacy with him.

The doctor’s role is now taking on greater complexity as he divides his time between his original agenda involving Peregrine and his new interest in Diana, even while keeping the theatre audience and his onstage spectators alert to the information about the Antipodes that he is giving them on which the comedy of the next three acts will be based. Though the diagonal placing of the onstage audience had been found almost by chance (with Joyless and Diana to rear stage right and Peregrine at front stage left), it was now found to yield a central area or aisle of clear space which Adam as Hughball could dominate when he faced the need to impart those essential premises about a world of inversions which are to fuel the ensuing scenes of social satire. When in this space he commanded attention as if he were more a choric figure: he is indeed to become the learned guide on the proposed visit to this underworld. The cast was asked at this point to engage in a run-through that placed all these discoveries within the wider contexts of the scene. Growing familiarity with the text allowed Adam to run through his account of his travels with false modesty as if it were nothing, which endowed what on the page looks like straight narrative with character-interest, and the group of four began to find how to pace moments in ways that allowed them to register those moments as significant but in an unforced way (significant because the performance would build on them). A good example of this is the group’s treatment of Beth’s lines, “That I like well in him, too: he will not /Boast of kissing a woman too near home” (speech 155). She addresses them light-heartedly as a passing joke to Joyless who, instead of laughing, manifests shock at the implications of what she has just said; Adam paused before continuing with the doctor’s next speech just long enough to suggest he was registering Diana’s words in terms of how he might use them to his advantage; Peregrine hardly heard what Diana said, being more interested in Hughballs’ tale of having visited Cyprus and what he had seen there. This passage comes immediately before that treated in the earlier video extracts and one can therefore watch, as the more familiar sequences begin, just how the cast have established the grounds here for the comedy of character that ensues as the scene develops.

This has its rough edges, misreadings, forgotten and quickly recovered directions and losings of place in the text, but a shape for the scene has emerged. Peregrine’s fanaticism is so intense that, though the dialogue may move the focus away from him, he is never marginalised, chiefly because Adam has begun to see that he holds the key to the shift of focus here and chooses never quite to lose contact or involvement with Peregrine even as his attraction to Diana is being given its head. What is noticeable is how the text allows the actor to establish two quite different qualities of intimacy: that with Peregrine is quite distinct from his way with Diana. Hughball may be Brome’s means to establish the mechanism of his comic inversions, but the dialogue through which he does this does not neglect to endow him with psychological interest, if the actor wishes to develop its rich implications. A new comedy of physical displacement has begun to emerge when the focus shifts to Joyless and Diana, as the doctor finds ways to intrude between the married pair, however Joyless tries to move into a position where he can assert a protective and possessive relation to his wife. By the end Diana is finding the means to show her independence and has successfully displaced Joyless to a distance beyond her and Hughball. (This within the context of the whole play would beautifully prepare the ground for Joyless’s irascible comment about his wife in 2.1 (speech 286): “The air of London /Hath tainted her obedience already”.) We are being made aware of the grounds on which Joyless’s jealousy as an old man with a much younger wife may be founded. While his characterisation at this stage falls within a recognisable stage type, Diana’s is altogether more enigmatic. Is she innocently joyous (rather than fulfilling her husband’s expectation that she be like him: joyless) as she responds to the mental stimulus of life in London, to the doctor’s debonair account of his travels, and to his subtle control of the situation? Is she being flirtatious and open (in the pejorative sense of inviting men’s interest and exciting their ardour)? Beth contrives to work within these judgemental extremes, allowing both possibilities the potential to grow as the play advances. Though the camera does not do justice perhaps to this aspect of the playing, Hannah Watkins as Peregrine was throughout showing how a player in the role might sustain audience interest by developing a complex mime involving the tracing of the line of the intended journey as indicated on the globe or map, measuring the distance from the known position of London, thinking through the implications of a world that lives “by contraries”. Peregrine should never become “absent” to the audience’s awareness. As often in Brome as in Jonson, a silent character is not without power within the stage picture and Peregrine throughout this scene is an excellent instance of a role that must not be “forgotten”. A final run-through of the later stages of the scene worked on contrasting this with the intended marginalisation of Joyless.

What may seem a workmanlike sequence on the page (a matter of Brome setting up the parameters of his comic vision) emerged through the workshops as having the potential within the writing for much more subtle effects. Nothing within the sequence proved redundant and all four roles carried material for deepening psychological interest as well as deploying different styles of verbal and physical comic playing. Most importantly the workshop established how crucial the scene is in awakening spectators’ awareness to the fact that the comedy is to feature Joyless and Diana as much as Peregrine and his cure. Deftly Brome brings Diana in particular to the fore as a complex figure for whom an audience might suppose it could predict a future pattern of events in which seduction leads to adultery and the cuckolding of her boorish husband. To what degree within Brome’s dramaturgy Diana will be circumscribed by a conventional typology remains open to question and further exploration. Neatly Brome has developed a second plot-line while elaborating his first. This double focus of interest will fuel some intricate dramatic structuring within the following acts, as the playwright’s strategy involving a play-within-a-play begins to unfold. Even on that level this sequence has prepared the audience in the sense of teaching them how to balance and control their ways of engaging with shifting focal points: Brome has shown his spectators that his ensuing dramaturgy will require them to watch both the action and its impact on an onstage group of spectators who watch that action closely rather than participate. He will be requiring his audience to engage actively and experientially in discriminating between affect and effect.

Who’s not familiar with the Spanish garb,†

Th’ Italian shrug, French cringe,and German hug?*

Nor will I trouble you with my observations

Fetched from Arabia, Paphlagonia*,

Mesopotamia*, Mauritania*,

Syria, Thessalia*, Persia, India,

All still is too near home, though I have touched

The clouds upon the Pyrenean mountains*,

And been on Paphos isle*, where I have kissed

The image of bright Venus. All is still

Too near home to be boasted†.

155Diana [Aside]* That I like

Well in him too, he will not boast of kissing

A woman too near home.

156DoctorThese things in me

Are poor†: they sound in a far traveller’s ear

Like the reports of those that beggingly†

Have put out †, on returns† from Edinburgh,

Paris, or Venice, or perhaps Madrid,

Whither a milliner† may with half a nose*

Smell out his way; and is not near so difficult,

As for some man in debt, and unprotected*,

To walk from Charing Cross to th’ old Exchange*.

No, I will pitch† no nearer than th’ Antipodes,

That which is farthest distant, foot to foot*

Against our region†.

157DianaWhat with their heels upwards?

Bless us! How ’scape they breaking o’ their necks?

158DoctorThey walk upon firm earth, as we do here,

And have the firmament† over their heads,

As we have here.

159DianaAnd yet just under us!

Where is hell then? If they whose feet are towards us

At the lower part of the world have heaven too

Beyond their heads, where’s hell?

160JoylessYou may find† that

Without inquiry. Cease your idle questions.

161DianaSure hell’s above ground then in jealous husbands.

162PeregrineWhat people, sir, (I pray proceed) what people

Are they of the Antipodes? Are they not such

As Mandeville writes of, without heads or necks,

Having their eyes placed on their shoulders, and

Their mouths amidst their breasts?*

163DianaAy, so indeed;

Though heels go upwards an* their feet should slip,

They have no necks to break.

164DoctorSilence, sweet Lady.

Pray give the gentleman leave to understand me.

The people through the whole world of Antipodes,

In outward feature, language, and religion,

Resemble those to whom they are supposite†:

They under Spain appear like Spaniards,

Under France, French men, under England, English,

To the exterior show: but in their manners†,

Their carriage† and condition of life,

Extremely contrary. To come close† to you:

What part o’ th’ world’s Antipodes shall I now

Decipher† to you, or would you travel to?

165PeregrineThe furthest off.

166DoctorThat is the Antipodes of England.

The people there are contrary to us.

As thus: here (heaven be praised!) the magistrates

Govern the people; there the people rule

The magistrates.

167DianaThere’s precious† bribing then.

168JoylessYou’ll hold your peace.

169DoctorNay, lady, ’tis by nature,

Here generally men govern the women.

170JoylessI would they could else!†

171DianaYou will hold your peace.

172DoctorBut there the women over-rule the men.

If some men fail here in their power*, some women

Slip their holds† there. As parents here and masters

Command, there they obey the child and servant*.

173DianaBut pray, sir, is’t by nature or by art

That wives o’ersway† their husbands there?

174DoctorBy nature.

175DianaThen art’s above nature, as they are under us.

176DoctorIn brief, sir, all

Degrees of people, both in sex and quality,†

Deport† themselves in life and conversation

Quite contrary to us.

177DianaWhy then the women

Do get the men with child, and put the poor fools

To grievous pain, I warrant you, in bearing.

178JoylessInto your chamber! Get you in, I charge you.

179DoctorBy no means, as you tender† your son’s good.

No, lady, no: that were to make men women,

And women men. But there the maids do woo

The bachelors and, ’tis most probable,

The wives lie uppermost.

180DianaThat is a trim†

Upside-down Antipodian trick indeed.

181DoctorAnd then at christenings and gossips’† feasts*,

A woman is not seen, the men do all

The tittle-tattle† duties, while the women

Hunt, hawk and take their pleasure.

182PeregrineHa’ they good game, I pray, sir?

183DoctorExcellent;

But by the contraries to ours, for where

We hawk at pheasant, partridge, mallard, heron,

With goshawk†, tercel†, falcon, laneret†,

Our hawks become their game, our game their hawks,

And so the like in hunting. There the deer

Pursue the hounds, and (which you may think strange)

I ha’ seen one sheep worry a dozen foxes.

By moonshine, in a morning before day,

They hunt train-scents† with oxen, and plough with dogs.

184Peregrine [Laughs] Hugh, hugh, hugh!*

185DianaAre not their swans all black* and ravens white?

186DoctorYes, indeed are they; and their parrots teach

Their mistresses to talk.

187DianaThat’s very strange.

188DoctorThey keep their cats in cages

From mice that would devour them else;† and birds

Teach ’em to whistle and cry "Beware the rats, Puss".

But these are frivolous nothings. I have known

Great ladies ride great horses, run at tilt†,

At ring,† races, and hunting matches, while

Their lords at home have painted†, pawned their plate

And jewels to feast their honourable servants†,

And there the merchants’ wives do deal abroad

Beyond seas, while their husbands cuckold† them

At home.

189DianaThen there are cuckolds too, it seems,

As well as here.

190JoylessThen you conclude here are.

191DianaBy hearsay, sir, I am not wise enough

To speak it on my knowledge yet.

192JoylessNot yet!

193DoctorPatience, good sir.

194Peregrine [Laughs] Hugh, hugh, hugh!

195DoctorWhat, do you laugh that there is cuckold-making

In the Antipodes? I tell you, sir,

It is not so abhorred here as ’tis held

In reputation there: all your old men

Do marry girls, and old women boys,

As† generation† were to be maintained

Only by cuckold-making.

196JoylessMonstrous!†

197DoctorPray, your patience.

There’s no such honest men there in their world,

As are their lawyers: they give away

Their practice, and t’enable ’em to do so,

Being all handicrafts†, or labouring men,

They work (poor hearts, full hard) in the vacations†

To give their law for nothing in the term times†.

No fees are taken, which makes their divines†,

Being generally covetous, the greatest wranglers†

In lawsuits of a kingdom. You have not there

A gentleman in debt, though citizens

Haunt them with cap in hand to take their wares

On credit.

198DianaWhat fine sport would that be here now!

199DoctorAll wit and mirth and good society

Is there among the hirelings,† clowns† and tradesmen,

And all their poets are puritans.

200DianaHa' they poets?

201DoctorAnd players too. But they are all the soberest

Precisest† people* picked out of a nation.

202DianaI never saw a play.

203DoctorLady, you shall.

204JoylessShe shall not.

205DoctorShe must, if you can hope for any cure.

Be governed, sir: your jealousy will grow

A worse disease than your son’s madness else.

You are content I take the course† I told you of

To cure the gentleman?

206JoylessI must be, sir.

207DoctorSay, Master Peregrine, will you travel now

With me to the Antipodes, or has not

The journey wearied you in the description?

208PeregrineNo, I could hear you a whole fortnight, but

Let’s lose no time. Pray talk on as we pass.

A bowl on the table.*

209DoctorFirst, sir, a health to auspicate† our travels,

And we’ll away.

[Doctor offers bowl of wine to PEREGRINE]

210PeregrineGi’ me’t. Ent[er] BLA[ZE]* What’s he? One sent

I fear, from my dead mother to make stop

Of our intended voyage.*

211DoctorNo sir: drink.

212Blaze [Aside to DOCTOR]* My lord, sir, understands the course† you’re in,

By your letters, he tells me; and bad† me gi’ you

This ring, which wants† a finger here, he says.

213PeregrineWe’ll not be stayed†?*

214DoctorNo, sir, he brings me word

The mariner calls away; the wind and tide

Are fair, and they are ready to weigh anchor,

Hoist sails, and only stay† for us. Pray drink, sir.

215PeregrineA health then to the willing winds and seas

And all that steer towards th’ Antipodes.

[He drinks the wine]*

216JoylessHe has not drunk so deep a draught† this twelvemonth.

217Doctor’Tis a deep draught indeed; and now ’tis down,*

And carries him down to the Antipodes?*

I mean but in a dream.*

218JoylessAlas, I fear!

See, he begins to sink.

219DoctorTrust to my skill*.

Pray take an arm, and see him in his cabin.

Good lady, save† my ring that’s fallen there.

220DianaIn sooth†, a marvellous neat and costly one!

221Blaze [Aside]* So, so, the ring has found a finger.

222DoctorCome sir, aboard, aboard, aboard, aboard*.[DOCTOR and JOYLESS exit with PEREGRINE,
while DIANA follows at a distance.]*

223BlazeTo bed, to bed, to bed!* I know your voyage,

And my dear lord’s dear plot I understand,

Whose ring hath past here by your sleight of hand.*[BLAZE exits.]*

Edited by Richard Cave