Breaking Shakespeare’s Grip On How Theatre Tells History

“That Shakespearean model, with its focus on kings and the high-born, is wedded, one might argue, to the Great Man theory of history. Commoners must fight for space on Shakespeare’s stage—and it’s not obvious whether the drunkards and prostitutes who populate the tavern where Prince Hal escapes the burdens of court, for instance, serve as rehearsals for responsive sovereignty, critics of royal ideology, or comic baggage to be shed on the way to the throne.”