Editing A New Way to Pay Old Debts (section)

==Performance==
Massinger probably wrote the play in 1625, though its debut on stage was delayed a year as the theatres were closed due to [[bubonic plague]]. In its own era it was staged by [[Queen Henrietta's Men]] at the [[Cockpit Theatre]] in [[Drury Lane]]. It was continuously in the repertory there and at the [[Red Bull Theatre]], under the managements of [[Christopher Beeston]], [[William Beeston]], and Sir [[William Davenant]], down to the closing of the theatres at the start of the [[English Civil War]] in 1642.

Though Massinger's play shows obvious debts to [[Thomas Middleton]]'s ''[[A Trick to Catch the Old One]]'' (c. 1605), it transcends mere imitation to achieve a powerful dramatic effectiveness – verified by the fact that, apart from the Shakespearean canon, it was almost the only pre-Restoration play that was continuously in the dramatic repertory through much of the modern era. After [[David Garrick]]'s 1748 revival, the play remained popular throughout the nineteenth century and into the twentieth. (It was praised by [[Thomas Jefferson]].) [[Edmund Kean]]'s version of Sir Giles, which debuted in 1816, was in particular a tremendous popular success, and drove the play's reputation through the remainder of the century.<ref>Gibson, p. 184.</ref>

The play remains in the active theatrical repertory; modern stagings are usually amateur or student productions, though the [[Royal Shakespeare Company]] performed the play in 1983, directed by [[Adrian Noble]] and with [[Emrys James]] as Sir Giles.