A C  h  a  s  t  e    M  a  i  d     i  n    C  h  e  a  p  s  i  d  e  
[The Play]
  Home
   The Author   The Play      The Genre   On Stage     About me   
   Within Society       Excerpts    Notes      Bibliography       Image Citations   

Play time!


"Middleton crowned his career in comedy with A Chaste Maid in Cheapside. . . the climax of his city comedies. . ." [3]

A Chaste Maid was played most famously and regularly in the Cockpit or Phoenix playhouse.
Its name might evoke a mental image similar to this picture:


[4]

But the Cockpit did not look like that:

                   "The set of drawing for a playhouse which Inigo Jones made in about 1616, almost certainly for the Cockpit, has been calculated as providing seating at 18 inches per bottom for fewer than 700 people. . ." [9]

                   ". . . the space Jones was to adapt was divided into an outer and an inner octagon, separated by eight massive posts which held up the cant roof. The central area could be entirely cleared of seats and staging, while the outer area under the glleries had permanent ranks of seating against the eastern and westerns walls.

                   The effect of the building, viewed from the ground floor, would be of a central column of space defined by the posts and the ring formed by the front of the galleries, rising to the full hieght of the lantern, possibly forty to forty-five feet from the ground, accentuated by the light which entered from the lantern and lit the area from above: the Cock pit was a striking and dramatic piece of architecture." [1]

However, the Cockpit wasn't as glamorous as some people made it out to be:

". . .the Cockpit or Phoenix, seems colourful in its decoration . . . [but it] certainly made no allowance for such comfort stations as a bar or toilets. The whole early playgoing experience and its wide range of physical discomforts call for detailed comment." [9]

It was not located across the Thames like other more famous theaters like the Globe were:
(look for the circle on the left hand side!)


[4]

In fact, it was right next to the Strand, generally an area of good living,
as indicated by the suggestion of Allwit's wife once they are freed of Sir Walter:

ALLWIT
We are richly furnished wife, with household stuff.

[MISTRESS ALLWIT]
Let's let out lodgings then,
And take a house in the Strand.
[13]

Despite having better location than across the Thames, the Cockpit was still a theater.
To learn more about the conflicts of the stage with society, go to On Stage.


                   A Chaste Maid in Cheapside is superficially about three triangles of relationships (the girl is in the middle): Touchwood Junior and Moll and Sir Walter Whorehound, Sir Walter Whorehound and the Welsh Gentlewoman and Tim, and Sir Oliver and Lady Kix and Touchwood Senior.

                   The main characters include:
                                      Moll - daughter of the Yellowhammers, in love with                    Touchwood Junior.
                                      Tim - son of the Yellowhammers, promised to Welsh                    gentlewoman.
                                      Sir Oliver - husband to Lady Kix, impotent
                                      Lady Kix - wife of Sir Oliver, childless
                                      Sir Walter Whorehound - a promiscuous knight
                                      Welsh gentlewoman - whore of Sir Walter Whorehound's
                                      Touchwood Junior - brother to Touchwood Senior, in love with                    Moll.
                                      Touchwood Senior - brother to Touchwood Junior, far too                    potent in bed for his family's fiscal well being.

                   The plot is convoluted, but simply examining each relationship reveals much about the play:

                   i) Touchwood Junior and Moll are in love, but Moll's parents (the Yellowhammers) have arranged a marriage to Sir Walter Whorehound, who is the next in line to inherit Sir Oliver's fortune (if Sir Oliver cannot have a child by Lady Kix).

                   ii) Sir Walter Whorehound is attempting to use one of his whores (the Welsh gentlewoman) as a potential bride to Tim to sweeten the marriage deal between himself and Moll. Of course, no one knows that the Welsh gentlewoman is a whore until after Tim marries her.

                   iii) Sir Oliver, desperate for an heir, pays Touchwood Senior a ludicrous amount of money to get Lady Kix to become pregnant, to further his lineage and disown Sir Walter Whorehound.

Sexual havoc ensues.