The Changeling

1
The Changeling

• EN2010 2008

2
A great success (and still quite a common revival
for a non-Shakespearean 17th century play)

• 1622, Phoenix playhouse, Lady Elizabeths Men
• January 1624, revived at court
• 1629 and on into the Restoration, revivals, with
  William Robbins and Timothy Read taking on
  Rowleys famous role as Tony, the Changeling.

3
Goya, Courtyard of a madhouse From personal
witness by the artist. Our play is one that
involves cruelty, but I am not sure that the
cruelty of Alibiuss mad-house is realised, not
in the way Goya bears witness to it.
(You can see the clothed madhouse keeper whipping
the inmates Lollio in our play.)
4
Goya, Casa de locos. Note motifs of nakedness,
fighting, dressing up with crowns, etc
5
William Hogarths Rakes Progress scene in Bedlam
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Bellamont. Stay, yonders the Dolphin without
Bishops-gate, where our horses are at rack and
manger, and we are going past it come cross
over and what place is this? Maybery. Bedlam
ist not? Bellamont. Where the mad-men are, I
never was amongst them, as you love me Gentlemen,
lets see what Greeks are within. Greenshield.
We shall stay too long. Bellamont. Not a whit,
Ware will stay for our coming I warrant you come
a spurt and away, lets bee mad once in our days
this is the door. Enter Full-moon Maybery. Save
you sir, may we see some a your mad-folks, doe
you keepem? Fullmoon. Yes. Bellamont. Pray
bestow your name sir upon vs. Fullmoon. My name
is Full-moone . Bellamont. You well deserve this
office good master Full-moone and what mad-caps
have you in your house? Dekker and Webster,
Northward Ho! Bedlam as one of the sights of
London, like the lions in the Tower of London,
and the glassworks in Blackfriars.
7
Cast. Pray may we see some of those wretched
Souls, That here are in your keeping? Ans. Yes
you shall, But gentlemen I must disarm you then,
There are of mad men, as there are of tame, All
humoured not alike we have here some, So apish
and phantastike, play with a feather, And tho
twould grieve a soul, to see Gods image, So
blemisht and defac'd, yet do they act Such
anticke and such pretty lunacies, That spite of
sorrow they will make you smile Others again we
have like hungry Lions, Fierce as wild Bulls,
untamable as flies, And these have oftentimes
from strangers sides Snatcht rapiers suddenly,
and done much harm, Whom if youle see, you must
be weaponless. Omn. With all our harts. Ans.
Here take these weapons in, Stand of a little
pray, so, so, tis well Ile shew you here a man
that was sometimes, A very grave and wealthy
Citizen
Visiting the madhouse. In Jonsonian drama, his
wits tend to see the whole city as an informal
Bedlam, where they can go and mock the
crazy. This is from an elaborate visiting scene
in The Honest Whore, by Dekker, 1604.
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Mad, madmen, madness, fool, fools, folly
pervasive language
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LOLLIO Aside Cuckoo, cuckoo! Exit. Enter
Madmen above, some as birds, others as beasts.
Exit Madmen. ANTONIO What are these?
ISABELLA Of fear enough to part us, Yet are
they but our schools of lunatics, That act their
fantasies in any shapes Suiting their present
thoughts if sad, they cry If mirth be their
conceit, they laugh again. Sometimes they
imitate the beasts and birds, Singing or
howling, braying, barking all As their wild
fancies prompt 'em.
III iii As Antonio comes from behind his
disguise as Tony, he is simultaneously observed
by Lollio (and what a lot of snooping and
overhearing there is in the play) and interrupted
by the mad folk, who collectively act their
fantasies in any shapes, and are governed only
by their wild fancies (and Lollios whip).
10
Joint authors Middleton and Rowley treated in
this quarto like the classic 17th century paired
dramatists, Beaumont and Fletcher
11
Later quarto text owner writes in Middleton
alone
12
Division of labour

• Rowley probably conceives main plot, as he has a
  special line on bigamy plots. (Commitment to more
  than one partner is a bit like Beatrice-Joanna.)
• Writes Act 1
• Sub-plot as a whole

• Middleton main plot from Act II onwards.
• Seems therefore to invent de Flores disfigured
  face (not mentioned till Act 2)
• T. S. Eliot illustrates the greatness of
  Middleton with lines now thought likely to be
  Rowleys.

13
Early printed texts do not have normalised
spellings. What the compositor set might reflect
the idiosyncratic spellings of the author.
Scholars, looking closely at characteristic
exclamations and contractions, claim to sort out
the authors in a text with multiple authors,
14
Unpublished suggestion?

• for the two great scenes of the play (II ii and
  III iv), Middleton and Rowley took a character
  apiece, and passed the developing script
  backwards and forwards
• this cant be proved it is rather a fine way
  of explaining the intensity of those scenes.
• Jeffery Masten, Textual Intercourse talks about
  this type of thing. The suggestion may have been
  made at a conference, I have not seen it argued
  in print.

15
Beatrice-Joanna daughter of
Vermandero betroathed to Alonzo de
Piracquo falls in love with Alsemero Uses De
Flores as a murderer he kills Alonzo de
Piracquo Her waiting-woman and wedding-night
substitute, Diaphanta The would-be revenger of
his brother, Tomazo de Piracquo
Sub-plot Isabella, married to the mad-house
doctor, Alibius courted by
Antonio and by Franciscus attempted by
Lollio
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The play as Rowleys great success, in the role
he wrote for himself to play.
O, it does me good To see him hold outs chin,
hang down his hands And twirl his bauble. There
is nere a part About him but breaks jests
Id rather see him leap, laugh or cry Then hear
the gravest speech in all the play (Thomas
Goffe)
18
Anthropological essay on changeling folklore and
its meanings

• www.pitt.edu/dash/changeling.html
• Sinister folk narratives a changeling is the
  dolt substituted by the fairies when they stole
  your true child. It will betray its true nature
  if you can surprise it.
• The changeling story type tends to look like a
  narrative shaped to condone infanticide.
• http//www.imdb.com/title/tt0462225/plotsummary
• -2008 film The Changeling based on this.

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Two (or three) Changelings

• Antonio, Tony, the counterfeit madman of the
  sub-plot

• Beatrice-Joanna, the sexual changeling
• change used 19 times in the text, thematically
  prominent at the end.

You could also stretch a point slightly and say
that Diaphanta as substitute virgin for the
wedding night is another form of exchanged person.
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The play as early modern and modern

• A sexy heroine, who employs an assassin to help
  her get rid of an unwanted partner.
• Sexual blackmail
• journeyman in murder the hit man
• The creepy and dangerous stalker
• The decent and bewildered male partner.

• Action impelled by the heroines desire to
  conceal the loss of her virginity.
• Moralising along traditional Christian lines.
• Mad house sub-plot

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What kind of play is The Changeling? What kind of
tragedy does Middleton write?

• A Shakespearean hero at the end of the tragic
  action
• I pray you, in your letters, / When you shall
  these unlucky deeds relate / Speak of me as I
  am
• Also Hamlet asking Horatio to live on to report
  his cause aright to the unsatisfied, Coriolanus
  dying with the thought of what is written about
  him in the Volscian annals.

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But Middleton asking to be forgotten

• O come not near me sir, I shall defile you, I
  am that of your blood was taken from you For
  your better health, look no more upon't, But
  cast it to the ground regardlesly, Let the
  common sewer take it from distinction
• V iii 149ff
• Othello noblest at the last

23
Bianca in Women beware Women

• What make here? These are all strangers to me
• Not known but by their malice, now thou art gone
• Nor do I seek their pities
• Here, a protagonist disclaiming that vital
  tragic emotion of pity.
• O the deadly snares
• That women set for women, without pity
• Either to soul or honour! Learn by me
• To know your foes. In this belief I die
• Like our own sex, we have no enemy
• And here, making herself just a general
  example for ordinary audience members to learn
  from.

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Middletons dispersed tragedy

• Lust and forgetfulness hath been among us
• And we are brought to nothing
• Margot Heinemann refers to Middletons City
  Tragedies. Groups of characters brought low by
  their lack of moral scruple in life.
• Coriolanus Alone I did it!

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Mans understanding / Is riper at his fall than
all his lifetime

• so Hippolito in Women beware Women.
• There is an access of tragic knowledge, but
  little to suggest that the characters were in any
  way great before their fall brought to nothing,
  but descending from nowhere in particular.

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Parallel plotting
De Flores sees Beatrice-Joanna with
Alsemero and will make his own attempt on her
Lollio sees Isabella with Antonio (when the
counterfeit madman reveals who he really is)
and makes his own attempt on her, confident
that he can blackmail her sexually
But Isabella routs Lollio, tells him that she
will make Antonio kill him as the price of
enjoying her
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Sub-plot effect

• Isabella does not commit adultery (though she
  clearly contemplates doing so)
• Lead female in sub-plot more in control of
  herself and her circumstances.
• Contributes to a denial of exceptional qualities
  to the main plot protagonist.

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Sub-plot functions

• Emphatic of the love/madness connection
• (Does love turn fool, run mad, and all at once?
  IV iii 2)
• but rather curiously does not deliver the dance
  of fools and mad-men at the projected revels for
  Beatrice-Joannas marriage a masque-centred
  denouement might have been expected
• The sub-plot is full of mordant humour.
• Christopher Ricks the overt bawdy of the
  sub-plot enables us to tune in to the double
  meanings of the main plot, those Beatrice-Joanna
  cannot hear herself or de Flores using.

29
Attraction of the play to us young female tragic
protagonist. Part of the general Jacobean
interest in feminised tragedy compare plays by
Webster, Marston, Ford.
Anna Koval, Beatrice-Joanna for the English
Touring Companys production, smeared out with
blood.
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Touché!

• T S Eliot
• profound and permanent moral value and horror
• Middleton understood woman in tragedy better
  than any of his contemporaries.

• Lisa Jardine
• when a Renaissance dramatist is praised for his
  insight into the female psychology, it means no
  more than insight into female psychology from a
  male point-of-view
• In her Still Harping on Daughters

31
2006 legal recommendation

• That husbands who murder their wives should be
  getting longer sentences, and that wives who,
  conversely, murder their husbands, should be
  getting shorter prison terms.
• (Assumption of a period of abuse by the husband
  as the provocation)

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Domestic tragedy

• Middletons step-father had tried to kill
  Middletons mother. TM may have had thereafter a
  personal interest in extreme domestic violence.
  He could have been the author of the anonymous
  Yorkshire Tragedy, with its demented husband who
  tries to kill his whole family.

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Background women who kill their partners, early
modern style

• Favourite topic for domestic tragedy, e.g.,
• Arden of Faversham A Warning for Fair Women, and
  the lost play, Page of Plymouth.
• See Catherine Belsey, Alice Ardens Crime,
  Renaissance Drama, 13, 1982.

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Petty Treason and its punishment
35
Warnings for Fair Women
Notice this strange stress on the woman being
burned to ashes that such a person never
existed. Is there some connection to
Beatrice-Joannas desire to be forgotten?
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The Goodcole pamphlet

• Interlaces his zealous account of Alice Clark
  going to the stake with a tale of an unnamed
  woman, who he knows was abused hideously by her
  old and peevish husband, and who resolved to
  poison her husband, then commit suicide. She
  administered the poison, but repented what she
  had done. The consequences were extraordinary
• But better motions now coming into her thoughts,
  and she truly repentant of what she had done,
  finding the confection begun to work with him,
  fell down before him upon her knees First
  acknowledging the fact, then humbly desiring from
  him forgivenesse, with all, beseeching him to
  take some present Antidote to preserve his life,
  which was yet recoverable on whom he sternly
  looking, as he lay in that Agony gasping betwixt
  life and death, returned her answer in this
  manner nay thou Strumpet and murderess, I will
  receive no help at all but I am resolvd to dye
  and leave the world, be it for no other cause,
  but to have thee burnt at a stake for my death
  which having said, and obstinate in that
  Hethenish resolution, he soon after expired.
• Goodcole clearly regards her case as having been
  a hard one, but they duly carried out the
  judicial murder the husband anticipated.
• http//roy25booth.blogspot.com/2006/10/henry-goodc
  ole-burns-and-saves-you.html

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Moral panic?
38
The Egham murder, 1613
Quite irrelevant!
39
Despite Lisa Jardine, the play as a psychological
monodrama.

• As Beatrice-Joanna was invented by male
  dramatists (two of Middletons virtuous heroines
  are simply called Castiza).
• Beatrice-Joanna coming apart over sex
• Has deeply absorbed virginity as her value in her
  society (the dear companion of my soul). The
  projected marriage to Piracquo unbalances her.
• Phallic threat embodied in De Flores (deflowers
  note that he is Antonio de Flores in the
  source TM reduces him to a sexual pun) Piracquo
  killed and symbolically castrated reversing the
  threat onto him.
• Alsemero as unsexual partner he later speaks of
  my first sight of woman at V iii 13

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Beatrice-Joannas nightmare

• IV i discovery of Alsemeros physicians
  closet, with its virginity test.
• Enjoys sex with De Flores (how heartily he
  serves me! (V i 69)), but also wants to be
  punished for it.
• Unconsciously acts to exacerbate suspicion
  (indiscreet couplings with De Flores)
• And simply cannot call De Flores bluff

41
Virginity tests in Johann Wecker, Eighteen books
of the secrets of art nature (1660) or you
could always check with the lions in the Tower of
London
42
A later edition of the 1621 source text
43
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46
Source material

• Puritan tract, stories of those seduced by sin
  and how heaven brings about their downfalls.
  No-one should ever think to take personal
  revenge it shows Gods Revenge against Murder.

47
In the source 1

• Beatrice-Joanna allures Antonio de Flores to
  murder her unwanted fiancé. He does this for love
  of her. She rewards him with many kisses but he
  does not blackmail her into bed. She marries
  Alsemero, then within months of the marriage, his
  intolerable jealousy makes her turn to de Flores,
  who she takes as her lover. Her waiting woman
  exposes this illicit closeness. B-J tells her
  husband that she has a chaste familiarity with
  de F because of his power over her from the
  murder.

48
In the source 2

• Alsemero is astonished, does nothing. B-J
  continues her affair until her husband catches
  her in bed with de F he shoots them both.
  Alsemero next kills the revenge-seeking brother
  of Piracquo, is sentenced to death for the crime,
  confesses the whole story.

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Differences

• (our devillish Beatrice-Joanna is constant)
• But de Flores has no facial disfigurement, does
  not blackmail is relatively less guilty than the
  de Flores in the play.
• Alsemero, however, is morally very dubious in the
  source.
• So, TM and WR set out to blacken de F and
  whitewash Alsemero.

50

• De Flores honest de Flores an anthology of
  theatrical villains as Iago, also with the
  callous candour of Websters Flamineo and Bosola.
• (Note that his sexual obsessiveness is what makes
  him distinct)

51

• Alsemero a lot of what complicates the play lies
  in the incomplete make-over
• The jealous A. of the source showing through in
  his physicians closet.
• He never seems to think how Alonzo de Piracquo
  abruptly vanished. His stupid plan to challenge
  that suitor to a duel hastens B-Js misjudgement.
• But he is given the moral high ground at the end

52
Alsemero as substitute child?

• Alsemero. To Vermandero, Beatrice-Joannas
  fatherSir, you have yet a sons duty living,
  Please you accept it, let that your sorrow As
  it goes from your eye, go from your heart, Man
  and his sorrow at the grave must part. (V
  iii 215ff)

53
Sight, see, seen, seeing, judgement is Alsemero
conveniently blind?
54
thats eye-hour - 31 occurrences
55
Alsemero at the end of the play both righteous
and being their pander
Beatrice. within. He lies, the villain does
belie me. De Flores. Let me go to her, sir.
Alsemero. Nay, you shall to her. Peace, crying
Crocodile, your sounds are heard, Take your prey
to you, get you into her sir.                   
                       Exit De Flores. I'le be
your pander now, rehearse again Your Scene of
lust, that you may be perfect When you shall
come to act it to the black audience Where howls
and gnashings shall be music to you. Clip your
adulteress freely, 'tis the pilot Will guide you
to the Mare mortuum, Where you shall sink to
fathoms bottomless. Into is the 1653 Quarto
(sexual) reading editors tend to read get you
in to her, sir (V iii 110ff)
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(No Transcript)
57
Moralising Thomazos desire for vengeance
satisfied confident that they will suffer in
hell.

• Thomazo. Sir, I am satisfied, my injuries Lie
  dead before me, I can exact no more, Unless my
  soul were loose, and could ore-take Those black
  fugitives, that are fled from thence To take a
  second vengeance but there are wraths Deeper
  then mine (tis to be fear'd) about 'em.
• V iii 190ff

58
Dishonour, or unpurged sin

• Beatrice. Forgive me Alsemero, all forgive,
  'Tis time to die, when 'tis a shame to live.
                                           Dies.
  Vermandero. Oh my name is entered now in that
  record, Where till this fatal hour 'twas never
  read.

59
Against all this conventional moralising what
does B-J think about what she has done?

• At the start of the play, a church-goer.
• Does she reflect on what she has done?
• Note rather the repetition of both her folly
  and her crime with Diaphanta failure to think
  that a person from a lower social rank might have
  their own desires then her cruel jokes about
  disposing of her
• Your reward follows you.

60
Yare the deeds creature

• De Flores. Look but into your conscience, read
  me there, 'Tis a true Book, you'll find me there
  your equal Push, fly not to your birth, but
  settle you In what the act has made you, y'are
  no more now, You must forget your parentage to
  me, Y'are the deeds creature, by that name You
  lost your first condition, and I challenge you,
  As peace and innocency has turn'd you out, And
  made you one with me. Beatrice. With thee,
  foul villain? De Flores. Yes, my fair
  murderess (III iv 133ff)

61
As the Eve who was predestined to fall

• Beatrice. Vengeance begins Murder I see is
  followed by more sins. Was my creation in the
  womb so curst, It must engender with a Viper
  first?
• (III iv 163ff)
• seeing herself as the Eve fated to mate with
  the serpent, not Adam

62
Unheeded revenant Beatrice-Joanna seems to have
no more conscience than de Flores
Enter Alonzos Ghost. De Flores Ha! What art
thou that tak'st away the light 'Twixt that star
and me? I dread thee not 'Twas but a mist of
conscience---All's clear again.
                                         Exit.
Beatrice Who's that, Deflores? Blesse me! it
slides by, Some ill thing haunts the house,
t'has left behind it, A shivering sweat upon me
I'me afraid now.This night hath been so tedious
Oh this strumpet! (V i 57ff)
63
Sense of her evil destiny, rather than any
developed soliloquy about seeing herself as
damned. Doesnt voice terror at the loss of her
soul.

• Beneath the stars, upon yon meteor Ever hung my
  fate, 'mongst things corruptible I ne'er could
  pluck it from him. My loathing Was prophet to
  the rest

64
Beatrice-Joanna as experiencing hell in this world

• De Flores as her unsought Mephostophilis, who has
  waited for her moral lapse to claim her, becomes
  her pact.
• The whiff of brimstone about De F his confidence
  that he will succeed, his lack of regret, his
  sardonic humour. The serpent.

65
Hell hath no limits, nor is circumscribed in one
self-place

• . Beneath the stars, upon yon Meteor Ever hang
  my fate, 'mongst things corruptible, I ne're
  could pluck it from him, my loathing Was Prophet
  to the rest, but ne're believ'd Mine honour fell
  with him, and now my life. Alsemero, I am a
  stranger to your bed, Your bed was coz'ned on
  the nuptial night, For which your false-bride
  died. Alsemero Diaphanta! De Flores. Yes,
  and the while I coupled with your mate At
  barley-break now we are left in hell.
  Vermandero. We are all there, it circumscribes
  here. (V iii 154ff)

66
Barley-break was a game or dance of capture for
three couples, with a hell as the capture zone

• Sir John Sucklings poem
• Love, Reason, Hate, did once bespeak Three
  mates to play at barley-break Love, Folly
  took and Reason, Fancy And Hate consorts with
  Pride so dance they Love coupled last, and so
  it fell That Love and Folly were in hell.
• AND IN OUR PLAY, Act 3
• MADMAN within Catch there, catch the last couple
  in hell!
• LOLLIO Again? Must I come amongst you?

67
Horrid villain!

• De Flores
• I lov'd this woman in spite of her heart, Her
  love I earn'd out of Piracquos murder.
  Thomazo. Ha, my brothers murtherer! De
  Flores. Yes, and her honors prize Was my
  reward, I thank life for nothing But that
  pleasure, it was so sweet to me, That I have
  drunk up all, left none behind For any man to
  pledge me. Vermandero. Horrid Villain! (V
  iii 165ff)

68
Punishment in this world

• She had her punishment in this world, madam
• the Mother in Women Beware Women, II ii 167
• (on hearing the story of a 49 year old woman
  reduced to misery and death by the younger lover
  she has kept)

69
The whole world of the play as hell, the
potential for Vermanderos citadel and Alibius
prison to suggest nightmarish architecture.
(Piranesi, Carceri dInvenzione)
70
BEATRICE Aside Not this serpent gone yet?
VERMANDERO Look, girl, thy glove's fall'n
Stay, stay, Deflores, help a little. DEFLORES
Here, lady. He hands Beatrice her glove.
BEATRICE Mischief on your officious
forwardness Who bade you stoop? They touch my
hand no more There, for t'other's sake I part
with this Take 'em and draw thine own skin off
with 'em. Exeunt. Manet Deflores. DEFLORES
Here's a favour come with a mischief now I
know she had rather wear my pelt tann'd In a
pair of dancing pumps than I should Thrust my
fingers into her sockets here. I know she hates
me, yet cannot choose but love her No matter,
if but to vex her, I'll haunt her still Though
I get nothing else, I'll have my will. Exit.
What is great in this play that dangerous
current arcing between Beatrice-Joanna and De
Flores, those suggestions of the cruelty in her
to which he responds in full.
71
Images from some productions
72
There was a visor/Oer that cunning face
73
Thou standing toad-pool!
74
Tis half an act of pleasure/ To hear her talk
thus to me
75
Im forced to love thee now
76
I thank life for nothing / But that pleasure
77
What, salary? Now you move me.
78
Cheek by Jowls 2006 production

• http//www.cheekbyjowl.com/productions/thechangeli
  ng/reviews.html
• http//www.barbican.org.uk/theatre/event-detail.as
  p?id3662pg73
• These sites give both images of the production,
  and a series of interviews with Declan Donnelan
  as director and his main performers.

79
Amanda Ray-King as Beatrice, dead at the end of
the 1998 film of the play. Directed by Heinz
Ketchup.
80
And yet another woman dipped in blood
81
Ian Dury in the 1998 film (How rare is that
man's speed! How heartily he serves me! His face
loathes one, But look upon his care, who would
not love him? The east is not more beauteous
than his service.) all too often male actors
in the role are too vain, apparently, to take on
De Flores ravaged face. There was a crass
National Theatre production with De Flores played
by a black actor.
Yes, this really was Ian Dury of Ian Dury and
the Blockheads! He died in 2000.
http//www.youtube.com/watch?vgBLeVcP_JQg http//
www.youtube.com/watch?veTMNOlQAi08
82
The Changeling as Jacobean film noire some
recent analogies
83
To Die For (Gus Van Sant, 1995)
La Kidman as Suzanne Stone Maretto. Movie based
on the 1990 Pamela Smart case (15 year old lover
used to murder husband)
84
Ned and Matty square up in the modern noire, Body
Heat, 1981

• Ned Maybe you shouldn't dress like that.
• Matty This is a blouse and a skirt. I don't know
  what you're talking about.
• Ned You shouldn't wear that body.
• Matty to Ned You aren't too smart. I like that
  in a man.
• Ned What else do you like? Lazy? Ugly? Horny? I
  got 'em all.
• Matty You don't look lazy.

85
1. Jack Nicholson and Jessica Lange in The
Postman always rings twice (1981)
2. Zolas Therese Raquin at the National
Theatre http//www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/?lid202
31