Where Ralph Takes a Beating

Ralph Roister Doister by Nicholas Udall
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Some of this translates to modern sensibilities and tastes, and some of the language is decently accessible, but most of this only works for someone who has mid-16th-century jargon down and finds certain kinds of joking funny.

I was not the right audience.

Having said that, there is some clever stuff here and a few genuinely funny moments. More on that.

Mostly, this is a play about a rich dork (Ralph) who wants to marry a certain attractive widow (Lady Custance). He's terrible at getting the girl, and it's all made harder by a hanger-on (Merygreke) who pretends to help while just making a fool of him for grins. It's like a cruel practical joke. The widow wants nothing to do with him and his gifts or letters and is already engaged to be married to a better guy (Gawyn) who's out of town.

The best bit is a long misread letter that Ralph had a scribe prepare for him. Merygreke reads it aloud all wrong, like this (in part):

...ye shall never please me.
But when ye are merry, I will be all sad;
When ye are sorry, I will be very glad;
When ye seek your heart's ease, I will be unkind.
At no time in me shall ye much gentleness find...

The widow is furious at the insults, and Ralph is furious at the scribe. But when confronted, the scribe reads it properly:

ye shall never please me But when ye are merry;
I will be all sad When ye are sorry;
I will be very glad When ye seek your heart's ease;
I will be unkind At no time; in me shall ye much gentleness find.

There's quite a bit more, and it's good comedy writing, especially considering this is about 1553. I could see a Dick Van Dyke episode, or some other classic TV show, based on almost the same lines.

The other decently funny bit is a mock battle near the end between Ralph's servants and Lady Custance's servants, Ralph marching with a colander on his head. Merygreke manages it where he keeps appearing to swing at Custance and "accidentally" hits his good friend, over and over. In the end, Ralph and his army have to run away.

Giving Udall his due, it was a better comedy than one might expect in that era. The rhyming couplets and forced rhymes are annoying, and the vocabulary (a long generation before Shakespeare) is impenetrable without a gloss, but there are some fun parts. Mostly not a pleasure, though, to a modern reader. 2 stars. YMMV

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