University of California Chronicle Volume 10 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1908 Excerpt: ... Dr. Simon Forman, who lived in the 16th and 17th centuries, made record of whatever struck him as noteworthy in the plays that he saw. Over a couple of paragraphs that give the principal incidents in the plot of the drama is the heading, "the Winter's Talle at the glob, 1611, the 15 of maye.' Shaksperian scholars are agreed that "The Winter's Tale" is one of the latest of Shakspere's dramas, and differ only as to whether it was first produced late in 1610 or early in 1611. Accepting the latter date with the most recent editor of his works, Professor W. A. Neilson, let us see what can be learned concerning the condition of matters theatrical in the spring of 1611 in the old city that, notwithstanding frequent disastrous fires and even more disastrous visitations of the plague, had prospered and grown till it sprawled out on all sides beyond its antiquated grey walls. The first of a series of addresses, illustrated by lantern-slides, in California Hall, March 27, 1908, on the stage history of "The Winter's Tale"; designed to increase the interest in the production of that drama by the English Club of the University of California, in the Greek Theatre, April 3, 1908. The industry of generations of scholars has extracted from contemporaneous books and manuscripts a surprisingly large amount of information concerning the early history of the English theatre, so that such an undertaking as we have proposed necessitates only a patient sifting of materials and a recombination for the definite purpose before us. Collier's Annals of the Stage is a mine; but unfortunately, owing to his inaccuracy in transcribing and his reprehensible practice of falsifying, or even forging, documents to bolster up his theories, it is a mine in which the valua...