Shakespeare and the Admiral's Men: Reading Across Repertories on the London Stage, 1594–1600 by Tom Rutter (review)

In Shakespeare and the Admiral's Men: Reading Across Repertories on the London Stage, 1594–1600, Tom Rutter identifies several years at the end of the sixteenth century as a discrete period that can yield insights into the theatrical culture in which Shakespeare and the dramatists belonging to the Admiral's Men participated. Making the playing companies and their repertories the object of his inquiry, Rutter notes that in 1594 Shakespeare joined the Lord Chamberlain's Men, and in 1600 the Admiral's Men moved to the Fortune playhouse. Within these limits, Rutter's topic is 'reciprocal influence' (1), that is, how Shakespeare influenced and was influenced by the work of others.

Among the book's accomplishments, the one that stands out above the rest is the extent to which Rutter succeeds in embedding Shakespeare in the theatrical culture of his time. Rutter makes Shakespeare one with other dramatists, highlighting how he learned from them, copied them, and wrote plays that they, in turn, copied and studied. In the process, Rutter also elevates by association the work of the Admiral's Men's dramatists, giving their plays more detailed attention than many other studies and crediting them with providing models for some of Shakespeare's work. Rutter displays deep knowledge of the plays he discusses and of the scholarship that precedes him. His book, lucid and economical in style, introduces new perspectives on the plays and lays out numerous intertextual connections. The book will have a long shelf life as required reading for students and scholars of Renaissance drama.

Early in Shakespeare and the Admiral's Men, Rutter insists that writers such as George Chapman, William Haughton, and Anthony Munday must be considered as Shakespeare's 'competitors and fellow innovators' (2). In that most concise and humble of phrases, 'men like these', Rutter delivers his biggest punch, one that almost instantly immerses Shakespeare in the theatrical business of the day. Later, in discussion of plays by Chapman, Haughton, and Henry Porter, Rutter notes the regularity and knowing expertise with which Admiral's Men's plays quoted, alluded to, or parodied the works of Shakespeare, especially Romeo and Juliet:

Admiral's Men dramatists not only knew Shakespeare's work, they expected their audience to as well. Playgoers who went to the Rose must also have attended the Theatre . . . playgoers who went to the Theatre must also have attended the Rose . . . the evidence for the two companies drawing on the same body of playgoers is stronger than that for them appealing to different groups.

(162).

The notion of two companies drawing on the same body of playgoers is one of the building blocks for Rutter's ultimate conclusion: the Admiral's Men did not have an identifiable company style (201).

Rutter organizes the book into five chapters, each featuring one Shakespeare play and usually three or more plays by Admiral's Men's dramatists. The five Shakespeare plays include The Merchant of Venice, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Henry IV, The Merry Wives of Windsor, and As You Like It.

For The Merchant of Venice, Rutter moves away from the prose narratives that other critics traditionally cite as sources for the play and looks instead to plays: The Jew at Malta of course, but then especially A Knack to Know an Honest Man. Rutter's method of assigning influence is to identify plot elements that repeat from one play to the other. He finds in both Merchant and Knack the 'faithful friends' plot, the 'usurer's daughter' plot, and a long courtroom scene. Other elements suggest deeper affinities: themes of justice and mercy, disinterested friendships, and a sense of the miraculous, all of which suggest to Rutter 'a way of responding to Marlowe's [The Jew at Malta]' (49). Rutter's close reading suggests how features of plays rarely discussed in relation to Shakespeare can emerge...