SOURCE: Foakes, R. A. “John Marston's Fantastical Plays: Antonio and Mellida and Antonio's Revenge.” Philological Quarterly 41, No. 1 (January 1962): 229-39.

In the essay below, Foakes asserts that because Marston wrote plays for a child acting company, his revenge tragedies—Antonio and Mellida and Antonio's Revenge—are deliberate and overt parodies of the genre, in which child actors grotesquely mimic the performances of their adult peers.

It is immediately apparent from the Induction to Antonio and Mellida that Marston was very consciously writing for children. The actors appear, parts in hand, to discuss the rôles they are to take on, protesting, “we can say our parts; but were are ignorant in what mould we must cast our Actors.” Alberto gives advice to Duke Piero, that he must frame himself to the shape of majesty, “growe big in thought,” and stalk, and he instructs Forobosco in the way to play...