The Changeling

The editor George Walton Williams considers The Changeling by Thomas Middleton and William Rowley to be a singularly successful collaborative effort. My copy of The Changeling has collected dust on my bookshelf for some years. I was largely unacquainted with Middleton and Rowley and I had assumed that The Changeling was a comedy about "an infant exchanged by fairies for another infant". I was unprepared for deception, lust, and murder.Middleton and Rowley contributed equal shares to this play. Middleton authored the tragic plot while Rowley created the comic scenes. What makes The Changeling unique is the tight coupling of the comic and tragic story lines. The two plots occasionally intersect, but more importantly Rowley's comic plot echoes and reinforces Middleton's tragic story. The Changeling is a well-integrated, entertaining play.Williams explains in his excellent introduction that a "changeling" in the Jacobean period had nothing to do with fairies. A changeling was a waverer or fickle person, one without a moral compass. The Dramatis Personae indicates that Antonio, a love-struck fellow that imitated a fool to gain admittance to an asylum to become close to the young wife of an older doctor, was the changeling. And yet, even a cursory reading reveals that the actual changeling was Beatrice, a beautiful young woman that becomes involved in murder and adultery (the order is correct, murder first and adultery later).The Regents Renaissance Drama Series is a great source for the more significant plays of the Elizabethan, Jacobean, and Caroline theater. This series has introduced me to playwrights that would have otherwise remained strangers. The introduction, editing, and footnotes by George Walton Williams for The Changeling are excellent.

Anyone who thinks centuries-old tragedies aren't relevant to modern times should read "The Changeling." With a few very minor adjustments, the plot and characters in this play could come right out of a modern crime novel, or even a modern true-crime story. This is one of those plays where you read because you're more interested about what happens to the bad guy (and the bad gal) than what happens to the good guys. (Alsemero who! ) I envy the performers who get to play DeFlores and Beatrice-Joanna.A lot of scholarly treatises about the play criticized the humorous subplot, claiming that it had no relevance and no connection to the main plot. My response is, "Hell-o! Is anybody home?" OK, that wasn't a scholarly response, but any scholar who can't see the thematic connection (characters who mask their true natures versus characters in disguise) doesn't deserve a scholarly response.Anne M. Marble All About Romance

Firstly, thanks to Joost Daadler for his stunning introduction to the edition I read of 'The Changeling'. The in-depth analysis of the psychological disturbances and functions that exist within the play (such as the ID and the unconscious dropping of the glove, etc.), help expand 'The Changeling' into a lot more than just (though this would be no bad thing!) a morality play where an orthodox Christian message runs predominant. I have never read a play that reduces the human to the bestial in such an intense and forceful manner, not shying away from the painful and somewhat humiliating view that human kind are more or less governed by their instincts; sexual impulse being one such motivating factor that can rid a human of any intellect ot reason that is supposed to constitute 'humanity' in the first place. This ia must read and not just a moral, didactic play either. It is not condemning sexuality but pleading with us that it must be understood. Overall, it is a tragedy that really challenges its reader into thinking hard about whether certain characters (e.g. Beatrice) can be more sympathised with than maybe one thought upon first reading. Read it!

Madness--how many kinds were there? How many people are changelings in their world? Beatrice, focusing only on what she wants--does she really know what she wants? De Flores, who like many just focuses on himself... As Euripides for the Greeks is close to the modern mind, so are Middleton and Rowley for the Renaissance. You will find that you connect to the pivotal characters like those you know, so well are they drawn. The play itself is striking, and keep an eye on the subplot; note how it underscores the madness with its contrast to the main plot. The New Mermaids is the best edition I've found! I highly recommend this edition of the play, whether new to Renaissance drama or scholar. The footnotes are exceptional--even my professor was astonished and pleased. They make you understand quite clearly that "nunnery" wasn't the only sexual ambiguity of interest! (And why certain characters react to words we find innocuous.)It is a tragedy of people oblivious to others... A very good example of Renaissance drama, and one that sticks in your mind.

A stunning hybrid of murder and comedy, with the superb, complex, yet entirely believable characterisation of the murderous De Flores and the confused Beatrice, complemented by the sub-plot, renders this drama with the sort of atmosphere inherent in the modern day Reservoir Dogs.