Routledge Staging Spectatorship in the Plays of Philip Massinger

Explore the complex world of early modern drama with this scholarly study from Routledge. Part of the Studies in Performance and Early Modern Drama series, this book examines how playwrights writing for the London stage between 1580 and 1642 used metatheatrical elements to shape the audience experience. By analyzing plays-within-plays and other metatheatrical inserts, this work looks at how fictionalized spectators and performers provide a window into the interaction between the stage and the theatre audience. The text examines how these moments act as enactments of the interpretive work performed by a spectator, offering deep insight into early modern ideas regarding perception and audience engagement. This specific study focuses on on-stage spectatorship within three plays by Philip Massinger, who served as a head playwright for the King's Men. It is an essential resource for researchers, students, and historians interested in the evolution of theatre, the mechanics of performance, and the historical conceptions of the spectator in the seventeenth century.