‘That cross fantastic widow’: The Interplay of Humour and Comedy in A Mad Couple Well Matched
Critical Introduction1In the final scene of A Mad Couple Well Matched (5.2), the presumptuous rake, George Careless, has resigned himself to marriage with his pregnant whore and a lowly life selling matches.n10536 Confessing his sins to the assembled company, Careless believes he has permanently squandered his chance with Mistress Crostill, the perfect match on two counts, being a rich widow and to a vintner. The play’s dramatis personae also describes her as ‘humorous’, her particular quirk displaying itself most overtly at this point. In response to Careless’s confessions and some slanderous and explicit comments aimed in her direction, Crostill responds, ‘I’ll die or have him presently’ [MC 5.2.speech1095]. She then claims the attention of the assembled company in order to make the following announcement:Crostill [To all] Call all the world to hear me: madam,
Sir Oliver, and the rest, be all my witnesses.
[To Careless] Give me your hand, sir. Here before you all,
I plight my faith upon this gentleman.
He is my husband and I am his wife.2The pledging of faith by taking hands was a binding part of betrothal and marriage. What follows is an unexpected fight over the roguish, philandering, drinking Careless between the moneyed widow and a pregnant prostitute, precipitated by the widow’s ‘humour’ or character trait. Through the preceding acts, Brome has carefully devised a series of tests designed to expose this humour, subjecting Crostill to all manner of humiliating and dismaying circumstances through which she sails, her ardour for Careless not only undiminished but positively augmented. The emphasis on comic potential in the text is compounded by Brome’s decision to foreground these characters in the play’s title: spendaholic miscreant meets rich wine businesswoman with masochistic tendencies. The couple are shortly married offstage and one of Careless’s first actions when he returns as a married man is to notice a new young woman and urge, ‘let me salute your lips’, in front of his new bride.3The widow is the only character named as ‘humorous’ in Brome’s play, however, other members of the cast display similar eccentricities. Of particular note is Tom Saleware, a pedantic silk-shop owner whose wife takes every opportunity to cuckold him. Saleware’s repetitious Latin catchphrases, such as ‘Sapientia mea mihi, stultitia tua tibi’, are reminiscent of a mode of characterisation known as the ‘comedy of humours’, experimented with by George Chapman and which saw its full development in the hands of Brome’s one-time master, Ben Jonson.4At the heart of humours comedy was its derivation from Galenic medicinal theory of the body. Galen’s theory of humours describes four bodily fluids, each having specific properties: black bile (cold and dry), yellow bile or choler (hot and dry), blood (hot and wet) and phlegm (cold and wet). These humours were thought to exist in specific proportions, blood being the predominant fluid. If one humour was present to a greater or lesser degree, imbalance would manifest itself in physical sickness, which in turn could be treated either by purgation (with emetics or by bloodletting) or careful ingestion of foods with specific oppositional characteristics. The overabundance of a particular humour would manifest itself in terms of temperament, rendering a person melancholic (black bile), choleric (yellow bile), sanguine (blood) or phlegmatic (phlegm). Thus Galen’s theory was a physiological and physical explanation for a person’s temperament, also called ‘humour’. Moreover, humours are often described as a hunger which demands to be fed. In this context, Mistress Crostill’s desperate desire to be joined in marriage is clarified: her humour dictates that she must have her fill of ill treatment, in the same way as Careless’s urges to gamble, drink and seek sexual gratification cannot be quashed.n105375The popularity of ‘comedy of humours’ is perhaps due to its universal appeal as much as the playwrights’ skill. Gail Kern Paster notes that the language of humoural theory was common currency: ‘Every subject grew up with a common understanding of his or her body as a semipermeable, irrigated container in which humors moved sluggishly’.n10538 The humoural imbalance provided dramatists with a way of augmenting the stock characters inherited from classical drama, and facilitated the development of a more individualistic and varied character palette from which to choose. As Madeleine Doran notes, ‘Humour characters of this sort are unlike the broad types of classical comedy; they are narrower and sharper’.n10539 This specificity heightens realism, and also conveniently ‘makes for quick recognition on the part of reader and spectator’, arousing ‘expectations that can easily be satisfied’.n105406An indication of the genre’s new popularity is suggested in the Induction to Jonson’s Every Man out of His Humour, where Asper already scorns popularization of the word ‘humour’ and its affectation only a year after Chapman’s success with what was arguably the first humours play, A Humorous Day’s Mirth. Cordatus agrees: ‘Now if an idiot/ Have but an apish or fantastic strain,/ It is his humour’ (Induction, ll. 113-15). As remedy, Asper promises to use the play as a mirror,As large as is the stage whereon we act,
Where they shall see the time’s deformity
Anatomized in every nerve and sinew,
With constant courage and contempt of fear. (Induction, ll. 117-20)7A key aspect of these early humours plays is a sense of containment and control, delivered either in a diurnal structure (see A Humorous Day’s Mirth and Every Man in his Humour) or by a principal orchestrator of the action (such as Lemot in A Humorous Day’s Mirth or Asper in Every Man out of His Humour).8A Mad Couple Well Matched contains neither of these factors: its prime purpose is not to entertain characters onstage for a limited period, the passage of a day or the duration of an onstage play-within-a-play; it is not simply an intrigue and diversion, an entertainment which sets characters at one another, creating fiction and reaction. Brome’s play exposes its characters without a narrative frame, instead laying bare their idiosyncrasies, faults and agendas without the agency of a prime mover, and placing supreme responsibility for the play’s reception on the audience. The prologue refuses to woo the audience, citing the playwright’s distaste for superficial niceties and compliments. The epilogue is similarly inclined:Well! Had you mirth enough? Much good may’t do you;
If not, ’tis more than I did promise to you.
’Tis your own fault, for it is you, not we,
Make a play good or bad;[MC 5.2.speech1173]9But in the play’s London world, which centres on commodity, sex and money, characters such as Careless demonstrate that their raison d’être lies in gratification of physical appetites for their own ends. There is no seemingly omniscient orchestrator or omnipotent figurehead, and perhaps Matthew Steggle’s observation of a missing ‘comic safety net’ is what contributes to the play’s complicated structure and in particular its sense of danger.n10541 In this sense the omniscient omnipotent moral authority lies not within the play, but without it.10Maintaining a sound mind and body required careful management and, most importantly, governance. In humoural terms this might mean keeping an attentive eye on temperamental change or physiological imbalances and taking action to manipulate the body back to good health. Michael C. Schoenfeldt observes that ‘It is the disordered, undisciplined self, subject to a variety of internal and external forces, that is the site of subjugation, and the subject of horror’.n10542 Careless’s anti-heroic traits include a resistance to self-maintenance which encourages him to embrace all appetites, ‘Wine, roaring and whoring!’ [MC 3.1.speech532].11Frequently Careless is so swept away by his desires that they all merge into a mind-boggling hedonistic mix. Sex is commonly interlinked with horse riding, where, for example Careless says of his aunt: ‘I hope she’ll work mine uncle to reward me for my night-work, and bring him in time to hold my stirrup while his George mounts her’ [MC 4.4.speech930]. Believing he has slept with her (unwittingly being thwarted by a bed-trick and sleeping with his mistress instead), Careless describes his aunt as ‘a delicate well-going beast!’[MC 4.4.speech930]. In the final scene, on believing all to be lost, he alludes to sexual activity with his mistress and the widow by comparing each with different versions of backgammon (i.e. gambling) and eating. The latter fares particularly unfavourably, being described as ‘but a gristle, weak picking meat’ [MC 5.2.speech1088]. In the first act, Wat (Careless’s servant) has already described his entitlement to having sex with his master’s mistress in similar terms, ‘as sometimes the serving creature breaks his fast with a bit off the spit before the same meat is served up to his master’s table, but is never denied to dine upon his master’s leavings’ [MC 1.1.speech104].12Given that the extra-marital promiscuity in the play is branded as ‘remarkable’ by Steggle, the upper classes are no better at providing moral guidance.n10543 Lord Thrivewell is an adulterer, unknowingly sharing his lover (Saleware’s wife, Alicia) with Lord Lovely, who ‘loves women above wine, wine above wealth, wealth above friend, and friends above himself’ [MC 3.1.speech489]. The immoral tone is cemented when Careless concludes ‘There’s no scandal in all that, sir’ [MC 3.1.speech489]. The closest the play comes to any form of moral guidance is in the character of Lady Thrivewell, who playfully resists her step-nephew’s lewd suggestions to impregnate her with an heir. However, through the play’s complex structural frame, even she is tainted by virtue of a fictitious sexual encounter with a youth (who turns out to be a young woman in disguise), orchestrated by Alicia Saleware for the purposes of blackmail and revenge. In order to redeem herself, Lady Thrivewell is allowed an appeal to the morality of the audience: ‘May ladies that shall hear this story told,/ Judge mildly of my act since he’s so bold’ [MC 4.2.speech816]. Unfortunately, she displays rather too much enthusiasm for concocting various schemes to be taken wholly seriously, seeming to excuse herself given the difficult circumstances in which she finds herself enmeshed.13A prominent example of one such scheme is Lady Thrivewell’s organisation of the bed trick where she intends for Careless to sleep with his mistress, Phoebe, while thinking it is her ladyship’s self. This is to satisfy Careless’s craving for his aunt’s bed without harming anyone’s reputation, especially since Careless has promised many times to make an honest woman of Phoebe. The opening stage direction of this scene reads: Phoebe passes over the stage in night attire; Careless follows her as in the dark [MC 4.4.speech886]. The inclusion of this costume detail in the stage direction is significant, since it serves as a signifier of both time and place, a key component on an otherwise bare stage.n10544 Alan C. Dessen and Leslie Thomson identify that key items of clothing, such as a night gown, would indicate to an audience that the setting is night, in addition to the lighting possibilities presented by performing in the controlled environment of an indoor theatre.n10545 Careless’s acting ‘as in the dark’ will also compound this sense of time and place. Phoebe might wear some sort of long linen night dress perhaps with a warm gown over the top.n1054614Dessen speaks of a theatrical shorthand used in place of elaborate exposition. His example is a stage direction from Scene 8 of A Humorous Day’s Mirth: ‘Enter Verone with his napkin upon his shoulder’, by which Chapman places the action of the scene in an ordinary, or tavern.n10547 This is implied by Verone’s dress as host of the ordinary, with a napkin on his shoulder. This small detail serves both as clothing and a prop, since Verone wears the napkin on his person but as a signifier of his status and function. Similarly, the play’s initial stage direction instructs Labervele to enter wearing a shirt and nightgown, the actor’s costume serving as an instant indicator for the audience that this scene is set either during the night or early morning, and Labervele’s first lines confirm that the latter is true. Both nightgown and napkin fulfil the function of alerting the audience to the scene’s setting, while the dialogue further clarifies location and purpose.15Similarly, in A Mad Couple Well Matched the nightgown plays an important role in Lady Thrivewell’s bed trick plot. Exactly what is meant by ‘night attire’ is not important: the key is that its appearance appropriately suggests the figure of Lady Thrivewell, hence Careless's identification of the mystery woman as his aunt rather than his mistress. Lady Thrivewell’s plot works in fooling Careless by a combination of place (her private chamber in her house), clothing (perhaps a distinctive nightgown) and time (the dark of night). But the very fact that the audience are not duped (since they can see a proportion of what is actually happening onstage and have inside knowledge) is what heightens the comedy of the scene. When Lady Thrivewell appears with a light, presumably having donned the distinctive clothing shed by Phoebe, the trick is complete, continuing Careless’s assumption that he has spent an energetic night with his aunt as bedfellow.Critical Reception16Mad Couple’s highly sexual and immoral content has earned it short critical shrift. H. F. Allen’s early study of Brome’s comedies describes Careless thus:The hero is a young man most debauched and dissolute, who never really repents of his evil ways, but is at last married, almost against his will, to a rich widow who frankly concedes that his licentiousness has won her love.n1054817In general, critics are shocked by the coarse, explicit language used by Brome’s characters, dismayed by their lack of morals, and at the apparent absence of learning or moral change. Writing nearly fifty years after Allen, Ralph Kaufmann’s opinion of Mad Couple equally rates and damns the play: ‘It is a skilful city comedy and the most obscene of his works. It is worth reading but requires little critical comment’.n10549 In contradiction, Steggle finds much in the play that is worthy of discussion, writing that ‘Brome’s rake-hero is unusually debauched and worthless’, and that the play is remarkable for inverting Brome’s previous dramatic style, where an imminent threat of action is invariably empty.n1055018Algernon Charles Swinburne summarises his position thus: ‘A more brutal black-guard, a more shameless ruffian, than the leading young gentleman of this comedy will hardly be found on the stage of the next theatrical generation’.n10551 Many critics are in general agreement with Swinburne, dismayed by Careless’s immoral behaviour, but furthermore full of regret that punishment seems to elude him. H. P. Walley and J. H. Wilson most succinctly demonstrate this common critical position, describing George Careless as:a faithless scoundrel, a rake and a deceiver. No man is noble to him, no woman is pure. Yet he is left in happy possession of his doting and eccentric bride, with only the barest shadow of a reformation to justify the happy ending.n1055219Careless’s brief moment of reformation comes towards the end of Act 5 when he speaks in passing of the ‘days of my wickedness’, concluding ‘I am honest now, and can think no such matter’ [MC 5.2.speech1122]. In spite of this declaration, he is not punished for his misdemeanours, and in the eyes of past critics, these remain the hallmark of his character and the presiding feature of this ‘amoral’ play. Despite this, it is also worth pointing out that Swinburne’s comments are also loaded with admiration of Careless’s clever brazenness and coarseness, and Brome’s ingenuity, citing it as ‘one of the best structured of Brome’s city comedies’ in which ‘both style and action are vivid and effective throughout’.n1055320Steggle rejects the claim that Careless in some way contributes to a moral decline in drama’s young male characters, bridging a gap between the Jacobean gentleman wit and the Restoration rake. Instead Steggle suggests that Brome creates a ‘destructive satire’ of city comedy ‘by close imitation’, illustrating Brome’s subversion of conventional comic plot devices, such as the bed tricks (which backfire) and the disguised, deserted heroine (who in this case is not granted marital union with her beloved).n1055421Brome’s destabilising of comic conventions could in part be responsible for earlier critical disdain for the play. The lewdness is one thing, but the unsatisfactory ending is quite another. Despite providing a unifying dance at the climax of the play, Brome destroys any hope for resolution: the thin veneer of the ‘happy’ dancing couples is underscored by Lord Lovely’s rejected but hopeful former lover, the faithful Amy, by Wat’s acceptance of Careless’s whore as his wife (despite the fact she may be carrying another’s child), and by Careless’s insistence in kissing Amy as his first onstage action as a newly-married man. This dislocation of superficial unity reflects an over-arching concern with marriage, coupling and harmonious relations, begging the question posited by Catherine Shaw: which couple is referenced by the title?n10555 The Salewares juxtapose a sexually voracious wife with the idealised (yet ridiculed) courtly relationship, while the Thrivewells expose the double standards taken for granted by men who cheat on their wives (and pay for the privilege of doing so) but expect ultimate fidelity in return.n10556 Anton-Ranieri Parra makes an altogether different suggestion by putting forward Careless and Wat as the ‘mad couple’ in the title, claiming that they are both well matched in their scheming, identifying a pun on ‘matched’ as ‘married’ to propose that they are also well matched in marriage to their respective wives (Crostill and Phoebe) at the end of the play.n10557Aphra Behn and Dramatic Spectacle22Steggle’s assertions rest in part on evidence found in an adaptation of Mad Couple called The Debauchee, which is attributed to Aphra Behn. Printed in 1677, the play modernises and updates Brome’s language and topographical references. Minor alterations to character names include Lord Lovely becoming Lord Loveless, while Amy becomes Clara, a sister of Lady Thrivewell. The new character of Simon the butler has been developed from Lady Thrivewell’s description of Careless’s drunken escapades, and Mistress Crostill receives an ally in her maid, Betty, who helps to explain her mistress’s ‘contradictive humour’ [MC 3.2.speech194].n10558 The most striking changes affect Brome’s references to sexual behaviour: Wat’s suggestion of setting up a male bawdy house in 1.1 is omitted and the explicit references made by Bellamy to his sexual encounter with Lady Thrivewell have been toned down.23Behn chooses to develop one key comedic scene in Brome’s play: Lady Thrivewell’s description of Careless’s drunken behaviour the previous evening [MC 3.1.speeches511-529]. Lady Thrivewell has had to make many excuses for George’s inebriated behaviour the night before, not only to her husband but no doubt to the staff as well. To Thrivewell she explains George’s absence by inventing a ladies’ supper party, when in fact she knows him to have been with his ‘rousers’ (or fellow rowdy friends; [MC 3.1.speech255]). The scene’s comedic value lies in the juxtaposition of Careless’s vile actions in Lady Thrivewell’s noble mouth, as she describes his loud knocking, vomiting, and having a fight with the sedan-men who have carried him home and now require payment. The comedy is heightened by the narration of the action, blow by blow, which includes direct quotations. Presumably, Lady Thrivewell is enacting the scene herself, impersonating Careless as he cries for whores and the old butler who denies that there are any in the house, in the manner of the lazzi of commedia dell’arte.24Behn notes the potential theatricality of this scene and in her adaptation mines it for extra characters, generating an additional episode in which the audience is treated to an enactment live onstage of Brome’s description. It is not, however, Lady Thrivewell who has to manage this incident, but poor Simon the butler who must deal with a drunken, shouting master, pay off the disgruntled sedan-men and suffer Careless’s kicking when urged to speak more quietly. Behn extracts a certain amount of extra humour from the sleeping butler, who wakes slowly and reluctantly as Careless bawls at him, and from the obliging scullery-maid Bess who agrees to accompany Careless to his bed but only once she has removed her shoes. However, there is something lost in the scene’s translation, most importantly perhaps in the development of Lady Thrivewell’s characterisation: her imitation of her nephew’s behaviour, her amused, witty response to the incident (colluding with him by fabricating lies to excuse his absence), and her wisdom.Acting Careless25The entertainment offered by Brome’s scene is heightened by a similar theatricalised moment very early on in the play. It is anticipated by the pedantic Saveall ‘who calls people, pe-o-ple’ [MC 1.1.speech33], and is acting as mediator on Careless’s behalf with his uncle, Lord Thrivewell. When Saveall sees fit to recount Careless’s past misdemeanours and Thrivewell’s acts of generosity and patience, Careless is unable to resist joining in. So when Saveall describes the time Careless and Wat saved Thrivewell from a band of robbers in tedious verse, Careless continually interrupts with a more dramatic, self-centred account of the same events. His passion for performance is confirmed when it is revealed that the whole event was fabricated by him and Wat as a staged robbery and rescue in order to impress Thrivewell and extract favour, and, more importantly, money from him. For added authenticity, Careless gave Wat a bloody head. He lovingly embellishes Saveall’s story with moments of melodrama, a point which causes Saveall to threaten departure on three occasions.26In desperation, Careless appears to begin a well-rehearsed routine which he has previously developed with Wat. The willing actor starts to enact his despair at his uncle’s disfavour and his friend’s rejection, saying that his heart is ready to break and calling for Wat, who mistakenly interprets Careless’s calls for his bed to be laid down as intimation that Careless is ready for his mistress. When Wat quickly becomes concerned, noting in Careless the ‘pangs of death’, this is a warning to the audience of the pair’s notoriety as ingenious actors. This double-act set-piece appears to be heralded by the key phrase ‘But first unbutton me’, suggesting that this is their mutual code for the ‘pretend dying’ scam. Careless immerses himself rather too fully in the role, exclaiming ‘Ah!’ on a couple of occasions before realising that Saveall has delivered the welcome news of Thrivewell’s reconciliation. In an instant, Careless has altered from dying man to swiftly cloaked and penitent nephew.27Before leaving, Careless, ever keen to play a role correctly, suggests changing his ‘garish apparel’ for more sober-seeming clothes and cutting off his ‘undecent hair’. Although he assures Saveall that he could easily obtain a ‘civil well-worn student’s suit’ close by, Careless seems to forget his financial restrictions, having neither money nor credit. His desire to play the reformed prodigal bears comparison with protestant moralist literature which gained popularity during the end of the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, also receiving dramatic treatment by other playwrights such as Jonson.28The link between sin and clothing had been expounded by the post-lapsarian revelation of nakedness and God’s gift of clothing to Adam and Eve. Philip Stubbes’s The Anatomie of Abuses (printed five times between 1583 and 1595) expresses concern with the association of the sin of pride and sartorial extravagance. Moralist tracts specifically emphasise ‘honesty’ and ‘sobriety’ in clothing, to reflect inward reformation. In an analysis of Puritan clothing and identity in England, Katie Wright identifies the four main categories of complaint in relation to appearance as ‘extravagance and pride, the disruption of the social order, immorality, and disguise’.n1055929By querying his clothing (or ‘costume’ for the performance of the role), Careless expresses dissatisfaction with his ‘garish apparel’ [MC 1.1.speech80], as failing suitably and soberly to present an outward manifestation of his supposed inner transformation. He wishes to appear neither extravagant nor proud, lecherous nor disruptive before his wealthy noble uncle, especially when the relative in question might bestow favour and money which will enable Careless to pursue activities that would make all the aforementioned adjectives apt. As Stubbes explains: ‘by wearyng of Apparell more gorgeous, sumptuous and precious then our state, callyng, or condition of life requireth, […] we are puffed up into Pride, and inforced to think of our selues more then wee ought.’n1056030Because clothing was believed to reflect the wearer’s introspection and state of mind, Careless is concerned to appear outwardly reformed, in dress suggestive of sobriety and humility. His long hair further compounds the image of a proud, unreformed man, as Zeal-of-the-land Busy declares ‘For long hair, it is an ensign of pride’.n10561 Onstage, short hair was satirised as being the badge of a puritan, however, Careless wishes to appear as demure and modest as possible, and the little effort involved in changing clothes and hairstyle both appeal to his lazy character and thespian enthusiasm.n1056231The play’s concern with clothing as disguise is revealed in the first scene, when Wat suggests that he and Careless open a male bawdy-house:For a little while, sir, till we have got a stock of rich clothes; and then we will put draymen and wine-porters, Cornish wrestlers and suchlike into those clothes and make them country cavaliers. [MC 1.1.speech30]32The implication is that with a well-stocked dressing-up box, the pair could turn coarse brutes into more sophisticated wooers, sufficient to serve city women’s sexual appetites and worthy of payment. Alicia inverts the use of clothes for sex by proffering herself for sexual assignations with Lord Lovely in return for courtly clothes and status. But the transformative power of clothing is only ever superficial: she will remain a citizen shopkeeper’s wife, and furthermore, her courtly guise is stripped from her at the revelation that she has been cuckolding her husband. Superimposed on this is the irony that Lord Lovely’s behaviour is anything but courtly, particularly when he refuses to marry Amy and pays her off. Brome’s dressing-up box also acts as the fulcrum for two failed plot devices: the revelation of Bellamy in woman’s clothing, and the disguise imposed on Phoebe in order for Lady Thrivewell to avoid the shame of sleeping with her nephew. Neither scheme is fruitful: when Amy appears onstage as herself, the audience expects Lovely to accept her as his wife, and Lady Thrivewell’s plot to tie Careless to Phoebe unravels when Crostill insists on having her badly-behaved husband. Both situations are deflated by rejection, let down by disguise and the playing of parts.33Careless’s readiness to embody a role and his astute perception of other characters’ temperaments means he is easily able to play them to his own advantage. This is why his moment of realisation and true reformation also sees Careless at his most down-hearted: the game is over, the costumes and personae laid down, and he is to be married to his lower class mistress facing the life of a London match-seller, hence why Mistress Crostill’s rescue by virtue of her odd humour is all the more revelatory. This is, however, the point which grates most with the play’s critics, who demand justice, penitence and retribution.Staging the Play: A Couple of Theatres34Mad Couple’s early history is complex, caught up in Brome’s dispute over his contract with the Salisbury Court theatre. Steggle argues convincingly in favour of Mad Couple being the play which Brome presented to the Salisbury Court ‘before Ester tearme 1639’, but which was rejected:…this def.t brought them another new Play written all but parte of the last sceane But this def.t found that divers of the Company did so slight the last menconed plays and used such scornefull and reproachfull speeches concerning this def.t…n1056335Brome claimed that these ‘speeches’ caused his weekly payments to be stopped, effectively breaking the bond of the contract on both sides, and causing him to seek employment with William Beeston at the Cockpit Theatre.36Steggle identifies Mad Couple as the unfinished, rejected play mentioned above partly based on internal and external evidence regarding its date, but also pointing out that Brome does not attempt to include it within his defence of satisfying the terms of the Salisbury Court contract. The date of the play is limited by its inclusion of Careless’s reference to travelling in a sedan chair [MC 3.1.speech521], first mentioned in 1635 [[SG 5.2.speech1094] (stage direction).], and William Beeston’s inclusion of it (as ‘A madd couple well mett’) in a list of plays owned by the King and Queen’s Young company drawn up on 10 August 1639. Mad Couple’s opening scene, situated in Ram Alley [MC 1.1.speech15] places its action very close to the theatre for which it was written.n1056437Taking Brome’s statement literally, if he did finish the final scene of Mad Couple once he had moved to the Cockpit, there is little internal evidence to suggest that the structure was affected by this move. Fitzgerrard makes his first appearance in 5.1, but his name has already been mentioned by Lady Thrivewell in 2.1, when she spies Bellamy and mistakes ‘him’ for Fitzgerrard (when ‘he’ is in fact Fitzgerrard’s sister). This suggests that Fitzgerrard’s late appearance onstage is part of Brome’s carefully planned plot, rather than a last-minute additional feature. Since convincing internal evidence suggests that the surviving text is printed from a pre-theatrical authorial manuscript rather than a revised version, it is tempting to speculate on the changes implemented by the company in performance, ironing out the irregularities in Brome’s first draft. Certainly it is curious that Saveall’s role is greatest in the first half of the play, reducing to very little by Act Five. Conversely, Lord Lovely and Old Bellamy do not appear onstage until Act Four, begging the question as to whether or not the actors playing these roles (or even Fitzgerrard’s) might also have doubled as the Servingman and Apprentice in 2.1.38Since it is likely that the printed octavo text of the play represents a pre-theatrical text, written as Brome straddled two theatres, it is necessary to consider the impact this circumstance might have had on the play’s generation. The Salisbury Court Theatre was converted at a cost of £1200 from a barn on land measuring 140 feet by 42 feet (and which also contained stables), acquired from the Earl of Dorset’s Salisbury Court house in July 1629.n10565 Studying plays known to have been performed at the theatre, David Stevens identified its main features as follows: two doors for entering and exiting the stage (which could be left open or locked, so perhaps hinged); an arras or hangings used extensively as an eavesdropping position (as in Henry Glapthorne’s The Lady Mother, where Lady Marlowe overhears Clariana informing Thoroughgood of her love), as well as for effecting a discovery (for example, in The Twins where a curtain is drawn and a character is discovered asleep on a chair); a discovery space large enough to accommodate three actors (see Goffe’s The Careless Shepherdess, revised by Brome), or actors plus a bed, chair or couch etc.; probably no trap; an above space ‘used only in conjunction with action occurring on the main platform’ and able to contain three actors.n1056639John H. Astington disagrees with some of Stevens’ categorisation of plays he considers reliable for this analysis. Astington’s own study focuses carefully on two pictorial images very closely associated with the Salisbury Court Theatre featured on the title-pages of the plays Roxana (1632) and Messalina (1640). Both show a tapered stage (as discovered at the Rose theatre archaeological site) with rails round the front, hangings at the back and some sort of above space (either for spectators or actors). Astington points out that Thomas Rawlins’ Messalina engraving looks like a copy of John Paynes’ Roxana illustration, however he also argues that because Rawlins knew the theatre well (being the author of The Rebellion, acted there by the King’s Revels, according to the title page of 1640) perhaps the Messalina image more accurately depicts the actual Salisbury Court theatre space. On this basis, Astington provides his own conjectural view of the stage structure: a geometrically shaped stage, with tapered front, two side doors leading onto the main platform, a large central area covered with drawn hangings, and above, another platform and curtained area. The prominence with which Astington places the central area with hangings is supported by the high proportion of Salisbury Court plays requiring discovery scenes, and indeed Mad Couple also utilises this space for the entry of Alicia in bed in 4.3 [MC 4.3.speech833] and ‘the shop discovered’ in 3.1 [MC 3.1.speech613]. It is likely that Old Bellamy should also eavesdrop behind the hangings covering the space in 5.1: Lord Lovely tells him to ‘walk in the long gallery a while’ [MC 5.1.speech957], yet when Old Bellamy returns Lovely knows he’s overheard the conversation about Bellamy.40Astington’s presentation of a curtained above space seems at odds with what is depicted in both the Roxana and Messalina images, where the former apparently holds spectators looking through double viewing windows and the latter is singular and obscured by a curtain. There is the suggestion of a platform, yet equally this could represent a small canopy over the stage. Despite Astington’s assertion that the lack of railings for his platform meant that actors ‘could be seen at full length’ is not fully supported by the textual evidence, particularly the references to the curtained area as a window, rather than as a height-length opening.n10567 The lack of separate scenes found in Salisbury Court plays rather supports Stevens’ theory that this above space was primarily used as an auxiliary space (not large enough for whole scenes, or more than three actors at once), in which characters could comment on, or simply observe, action taking place on the main stage below. Astington does argue more convincingly in favour of a stage trap, perhaps even a mechanised one, yet since this is not part of Mad Couple’s staging interested readers are directed to Astington’s article.41In terms of the size of the stage, it is noted that a maximum of fifteen actors are required onstage by other plays in the Salisbury Court repertory. Stevens estimates a 30 foot playing space, allowing for the theatre building and stage sitters. Astington attempts estimation from the dimensions of the Messalina drawing, but not before administering a warning of having ‘I repeat, no faith in very precise estimates made from Rawlins’s picture’.n10568 The calculations suggest that the stage is roughly 20 feet wide at the back, tapering to 15 feet at the front; ‘the depth is harder to calculate, but it seems unlikely to have been deeper than about twelve feet’.n10569 He concludes that the stage rails shown in both images therefore fulfil a practical function in marking and defining the edge of a small stage.n1057042Mad Couple could happily be accommodated on the Salisbury Court’s stage, with a maximum of fourteen characters appearing onstage at any one time (at the end of the play) and its minimal use of specific staging: the central area for the eavesdropping of Old Bellamy, discovery of the shop and thrusting forth of the bed. The angular shape of the stage also allows for intimate conversation between small groups of characters which are at all times audible (and visible) to the audience, for example, in 4.1, where Careless woos Crostill while Saveall takes Lovely aside [MC 4.1.speech758]. The stage also facilitates the high number of asides amongst characters and their direct address to the audience. There are no scenes staged outside in this play; instead it occupies the indoor spaces of Careless’s hovel in Ram Alley, Lord and Lady Thrivewell’s residence, the Saleware’s shop on or near Cheapside, Mistress Crostill’s residence, and Lord Lovely’s love-nest, among others. Perhaps this also explains why Brome chooses to report rather than dramatise Careless’s drunkenness, in addition to the heightened comedy and mock-horror augmented by its delivery from Lady Thrivewell’s chaste mouth.43Although dance is suggested at the end of Act One and prescribed towards the end of Act Five, the play has no call for music or sound, something indicative of its pre-theatrical state. Two lighting cues are called for: when Alicia is discovered in bed by Saleware in 4.3, followed immediately by Lady Thrivewell’s nocturnal entrance once Careless has safely bedded Phoebe. Both scenes call for a ‘light’, which could either be a candle, taper or lantern. The juxtaposition of these scenes is significant since the indoors theatres could alter light levels by lowering or raising candelabra, thus darkening the stage if necessary for a night scene. Such a change is more convenient if it can serve two scenes (rather than one), also maintaining the illusion that the action observed is taking place in the dead of night. In the latter scene, the dark serves Lady Thrivewell’s purpose of obscuring Phoebe’s face (whilst dressed in fine quality linen) so that Careless can believe he has slept with his aunt rather than his whore. Lady Thrivewell’s entrance with a candle further compounds the nocturnal setting, being a stage convention for night in theatres without variable lighting (and in addition to dialogue and costume).n10571 That the inside of the Salisbury Court Theatre benefitted from natural light is suggested by its manager Richard Heton in September 1639 where he records the necessity for wax and tallow candles in winter, but does not mention this requirement for the summer months. This reference puzzles Bentley, who takes it to signify that the theatre had more windows than other theatres whilst questioning that it can have required no candles at all out of the winter months.n10572 If there was more natural light inside the theatre, surely for the benefit of dramatic spectacle attempts must have been made to block it out, if not all then part of the time?44However, it is also true to say that none of these theatrical details would be out of place on the Cockpit’s stage in Drury Lane, the theatre whose company ultimately accepted Mad Couple and licensed it for their sole performance. Knowledge of the Cockpit Theatre (also referred to as the Phoenix, after it burnt down and was rebuilt) is partly based on evidence in plays but more solidly founded on existing drawings in Worcester College, Oxford, thought to represent Inigo Jones’ designs for the theatre. The plans suggest a stage area of over 23 feet wide (which Martin White argues is slightly narrower at the front edge) by 15 feet deep, and 4 feet high. These measurements indicate that there is more playing space on this stage than at the Salisbury Court, although it must be remembered that audience members would reduce the available space at both theatres (as indicated by dramatic texts performed there). The basic features of the two theatres are similar: both offer two doors either side of a central entrance, with an area above accommodating up to three actors or musicians.n10573 Andrew Gurr and Martin White disagree on the presence of stage rails in the drawing: the former is surprised at their absence, concluding that ‘some playhouses had them and some did not’; the latter interprets the spotted line across the front of the stage as evidence of their planning.n10574 Both note the absence of a trap in the plans, White further pointing to the lack of textual evidence for this feature in Cockpit plays.45The single most striking difference between the Salisbury Court and Cockpit theatres is in the size and shape of the stage. If Astington’s sketch is accepted as an approximation of the Salisbury Court stage, its structure can be seen to have a dynamic impact on the writing of Mad Couple, with its frequent asides, grouping and re-grouping of characters, and the central importance of the curtained discovery space. If this area is so large, conceivably the shop scene could have been devised for performance within it. Although the first shop scene in 2.1 instructs Alicia simply to ‘enter’, the second scene has Saleware talking to himself as he walks between locations before arriving at his shop which is ‘discovered’ [MC 3.1.speech613]. Through compound frames the audience views Saleware observing his wife within the shop. The space could be pre-set as the shop before the beginning of the performance, (since the curtained area is not used for other discoveries until Act Four) and used in 2.1 and 3.1.46The space is next used in 4.3 when the bed is thrust forward, presumably from this area, with Alicia already in it. At the end of the scene, Alicia, who has been hoping to spend the night with Bellamy, ends up reluctantly allowing her husband to sleep next to her: ‘Well, you may draw the curtains and sleep by me’ [MC 4.3.speech885]. She doubles a reference to the imaginary curtains round the bed with a real reference to the hangings which enclose the discovery space, pointing to the particular potency of the space within this play. In fact, the physical appearance of the bed onstage could be seen as the climax to various jokes about intimacy and sex made self-referentially (and meta-theatrically) from the first scene. When Careless calls for Wat to ‘Lay down my bed’ in 1.1 it is possible that Wat makes for the central curtained space, as if about to bring a bed onstage (a gesture which Careless impatiently dismisses). Later in the scene, Wat suggests Phoebe follow him to ‘the next room’ for a supply of writing materials thinly disguised as an invitation to sexual congress: ‘You shall write him such a letter (as I will dictate to you) that shall so nettle him’ [MC 1.1.speech110]. Does Wat lead her towards the curtain, again insinuating that this is the location of intimacy and fornication? If so, the resonances of this space are strengthened if Alicia, the adulterer, sets up shop here, and Lady Thrivewell uses it as the site of her revenge and warning to stay away from her husband. Perhaps Careless also heads for the hangings when attempting to carry his aunt off to bed [MC 3.1.speech548].47So the central space is used as the site and tool of an adulterous shop-keeper, then as two different chambers (in which two bedtricks come to fruition) during the course of the night, one at the Thrivewells and the other at Lord Lovely’s love-nest in Montague Close. For the final act, the same space is only used for Old Bellamy’s eavesdropping within the gallery of Lovely’s residence. It is possible that some of this staging had to be adapted when the play was transferred to the Cockpit, since the central doorway in Inigo Jones’ plans appears fairly small in comparison with the projected opening of the Salisbury Court stage. It would be easy enough to begin a scene within the discovery space and move its action forward onto the main stage, but perhaps less visually striking in the case of Saleware’s hidden observation of his wife within the shop’s frame, and his comparison of her with the maid in the mercer’s arms [MC 3.1.speech652].Performance: Doubling and Casting48A shortcut to discovering the possibilities of doubling within Mad Couple lies in analysing the final scene and the number of characters onstage at the end of the play. These number six female characters (Lady Thrivewell, Phoebe, Closet, Crostill, Alicia and Bellamy) and eight male characters (Lord Thrivewell, Careless, Wat, Fitzgerrard, Lord Lovely, Old Bellamy, Saveall and Saleware). Only three other characters enter the stage during the play, but these are minor parts which could easily be doubled: the Apprentice and (non-speaking) Servingman appear in the Saleware’s shop in 2.1, when only Alicia and Lady Thrivewell are onstage; the Page enters twice in 5.2, once to whisper to Lord Lovely and a second time to speak only two lines. Since none of these minor characters are present at the end, their parts could either be doubled with each other, or with other actors (Wat, for example, does not appear in either 2.1 or 5.1). The minimum company requirement is therefore for fourteen actors (six female, eight male), a maximum of seventeen, but any number in between could comfortably stage the play.49In comparison with other Brome plays written for the Salisbury Court, Mad Couple is not out of place: The English Moor requires nineteen roles (5 female, 14 male); The Demoiselle has eighteen roles (six female, twelve male); The Love-Sick Court demands twenty parts (five female and fifteen male, including the four Rustics). These tallies however do not take into account the possibilities of doubling, and ignore minor roles. The number of female roles required in these plays is particularly striking, being five or six in each. In comparison, The Antipodes, which was written for the Cockpit but performed at the Salisbury Court, has only three main female roles (together with eight men, plus servants male and female for the byplay).50The theatre companies performing at the two theatre spaces had a different composition in terms of actors’ ages and experience: Beeston’s Boys are often referred to as boys or ‘young actors’ in extant records, while knowledge of Queen Henrietta Maria’s Men suggests an older company.n10575 Of what is known about this latter company, for which Brome began writing Mad Couple, Richard Perkins appears to have been the oldest actor (mentioned by Henslowe as a member of Worcester’s Men in March 1602). Bentley writes of Perkins that his roles ‘establish his importance as an actor in rather a variety of parts: romantic villain, dignified father, honest, plain-spoken man’.n10576 Although it is not possible to match extant lists of actors with the characters within the play (without the information having been recorded), it is interesting to consider how the company and roles might fit one another. Bentley’s summary of Perkins’ roles might suggest, for example, a good match with the role of Saveall, the honest, reliable retainer. Anthony Turner is noted by Bentley for playing old men in three out of five known roles, which would make him a good candidate either for the role of Lord Thrivewell or Old Bellamy.n10577 William Sherlocke and Timothy Reade are both noted for playing comical parts, thought additionally the former also played villainous roles and the latter had also performed female roles. Bentley notes of John Sumner that while he often ‘plays rather dashing parts and parts demanding some authority’, perhaps making him well suited to the role of Lord Lovely in Mad Couple. Other actors also known to have performed with Queen Henrietta Maria’s men at this time include William Cartwright the younger, Curtis Grevell, George Stutville, William Wilbraham, John Young and Edward May.51Although Brome may have had Queen Henrietta Maria’s Men in mind whilst writing the majority of Mad Couple, the play was of course performed by Beeston’s Boys at the Cockpit as a result of Brome’s disputed contract with the Salisbury Court theatre. This second company were younger in composition and contained several actors known to have performed female roles. The greatest indication concerns an actor named Nicholas Burt in James Wright’s Historia Histrionica (1699), which records:Burt was a Boy first under Shank at the Blackfriers, then under Beeston at the Cockpit; and Mohun, and Shatterel were in the same Condition with him, at the last Place. There Burt used to Play the principal Women’s Parts, in particular Clariana in Love’s Cruelty.n1156152If Burt favoured principal female roles there were enough to choose from in Mad Couple, which boasts both Lady Thrivewell and Alicia Saleware, as well as Mistress Crostill, Phoebe, Closet and Bellamy. John Page and Samuel Mannery are both known to have performed female roles, however in their mid-twenties they might perhaps already be playing male roles, as was their fellow actor Ezekiel Fenn. This moment is recorded by Henry Glapthorne’s Poems published in quarto in 1639 in a poem entitled ‘For Ezekiel Fenn at his first Acting a Man Part’, in which Glapthorne likens this first male performance to a merchant sailing an ‘untry’d Vessell’ for the first time, which must brave stormy seas and angry weather to return to the safety of the harbour.53Other noted talents included John Lacy, whom Bentley notes became a famous dancer in the Restoration period, and Edward Gibbs, whose talent as a fencer is praised in Knavery in all Trades (1664, thought to be by John Tatham). During a discussion about the pre-war theatre, one says ‘You talk of your Players, I am for the Fencers, there are none living now like old Bradshaw, old Batty, Chatterton, and Ned Gibs’.n10579 If Edward Gibbs was a known fencer within the company, perhaps the proposed duel between Fitzgerrard and Lovely in the final scene of Mad Couple suggests Brome is playing with audience expectation at this moment. Although the Cockpit audience do not get their fight, they are rewarded with dancing, led by Lovely.54Other company members included Robert Cox, known for comedy in the 1650s, Robert Axen, John Wright (who had been apprenticed to Andrew Cane to learn the art of being a goldsmith but instead learnt more of acting), Michael Mohun, Robert Shatterell (both mentioned above, along with Burt), and Edward Davenport. Bentley also numbers William Trigg among the company, and uses the diverse list of extant roles played by him as a warning against making assumptions about actors being type cast. This account therefore stops short of making more than sketchy suggestions, but provides known information for future consideration.Commodity, Clothing and the Business of Theatre55Act Two, Scene One of Mad Couple begins as a mundane shop scene: a gentlewoman is making purchases of gold- and silver-lace, fringes, loops and buttons from a silk-shop woman [MC 2.1.speech195]. The customer quibbles over the price, reminding that she will pay ‘ready money’, the goods are packaged and sent home with a servant, an apprentice is sent for beer to counteract the thirsty work of shopping, and Lady Thrivewell and Alicia are left alone. This apparently ordinary circumstance possesses a heightened level of threat since Brome has prefaced the scene with a marital argument between the Thrivewells, in which Lord Thrivewell has confessed to his wife an affair with Alicia Saleware of the silk shop. This narrative frame intensifies the conversation between the two women so that its reading (on page or stage) occurs through the lens of comic retribution: how will Lady Thrivewell act with her rival and retrieve the £100 paid by her husband for illicit sex?n1058056The answer lies in the several kinds of transaction enacted on the stage. In terms of gold, the audience is aware of precious metal as a universal token of exchange, weighed to ensure its quality and quantity, being paid in return for gold woven into lace. The metal is transformed from a solid signifier of payment to gold literally as material wealth, designed to decorate and display status. Of course, in this scene, the promise of payment in cash rather than credit raises Alicia’s expectations only for them to be dashed when Lady Thrivewell explains her terms: she is also cashing in a ‘loan’ made by her husband. In the context of the shop, dialogue takes part in another form of transaction, between customer and proprietor. The former promises payment and questions the price, while the latter conventionally praises the quality, scarcity and fashionability of the goods. Once this charade has been enacted and Lady Thrivewell has acquiesced, she begins the more serious business of striking a bargain, referring to the liaison between her husband and Alicia without actually mentioning it in explicit terms. Her anger is perhaps heightened by Alicia’s shopkeeper’s chat which carelessly makes reference to the purchases as making good marital bed ornaments, perhaps hastening the patter of tiny feet. These comments are doubly inappropriate, touching a raw nerve in respect of the Thrivewells lack of an heir despite two years of marriage, and inadvertently drawing attention to procreative sexual activity in contrast with her extra-marital transactions with the same man. Lady Thrivewell’s aside is as funny as it is unsurprising: ‘What a bold slut it is’ [MC 2.1.speech200].57Thrivewell has exchanged Alicia’s sexual favours for money, a transaction which exploits his desire and gullibility since he expects to make a single payment for multiple encounters, but when next he approaches her, Alicia demands a second payment. When Lady Thrivewell vows to reclaim this money and teach Alicia a lesson, she cannot simply return the hundred pounds worth of ‘goods’, being sexual and transitive. Instead she carefully engineers a situation which enables both reclamation of Alicia’s wares (in materials rather than sexual favours) and the issue of a stern warning by sending the materials home while she is in the act of paying for them (supposedly) and calling for beer. These moves protect her plan (ensuring that Alicia doesn’t have the chance to grab the purchases back) and ensure she is alone with Alicia in order to issue the threat, referring to the ‘loan’: ‘My husband left with you, or lent you, the last term a hundred pound, which he assigned to me, and now I have it in commodity’ [MC 2.1.speech216]. Rachel E. Poulsen carefully identifies the powerful dynamic between women, money and sex in the play:Since Alicia enjoys so much power as a seller, Lady Thrivewell becomes determined to wrest the hundred pounds back from her using her own entitlement as a consumer, and the sum continues to circulate among the female characters (and only the females) as a metonym for sex and sexual prowess.n1058158It is little wonder that Alicia is so keen for the money to be returned to her by Bellamy.59Lady Thrivewell never explicitly reveals that she knows the provenance of the loan money, however her tone leaves Alicia alert to the threat of retribution: ‘Take heed you do not by your sullenness make me suspect another kind of good turn … lest I take up a violence that will not become me, nor you be able to bear’ [MC 2.1.speech218]. Actors Alan Morrissey and Adam Kay explored Lady Thrivewell’s threat and the power dynamic in operation through workshops on this sequence. The scene gained a subtle sense of menace as Adam (playing Lady Thrivewell) became more light-hearted in the delivery of lines. Alan (as Alicia) commented that Alicia has to process a lot of information as Lady Thrivewell is talking, working out whether or not the latter is aware of the true nature of the bargain with her husband. The camera angle was repositioned after two run throughs so that it could record Alicia’s reaction to Lady Thrivewell’s speech. In the clip, Alan’s acting exposed the subtly with which the character’s femininity could be performed by a male actor
.60The second part of the scene sees a substantive shift in the power dynamic between the two women, where to begin with Alicia is entirely at ease and in control of a very familiar situation. She gives the impression that closing the sale, negotiating the price and extracting money from the customer is her forte (and we learn that this is also true when selling other of her ‘wares’). Lady Thrivewell pushes Alicia into a position of submission, where knowledge and careful discourse gain currency and hold power. Furious at being wrong-footed, Alicia quickly decides to regain control of the situation by plotting to have Lady Thrivewell seduced and thus easily blackmailed, striking at her economically and morally.61Alicia’s cue for revenge is her observation of a look exchanged between Lady Thrivewell and Bellamy, a point which places emphasis on Alicia’s physical situation in the shop both on stage and in the imagination of the audience. Although shop scenes on stage are not common in Renaissance drama, there are several examples documented by Leslie Thomson which suggest that keen theatre-goers in the late sixteenth- and early seventeenth-centuries might view Mad Couple’s silk shop through a well-established narrative frame.n10582 Dramatic documentation of such scenes reflects a rise in consumerism which increased from the mid-sixteenth century onwards. Luxury goods increasingly became available and affordable to London’s elite, as shopping at the Exchange was added to a list of fashionable pastimes, particularly for wealthy women such as Lady Thrivewell [MC 2.2.speech427]. Conspicuous consumption reinforced status for the rich and benefited the citizen shopkeepers, but also gave licence and freedom to women on both sides of the shop counter. Ian Archer comments that ‘Women probably enjoyed more independence in the capital because of the nature of their work, participating at the front of the shop, running an alehouse, buying provisions in the market’.n10583 However, the exposure and liberty of women created or exacerbated tensions surrounding patriarchal authority, and this is most clear in Alicia’s power as shopkeeper and Lady Thrivewell’s freedom to go shopping for expensive goods without her husband: see Act 2 Scene 1 generally [MC 2.1.speech195] and [MC 2.2.speech427].62Thomson’s study concludes that women in shop scenes are often seen as an object of desire as well as a figure of freedom and responsibility. One of Jonson’s epigrams neatly summarises this anxiety:Hornet, thou hast thy wife dressed, for the stallTo draw thee custom: but herself gets all.n1058463Careless voices a similar verdict in his comment that Tom Saleware ‘hinders all trading but his wife’s’ [MC 1.1.speech113], specifically identifying Alicia as a shop woman with both special business skills and stock. Saleware comments openly on his wife’s overtly theatrical placement in the shop as an object to attract custom and inspire praise:…let the asinegos prate while others shall admire thee, sitting in thy shop more glorious than the maiden-head in the Mercers’ arms, and say, ‘There is the nonpareil, the paragon of the city, the flower-de-luce of Cheapside, the shop court-lady, or the courtshop mistress’… [MC 3.1.speech652]64Saleware is unaware of his pun on ‘mistress’ both as woman in charge and unfaithful wife. Both Saleware’s description and the physical presentation of Alicia on stage invite spectators to look at her as they might a real woman in a real shop, making her vulnerable to the male gaze. Thomson cites Stephen Gosson’s anxieties about women in theatre audiences being rooted in this vulnerability, a lack of control over who looks or makes judgement.n10585 Saleware innocently believes in his wife as a model shopkeeper, unaware of the extreme irony in comparing her with a virginal figure representative of the guild. This image is particularly problematic since the description specifically relates to Alicia as a despicable social climber, wearing fashionable clothes provided by her noble lover, in the act of seducing a youth and in debt due to another extra-marital affair. Alicia compounds the common affiliation between consumerism and sexual misconduct by marketing her secondary commodity, sexual favours, of which she is the sole trader. Thus Saleware’s description is ironic, but perhaps apt, since it also identifies the duplicity of the city. The simple shop scene of 2.1 reinforces the image of London as a city of commodity, where women are empowered by economic transactions (as trades people and customers), but exposed as careful managers of goods, money and conversation.65The image of Alicia presented within the shop’s frame as described by Saleware is physically represented on stage. Although there are few clues in stage directions or dialogue to suggest how the shop might be replicated in 2.1, the later scene in 3.1 is more descriptive. Tom Saleware leaves the Thrivewells’ residence and talks as he walks, as if on his way to his own shop in Cheapside. The shop is ‘discovered’, which usually means that it has been set up within the discovery space, an alcove situated behind the back wall or frons scenae of the stage, concealed by a curtain until the moment of discovery.n10586 This allows the shop to have been created, perhaps using some key props such as the silk stockings Bellamy hands to Alicia [MC 2.1.speech267] or an approximate stage equivalent of the extremely expensive materials purchased by Lady Thrivewell [MC 2.1.speech198]. Given the length of these shop scenes and the number of characters required, it is perhaps unlikely that they are performed entirely within the discovery space (however big that might be in the Salisbury Court theatre, for which Brome is thought to have written the play, or the Cockpit theatre in which it was actually performed), allowing actors the freedom to move outside the space onto the stage proper.66The positioning of Alicia within the discovery space, as if within her silk shop, theatrically reproduces the image of a real shopwoman within her shop, layered over which is the dramatic tradition of women as both vulnerable commodities and empowered sexual deviants, alongside Saleware’s duplicitous presentation of his wife as an object to inspire awe and jealousy amongst his neighbours. In her central position, framed by the stage and the discovery space, Alicia is displayed as a precious commodity as if in a special jewel case. Ironically, when Saleware approaches his shop, he does not recognise the woman within it, thinking she is a courtly customer and cursing the absence of staff to serve her: ‘What lady’s that, and not my wife there to handle her handsomely for her money? My servants are such asinegos!’ [MC 3.1.speech 613]. As aspiring social climbers, the Salewares are fixed on achieving the appearance of status through material gain. Unfortunately for Tom Saleware, this means giving licence to his wife’s extra-marital affairs since sex is a commodity which can be traded for beautiful clothes and other favours granted by Lord Lovely. In many ways, Alicia is no better than Careless in conceiving scams for gaining money, although she uses her body as bait instead of trickery in gambling and plain stealing. As a thief and a prostitute, Careless and Alicia are merely exploiting London’s appetite for vice by indulging in the oldest professions known to humanity.67Although Alicia’s position could make her vulnerable, in fact she exploits it as an opportunity for increased empowerment.n10587 Maintaining a position of power with her customers, apprentice and husband, Alicia is a successful businesswoman who manages two different types of commodity but also dictates her terms of work: ‘Then, friend, let your shop be your own care for the rest of this day; I have some business abroad’ [MC 2.1.speech324]. When within the shop, Alicia might be the focus of the male gaze, but she is both observer and observed, exploiting her position to gain a good view of approaching customers and their interactions, privy to all transactions of information within the shop. Poulsen observes in city comedy that ‘the willingness to speculate in social interaction, extends to physical intimacy and sexual behavior: sex and money, as parallel systems of exchange, become metaphors for one another’.n10588 She notes, for example, Lady Thrivewell’s peculiar reaction to Bellamy’s appearance in 2.1: ‘But on my life, her chaste ladyship is taken with this beardless Bellamy. How she shot eyes at him!’ [MC 2.1.speech234]. Alicia quickly hatches her plan to woo Bellamy, first making him promise to sleep with Lady Thrivewell so that Alicia can have her revenge. What she does not know is that Lady Thrivewell’s reaction springs from the confused recognition of a female relative, Amy, in boy’s clothing, rather than the flush of desire for a young bed companion.68The character of Bellamy certainly confuses more than just Alicia’s comprehension. Spove’s conviction that the plot’s comedy functions best if the audience has full understanding of Bellamy’s true gender leads her to suggest that Brome’s play ‘appealed to playgoers seeing the play for the second time’,n10589 a point reiterated two pages later in her Introduction to the play. She suggests that that resemblance between Fitzgerrard and Bellamy (who turn out to be brother and sister) is made plain by one actor playing both roles; however, this is not possible since both characters must appear in the final scene. Spove later concedes that perhaps Brome revealed Bellamy’s identity ‘though other ways than the spoken word’ and this is much more convincing than the thought of Brome authoring a play based on the expectation that audiences would flock to it twice. If Bellamy’s gender is pointed to by other stage conventions (such as gesture, use of language, being ‘beardless’), the audience will not be deprived of the comical situations in which ‘he’ finds himself.69Accepting the play very literally is not only the fault of Spove: where she interprets Bellamy’s verbal non-disclosure of identity (unlike other similar characters, such as Viola, who have soliloquies with which to explain their predicament) as ignorance for the audience, Nadia Rigaud likewise takes Bellamy’s plot at face value.n10590 Rigaud’s argument is based on the assumption that Brome’s interest in marginal forms of sexuality leads him to include lesbianism in the plot of Mad Couple, at a time when such a concept was ‘unheard’ of in the seventeenth century. The essay which follows is undermined by a counter-argument: that since women frequently shared their beds with other females perhaps such instances of affectionate, even sexual, activity did exist, but are largely unrecorded.n10591 Martha’s account in The Antipodes describes her lying with ‘a wanton maid … and kissed and clipt and clapt me strangely’ [AN 1.1.speech91]. One of the keys to this woman’s wantonness lies in her desire subsequently for Martha to ‘have been a man to have got her with child’, i.e. a desire for penetrative, procreative sex. Rigaud’s argument is founded on acceptance of Bellamy’s account of highly enjoyable sex with Lady Thrivewell as being an accurate and true statement. Rigaud reads a blooming of confidence in Bellamy’s character following her sexual encounter with Lady Thrivewell, after the stuttering start ‘he’ makes with Alicia in 2.1.70Rigaud is not alone in interpreting Bellamy’s private closet time with Lady Thrivewell as evidence of their illicit sexual liaison: Careless takes note too, augmenting their one hour’s privacy in 3.1 to two hours when he refers to it in 5.2 (unless, of course, this is simply an error linked to the copy text’s status as pre-theatrical ‘foul papers’). Simply because Lady Thrivewell has been closeted privately with a young man, and not even Nurse Closet in attendance, Careless, like Rigaud, assumes sexual activity to have taken place. However, it seems more likely that far from heterosexual sex (as Careless supposes) or unleashed homosexual passions (as Riguad observes), Bellamy and Lady Thrivewell are simply plotting. Amy is brought forth from Lady Thrivewell’s chamber by her uncle, Old Bellamy, where she has changed into women’s clothing, so it seems very probable that Lady Thrivewell, a relative of Amy’s, is also ‘in’ on the scheme. When the two have their private conference (of which Careless is so jealous) perhaps Amy is revealing her identity to Lady Thrivewell and explaining the arrangement between herself and Alicia. So rather than believing a lesbian encounter to have occurred, as Rigaud suggests, fuelled by both women’s frustrations and Bellamy’s observation of how Lord Lovely deals with women, the audience is most likely aware that Bellamy is in some way duping Alicia. The narration of the encounter might cause a frisson of excitement amongst the audience, but more importantly it exposes Alicia’s vices as both vengeful and lecherous, setting her up to expect pleasures which she can never enjoy.71Spove is correct in observing that Bellamy’s motivations are better understood retrospectively: without the omniscience afforded by Act 5’s revelations, Bellamy is on the surface a youthful servant to Lord Lovely, embarrassed by Alicia’s forwardness, or, with careful acting, a girl dressed as a boy whose nervousness arises from her disguised gender. Having had a sexual encounter with Lovely, Amy has since been in his service as a man, closely monitoring his every move. She sees an opportunity to get between the man she adores and one of his lovers, Alicia, and takes advantage of the latter’s hunger for infidelity. Having promised herself to Alicia, Amy can only stall the moment of truth when the two end up alone together for so long, so she engineers the letter to Alicia’s husband and he appears, presumably in the nick of time, once Alicia is already in bed and awaiting her ‘Bellamy’, the remembered account of ‘his’ episode with Lady Thrivewell vivid with anticipation. Rigaud is correct to identify Bellamy’s increased confidence, developing from a stuttering youth in 2.1 to a veritable rogue in 3.1, but it is not derived from Amy’s new experiences with a woman; surely it comes of a young woman adopting and increasingly enjoying the performance of a new role, perhaps also with her cousin Lady Thrivewell’s encouraging delight.72While Michael Shapiro is right to make much of the links between Bellamy in Mad Couple and Viola in Twelfth Night, his summary of Brome’s play reveals some of the traps encountered by quick reading: Lady Thrivewell does not actually fall for Bellamy, as Shapiro suggests; nor is Lord Lovely ‘as quick as the duke of Illyria was to propose to his former page’.n10592 Rigaud suggests that this common error of assumption (that Lovely asks Amy to marry him, made by both students and academics) is due to the mention of the word ‘marriage’ and the speedy discourse, when Lovely actually offers Amy a living of £200 a year. It seems acceptable to Lovely that money (potential troublemaker in the Thrivewells’ marriage) is enough to paste over Amy’s loss of maidenhead, which as Rigaud points out, does not make a favourable combination with her unmarried status.n10593 Poulsen identifies this as a powerful circumstance, in which Amy ‘reclaims the female identity, but not the inferior position’.n10594 Despite this modern view of Amy’s financially independent situation, her status within the play decreases dramatically once she appears in her women’s clothes: she explains her story in a brief poetic statement before being let down by Lovely in an aside to which the audience is not privy. She then clams up, a silent witness to the dominant focus on newly married couples, agonisingly invited to open their marital celebrations by dancing with her hoped-for bridegroom, Lovely.
n10536 In the final scene of A Mad Couple Well Matched (5.2), the presumptuous rake, George Careless, has resigned himself to marriage with his pregnant whore and a lowly life selling matches.
n10537 urges to gamble, drink and seek sexual gratification cannot be quashed.
n10538 ‘Every subject grew up with a common understanding of his or her body as a semipermeable, irrigated container in which humors moved sluggishly’.
n10539 ‘Humour characters of this sort are unlike the broad types of classical comedy; they are narrower and sharper’.
n10540 ‘expectations that can easily be satisfied’.
n10541 sense of danger.
n10542 ‘It is the disordered, undisciplined self, subject to a variety of internal and external forces, that is the site of subjugation, and the subject of horror’.
n10543 providing moral guidance.
n10544 an otherwise bare stage.
n10545 an indoor theatre.
n10546 a warm gown over the top.
n10547 or tavern.
n10548 won her love.
n10549 ‘It is a skilful city comedy and the most obscene of his works. It is worth reading but requires little critical comment’.
n10550 is invariably empty.
n10551 ‘A more brutal black-guard, a more shameless ruffian, than the leading young gentleman of this comedy will hardly be found on the stage of the next theatrical generation’.
n10552 happy ending.
n10553 ‘both style and action are vivid and effective throughout’.
n10554 (who in this case is not granted marital union with her beloved).
n10555 referenced by the title?
n10556 but expect ultimate fidelity in return.
n10557 at the end of the play.
n10558 ‘contradictive humour’ [MC 3.2.speech194].
n10559 ‘extravagance and pride, the disruption of the social order, immorality, and disguise’.
n10560 ‘by wearyng of Apparell more gorgeous, sumptuous and precious then our state, callyng, or condition of life requireth, […] we are puffed up into Pride, and inforced to think of our selues more then wee ought.’
n10561 ‘For long hair, it is an ensign of pride’.
n10562 his lazy character and thespian enthusiasm.
n10563 …this def.t brought them another new Play written all but parte of the last sceane But this def.t found that divers of the Company did so slight the last menconed plays and used such scornefull and reproachfull speeches concerning this def.t…
n10564 close to the theatre for which it was written.
n10565 acquired from the Earl of Dorset’s Salisbury Court house in July 1629.
n10566 contain three actors.
n10567 rather than as a height-length opening.
n10568 ‘I repeat, no faith in very precise estimates made from Rawlins’s picture’.
n10569 ‘the depth is harder to calculate, but it seems unlikely to have been deeper than about twelve feet’.
n10570 defining the edge of a small stage.
n10571 (and in addition to dialogue and costume).
n10572 out of the winter months.
n10573 up to three actors or musicians.
n10574 the latter interprets the spotted line across the front of the stage as evidence of their planning.
n10575 while knowledge of Queen Henrietta Maria’s Men suggests an older company.
n10576 ‘establish his importance as an actor in rather a variety of parts: romantic villain, dignified father, honest, plain-spoken man’.
n10577 Anthony Turner is noted by Bentley for playing old men in three out of five known roles, which would make him a good candidate either for the role of Lord Thrivewell or Old Bellamy.
n11561 Burt was a Boy first under Shank at the Blackfriers, then under Beeston at the Cockpit; and Mohun, and Shatterel were in the same Condition with him, at the last Place. There Burt used to Play the principal Women’s Parts, in particular Clariana in Love’s Cruelty.
n10579 ‘You talk of your Players, I am for the Fencers, there are none living now like old Bradshaw, old Batty, Chatterton, and Ned Gibs’.
n10580 This narrative frame intensifies the conversation between the two women so that its reading (on page or stage) occurs through the lens of comic retribution: how will Lady Thrivewell act with her rival and retrieve the £100 paid by her husband for illicit sex?
n10581 sexual prowess.
n10582 silk shop through a well-established narrative frame.
n10583 ‘Women probably enjoyed more independence in the capital because of the nature of their work, participating at the front of the shop, running an alehouse, buying provisions in the market’.
n10584 Hornet, thou hast thy wife dressed, for the stall To draw thee custom: but herself gets all.
n10585 who looks or makes judgement.
n10586 concealed by a curtain until the moment of discovery.
n10587 she exploits it as an opportunity for increased empowerment.
n10588 ‘the willingness to speculate in social interaction, extends to physical intimacy and sexual behavior: sex and money, as parallel systems of exchange, become metaphors for one another’.
n10589 ‘appealed to playgoers seeing the play for the second time’,
n10590 Nadia Rigaud likewise takes Bellamy’s plot at face value.
n10591 The essay which follows is undermined by a counter-argument: that since women frequently shared their beds with other females perhaps such instances of affectionate, even sexual, activity did exist, but are largely unrecorded.
n10592 ‘as quick as the duke of Illyria was to propose to his former page’.
n10593 which as Rigaud points out, does not make a favourable combination with her unmarried status.
n10594 ‘reclaims the female identity, but not the inferior position’.