ABSTRACT
In September 1598 Richard Burbage, the outstanding actor of his age, was appearing in a new play as one of those clever and witty servants who exploit speed and disguise to arrange the action to their master’s satisfaction and their own advantage. As is well known, the play is a learned variation, characteristic of its young author, on his ideas of a tradition of Roman comedy, and self-consciously explicit about its attitudes to comedy plots and characters, to correctness, to the recycling of poetry. Whether or not it is true that Every Man In His Humour (1598) only came to be produced by the Chamberlain’s Men because Burbage’s fellowsharer, William Shakespeare, saw its merit, it is certainly true that in seeing its merits Shakespeare benefited from them for his own comedy. Shakespeare’s name appears in the cast list printed at the end of Jonson’s Folio Works of 1616, and Rowe reports the further tradition that he took the part of the hero’s father.1 It is always worth remembering that one of the pleasures of a repertory company is audience recognition of a multitude of theatrical references: previous roles and type-casting, extra-theatrical gossip, theatre wars, daring allusions which outwitted censorship, the gamut of intertextual reference, quotation, allusion for the well-read or well-heard. But we can take audiences too seriously, and too readily believe their quick loyalties and taking of sides. Rowe’s anecdote stresses the older man recognizing Jonson’s merit, stresses that it was despite their differences.
