The Dramaturgical Space of Solo Scenes in Fletcher and Shakespeare, Or a Study of the Jailer’s Daughter

Abstract

One overlooked unit of scenic structure in early modern plays is the solo scene – when a character enters, speaks, and exits. While similar to the soliloquy, the complete isolation of the character within the scene separates it from the more usual dramatic tool and crafts character through an emphasis on dramaturgical space, or the nexus of plot, part, theatre, and body. Notably, the collaborative character of the Jailer’s Daughter in The Two Noble Kinsmen, a character crafted by both John Fletcher and William Shakespeare, appears in more solo scenes than any other early modern character. Through first examining the playwrights’ usages of solo scenes in their earlier independent plays The Faithfull Shepherdess and Cymbeline, I explore how Fletcher and Shakespeare approach these units either by situating the characters geographically within the play world or by locating the space of the scene within their own bodies, a construction that aligns with a conception of the character within either the locus or the platea. However, in collaboration, Fletcher and Shakespeare combine and intensify their performative approach through mixing their use of locus and platea, allowing the Jailer’s Daughter to occupy both spatial constructions. The Jailer’s Daughter then embodies the structure of the solo scene entirely through her movement from an authoritative platea into a disassociative locus. This study of the rare scenic unit in this intensive iteration ultimately reconsiders the construction of early modern character through its relationship to the scenic unit through creation of dramaturgical space.

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