SHAKSPER 2002: Average Length of an Afterpiece

From: Hardy M. Cook (editor@ws.bowiestate.edu)
Date: 01/25/02 

The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 13.0178  Friday, 25 January 2002

From:           Hardy M. Cook <hcook@ws.bowiestate.edu>
Date:           Friday, January 25, 2002
Subject:        Average Length of an Afterpiece

Yesterday, I was reading Gustav Ungerer’s "Mary Frith, Alias Moll
Cutpurse, in Life and Literature” (*Shakespeare Studies*, 18 (2000):
42-84) and came across the following statement about Firth’s appearance
at the Fortune: “. . . she ‘playd vppon her lute & sange a songe’ and
made ‘some other immodest & lascivious speeches,’ for lest us say about
half an hour, the average length of an afterpiece” (59). This is the
first insistence that I can recall identifying the length of afterpieces
in the theatre. Can anyone enlighten me about the accuracy of this
statement? And if it is accurate, should we not talk about the two and a
half hours traffic of the stage to include the afterpiece?


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