Five Plays in One (Admiral's)
Historical Records
Performance Records (Henslowe's Diary)
F. 26 (Greg I, p. 51)
April 1597 7 tt at v playes in one. . . . . . . . . . 02|01|00 — 18 — 01
F. 26v (Greg I, p. 52)
April 1597 15 tt at v playes in one. . . . . . . . . . 01|08|02 — 00 — 00 20 tt at v playes in one. . . . . . . . . . 00|19|00 — 07 — 01 25 tt at v playes in one. . . . . . . . . . 01|13|01 — 00 — 00 May 1597 6 tt at v playes in one. . . . . . . . . . 00|16|00 — 03 — 00 14 tt at v playes in one. . . . . . . . . . 00|07|00 — 00 — 00 23 tt at v playes in one. . . . . . . . . . 01|00|03 — 00 — 01
F. 27 (Greg I, p. 53)
June 1597 10 tt at v playes in one. . . . . . . . . . 00|11|03 — 01 — 00 28 tt at v playes in one. . . . . . . . . . 01|00|00 — 13 — 11
Theatrical Provenance
The Admiral's men introduced "Five Plays in One" at the Rose playhouse as a new ("ne") play, and there is no evidence to suggest that it had a stage life after its maiden run ended.
Probable Genre(s)
Unknown (Harbage); Anthology (Wiggins #1603)
Possible Narrative and Dramatic Sources or Analogues
Collier considered this play as well as Three Plays in One and Four Plays in One to be a grouping of playlets offered for "variety" and not necessarily "connected in subject" (22, n5). He considered the "Five Plays in One" put on (with Three Plays in One by the Queen's men in 1584-5) to belong to this group, but he did not lump the Admiral's 1597 play with the Queen's 1584-5 one despite the identical title, nor did he suggest the narratives possibly dramatized in any of these plays.
Fleay, therefore, appears to have begun both the lumping of "Five Plays in One" with Richard Tarlton and the plot of "2 The Seven Deadly Sins" (Chronicle History, 83) and with the Ages plays by Thomas Heywood (BCED, 1.286). (Note: Tarlton has traditionally been considered the author of the plays represented by the surviving plot called "2 The Seven Deadly Sins" because he was said to have written a play on the sins, entered in this database as "The Seven Deadly Sins" and dated 1585; the LPD splits the Tarlton play from the anonymous two-parter now dated 1597-8.)
Greg gave considerable credence to Fleay's connecting "Five Plays in One" with Heywood's work, though he discredits Fleay's guesswork on the stories dramatized in most of the playlets. He was more positive about Fleay's identification of an item in Henslowe's inventory lists with Five Plays in One," namely the head of Argus:
Under the heading “The Enventary tacken of all the properties for my Lord Admeralles men, the 10 of Marche 1598”:
- Item, ... Argosse heade ... (Greg, Papers [Appx. I, art. 1, p. 117. l. 67])
Perhaps teased by the appeal of assigning properties in Henslowe's inventory that were not specifically assigned to plays, Greg offered another conjecture, asking why the "Cupedes bowe, & quiver" (Greg, Papers, p. 117, l. 70) might not have as logically belonged to "Five Plays in One"—if one of its playlets were "Cupid and Psyche"—as to "Dido and Aeneas."
The effect of the Fleay-Greg commentary has been to identify the narrative and dramatic sources and analogues of "Five Plays in One" with classical mythology, when there is no corroborating evidence for that association.
References to the Play
Critical Commentary
For What It's Worth
Works Cited
Site created and maintained by Roslyn L. Knutson, Professor Emerita, University of Arkansas at Little Rock; 12 November 2019.