Nathan Field

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Nathan Field (1587 – 1620), was an English dramatist and actor; his father was the Puritan preacher John Field and his brother Theophilus Field became the Bishop of Llandaff. (Another brother named Nathaniel, often confused with the actor, became a printer.)

Field's father passionately opposed London's public entertainments, he delivered a sermon which attributed divine judgment to the collapse of the public seating area, during a bear baiting on a Sunday, at Bear Garden in 1583, which resulted in several deaths. Nathan presumably did not intend a career in the theater; he was a student of Richard Mulcaster at St. Paul's School in the late 1590s. At some point before 1600, he was impressed by Nathaniel Giles, the master of Elizabeth's choir and one of the managers of the new troupe of boy players at Blackfriars Theatre, called alternately the Children of the Chapel Royal and the Blackfriars Children. He remained in this profession for the remainder of his life, later adding to it the profession of playwright.

As a member of the Children of the Queen's Revels, Field acted in the innovative drama staged at Blackfriars in the first years of the seventeenth century. Cast lists associate him with Ben Jonson's Cynthia's Revels (1600) and The Poetaster (1601); a 1641 quarto associated him with George Chapman's Bussy D'Ambois. Later in the decade, he performed in Epicoene and, perhaps, played Humphrey in Francis Beaumont's The Knight of the Burning Pestle. During the same years, he wrote commendatory verses for Jonson's Volpone and Catiline, and for John Fletcher's The Faithful Shepherdess. Field was presumably also among those of the children's company briefly imprisoned for the official displeasure occasioned by Eastward Hoe and John Day's The Isle of Gulls; the latter imprisonment was in Bridewell Prison.

Field stayed with a children's company until 1613, his twenty-sixth year. He appears to be the only one of the boy actors of 1600 to remain with the Blackfriars troupe when, in 1609, Philip Rosseter and Robert Keysar assumed control of the company. In this company, he performed in the theater in Whitefriars and, frequently, at court, in plays such as Beaumont and Fletcher's The Coxcomb. From the latter years of this period come the first of his plays: A Woman is a Weathercock and The Honest Man's Fortune (the latter with Fletcher and Philip Massinger).

In 1613, Rosseter combined his company with the Lady Elizabeth's Men, managed by Philip Henslowe. Performing at the Swan Theatre and Hope Theatre, he acted in Thomas Middleton's A Chaste Maid in Cheapside and Jonson's Bartholomew Fair. For the latter play, in which he may have performed as Cokes or Littlewit, he received payment for the company after a performance at court. These years witnessed some degree of tumult; Henslowe's business practices resulted in his actors' drawing up certain "articles of grievance" against him, and Rosseter's attempt to build a new private theater (Porter's Hall) in Blackfriars was blocked by the city and Privy Council. This period ended when Henslowe died, Rosseter abandoned his plans, and Lady Elizabeth's Men briefly merged and then separated from Prince Charles's Men, thereafter touring in the country. For Field, the period had a presumably more satisfactory end: by late 1616, he had joined the King's Men.

With the King's Men, Field seems to have performed as Voltore in Volpone and as Face in The Alchemist. It is not clear what other parts he played; an epigram, produced by John Payne Collier, that associated the actor with the role of Othello is an apparent forgery. Edmond Malone supposed that Field played women's roles with the company; O. J. Campbell, however, suggests that he played young second leads. Of course he acted in a number of Fletcher's plays, as well as Shakespeare's; presumably he also acted in his own Amends for Ladies (printed 1618, though probably written earlier), and in The Fatal Dowry, which he wrote with Philip Massinger. Field died some time between May 1619 and August 1620.

Scholars and critics have argued for authorial contributions from Field in a number of plays of his era, most commonly in Four Plays in One, The Queen of Corinth and The Knight of Malta, three dramas in the canon of Fletcher and his collaborators.

Field had a contemporary reputation as a ladies' man; gossip reported by William Trumbull charges him with a child of the Countess of Argyll. Field has appeared as a main character in King of Shadows, a novel by Susan Cooper. A portrait believed to be of Field can be seen at Dulwich Picture Gallery in London, UK. Where he is depicted as a melancholy figure with hand on heart, it has been said (Reference required) that this painting may be one of the first depictions of an actor 'in character'.

[edit] Works

Field's two plays as a solo dramatist evince, not surprisingly, the knowledge and interests of an author who had already spent a decade on stage. They are tightly plotted and fast-paced; intrigues are advanced through a series of comic set-pieces, with abundant opportunities for comedic star-turns. A Woman is a Weathercock follows two pairs of lovers as they attempt, in the conventional manner, to thwart a father's calculating marriages and marry for love; the minor characters include a Jonsonian assortment of gulls and cowards. Amends for Ladies presents a triple plot: a love-test derived from the Curious Impertinent of Cervantes; a widow-hunting story; and a comic parallel of wooing a maid. Mary Frith is brought on in a minor scene. Throughout both plays, the mark of Jonson is apparent, and the plays in many respects anticipate the Restoration comedy of manners. Once he was an established playwright he decided to give up that career and join an actor's service - namely the King's Men

[edit] Books

Susan Cooper's "King of Shadows" features Nathan Field as a character, but is a work of fiction. It is set in 1599, and uses Field's background as a student of Richard Mulcaster's at St. Paul's as a springboard. The Nathan Field in the story who briefly works at Shakespeare's Globe Theatre is actually a like-named boy from 1999 who has switched places with the young Elizabethan actor. Though a novel for young persons, it is a good read for any Shakespeare buff, with excellent detail about the Globe at that time. The author, Ms. Cooper, was a long-time friend of actors Jessica Tandy and Hume Cronyn, and when Ms. Tandy died, she married Mr. Cronyn.

[edit] References

• Brinkley, Roberta F. Nathan Field, the Actor-Playwright. New Haven, Yale University Press, 1928.
• Cooper, Susan. King of Shadows. London, The Bodley Head, 1999.
• Nunzeger, Edwin. A Dictionary of Actors and of Other Persons Associated With the Public Presentation of Plays in England Before 1642. New Haven, Yale University Press, 1929.
• This article incorporates public domain text from: Cousin, John William (1910). A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature. London, J.M. Dent & sons; New York, E.P. Dutton.