The Self-Centred Art

Ben Jonson's Parts in Performance

Jakub Boguszak

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English

Routledge
09 January 2023

The Arts: General & Reference; Performance art; Theatre Studies; Literary studies: plays & playwrights; School editions of fiction texts

Series: Studies in Performance and Early Modern Drama

The Self-Centred Art is a study of the plays of Ben Jonson and the actors who first performed in them.

Jakub Boguszak shows how the idiosyncrasies of Jonson’s comic characters were thrown into relief in actors’ part-scripts—scrolls containing a single actor’s lines and cues—some five hundred of which are reconstructed here from Jonson’s seventeen extant plays. Reading Jonson’s spectating parts, humorous parts, apprentice parts, and plotting parts, Boguszak argues that the kind of self-absorption which defines so many of Jonson’s famous comic creations would have come easily to actors relying on these documents. Jonson’s actors would have moreover worked on their cues, studied their speeches, and thought about the information excluded from their parts differently, depending on the type they had to play. Boguszak thus shows that Jonson brilliantly adapted his comedies to the way the actors worked, making the actors’ self-centredness serve his art.

This book addresses Jonson’s dealings with the actors as well as the printers of his plays and supplements the discussion of different types of parts with a colourful range of case studies. In doing so, it presents a new way of understanding not just Ben Jonson, but early modern theatre at large.

By: Jakub Boguszak
Imprint: Routledge
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 234mm, Width: 156mm,
Weight: 453g
ISBN: 9780367515638
ISBN 10: 0367515636
Series: Studies in Performance and Early Modern Drama
Pages: 306
Publication Date: 09 January 2023
Audience: College/higher education , General/trade , Primary , ELT Advanced
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Acknowledgements Introduction 1 Reconstructing Jonson’s parts 2 Jonson’s revisions 3 Jonson among the actors 4 Spectating parts Case study: ‘Cupid’ (Cynthia’s Revels (Q)) 5 Humorous parts: sweet fools Case study: ‘Polish’ (The Magnetic Lady) 6 Humorous parts: bitter fools Case study: ‘Adam Overdo’ (Bartholomew Fair) 7 Apprentice parts Case study: ‘Frances Fitzdottrel’ (The Devil Is an Ass) 8 Plotting parts Case study: ‘Catiline’ (Catiline) 9 All parts assembled Case study: The Alchemist 4.6–4.7 10 Taking the measure of Jonson’s plays 11 Conclusion 12 Bibliography Appendix 1: Actors’ Parts in Case Studes ‘Cupid’ (Cynthia’s Revels (Q)) ‘Polish’ (The Magnetic Lady) ‘Adam Overdo’ (Bartholomew Fair) ‘Frances Fitzdottrel’ (The Devil Is an Ass) ‘Catiline’ (Catiline) The Alchemist 4.6–4.7 Appendix 2: Sizes of Actors’ parts in Jonson’s plays Index

Jakub Boguszak is a Lecturer in Shakespeare and Early Modern Theatre at the University of Southampton, UK. His published work includes studies of Shakespeare, Jonson, and early modern drama in performance and in print.