Antony and Vallia

Anon. Play Titles A (1595)

Historical Records

Performance Records

Playlists in Philip Henslowe's diary

Fol. 11 (Greg, I.21)

y^e 4 of Jenewary 1594

. . . . . . . . .

Rd at valy a for . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

xj^s

Fol. 12^v Greg I.24)

y^e 20 of June	. . . . . . . . .	Rd at antony & vallea . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .	xx^s
y^e 6 of septmbʒ 1595	. . . . . . . . .	Rd at valia & antony . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .	xiij^s

Fol. 13 (Greg I.25)

y^e 26 of octobʒ 1595

. . . . . . . . .

Rd at valia & antony . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

xxxvij^s

Theatrical Provenance

The play that theater historians collectively have called "Antony and Vallia" (based on Henslowe's variant spellings) had been acquired by the Admiral's men by January 1595, at which time it made its initial recorded performance at the Rose playhouse. Because Henslowe did not mark that showing with "ne" (the marking that most frequently distinguishes new plays in the diary playlists), theater historians have assumed a prior stage life for "Antony and Vallia," though no evidence suggests when and with which company that might have been.

Probable Genre(s)

Romance Harbage; Comedy Wiggins, Catalogue (#804

Possible Narrative and Dramatic Sources or Analogues

There are no obvious candidates for the title characters, and thus no obvious source texts for their story. See Critical Commentary below for a pattern of perceiving this play as an early version of some kind with a play called "Antonio and Vallia," itself lost yet attributed to Philip Massinger in 1620 with uncertain company provenance.

References to the Play

None known.

Critical Commentary

Collier (with no helpful commentary from Malone) puzzled over the garbled phrase in the diary which he read to be "velya for." Noticing the entry in June 1595 of "Antony and Vallea," he back-identified the January entry as possibly an attempt at spelling the same title. In making this connection, he was aided by Malone, who had tagged the item on 20 June as the same as one entered in the Stationers' Register by Humphrey Moseley on 29 June 1660 and attributed to Philip Massinger. Lumping by association, Collier in the entry for the "Antony and Vallea" on 20 June, mentioned the lost play of July-September 1594, "Phillipo and Hippolito," as having a history similar to that of "Antony and Vallia" in being "revived and altered" by Massinger at a much later date (p. 54, n.2).

Fleay, BCED silently absorbed the January entry into the June one in 1595, repeating the identification with the later :"Antonio and Vallia," which he attributed to Thomas Dekker as "altered" by Massinger and subsequently destroyed by John Warburton's cook (2. #142). Greg II noted the poor showing of "valy a for" and projected a revision into the piece posted for 20 June; he accepted the now-conventional opinion that the play in the diary was the basis through revision of Massinger's (and perhaps Dekker's) lost "Antonio and Vallia" (#66, p. 173).

Bentley, JCS (4.759) headed the entry for Massinger's "Antonio and Vallia" with Henslowe's 4 entries for "valy a for/antony & vallea/valia & antony" but proceeded to undermine any textual links such as serial revision. Indeed, he undermined further the assumptions that Warburton had ever had some version of an "Antonio and Vallia" play and that Moseley had ever had "an old manuscript of Henslowe's play."

Gurr addresses the absence of an "ne" for the initial entry of "valy a for" and suggests that the play might be a carry-over from an older version of the Admiral's men (#27, p. 213 n.34 (also n.33).

Wiggins, Catalogue (#804) sets aside any textual link between the play in Henslowe's diary and the similarly named one entered by Humphrey Moseley and/or John Warburton but he finds it plausible that the two items :"were versions of the same story." He is skeptical that the source might have been "H. R.'s prose romance Honour's Conquest because the character named "Antony" has too minor of a part and "no dealings with Vallia."

For What It's Worth

[[WorksCited|Wiggins, Catalogue (#804) redirects attention away from a vexed romance as the narrative of "Antony and Vallia" by noting that the name "Vallia" belonged to a "Gothic King ... who ruled in the Pyrenees in the fifth century."

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; 1 February 2021.