Theatre, Court and City, 1595-1610

This book explores the vital and interactive relationship between city and court in the drama of Shakespeare's time. The growth of purpose-built playhouses in late sixteenth-century London began to shift the focus of performance for many companies away from provincial touring, making the city a more conspicuous presence in drama. Janette Dillon looks at relations between drama and city through the wider lens of fashion and commercialism, examining in particular the developing 'West End' area along the Strand. She argues that the drama is oriented towards both the city of London and the court, rather than to one or the other, as previous studies have assumed. The book is organized around physical and social forms of theatre space. It ranges from analysis of well-known plays, such as Shakespeare's Love's Labour's Lost and Jonson's Epicoene, to lesser-known drama by Heywood and the newly discovered Jonsonian entertainment, Britain's Burse.