Woman Hard To Please, A

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Historical Records

Payments

To Philip Henslowe

Fol. 23 (Greg I.45)

Res at a womon hard to please the 27 of Janewary 97 . . } iiij^li

Performance Records

Playlists in Philip Henslowe's diary

Fol. 26 (Greg 1.51)

January 1597
		|27|			ne..		tt at womane hard to please. . . . . . . . . . . . .		02|11|06—07—08
		|29|					tt at womon hard to please. . . . . . . . . . . . . .		02|03|04—14—00
ffebreary
1597
		|1|					tt at womones hard to pleasse. . . . . . . . . .		01|05|02—11—02
		|4|					tt at womon hard to pleasse. . . . . . . . . . . .		01|08|04—03—00
Shrove tewesday		|8|					tt at womon hard to please. . . . . . . . . . . . .		01|09|01—02—01

begynyng in leant
Marche 1597
		|7|				tt at a womon hard to pleasse. . . . . . . . . .		01|05|06-02-01
Easter mvnday
		|28|		——		tt at a womon hard to pleasse. . . . . . . . . .		01|11|00-00-00
Aprelle 1597
		|8|				tt at womon hard to pleasse. . . . . . . . . . . .		00|05|03-00-00

Fol. 26^v (Greg 1.52)

Aprelle 1597
		|16|		——		tt at womon hard to please. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .		00|05|03-00-00
Maye 1597
		|10|				tt at womon hard to plesse. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .		00|17|03-10-00
		|27|				tt at womon hard to pleasse. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .		00|05|00-00-00

Theatrical Provenance

The Admiral's men introduced "A Woman Hard to Please" to the stage at the Rose in the spring of 1597.

Probable Genre(s)

Comedy

Possible Narrative and Dramatic Sources or Analogues

Information welcome.

References to the Play

None known.

Critical Commentary

Malone does not comment on this play (p. 299); Collier says nothing about its possible storyline or source (p. 85). Fleay, BCED provides only the enigmatic suggestion, "Compare Heywood, Challenge for Beauty (2. #190, p. 305), but at the Heywood entry Fleay fails to make any connection with "A Woman Hard to Please" (1. #33, p. 303).

Greg II [#100, p. 182, sanguine about Fleay's habit of linking lost Henslowe plays with ones written later by dramatists active in the Henslowe period, notes the empty Heywood reference then suggests himself a possible "allusion" to this lost play in the title of John Fletcher's Woman Pleased (printed in 1647 as Women Pleased).

Gurr, addressing the set of payments for four plays in January 1597 including the payment of £4 for "A Woman Hard to Please" on the 27th (Fol. 23), suggests that Henslowe might have been entering "cross-payments to whoever owned the playbooks, probably [Martin] Slater and [Edward] Alleyn, although they were recorded as 'Rd', or receipts, not as outgoings" (p. 94). Frustrated by his inability to reconcile these cross-payments with "more routine entries" for the four plays in the playlists, Gurr observes wryly that "[n]othing in the Diary explains to any would-be auditor what these figures mean" (p. 94).

Wiggins, Catalogue toys with the possibility that Henry Porter was the author of "A Woman Hard to Please" (#1056).

For What It's Worth

The Admiral's men gave "A Woman Hard to Please" five performances over a span of eleven days, a rare (if not unique) repetition of the same play during this short a period of time.

Works Cited

Gurr, Andrew. Shakespeare's Opposites: The Admiral's Company 1594-1625. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009.

Site created and maintained by Roslyn L. Knutson, Professor Emerita, University of Arkansas at Little Rock; 2 December 2019.