Arden of Faversham | Literary Criticism & Book Review

Arden of Faversham Critical Overview

There are no records of any production of Arden of Faversham until the eighteenth century, but it is likely that the play was a popular one, performed frequently both before and after its publication in 1592. It was published again in 1599 and 1633. The first documented performance was in 1730, at Faversham, in Kent.

During the twentieth century, there were many productions of Arden of Faversham. In 1970, the play was directed by a Romanian, Andrei Sherban, for the La Mama Experimental Theatre Club in New York. Clive Barnes comments in a review in the New York Times that the production expresses a worldview “so savage in its necessities that survival itself becomes the solitary virtue” (quoted in Wine's edition of the play).

A 1990 production in London's Old Red Lion Theatre, mounted by Classics on a Shoestring and directed by Katie Mitchell, was reviewed...
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