The Swan's Revenge: Jacobean and Caroline Revenge Tragedy at the Royal Shakespeare Company's Swan Theatre in Stratford-Upon-Avon

My analysis of the plays aims to provide key insights about the theatrical potential of each play, and how it was externalised on the stage of the Swan. The introduction begins with an exposition of my approach and methods and an outline of the literary context of Jacobean and Caroline revenge tragedies and some of the problems in staging them for a present-day audience. Then it describes in detail the history and structure of early modern playhouses and of the Swan Theatre at Stratford-upon-Avon. A chapter on each of the six plays whose production is analysed at length follows. The key questions raised by all productions are how to deal with scenes or moments of horror, and, relatedly, of bizarre or macabre comedy; how to present female characters constructed according to different assumptions from those of a present-day audience, and, similarly, how to handle misogynistic discourse; whether or not to update the play through costume, setting, and topical parallels; and, more generally, how to use the stage of the Swan Theatre most effectively.