The Double Marriage - Date and Performance

Date and Performance

Though firm evidence on the play's date of authorship and early stage history is lacking, scholars usually assign the play to the 1619–22 period. It was acted by the King's Men, with Joseph Taylor playing the lead — a production that must have occurred after Taylor joined that company in the spring of 1619. The play's absence from the fairly thorough Revels Office records of Sir Henry Herbert probably indicates a date prior to May 1622, when Herbert first occupied the office of Master of the Revels. The cast list added to the play in the second Beaumont and Fletcher folio of 1679 mentions, in addition to Taylor, John Lowin, Robert Benfield, Richard Robinson, John Underwood, Nicholas Tooley, George Birch, and Richard Sharpe.

The Double Marriage, like many of the plays in Fletcher's canon, was revived during the Restoration era. It was acted as late as 6 February 1688 at Whitehall Palace. A revival in the 1671–72 period was given a Prologue, perhaps written by Aphra Behn, which was re-used for Behn's Abdelazer (1677) and, as an Epilogue, for Behn's The Widow Ranter (1690).