Open Wide: Culinary Meta-theatre in Early Modern Drama

Abstract

Meta-theatricality is widely recognised as a defining feature of many early modern English plays, particularly those produced in the early decades of the seventeenth century, with contemporary playwrights frequently employing meta-theatrical symbols and devices to reflect upon the nature and function of performances. Although the use of food as a meta-theatrical symbol in English Renaissance drama has received some scholarly attention in recent decades, many investigations into this phenomenon are limited in scope. This investigation expands upon such studies, exploring in detail the nature, origins, extent, and wider implications of the drama-as-food conceit on the English Renaissance stage. After using quantitative data collected from a broad range of early modern texts to demonstrate that a unique relationship exists between food and drama in this period, this study employs close-readings to trace the emergence of this connection through medieval and Reformation plays. It then moves on to consider how food and its providers are portrayed in both commercial and non-commercial Renaissance drama. Doing so reveals not only that contemporary playwrights frequently use food as a meta-theatrical symbol in their work, but also that they do so in order to emphasise the parallel physical and moral risks attendant upon food consumption and theatrical spectatorship. This approach enables early modern dramatists to defend theatrical performances as beneficial to their attendees even whilst acknowledging their potential dangers, allowing them to effectively undermine, rather than simply contradict, the arguments of contemporary anti-theatricalists. As well as deepening our understanding of this rich period in dramatic and literary history, this study invites future explorations of the meta-theatrical valences of particular foodstuffs, dramatists’ differing approaches to theatricality, and changes to the drama-as-food conceit during the closure of the theatres, the Restoration, and beyond.