Dead Man's Fortune, The

Anon. (1590)

Historical Records

Knowledge of this play and its production is based solely on the manuscript titled "The plotte of the deade mans fortune" now held in the British Library (Ms. Add. 10449). It is reproduced in Greg, Papers, 133-35. (Internet Archive)

Theatrical Provenance

Because the plot is undated, scholars have been unable to agree on a theatrical provenance. Greg's opinion that it had to belong to Strange's men or the Admiral's men before 1594 (Papers, 133), perhaps even as early as 1590 (Dramatic Documents, 19), is echoed by Gurr (71) and Bradley (232). However, McMillin offered a contrarian argument that Dead Man's Fortune belonged to Pembroke's men in 1592-3. Knutson agrees with McMillin. The most stable fact in any of these arguments is that the plot must belong to a time when the players named in it belonged to the same company. Those players are Richard Burbage, Richard Darlowe, Robert Lee, and "b samme" (i.e., a boy named Sam [Greg, Dramatic Documents, 19). A tire-man is also called for in the plot, but as McMillin observes, "Darlowe, Lee and "samme" are silent on the matter [of company affiliation], and the tire-man is no help at all" (243).

Probable Genre(s)

Romantic Comedy (Harbage)

Possible Narrative and Dramatic Sources or Analogues

No source for the story has been identified, but a reasonably comprehensive account of the action of the play can be inferred from the skeleton version of scenes and character entries it records; E. K. Chambers and Greg jointly did so, offering a description of the romance plot, featuring lovers and jealous fathers, and a course of true love somewhat smoothed by magical intervention. The summary of action below is by Greg, who stressed that "the details of the action and motives suggested are of course conjectural" (Dramatic Documents, 95):

"Laertes and Eschines, befriended by the magician Urganda, are suitors to Allcyane and Statyra, whom, however, their fathers, Tesephon and Allgerius, destine for the wicked rivals Carynus and Prelior. Laertes first makes the acquaintance of the fathers (I. iii), while on Urganda's advice Eschines takes a disguise as Bellveile (II. ii). The rival pairs of suitors appear before the ladies and their fathers to prefer their suits, and renouncing their chosen lovers they are committed to prison (II. iv). Here they overhear a plot by the wicked suitors (III. i), and with the help of the Jailor are able to summon their lovers (III. ii), thus defeating their fathers' plan of marrying them off under the influence of a drug administered in their meat (III. iii). While, however, Tesephon and Allgerius are congratulating themselves on the success of their plot, news is brought by a messenger that their daughters have died, and Urganda … then accuses them of poisoning the meat, and has them arrested by an officer named Euphrodore (IV. i). Next Urganda visits Carynus and Prelior and by means of a magic mirror (IV. ii) drives them mad (IV. iii). The last act opens with a scene (added later to the Plot) in which Urganda restores the ladies to their true lovers (V. i). there follows a spectacular entry, in which, before King Egereon, the condemned fathers are brought out to execution. Carynus and Prelior follow, but the catastrophe is interrupted by another magic show, in which three antic fairies dismiss the executioner and free the victims (V. ii), whereupon Urganda enters with the united couples (V. iii) and the play ends in mutual reconciliation."

A chief interest of the play is its interwoven secondary plot (ignored by Greg's summary, above), which owes something to the Italian commedia dell' arte: it includes a leading figure called Pantaloun, around whom a domestic intrigue unfolds. His wife, Aspida, has a lover, Validore, and the household servants, the maid Rose and Pantaloun's man Peascod, are involved in the dynamics of jealousy and deceit. Attempts to link this action with the scenarios of Flaminio Scala ("The Jealous Old Man," for example) are not entirely compelling, although the analogies are of interest.

References to the Play

(Information needed)

Critical Commentary

Much of the critical commentary on the plot has focused on three issues: provenance, casting, and the plot as an aid to performance. Greg's Dramatic Documents is the foundational commentary, but McMillin and Bradley have modified and expanded Greg's comments substantially.

Provenance: As addition to Theatrical Provenance (above), it bears noting that Greg's arguments on the date and company affiliation of Dead Man's Fortune are grounded in a belief so deeply embedded in scholarship on theater history as to be unassailable as truth. And yet it has no basis in fact; it is actually contradicted by facts. That belief is that, following an argument between John Alleyn and James Burbage at the Theater in 1590 or '91, personal and professional relations between the Alleyns and Burbages were so polarized that the two star-powered players in the families, Edward and Richard, would not have played together in the same company. As a result of this belief, Burbage is sought elsewhere among companies from 1590 to 1594 whenever Alleyn can be located with Strange's men or the Admiral's men. (The contradiction is that Henslowe records the Admiral's men (and presumably Alleyn) playing with the Lord Chamberlain's men (and presumably Burbage) at Newington in June 1594. The consequences for the plot of The Dead Man's Fortune, which names Burbage as a player yet appears to have once belonged to Alleyn is that the date of the manuscript must precede the alleged family quarrel.

Casting: The plot identifies five performers, one by title, a "tyre man" playing an attendant in one scene, and the others by name: [Richard] Darloe, Robert Lee, "b samme" (Samuel Rowley? a boy named Sam?), and (Richard) Burbage.

Burbage: Greg, aware of the potency of the name "Burbage" in any theatrical document, laments that "it is very unfortunate that we cannot determine with any certainty which character [Burbage] played" (Dramatic Documents 100). Burbage's surname appears once in the plot in a late scene (Greg's assigned IV. i); the name is followed immediately by the call for a messenger. This proximity, which in the plots generally often identifies a player and role, leads to the awkward possibility that Burbage played the messenger, but no one wants to believe that. Greg, having professed an inability to assign a part to Burbage, suggests anyway that he might have played Urganda, the magician (Dramatic Documents 44; 95 [edited out with an ellipsis above]). But there are problems with that casting. Astington, originator of this LPD entry, notes the following: "Urganda's magic certainly has an important place in The Dead Man's Fortune, but the character, drawn from the Amadis and Palmerin romances, is an enchantress, 'Urganda the Unknown,' a generally beneficent protrectress of the chivalric heroes. If Greg is right about the casting, then, he is unlikely to be right about the date; Burbage was twenty-one in 1590, and past his days of taking female roles. If indeed he played Urganda the performance connected with the plot is likely to have taken place in the middle 1580s." Bradley also rejects Greg's suggestion. Adding "Munday's derivative romances" to the sources of Urganda's trickery, he notes that "it would be unusual for a Plotter to name a boy by his surname" (97). He suggests that Burbage might have played Eschines, the one of the successful lovers whose part is more complex because he takes on a disguise. Bradley posits further that Burbage took a second disguise as the messenger. McMillin is interested in Burbage's name in the plot as a clue to company affiliation; Burbage is thought by many scholars to have been the lead player in the newly formed company of Pembroke's men in late autumn 1592 (Gurr, 270).

Darloe, Lee "b samme," and the tire-man: Darloe's name appears twice in the plot and once in the margin (twice abbreviated to "Dar"), always as an attendant; he married in January 1590 (Eccles, "Elizabethan Actors I:, A-D," 45) and thus may be assumed to be in his early twenties at the time. Lee, like Darloe, is named three times including the marginal note; once with his Christian name is given. He too is an attendant

Theatrical annotations in the plot give details of its other properties and some costumes, show breaks with music after each act, and identify five performers mostly in minor parts, one by title, a "tyre man" playing an attendant in one scene, and the others by name: (Robert) Darloe, Robert Lee, "b samme" (Samuel Rowley?), and (Richard) Burbage. The combination of these names in one cast is the chief basis for the very tentative proposal of Greg that the play was performed by the Admiral's company in about 1590. He also proposed that Burbage's name, in the sole place it appears, was a slip for the character he was playing, Urganda, whom he calls a "magician."

W. W. Greg, the standard older authority on playhouse documents, was of the opinion that the plot had a "rather primitive character" (Dramatic Documents, 94), but it is in fact clearly written and laid ou

For What It's Worth

Chiefly, the title of the play is not clearly explicable from what the plot reveals about its action, but it probably is bound up with a final revelation involving a stage property: "Enter the panteloun & causeth the chest or truncke to be broughte forth." The puzzle of the dead man and his fortune no doubt was resolved when it was opened, in the last moments of the play.

Works Cited

Bradley, David. From Text to Performance in the Elizabethan Theatre: Preparing the Play for the Stage. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1992.

Eccles, Mark. "Elizabethan Actors I: A-D." Notes & Queries 236.1 (1991): 38-48; "Elizabethan Actors II: E-J." Notes and Queries 236.4 (1991): 454-61; "Elizabethan Actors III: K-R." Notes & Queries 237.3 (1992): 293-303; "Elizabethan Actors IV: S to End." Notes and Queries 238.2 (1993): 165-76.

Greg, W. W. Dramatic Documents from the Elizabethan Playhouses. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1931.
Gurr, Andrew. The Shakespearian Playing Companies. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996.
Knutson, Roslyn L. "Pembroke's Men in 1592-3, Their Repertory and Touring Schedule." Early Theatre 4.1 (2001): 129-38
McMillin, Scott. "The Plots of The Dead Man's Fortune and 2 Seven Deadly Sins: Inferences for Theatre Historians." Studies in Bibliography 26 (1973): 235-43.
Nungezer, Edwin. A Dictionary of Actors ... New York: Greenwood Press, 1929.
Scala, Flaminio. trans. H. F. Salerno, Scenarios of the Commedia dell' Arte. New York, 1967.

Site created by John Astington, University of Toronto; updated by Roslyn L. Knutson 7 August 2010.