# Which non-Shakespearean early modern plays have you seen on the stage? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 5, 2011, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-non-shakespearean-early-modern-plays-have-you-seen-on-the-stage/573608 "2011-03-05T19:26:47Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Fretful\_Porpentine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fretful_porpentine/32/2873_2.png) [@Fretful\_Porpentine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fretful_Porpentine)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2011, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-non-shakespearean-early-modern-plays-have-you-seen-on-the-stage/573608/1 "2011-03-05T19:26:47Z")
(Early modern = anything from pre-Civil War Tudor or Stuart England. Or the roughly equivalent time period in other countries, for that matter.) Alas, my life list is not very long: _Edward II Tamburlaine the Great_ (both parts condensed into one) _The Duchess of Malfi The Spanish Tragedy_ (in a not-very-good undergraduate production) _The Revenger’s Tragedy_ (ditto) _The Knight of the Burning Pestle The Witch of Edmonton_ If filmed stage productions count, I’ve also seen _Volpone_ and _Dr. Faustus_. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2011, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-non-shakespearean-early-modern-plays-have-you-seen-on-the-stage/573608/2 "2011-03-05T21:29:33Z")
_The Second Shepherd’s Play_. Or is that too old? ---
**Author:** ![Spoons](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spoons/32/3141_2.png) [@Spoons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoons)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2011, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-non-shakespearean-early-modern-plays-have-you-seen-on-the-stage/573608/3 "2011-03-05T21:36:58Z")
_The Changeling_, by Middleton and Rowley. ---
**Author:** ![Fretful\_Porpentine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fretful_porpentine/32/2873_2.png) [@Fretful\_Porpentine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fretful_Porpentine)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2011, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-non-shakespearean-early-modern-plays-have-you-seen-on-the-stage/573608/4 "2011-03-06T00:00:09Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > _The Second Shepherd’s Play_. Or is that too old? Borderline-too-old, but I’ll count it anyway, since I’ve seen it too 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![BlakeTyner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/50afbb/32.png) [@BlakeTyner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BlakeTyner)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2011, 1:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-non-shakespearean-early-modern-plays-have-you-seen-on-the-stage/573608/5 "2011-03-06T01:10:31Z")
_Gammer Gurton’s Needle_ ---
**Author:** ![Knorf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/58956e/32.png) [@Knorf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Knorf)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2011, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-non-shakespearean-early-modern-plays-have-you-seen-on-the-stage/573608/6 "2011-03-06T01:14:31Z")
_'Tis Pity She’s a Whore_ (John Ford) ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2011, 1:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-non-shakespearean-early-modern-plays-have-you-seen-on-the-stage/573608/7 "2011-03-06T01:25:16Z")
I don’t remember ever having the opportunity to see any of these, but for those of you who have, I’m curious how you’d rate them: “well worth seeing (in a decent production)” or “best left in the past”? ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2011, 4:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-non-shakespearean-early-modern-plays-have-you-seen-on-the-stage/573608/8 "2011-03-06T04:54:34Z")
_Jew of Malta Dr. Faustus Edward II_ The local “Summer Players in the Park” alternate Shakespeare and Marlowe as their Classical playwrights. ---
**Author:** ![Fretful\_Porpentine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fretful_porpentine/32/2873_2.png) [@Fretful\_Porpentine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fretful_Porpentine)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2011, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-non-shakespearean-early-modern-plays-have-you-seen-on-the-stage/573608/9 "2011-03-06T20:00:09Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > I don’t remember ever having the opportunity to see any of these, but for those of you who have, I’m curious how you’d rate them: “well worth seeing (in a decent production)” or “best left in the past”? Of the ones that I’ve seen, I’d say the standouts are _The Duchess of Malfi_ (right up there with Shakespeare’s best tragedies) and _The Knight of the Burning Pestle_ (grocer and his wife go to the theater and order the actors to perform something more to their tastes; very, very funny). But really, they’re all good fun – these are the blockbuster films of the era, and the playwrights knew how to entertain. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2011, 9:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-non-shakespearean-early-modern-plays-have-you-seen-on-the-stage/573608/10 "2011-03-07T09:08:52Z")
This would be 16th and 17th centuries, right? A couple of Lopes (although I can’t remember any more which ones I’ve read, which ones I’ve seen live and which ones on TV; I like Lope’s works), La Celestina (which got me completely lost by the second paragraph) and La vida es sueño (which I didn’t like). Also, when I was in High School it was customary for the 12th graders to organize a play with no teacher intervention: often it was a series of sketches, with each sketch offered by students from a different class and section. When I was in 10th, the subject was “short comedies or standup” and all of the 12th grader’s sketches were adaptations of Cervantes short stories (there was very little to adapt, they didn’t bother rewrite the stories as plays but simply play them out). Several of the other courses had recitations of comic poems from Quevedo or fragments from Lope. I haven’t seen anything British from that period live - and given the language difficulties I know I’d have, I’ll probably refrain. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2011, 12:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-non-shakespearean-early-modern-plays-have-you-seen-on-the-stage/573608/11 "2011-03-07T12:43:21Z")
Jonson’s _The Alchemist_, which was hilarious. I’ve probably seen others, but I can old recall reading them for certain. ---
**Author:** ![Giles](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/giles/32/60_2.png) [@Giles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giles)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2011, 1:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-non-shakespearean-early-modern-plays-have-you-seen-on-the-stage/573608/12 "2011-03-07T13:00:44Z")
Volpone Edward II ---
**Author:** ![Hello\_Again](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/85e7bf/32.png) [@Hello\_Again](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hello_Again)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2011, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-non-shakespearean-early-modern-plays-have-you-seen-on-the-stage/573608/13 "2011-03-07T14:41:35Z")
The Rivals (Sheridan) – very amusing, it’s not staid and talky at all, it’s quite rowdy actually. Mrs. Malaprop, a character in the the play, is from whence _malapropism_: humorously using the wrong, but similar sounding, word (ie, “penis ensues”). ---
**Author:** ![bup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6bbea6/32.png) [@bup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bup)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2011, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-non-shakespearean-early-modern-plays-have-you-seen-on-the-stage/573608/14 "2011-03-07T17:20:52Z")
\*Edward II \*(the production tried to make him a Christ figure(!)) \*Fuente Ovejuna \*(translated into English)