William Shakespeare as a sign that his acting career was nearing its end. The First Folio of 1623, however, lists Shakespeare as one of "the Principal Actors in all these Plays", some of which were first staged after "Volpone", although we cannot know for certain which roles he played. In 1610, John Davies of Hereford wrote that "good Will" played "kingly" roles. In 1709, Rowe passed down a tradition that Shakespeare played the ghost of Hamlet's father. Later traditions maintain that he also played Adam in "As You Like It", and the Chorus in "Henry V", though scholars doubt the sources of
The Servant of Two Masters a stock character (usually accentuated by a mask) and plays it to perfection throughout his career. The actors had a list of possible scenarios, each with a very basic plot, called a "canovaccio", and throughout would perform physical-comedy acts known as "lazzi" (from Italian "lazzo", a joke or witticism) and the dialogue was improvised. The characters from "The Servant of Two Masters" are derived from stock characters used in "commedia dell'arte". True "commedia dell'arte" is more or less improvised without a script, so "The Servant of Two Masters" is not true "commedia". The stock characters were used as guides for