The False One

by John Fletcher, Philip Massinger, Domenico Lovascio (Editor)

Advertised in its Prologue as a prequel to Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar and Antony and Cleopatra, Fletcher and Massinger’s The False One is the first literary work completely to revolve around the affair between Caesar and Cleopatra. In its deployment of their liaison as a venue for the exploration and criticism of contemporary political manoeuvring and its high-spirited and pungent appropriation of Roman history, the play proves to be one of the most compelling Jacobean dramatizations of the classical past.

This Revels Plays edition offers the first fully annotated, single-volume critical edition of The False One, with a thorough introduction that provides new insights on the date and the theatre of the play’s first performance, examines the playwrights’ reworking of their sources and explores the theatrical potential of a play that has hitherto regrettably been lost to the dramatic repertory.

211 pages, Hardcover

Published August 9, 2022

About the author

John Fletcher (1579-1625) was an English playwright and one of the most prolific and influential dramatists of the early seventeenth century, whose career bridged the Elizabethan theatrical tradition and the drama of the Stuart Restoration. He emerged as a major figure in London theatre in the first decade of the 1600s, initially writing for the Children of the Queen’s Revels and soon becoming closely associated with the King’s Men. Fletcher’s early education at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, appears to have prepared him for a clerical career, but like many of the university-trained writers of his generation he gravitated instead toward the commercial stage. His rise was closely tied to his celebrated partnership with Francis Beaumont, with whom he developed a distinctive form of tragicomedy that proved enormously popular. Their collaboration produced several of the period’s most successful plays, including Philaster, The Maid’s Tragedy, and A King and No King, works that helped define Jacobean taste through their blend of romance, political tension, and emotional intensity. Following Beaumont’s withdrawal from writing, Fletcher became increasingly central to the King’s Men and, after the death of William Shakespeare, effectively succeeded him as the company’s principal playwright. During this period he collaborated with Shakespeare on plays such as Henry VIII and The Two Noble Kinsmen, while also producing a large body of work either alone or with other dramatists, most notably Philip Massinger. Fletcher’s drama is marked by technical fluency, flexible verse, and a keen sense of theatrical pacing, and he showed particular mastery in tragicomedy and comedy of manners, genres that would dominate the Restoration stage. Although some of his early experiments, such as The Faithful Shepherdess, initially failed to find an audience, he quickly adapted his style and achieved sustained popularity, with multiple plays performed at court and revived frequently after his death. During the Commonwealth, scenes from his works circulated widely as short theatrical drolls, and following the reopening of the theatres in 1660, Fletcher’s plays were staged more often than those of any other playwright. Over time, however, his reputation declined as Shakespeare’s stature grew, and by the eighteenth century only a handful of his comedies remained in regular performance. Modern scholarship has emphasized both the scale of Fletcher’s output and the complexity of authorship within his canon, which reflects extensive collaboration and has prompted detailed stylistic analysis. Despite fluctuations in critical standing, Fletcher remains a key transitional figure in English drama, whose influence shaped both his contemporaries and the theatrical traditions that followed.

Reviews

[ML Character · Rating 4 out of 5]

Okay, so this is the story of Cleopatra, BEFORE Antony &, when, in order to not get cut out of royal rulership (?) she circumvents her co-king brother Ptolemy to be delivered rolled up in a rug to Caesar's bedroom, which he is VERY into and starts an affair with her. Meanwhile, Caesar is in Egypt being conquer-y because he's recently declared himself emperor and had to remove some triumvirate types, like Pompey, in order to be a sole ruler. In a gambit to gain advancement, Septimus a Roman renegade has [been talked into] assassinated Pompey and brought his head to Caesar. Everyone immediately turns on Septimus for having assassinated his commander, and apparently a noble guy. Okay, so this is rich, considering everyone from Caesar on down is like, SEPTIMUS HOW DARE YOU!!?? YOU BASTARD, POMPEY WAS SO NOBLE! but to be clear-- Caesar deposed him and was fighting him. They absolutely are using Septimus as a scapegoat for a thing that was totally going to happen. ANyway, Septimus is shocked and upset that his service isn't appreciated (me too!) but hijinks ensure as he tried to decide how to redeem himself as the b-plot. Meanwhile, Ptolemy and Cleo have some rivalry of treasure vs feminine attractiveness with Caesar, and then Ptolemy's treacherous, kind of, advisors try to take Caesar down. And fail. And then Ptolemy totally ignominiously is trampled to death as they all are running to try to catch Caesar and co on their break out from the siege to their navy. And he comes back triumphant to be like: no worries Cleo, let's go to Rome, you're so hot I love you and people are gonna treat you like royalty. And she's like, this guy is so worth my compromising my status and virtue for. The End.

[Aaron Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

This deserves to be much more widely read. It's a fast-paced play of political intrigue that's also filled with personal drama. And what's more, it claims to be, and is quite successful at being, a prequel to both Julius Caesar and Antony & Cleopatra. This makes it a really interesting play for the King's Men's repertory.

I had a great time with this, and Domenico Lovascio's introduction is helpful and smart.

A few years ago, when the American Shakespeare Center's artistic director was Ethan McSweeny, they did a "Roman season", with JC, A&C, and ... George Bernard Shaw's Caesar and Cleopatra. I confess to thinking it was kind of insane to pair Shaw with Shakespeare, and now that I've read Fletcher and Massinger's play, I think it was even crazier. It would have made infinitely more sense for the ASC to do The False One.