May Day (play)

May Day is an early 17th-century stage play, a comedy written by George Chapman that was first published in 1611.

May Day enters the historical record when it was printed in a quarto edition by the stationer John Browne. This was the sole edition of the play prior to the 19th century. The title page of the 1611 quarto identifies Chapman as the author, and states that the play was acted at the Blackfriars Theatre, meaning it was performed by the Children of the Blackfriars, the troupe of boy actors that staged most of Chapman's early comedies.

The date of the play's authorship and stage premier is a matter of dispute among scholars. The play's text shows a number of references, allusions, and borrowings from dramas current around the turn of the century, like John Marston's Antonio's Revenge (1600); the play's parodies of passages in Hamlet, including the famous soliloquy, have been widely noted by commentators. So, some critics have agreed with Chapman scholar T. M. Parrott in favouring a date of c. 1601-2. Yet the text also shows links with works current almost a decade later, like Thomas Dekker's The Gull's Hornbook (1609). One solution for this contradiction is the hypothesis, offered by Parrott, that Chapman wrote the play c. 1601-2 and then revised it for a new production c. 1609. This hypothesis, while certainly possible, has also been received with a measure of scepticism.

Chapman based the plot of May Day, and its Venetian setting, upon a Commedia erudita by Alessandro Piccolomini called Alessandro (1544). The story, as adapted by Chapman, is a complex, crowded, multiple-plot tangle of intrigue and disguise. In the original production, "much of the play's humor probably derived from the child actors' interpretations of adult roles." "The whole play, if over-ingenious, is vivaciously written, and the characters are well-sustained."

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