“MY FEET SEE BETTER THAN MY EYES”: SPATIAL MASTERY AND THE GAME OF MASCULINITY INARDEN OF FAVERSHAM'S AMPHITHEATRE

Abstract

Although the long-awaited murder of Arden in the anonymousArden of Faversham(ca. 1592) takes place during a game of tables, or what we call backgammon,1critics have been quick to overlook the choice of game in this climactic scene, underestimating its importance to the play's central concerns and even mistakenly calling it a game of dice or cards.2These games do share some common features—backgammon, for instance, involves the use of dice—but the distinctions among them are significant, especially for the play's often-observed interests in geography and place. In attending to the intersection between games and theatre, I participate in a long tradition of performance studies scholarship. But in contrast to much of this scholarship, I emphasize the formal qualities of particular games—which vary widely from one game to another—arguing that different games call for unique competencies in players and in spectators of games.3Arden of Favershamreflects on spatial relations in the early modern theatre by staging and enacting the ludic competencies peculiar to backgammon.