The Family of Love - (Revels Plays) by Sophie Tomlinson

About the Book

Book Synopsis

The Family of Love charts a successful love intrigue between the cash-strapped Gerardine, and Maria, the sequestered niece of the mercenary Doctor Glister. Their romance unfolds against the dissection of two citizen marriages, the Glisters' and the Purges'. Mistress Purge attends Familist meetings independently, arousing her husband's suspicions about her marital fidelity. Two libertines, Lipsalve and Gudgeon, go in search of sex and solubility (freedom from constipation), receiving more than they bargain for in respect of the latter.

This scholarly edition of Family of Love marks the first occasion on which the comedy is attributed to Lording Barry in print. It brings together literary and historical discussion with a thorough analysis of the play's disputed authorship. Tomlinson highlights Barry's rich vein of burlesque humour in a comedy that combines magic, a trunk, and a mock-court session with vigorous colloquial language.

From the Back Cover

This is the first edition of The Family of Love to be attributed to London playwright and impresario, Lording Barry (1580-1629). Performed by the short lived Children of the King's Revels, this ribald Jacobean comedy indulges coterie playgoers' curiosity about religious separatism in the wake of King James I's damning attack on Familists early in his reign. The Family of Love satirises the religious fellowship of the title but with an undercurrent of sympathy, especially for women.

Sophie Tomlinson detaches The Family of Love from its reputations both as Middleton's worst play and as a product of collaborative authorship. Her lively introduction demonstrates Barry's techniques of parody and pastiche, relentless punning and scatological humour which make the play compellingly stageable. Barry's responsiveness to the confined playing space of the Whitefriars theatre and the possibility that the text was censored during printing are among the many reasons why The Family of Love deserves a fresh hearing.

The volume includes a short biography of Barry, comprehensive commentary and appendices documenting marginal annotations in one copy of the 1608 quarto together with extracts from contemporary representations of the Family of Love. It will find its audience with students, actors, academics, playwrights and other creatives interested in early modern drama.

Review Quotes

'...a valuable contribution to the Revels Plays catalogue and another admirable
instance of the series's demonstrable eagerness in recent years to offer more critically neglected plays the same editorial treatment as their more oft-studied counterparts.'
Early Theatre

'It's an excellent edition. The introduction is splendid and the commentary gives readers all the help they could want. Barry could never have imagined that his play would receive such fine, meticulous scholarship four centuries after his death.'
Macdonald P. Jackson, Professor Emeritus, University of Auckland

'A superb contribution to the study of early modern drama'
Parergon

'The text may pre-date electricity, but rather than something old, this is language in its infancy: elastic and aural and as naughty as a toddler.'
Benjamin Kilby-Henson, Theatre Director

About the Author