- Robert Shatterell
Robert Shatterell (1616 – 1684) was a English actor of the seventeenth century. He was one of the limited group of actors who began their careers in the final period of
English Renaissance theatre , and resumed stage work in the Restoration, after the long theatre closure of theEnglish Civil War and the Interregnum, 1642–1660. [See: Richard Baxter;Nicholas Burt ;Walter Clun ; Charles Hart;Michael Mohun ;William Wintershall .]Robert Shatterell was christened on November 10, 1616 in the parish of St. Botolph,
Aldgate . He started as aboy player ; he was withBeeston's Boys in 1639. During the Civil War, like fellow actors Hart and Burt, he served as an officer in the elite cavalry regiment commanded byPrince Rupert . Shatterell he may have seen combat in the battles of Nasby and Marston Moor, and perhaps at Edgehill as well. [John H. Astington, "Actors and the Court After 1642," "Early Modern Literary Studies", Special Issue 15 (August 2007), pp. 1-23.]Once the main combat of the Civil War had ended, Shatterell returned to the stage. He was one of the English actors who were active on the Continent, primarily in
The Hague andParis , in the mid-1640s. [Judith Milhous and Robert D. Hume, "New Light on English Acting Companies in 1646, 1648, and 1660," "Review of English Studies", New Series, Vol. 42 No. 168 (November 1991), pp. 487-509.]After dramatic activity recommenced in England in 1660, Shatterell became one of the thirteen actors who were original sharers in the new-organized
King's Company . During his ensuing career, he played mostly comic roles; he took the parts of Poins in Shakespeare's "Henry IV" plays, Voltore in Jonson's "Volpone ", and Maskal in Dryden's "An Evening's Love ", plus Bessus in "A King and No King " and Calianax in "The Maid's Tragedy ", both plays byBeaumont and Fletcher , [Edwin Nunzeger, "A Dictionary of Actors and of Others Associated with the Representation of Plays in England Before 1642", New Haven, Yale University Press, 1929; p. 322.] and the Quack in Wycherly's "The Country Wife ".Robert's younger brother Edward Shatterell (1620–c. 1664) was also an actor, though less successful and more obscure.
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