SOURCE: Hogan, A. P. “Imagery of Acting in The Roman Actor.” The Modern Language Review 66, No. 2 (April 1971): 273-81.

In the following essay, Hogan discusses Massinger's thematic use of actors, acting, plays, and theater in The Roman Actor.

In theatrical tradition, The Roman Actor is merely a showcase for Paris's oration to the senate—Kean toured with this scene alone as a tour-de-force in 1822—and critics too have assumed that the actor, Massinger's heroic self-portrait, is the absolute centre of the play.¹ But one need only review the disgruntled comments of T. S. Eliot, T. A. Dunn, and others to realize, in their disappointment, the impossibility of reading The Roman Actor as a mere frame for one short scene.² Recently, critics such as C. A. Gibson and Peter Davison, anxious to avoid the pitfalls of such negativism, have preferred to view the play as an artistic whole composed of...