Evening Republican, Volume 15, Number 228, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 September 1911 — First English Play. [ARTICLE]

First English Play.

Nicholas Udall’s “Ralph Roisterbolster,” which was printed in 1566, was probably the first English play, and of the second of such oomedies. “Gammer Gurtok’s Needle.” which was performed at Cambridge in the same year. Careful students of' the history of the English drama recognise the Impracticability of drawing distinct lines of separation between the old miracle plays which were religious, the moralities which were transitional, and the plays of the distinctly secular stage. The earliest ascertained date of miraele plays in England is approximately 1110, in the reign of Henry I. At that time the miracle play of St. Catherine was acted at Dunstable. It is mentioned by Matthew Paris under Its Latin name “Ludus de Sancta Katharina” as performed under the direction pf a monk, Geoffrey, who later became abbot of St. Albans. Tbe subject of tbe beginnings of English drama is presented In an Interesting manner in Manley’s “Specimens of the PreShakespearean Drama.”