Thomas Lodge - [The Wounds of Civil War] (Sulla and Marius)
[A Looking Glass for London and England] Thomas Lodge and Robert Greene
Charles Sisson says of Thomas Lodge; "There was never a truer Elizabethan" in that he explored ways of earning a living or paying his debts, by endless zest and persistence, challenging circumstances by asserting his own wit, his own powers and his own desires. He trained as a lawyer, but there is no record of him practising, however he used his knowledge in a series of endless litigations many of which were against his brother. In Sisson's view he paid a heavy price for the privilege of writing a few charming lyrics, a poor play or two, some second rate satires, a few novels and a pamphlet in defence of the stage. These comments are a little unfair I think because 'The Wounds of Civil War' is somewhat better than a poor play. It is the only play where Lodge is listed as the sole author and it was probably written in 1587/88 about the same time as Christopher Marlowe's [Tamburlaine the great]. Like Marlowe's play the majority of The Wounds of Civil War was written in blank verse and although it does not reach the heights of Marlowe's writing it does have its moments and the use of iambic pentameters shows some skill.

It was an early example of a history play; it tells the story of the conflict between Sulla and Marius which wrought havoc in Rome between 88 and 78 BC and Lodge adapted the story from Appian's Roman History. Roman conquests are under attack from Mithradites and a general needs to be chosen to direct the Roman legions. The elder statesman/soldier Marius is chosen by the senate, but Sulla a younger commander disputes the choice and drives Marius and his supporters out of Rome. Sulla defeats Mithradites and returns to Rome in triumph only to find that Marius has returned and rallied support for himself. There is in effect a civil war between the two resulting in each leader ordering the slaughter of the others' supporters as well as any citizens who get in the way. Anthony a supporter of Sulla provides much of the moral commentary as he tries to stop the bloodshed:

Unhappy Rome and Romans thrice accurst
That oft with triumphs fill'd your city walls
With kings and conquering rulers of the world,
Now to eclipse in top of all thy pride
Through civil discords and domestic broils.
O Romans, weep the tears of sad lament
And rend your sacred robes at this exchange,
For Fortune makes our Rome a bandying ball
Toss'd from her hand to take the greater fall.

The play concerns itself almost totally with the power struggle, showing how the two leaders intransigence leads to death and destruction in Rome. There are no subplots and no female characters to speak of and the moral that lust for power and prestige can lead to civil war that causes the deaths of many people is plain to see. The last of the five acts is an anti-climax; Sulla enjoys his triumph for only a few months deciding that he has had enough of public life and retires to his country estate. Lodge shoehorns in a comic interlude, but this fails to enliven the final speeches of the play. It would have been a clear example for all those involved in Elizabethan politics not to disrupt the stability of Elizabeth's reign.

A Looking Glass for London and England was the only other play bearing Thomas Lodge's name and this was written in conjunction with Robert Greene, although Lodge's name is in bigger letters on the frontispiece. This was written a few years after The Wounds of Civil War and although more ambitious in content is not much of an improvement on a simple moral play that could have been performed some twenty years earlier.

This time Lodge stages a story from the bible interspersed from scenes taken from contemporary London. The book of Jonah depicts the city of Nineveh as a wicked city worthy of destruction. God sent Jonah to preach to the city of its coming destruction. The message was heard and the Ninevehans repented their sins in time for God to spare the city. In the play we first meet King Rasni who has just defeated the king of Jerusalem, he has returned home in state and now plans to marry his sister because he now sees himself as a God who can command nature. One of his attendant Lords says

'O my Lord not sister to thy love
Tis incest and too foule a fact for kings
Nature allows no limits to such lust'

The attendant is promptly exiled and Rasni goes ahead with his plans while also coveting one of his fellow king's wives. Interspersed with this story are a series of comic episodes involving a clown, a blacksmith an apprentice and various drunken ruffians. The stories intertwine when Rasni stepping out of his Palace trips over the drunk clown and a man bleeding to death. Separate scenes also take place in contemporary London where a Gentleman, and a poor man are both running foul of a usurer, who is heartlessly calling in his debt and bribing a lawyer and a judge to obtain the right result in court. These scenes seem to be taken from Lodge's own personal experience of usury and corruption in the courts of law. The scenes in Nineveh are written in blank verse for the story of Rasni and in ordinary prose for the comic interlude. The scenes in London are largely in ordinary prose. At the end of each scene there is Ofeas as a sort of Greek chorus summing up the action in a pithy song/poem. A mixture of styles that works well enough although the blank verse sections are not as good as those in The Wounds of Civil War: The repentant usurer gets the best speech towards the end of the play and this seems to come from the heart of Thomas Lodge. The play was obviously written as a spectacle because there are violent storm scenes, a character is destroyed in a pillar of fire, Jonah is regurgitated from the body of the whale straight onto the stage and there is an apparition of an angel holding a sword over the frightened citizens of Nineveh. There is plenty of opportunity for comic acting and in the London scenes the poor man comes up with a series of fart jokes. This seems like a play that wanted to have something for everybody it was made to entertain and it was a success as a number of performances were recorded.

Characterisation is pretty much zero and the story line is aimed to present a moral that wicked behaviour will be punished if people do not repent in time. The repentance of the citizens of Nineveh is mirrored in the repentance of the usurer in London. In my opinion The Wounds of Civil War with its good passages of blank verse and its straightforward story telling is the more impressive of the two plays and in some ways the most modern. A looking Glass for London and England is a melange that looks backwards rather than forwards and would have little relevance for modern theatre goers. I can find no record of a modern production for either play. As examples of plays performed on the Elizabethan stage a few years prior to Shakespeare and not now considered to be relevant to the modern stage then they are worth a read. 3 stars for The Wounds of Civil War but only 2 for A Looking Glass. ( )