Returning to his homeland after being bitterly murdered in war, a haunted spirit seeks revenge on those who brought about his death. His lust and desire for the truth leads to one of the bloodiest plays ever written, The Spanish Tragedy. 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.| 4 Sep 10 to 26 Sep 10 | The Rose Playhouse Inner London, Greater London Performance Details => Venue archive |
