Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
A Game at Chess: Thomas Middleton

A Game at Chess: Thomas Middleton

Howard-Hill, T. H.

Paperback

Series: Revels Plays

Poetry AnthologiesTheater History

ISBN10: 0719016347
ISBN13: 9780719016349
Publisher: Manchester Univ Pr
Published: Feb 13 1997
Pages: 240
Weight: 0.65
Height: 0.70 Width: 5.30 Depth: 8.40
Language: English
For many years Middleton's A Game at Chess was more notorious than read, considered rather a phenomenon of theatrical history than a pre-eminent piece of dramatic writing. A Game at Chess was a nine days' wonder, an exceptional play of King James' reign on account of its unprecedented representation of matters of state usually forbidden on the stage. The King's Men performed the play uninterruptedly between 5th and 14th August, 1624 at their Globe Theatre, attracting large audiences, before the Privy Council closed the theatre by the King's command. More recently, growing interest in the connections of economics and politics with authorship have promoted readings that locate the play so firmly within its historical context as propaganda that, again, its worthwhile literary and theatrical qualities are neglected. In writing A Game at Chess, Middleton employed the devices of the neoclassical comedy of intrigue within the matrix of the traditional oral play. What might have seemed old-fashioned allegory was rejuvenated by his adoption of the fashionable game of chess as the fiction within which the play was set. The product of Middleton's experienced craftsmanship is at once deceptively simple and surprisingly complex.

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