Chapter 21

Shakespeare's Repertory

Summary

Every play written by Shakespeare was performed in a repertory of other plays owned by his company, the Chamberlain's-King's Men. And it was this battery of offerings that attracted playgoers. Scholars in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries had the teXts of many of the company's non-Shakespearian plays and knew the titles of more; but they were so concerned with Shakespeare that they assessed the repertory largely on the basis of his plays alone. This bias led them to conclude that the repertory of the Chamberlain's-King's Men was smaller, more upmarket in subject matter and genre, and more attractive to a higher class of playgoer than the repertories of other companies. But issues of size, Variety, quality, and audience taste look different when we put Shakespeare's plays where they belong, in a calendar of performances with the rest of the company's annual offerings. From this perspective, we see not only how Shakespeare's plays contributed to the commercial appeal of the company's offerings, but also how the Chamberlain's-King's Men matched and bettered the offerings of other companies.

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