Publicity poster for the 2002 Los Angeles production of The Second Maiden's Tragedy as Cardenio. Los Angeles (lɑˈsændʒələs los ˈaŋxeles in Spanish) is the largest City in the state of California and the American West

The History of Cardenio is a lost play, known to have been performed by the King's Men, a London theatre company, in 1613. A lost work is a document or literary work produced some time in the past of which no surviving copies are known to exist The King's Men was the company of actors to which William Shakespeare (1564&ndash1616 belonged through most of his career London ( ˈlʌndən is the capital and largest urban area in the United Kingdom. It was attributed to William Shakespeare and John Fletcher in 1653 in a Stationers' Registry entry by the bookseller Humphrey Moseley, who was known to have falsely used Shakespeare's name in other such entries and, indeed, in another part of the same entry. William Shakespeare ( baptised John Fletcher (1579 &ndash 1625 was a Jacobean Playwright. Following William Shakespeare as house playwright for the King's Men, he was Humphrey Moseley (died January 31, 1661) was a prominent London publisher and bookseller in the middle seventeenth century

The content of the play is not known, but it is likely based on incidents involving the character Cardenio in Don Quixote, of which the 1612 translation by Thomas Shelton would have been available to the authors. es '''''Don Quixote''''' (, see spelling and pronunciation below fully titled es '''''El ingenioso hidalgo Don Quijote de la Mancha''''' ("The Ingenious Hidalgo Don Thomas Shelton (fl 1612-1626 English Translator of Don Quixote. Fletcher based several of his later plays on the work of Miguel de Cervantes. Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra ( in modern Spanish; September 29, 1547 &ndash April 22, 1616) was a Spanish Novelist

Lewis Theobald and Double Falshood

In 1727, Lewis Theobald claimed to have obtained three Restoration-era manuscripts of an unnamed play by Shakespeare, which he edited, "improved", and released under the name Double Falshood, or the Distrest Lovers. Lewis Theobald (baptised April 2, 1688 &ndash September 18, 1744) British textual editor and author was a landmark figure both Double Falshood or The Distrest Lovers (sometimes erroneously listed as "The Double Falshood" is a 1727 play by English writer and playright Lewis A prior version of this page said that Theobald was unable to publish the original script, because of Jacob Tonson's exclusive copyright on Shakespeare's plays. Jacob Tonson, sometimes referred to as Jacob Tonson the elder (1655/6–1736 was an 18th-century English Bookseller and Publisher. But that contention does not hold up, as the Tonson copyright applied only to the plays he had already published, not to any newly discovered play by Shakespeare; and Theobald edited an edition of the complete works for Tonson, whose commercial interests would have been substantially bettered if he had been able to advertise the edition as containing a hitherto "lost" play. (A prior instance of commercially "enhancing" an edition of Shakespeare's plays by adding new ones was the second reprint of the Third Folio of 1664, which added seven plays, only one of which (Pericles) has been accepted as at least partly by Shakespeare. Pericles Prince of Tyre is a play written at least in part by William Shakespeare and included in modern editions of his collected works despite questions ) The Double Falshood story has the plot of the "Cardenio" episode in Don Quixote, and present scholarly opinion is that Theobald may indeed have used the lost Cardenio as his original, but he might have suspected that the work was wholly or partly by John Fletcher even though he was presumably ignorant of the co-authorship attribution in Moseley's Stationers' Registry entry. (For a thorough discussion of scholarship to date see G. H. Metz, Sources of Four Plays Ascribed to Shakespeare 257-83 [U. Mo. Press 1989]) The fate of Theobald's three alleged manuscripts is unknown. The very existence of three genuine MSS of that age is problematical, and Theobald was said to have invited interested persons to view the alleged MSS, but he then avoided actually displaying them. These facts have led many scholars to conclude that Theobald's play was a hoax written by himself. However, more recent stylometric analysis leads to the conclusion that Double Falsehood was based on one or more manuscripts written in part by Fletcher and in part by another playwright. The open question is whether that second playwright was Shakespeare. The text contains no more than two or three passages which appear good enough to be even tentatively attributed to the Bard, but it is possible that Theobald so heavily edited the text that Shakespeare's style was entirely submerged. In the late period represented by Shakepeare's known collaborations with Fletcher in Henry VIII and The Two Noble Kinsmen his style had become so involved that it is difficult for an auditor or even a reader to catch the meanings of many passages on a quick hearing or a first read, so Theobald might have found it necessary to alter the text in a way that made Shakespeare's voice unrecognizable. The Famous History of the Life of King Henry the Eighth is a history play by William Shakespeare, based on the life of Henry VIII of England. The Two Noble Kinsmen is a Jacobean Comedy, first published in 1634 and attributed to John Fletcher and William Shakespeare

Charles Hamilton and The Second Maiden's Tragedy

In 1990, Charles Hamilton, a handwriting expert, after seeing a 1611 manuscript known as The Second Maiden's Tragedy, usually attributed to Thomas Middleton, identified it as a text of the missing Cardenio in which the characters' names had been changed. Year 1990 ( MCMXC) was a Common year starting on Monday (link displays the 1990 Gregorian calendar) The Second Maiden's Tragedy is a Jacobean play that survives only in manuscript Thomas Middleton (1580 &ndash 1627 was an English Jacobean playwright and Poet. This attribution is not generally accepted by experts on Shakespeare [1]. In fact, the principal plot in this play bears no resemblance to the Cardenio tale in Don Quixote; but the subplot dramatizes another tale interpolated in the Cardenio episode of Don Quixote (Chs. es '''''Don Quixote''''' (, see spelling and pronunciation below fully titled es '''''El ingenioso hidalgo Don Quijote de la Mancha''''' ("The Ingenious Hidalgo Don XXXIII-XXXV) and it employs some of the imagery from that novella. The Second Maiden’s Tragedy is a poor play, not up to the worst of Shakespeare’s early output. It is a gory Senecan tragedy. In Act III the heroine happily commits suicide to prevent her abduction, and her lover gleefully murders a minor character. Then, in V. i, there are five killings within the space of twenty-five lines.

Several theatre companies have capitalized on Hamilton's attribution by performing The Second Maiden's Tragedy under the name of Shakespeare's Cardenio, ignoring its disputed status. For instance, a production at Oxford's Burton Taylor Theatre in March, 2004, claimed to have been the first performance of the play in England since its putative recovery (although a successful amateur production had premiered at Essex University's Lakeside Theatre on October 15, 1998). Oxford is currently bidding for the 2010 Wikimania Conference Oxford () is a city, and the County town of Oxfordshire, The Burton Taylor Studio ("The BT" is a 50-seater studio Theatre owned by Oxford University. England is a Country which is part of the United Kingdom. Its inhabitants account for more than 83% of the total UK population whilst its mainland The University of Essex is a British Campus university located near the town of Colchester, England This production was a huge commercial and critical success and the company behind it were offered a large sum (which they turned down) to transfer the production to London's West End. A laboratory performance of the play was given on March 17, 1996 at the Linhart Theatre in New York. Hamilton (who was 82 years old at the time) made a presentation after the performance in which he asserted (contrary to his book) that he did not ascribe this play to Shakespeare based on paleographic evidence, but, rather, because he regarded it as a "Romance," which Shakespeare had turned to at the end of his career. A full production of the play was mounted at the Next Theatre in Evanston Illinois in 1998. The production noted the contested authorship and was critically well received.

Arguably the most prominent American staging of The Second Maiden's Tragedy as Cardenio to date — the acclaimed [2] 2002 Los Angeles production starring film and television actors Megan Henning and Travis Schuldt — was advertised as "Shakespeare's" play, although the programme note by director James Kerwin acknowledged — and discussed in detail — the play's controversial history. The United States of America —commonly referred to as the Los Angeles (lɑˈsændʒələs los ˈaŋxeles in Spanish) is the largest City in the state of California and the American West Television ( TV) is a widely used Telecommunication medium for sending ( Broadcasting) and receiving moving Images, either monochromatic An actor, actress, player or thespian (see terminology) is a person who Acts in a Dramatic production and who works Megan Henning (born September 13, 1978 in Baltimore Maryland) is an American Actress. Travis Schuldt (born 18 September 1974 in Topeka Kansas) is an American Actor. Biography James Kerwin (born October 13, 1973 in St Louis Missouri) is an American Film and Theatre

Cardenio in popular culture

"The History of Cardenio" features as the center of literary mystery novels like "Lost in a Good Book," the second installation of the Thursday Next series by Jasper Fforde (Penguin: 2004), and "The Shakespeare Secret"/"Interred with Their Bones" by Jennifer Lee Carrell (Dutton Adult: 2007). Lost in a Good Book is an Alternate history, Fantasy novel by Jasper Fforde. Thursday Next is the main Protagonist in a series of Comic fantasy, Alternate history Novels by the British author Jasper Fforde Jasper Fforde (born in London on 11 January, 1961) is an English Novelist.

In their BBC radio show on Shakespeare's histories, the Reduced Shakespeare Company suggests that Cardenio is a "children's play about the legend of King Arthur", and performs a short sketch based on this idea. Radio programming is the content that is broadcast by Radio stations The original inventors of radio such as Nikola Tesla and Guglielmo The Reduced Shakespeare Company is an American acting troupe that writes and performs unsubtle fast-paced seemingly improvisational condensations of huge topics King Arthur is a legendary British leader who according to medieval histories and romances, led the defence of Britain against the Saxon invaders (RSC Radio Show: The Histories, 1994)

Shakespeare Scholar Stephen Greenblatt and playwright Charles L. Mee collaborated on a contemporary reimagining of Cardenio. Stephen Jay Greenblatt (born November 7, 1943) is a Literary critic, theorist and scholar Charles L Mee is an American Playwright and Author. He was born in Barrington Illinois in 1938 This production, directed by Les Waters, premiered at the American Repertory Theatre on May 8, 2008. The American Repertory Theatre ( ART) is housed in the Loeb Drama Center at Harvard University in Cambridge Massachusetts.

External Links

• http://www.amrep.org/cardenio Cardenio production page at the American Repertory Theatre