김영아, 캐롤라인 극장의 위기와 필립 매신저의 ꡔ로마인 배우ꡕ
Yeung-ah Kim, Philip Massinger’s The Roman Actor and the Caroline Crisis of Theatre
 

Abstract
 
 Commentary on the theatre within plays was a standard feature of English Renaissance drama, but not more so than during the time of Charles 1. The Caroline plays, which take theatre as subject, provide evidence that the theatre was suffering a crisis of identity and reflect playwrights' growing concern that the theatre was losing its credibility as a cultural force. Thus these plays can be said to be Caroline playwrights' study on and 'defense' of theatre in face of the crisis.

Philip Massinger's The Roman Actor, which was first staged in 1626 right after the crowing of Charles I in 1625, is the first among them. Set in the lurid days of imperial Rome, The Roman Actor focuses on the relationship of Rome's actor, Paris to the tyrant Domitian, which has strong resemblance to those of Massinger to Charles 1, and dramatizes the dilemma of 'a theater that must balance that dependency (on the objectionable king) against its time-honored role of sociopolitical criticism.' The Roman Actor was usually perceived as Massinger's apology for the theatre with Paris as his spokesman, who makes a moving defense of the power of theatre to instruct and reform. Massinger, however, subverts these arguments in the following three plays-within-the-play. Contrary to his arguments in his oration, Paris shows himself subservient toward the will of the tyrant and also his tyrannical consort, and his theatre panders to base passions of them and this discrepancies betray skepticism with regard to the theatre's purported power of moral reformation.  By having Paris finally killed by the tyrant in one of the plays, Massinger criticizes the Stuart authorities who attempted to control the stage as well as his fellow playwrights who 'soothe the prince's appetite and serve them'. But these criticisms, I think, fail to rise to a coherent, controlling pattern, which results from strange ambiguity in portraying Paris deference to Domitian. The play gives no hint that Paris comprehends the emperor's baseness and tyranny and this strange silence makes it impossible to regard Paris either a noble tragedian or a base Caesar's puppet. The tension never resolves in the play and points to the difficulty of writing such a critical play in the time of Charles 1.

Key Words

the Caroline crisis of theatre, The Roman Actor, power of the theatre, acting, censorship, tyrant, Caroline drama