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Thomas Middleton (1580 – 1627) was an English Jacobean playwright and poet. Middleton stands with John Fletcher and Ben Jonson as among the most successful and prolific of playwrights who wrote their best plays during the Jacobean period. He was one of the few Renaissance dramatists to achieve equal success in comedy and tragedy. Also a prolific writer of masques and pageants, he remains one of the most noteworthy and distinctive of Jacobean dramatists.
Middleton's never actively bad, but this seemed to drag at the end. On stage, performed at speed, it could be funny, offering lots of opportunities with comic business as props change hands again and again. In reading, not quite so fast, and the script seems never to have been properly organised. Some funny scenes, with a pawnbroker renting out clothing as soon as it reaches him. Complicated to get right, however.
Read as part of the REP online reading of the repertoire of the Jacobean children's companies.
The storyline is really difficult to follow. I wonder how the early audiences might feel about this. However, Middleton writes comedy funny enough for me to tumble through all the plot twists.