Play Report: Michaelmas Term



A report by the director, Derek Dunne:

Middleton's Michaelmas Term took place in the Graduate Common Room on December 1st 2009, just towards the end of Michaelmas Term!

This play is a city comedy from 1607 that has as its ground ‘those familiar accidents which happened in the town in the circumference of those six weeks whereof Michaelmas Term is lord’ (1.1.72). As well as the usual disguises, duping, and misconceptions, it is a play where contracts play a significant role, attesting to the importance of legal documents in early modern London. The main character, Ephestian Quomodo (played by Dr. Andrew Power), tries to con a young gentleman of his landed wealth, only to end up penniless himself; think Merchant of Venice with class bias in place of xenophobia.

The play itself was a great success, seeing Dr. Darragh Greene in full costume as Mother Gruel for the first time, while Kate Roddy and Andrew Power sported equally impressive moustaches. The fact that actors played characters that were in dialogue with themselves in the final act only goes to show how impressive an acting troupe the EMTSoc Players have become. All in all, a great way to round off Michaelmas Term.


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from Lines on the Mermaid Tavern

I have heard that on a day
Mine host’s sign-board flew away,
Nobody knew whither, till
An astrologer’s old quill
To a sheepskin gave the story,
Said he saw you in your glory,
Underneath a new old-sign
Sipping beverage divine,
And pledging with contented smack
The Mermaid in the Zodiac.
- John Keats (1795–1821)

On Ben Jonson and a Country Man

Ben Johnson in a tavern once began
Rudely to talk to a plain Country man.
And thus it was, Thou dull laborious Moyle
That I beleeve wert made for nought but toyle
For every Acre of thy Land I have
Twenty of wit: Such Acres Sir, are brave,
Replyed the Country man: What great Mistakers
Have we been of your wealth, Mr Wise-Acres.
- Thomas Jordan (from Jewels of Ingenuity. 1660?)

The Sun which doth the greatest comfort bring

...what things have we seen
Done at the Mermaid: heard words that have been
So nimble, so full of subtil flame …
Then when there hath been thrown
Wit able enough to justifie the Town
For three days past, wit that might warrant be
For the whole City to talk foolishly
Till that were cancell'd, and when that was gone,
We left and Air behind us which alone,
Was able to make the two next Companies
Right witty; though but downright fools, more wise.
- Beaumont's epistle to Jonson (1605?)