The Jew of Malta was an immediate success[5] from its first recorded performance at the Rose Theatre in early 1592, when Edward Alleyn played the lead role.[20] The play was subsequently presented by Alleyn's Lord Strange's Men seventeen times between 26 February 1592 and 1 February 1593. It was performed by Sussex's Men on 4 February 1594, and by a combination of Sussex's and Queen Elizabeth's Men on 3 and 8 April 1594. More than a dozen performances by the Admiral's Men occurred between May 1594 and June 1596. (The play apparently belonged to impresario Philip Henslowe, since the cited performances occurred when the companies mentioned were acting for Henslowe.) In 1601 Henslowe's diary notes payments to the Admiral's company for props for a revival of the play.[21]
The play remained popular for the next fifty years, until England's theaters were closed in 1642. In the Caroline era, actor Richard Perkins was noted for his performances as Barabas when the play was revived in 1633 by Queen Henrietta's Men. The title page of the 1633 quarto refers to this revival, performed at the Cockpit Theatre.[22]
The play was revived by Edmund Kean at Drury Lane on 24 April 1818. The script of this performance included additions by S. Penley.[23] It was considered a successful production at the time. However, in an anonymous biography of Kean published seventeen years later, it suggests that the success of the production came from Kean's performance and his addition of a song to the role of Barabas, and that the play itself, on its own, was a failure.[5]
On 2 October 1993, Ian McDiarmid starred as Barabas in a BBC Radio 3 adaptation of the play directed by Michael Fox, with Ken Bones as Machevil and Ferneze, Kathryn Hunt as Abigail, Michael Grandage as Don Lodowick, Neal Swettenham as Don Mathias and Kieran Cunningham as Ithamore.[24]
