Tamar Cham, Parts 1 and 2: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 23:23, 10 March 2016

Historical Records

Plot for "1 Tamar Cam" (Admiral's, 1602)

This plot, for a revival of Part 1 by the Admiral's Men in 1602, was transcribed by Steevens and printed by Isaac Reed in the "Variorum" Shakespeare of 1803, has since disappeared. Only the published transcription survives. The following is Greg's reprinting, from Henslowe Papers 145-48 (Internet Archive):

Theatrical Provenance

Initially produced by Strange's, with Part 2 being performed on 28 April 1592 (marked "ne" by Henslowe). The plays were acquired by the Admiral's by 1596, when Part 1 was revived on 06 May and Part 2 on 11 June. The Admiral's bought the book of the plays from Alleyn in 1602. Greg (Dramatic Documents, 161) notes the absence of Jones and Shaa (indicating performance after January 1602) and the presence of Singer (indicating a date of before 1603, when he left the company).

Probable Genre(s)

Tragedy; Eastern conqueror.

Possible Narrative and Dramatic Sources or Analogues

References to the Play

In Dekker's The Shoemaker's Holiday (1600), Simon Eyre refers to Tamar Cham's beard:

Eyre. My liege, a very boy, a stripling, a younker. You see not a white hair on my head, not a grey in this beard. Every hair, I assure thy Majesty, that sticks in this beard Sim Eyre values at the King of Babylon's ransom. Tamar Cham's beard was a rubbing-brush to't. Yet I'll shave it off and stuff tennis balls with it to please my bully King. (XXI.20-25)

In their gloss to this line, the Revels editors suggest that "[p]erhaps something special was made of the hero's beard" in the lost "Tamar Cham" plays, and further note the recurrence of beard imagery in Much Ado, when Benedick offers to fetch "a hair off the great Cham's beard" (II.i.237-8).

In Timber: or, Discoveries, Jonson complained of "the Tamerlanes, and Tamer-Chams of the late Age, which had nothing in them but the scenicall strutting, and furious vociferation, to warrant them to the ignorant gapers" (H&S 8.587).

Critical Commentary

<Summarise any critical commentary that may have been published by scholars. Please maintain an objective tone!>

See also Wiggins serial number 906 and 925.

For What It's Worth

Works Cited

Dekker, Thomas. The Shoemaker's Holiday. ed. R. L. Smallwood and Stanley Wells. Manchester: Manchester UP, 1979, rpt.1999. The Revels Plays.

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-{| style="float: right; border: 1px solid #BBB; margin: .46em 0 0 .2em;"
-|- style="font-size: 86%;"
-| valign="top" |[[Image:Greg Papers 154 Tamar Cham castlist.jpg|link=http://www.lostplays.org/images/8/8b/Greg_Papers_154_Tamar_Cham_castlist.jpg]]<!--
-  --><br /> Greg's reconstructed castlist for the 1602 revival of "Tamar Cham", <br>based on the plot [http://www.archive.org/stream/henslowepapersbe00hensuoft#page/154/mode/1up (Greg, ''Papers'', 154)]
-|}