SOURCE: “Formalizing English Farce: Johan Johan and its French Connection,” in Comparative Drama, Vol. 17, No. 2, Summer 1983, pp. 141-52.

In the following essay, Norland focuses on the ways in which Johan Johan varies from its French source, concluding that Heywood, if he is indeed the translator of this farce, produced an English version that is in many ways artistically superior to the French original.

Although Noah's wife and Mak with his “sothren tothe” may possibly provide earlier examples of farcical action in the Towneley cycle, Johan Johan, published by William Rastell in 1533, is the first play printed in England to represent farce as a dramatic form. Attributed to John Heywood by the bookseller Francis Kirkman in 1671, Johan Johan has long been recognized as vastly different in form and style from Heywood's known plays or those of his contemporaries. Karl Young in 1904 sought to explain these differences by suggesting that...