A unique online edition of the plays of dramatist Richard Brome has been launched following a four-year project by researchers at Royal Holloway, University of London and the University of Sheffield.
The project was devised by Richard Cave, Professor Emeritus in the Departmnent of Drama and Theatre, Royal Holloway and funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council.
Richard Brome was a sporadically successful Jacobean playwright who was once the servant of Ben Jonson. But his plays, which were mainly comedies, have not appeared in a complete edition since 1873.
They are now available on a fully searchable and interactive website created by HRI Digital at the Humanties Research Institute at the University of Sheffield.
Readers can view both period and modern texts side by side. Interactive annotations offer the chance to view more than 30 hours of performance work by actors drawn from the Royal Shakespeare Company and the Globe.
A screenshot of Richard Brome online
“Working with actors in the editing process was, for the editorial panel, one of the most exciting aspects of the collaboration,” commented Professor Cave.
“In our discussions together around meanings, tone, actor-audience relations or characterisation, the actors’ contributions were fresh, informed, exploratory, and full of the insights that come only from their particular kinds of experience.”
Each of the plays is offered as a period text and in an annotated modernised version and is accompanuied by both a critical and a texctual introduction; there is a full glossary, bibliography, stage history and search engine.
“Editors and actors developed a profound respect for Brome’s artistry as they examined the plays together in workshops designed to give the texts a theatrical life and dynamic,” added Professor Cave.
“Repeatedly the actors questioned why Brome’s comedies are not seen more regularly on our stages. Richard Brome Online is designed to make Brome’s work better known in the hope of restoring the plays to our current repertory,” he added.
To view the online edition go to www.hrionline.ac.uk/brome.
