Synopsis Betrayal, double dealing, illicit love affairs and unimaginable violence. Kyd's fascinating Jacobean revenge drama has all the ingredients of a modern thriller. Kyd was a popular dramatist in his day, although most of his plays have been lost. The Spanish Tragedy is one of very few extant plays that can with certainty be attributed to him. The play is important not only for its own merits but also because it is the first example of a revenge tragedy, a type of play that was to become extremely popular on the Elizabethan stage during the last decade of the sixteenth century and beyond. The most famous of all revenge tragedies is Shakespeare’s Hamlet, and some of the plot devices in The Spanish Tragedy, such as the protagonist’s hesitation in carrying out his revenge, are echoed in Shakespeare’s play.
The site of the Rose Theatre, the first Elizabethan theatre on London's Bankside where Shakespeare learned his craft, where he had his first plays performed and where he probably acted. The Rose was also the venue for the plays of Shakespeare's famous contemporary, Christopher Marlowe.
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