The Roman Actor

by Philip Massinger

Philip Massinger's tragedy, The Roman Actor, was first performed in 1626, as King James I's reign came to an end and his son Charles I acceded to the throne. Three years later, when the play was published, relations between the king and many in parliament and the country had worsened. The Roman Actor - until recently neglected in the theatre but regarded by many critics, and Massinger himself, as his finest play - explores the balance between private and public moralities, effectively condemns tyranny, and defends plays, anatomising both the theatre of power and the power of theatre. This new Revels Plays volume provides a modernised text, with a thorough introduction that sets out Massinger's intervention in the political tensions of his own time and examines his clear-eyed portrayal of the pleasures and perils of performance. It also includes a detailed commentary on the play designed to be of value to students, specialist readers and performers, and an appendix discussing the
play's textual history. The edition focuses on the play's theatrical life in its own time and ours and, in addition to a detailed stage history, includes an interview with Sir Antony Sher, who played the role of the tyrannical Roman emperor, Domitian, in the Royal Shakespeare Company's acclaimed production in 2002.

Genres: Plays, Drama, Renaissance, Classics

128 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1626

About the author

Philip Massinger (born 1583) was an English dramatist. His finely plotted plays, including A New Way to Pay Old Debts, The City Madam and The Roman Actor, are noted for their satire and realism, and their political and social themes.

Reviews

[Bill Kerwin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Caroline era dramatist Philip Massinger was not very successful in his own day—witness his dedicatory epistles, which continually plead poverty—but he was better known to posterity than many of his more popular contemporaries, principally because he possessed qualities prized by the 18th and 19th centuries: comparatively chaste plots, inoffensive diction, and verse that--although lacking in subtlety--resounds with Ciceronian majesty and declamatory power.

It is declamatory power that has preserved the name of The Roman Actor in popular memory. Although infrequently performed in its entirety, it is the source of a long impressive first act speech in which Paris, the "Roman Actor," tells members of his audience that, if they take offense at how the vices of characters on stage mirror their own, they should not blame the players,for “IT IS NOT OUR FAULT.” This monologue, first culled from the play by actor-manager John Philip Kemble, was used extensively during the 19th century: by professional actors as a curtain-raiser, by amateur performers as a parlor piece, and by high school boys as a declamatory exercise. It helped keep the name of Massinger alive.

The play itself is a well plotted piece of theater which uses the familiar device of a play-within-a-play with effective irony. It portrays, with insight and without cliche, the character of its protagonist the Roman Emperor Domitian--a merry sociopath who reminds me of Camus' Caligula--and the events which bring about his well deserved assassination. I enjoyed reading this play, and would like to see it performed.

[Jay Eckard · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oh, this is a good play.

Imagine one of Shakespeare's Roman plays, without the tedious hand-wringing over being a good person, and you pretty much have The Roman Actor. There's a vicious, loathed tyrant, a power-mad mistress, the women she edged out, the jilted husband, spineless parasites and a few struggling actors who (mostly) just want to get out alive.

Stylistically, it toys with being a revenge tragedy but never quite makes it there. The only person who isn't utterly loathsome -- Paris, the lead actor and probable namesake of the play -- is never motivated by revenge and never offs anybody. Everyone else busily plots and counterplots in a way that's startlingly reminiscent of current TV shows like Revenge.

More than any other period play I know, this one would be both immensely popular and truly good theatre in the right hands right now. Anybody up for a try?

[Florence Ridley · Rating 3 out of 5]

I tend to love early modern plays the most when they get the silliest with it and for a play about actors and tyranny this was not very silly. There was also incest for no reason. Credit to Massinger for making the most obvious political commentary and even having characters go on about how stupid you’d have to be to be offended by satire. I bet that pissed some people off. But as commentary this had the most mainstream takes ever and contributed nothing interesting whatsoever to kingship discourse.

Prediction: someone in my seminar class will make everything Domitia’s fault somehow.

[grosbeak · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lots of meta-theater and self-conscious monologues about How Great Theater Is As A Social Practice (but it Doesn't Work if you aren't allowed to perform the whole play beginning to end); plus evil Domitian bringing all the resources of weird imperial biography and Senecan tyrant to bear on his evilness. Oh, plus scheming princesses, subtle revenge plots, on-stage torture, ghosts, 3 plays-within-a-play... I love it.

[Zoey · Rating 3 out of 5]

Domitia, what a character.

That’s all I have to say, to be honest. She was constantly making moves, and I was barely keeping up.

[Lizardley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kind of extremely fire, Massinger devoured, also third straight play for this class that involves incest, so that’s also there

[Esdaile · Rating 2 out of 5]

This play presents us with the court of the sociopathic omnipotent Roman Emperor, Domitian. He belongs to the tradition of the expanding emperors, that is to say those who still saw their task as stretching the bounds of the Imperioum romanum still further. The play illsutrates too well the need for the "balance of powers" as outlined by the American founding fathers. The Emperor believes that he makes the law because he is "like unto the Gods", and the way he states this in the play echoes the Biblical temptation, "in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God". No counter balancing power, either spiritual, sentimental or temporal exists to restrain the crazed emperor and his whims and appetites, which his subjects ignore at their dire peril. His subjects vie with one another in demeaning themselves by denigrading themselves and singing Domitian's praises. This might seem exaggerated were it not that Gibbon and other historians provide similar accounts of imperial excess, this account being taken from Suetonius. Like most Romans Domitian is superstitious and made glum (who wouldn't be?) by the prophesy which foretold that he would perish on 18th September 96 A.D. during the 5th morning hour. This is the Emperor known (best known) for having the soothsayer put to death who confirms the rpediction of his death and says that his own corpse will be eaten by dogs. domitian has the soothsayer put to death and orders that the corpse be burned to rpevent the fulfilment of prophesy, but the corpse is indeed devoured by dogs. On hearing this news, Domitian's louring foreboding understandably swells up. It has been argued that this Emperor's reputation may have been blackened by the senate, which loathed his autocratic rule and that possibly he was not as bad as he was painted (the same has often been said of Macbeth and Richard III). Be that as it may, Massinger paints him as gruesomely as it is possible to paint anyone, to the point of caricature, and in marked contrast to the commentary on Nero's crimes at the end of Racine's Britannicus, a play which Massinger's Roman Actor in certain respects resembles, there is still lingering doubt, which the playwright seems to share, about the justice of assassinating a supreme ruler. This Pagan Emperor can hardly be described the "Lord's annointed" but there is still enormous awe in the face of determined and willful authority. The for Massinger contemporary subject of royal absolutism and its dangers underpins this play and Massinger's contemporaries must have been aware of the immediacey of the subject material, disguised here as a Roman tragedy. The only person able to exercise authority over the Emperor Domitian is his wife, whom he has taken from another man, raised to the position of emperess and with whom he is, on his own admission, the comments of others and by the evidience of his behaviour, besotted. The play contains echoes of an earlier generation of Renaissance writers, Shakespeare in particular, in certains turns of phrase and in the theme of jealousy especially, and there is a play within a play, to "cath the conscience of the" not king but someone's father, and later to reenact a scene of adultery. In structure however, which is claustrophic, in chronology covering a short period of time, in its humourlessness and lack of light relief and in its occasional lyrical intensity, Philip Massinger's "The Roman Actor" more closely resembles the great tradition of French classic drama. In contrast to the great drama which preceded it in England and would succeed it in France, it verges on the grotesque and absurd and offers no significant physchological insight of any kind, other than to show how subservient most of us are forced to become in the face of supreme unharnassed tyranny. Ancient Rome, contemporary North Korea. Plus ca change..

[Tala]

I am going to wait after my English class to give my thoughts 😴

Edit: Feb 21, 2024

I think that this play was good when I was able to understand it. I am not a Shakespeare fan and never got into his plays, and although this play was written after Shakespeare’s time, there was still a lot of it I don’t think I completely appreciate just due to me not being into older English plays. However, after I discussed it with my class, I can definitely see why this play was semi-popular at its time and still continues to be. I think it was really interesting how Massinger used the Roman Empire as a parallel to the English empire at the time to make critiques about class, power disparity, and the monarchy in a subtle way.

Alongside that note, we discussed how Domitia was exposed to power, and why she chose to wield it the way that she did, even though she started out having no power. All in all I think that the play’s central theme is power and power shifts; how one person gains power and what they do with it after having done, and how someone with so much power can begin to lose it, and that power is not an end all be all, but rather something of a privilege that you must use in good faith, which none of the people in this play really did.

In addition to that I think that it wasn’t really a tragedy in the sense of the final death scene. I think it was a tragedy was like some of the earlier deaths and Paris‘s death but I think Caesar and Domitia got what they deserved, maybe Caesar more than her because I think that Domitia is actually a good example of what happens when someone who’s never had power in their whole life has an opportunity to gain it and what they do with that and unfortunately, she did not do very great things. She actually did horrible things with it like forcing those women in her villa to be degraded into being her servants even though that is not their rank really just so that she could make them feel bad, though she knew that they had their own grievances with Caesar.

Finally, I would not personally recommend this play unless you’re already into older English plays and I don’t really think that reading it will add much to your knowledge. I feel like although this play was good and I liked its central message I don’t think that it is unique in this play, or to the authors writing. I think there are better things out there but again I don’t know if I can’t appreciate it fully due to me not being a scholar in this realm.

Also, ignore any weird typos or writing. I am using voice speaker to write this review.

[Freya Abbas · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating play, especially if you have some context about the rhetoric spread by puritan anti-theatriclists who wanted to ban theatre, as well as the people who defended the theatre. Domitia is probably one of the most abhorrent female villains and what's interesting is that the reason why she is so detestable isn't just because she's evil, scary or cruel like someone like Tamora from Titus Andronicus (though she is definitely still evil) but mainly because she's kinda stupid. She basically doesn't have media literacy skills and thinks that Paris acting as a lover in a play means that he is really that passionate and romantic in real life. The scene where she reacts to his acting is extremely bonkers. And I thought it was some Venus and Adonis type shit when she tries to get him to cuckold the emperor although he does somewhat reciprocate, though reluctantly. I thought it was a cool idea to make the pro-theatre side associated with the virtuous characters of this play and the anti-theatre side associated with Domitia, and it definitely helps the pro-theatre cause.

[Ava · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars!

I enjoyed reading an older play that wasn’t Shakespeare for once. The Real Housewives-esque gossip between the women was funny, and I enjoyed dissecting Domitia’s grasp on power in class.

[Gill · Rating 4 out of 5]

Best so far in our Massinger readathon - strange use of multiple plays within plays to move on the action. The story includes many characters from the Falco novels!

Re-read as part of the REP King's Men repertoire online reading project.

Definitely one of Massinger's better plays, with some extremely interesting and powerful speeches. The full cast list survives, astonishingly, so we know that John Lowin had the lead role of Domitian; he was a skilled actor who must have enjoyed getting his teeth into this part. Various gory murders and an obligatory haunting, reminiscent of Richard III.

[SR · Rating 5 out of 5]

DELICIOUSLY fucked-up.

[Michael P. · Rating 5 out of 5]

A strange play by modern standards, but fascinating and great. Revealing about theatre practice in early modern England.

[Michael P. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent student edition of a great play.

[Gill · Rating 4 out of 5]

Strong, sometimes powerful. Lots of compelling characters. I can see why this one has been performed in this century.

[Jackie · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 stars

It might be a 2-stars-read but Domitia deserves an extra star.

[Albie]

The Roman Actor by Phillip Massinger (2003)