The Spanish Tragedy became one of the most successful plays on the Elizabethan English stage and laid the foundation for revenge tragedy, a genre that playwrights returned to throughout the early modern era and that endures even today. The story surrounds civil servant Hieronimo who joins Bel-imperia of the royal family to take revenge on her own brother for murdering Hieronimo’s son, Horatio, the object of her affection. The play brings up questions about aristocratic privilege, the morality of revenge, the spectacle of violence, and the agency of women at court. (Edited from The Folger.)

The Public Domain Players’ production of The Spanish Tragedy is particularly concerned with concepts of class, revenge, and the ethics of staging physical violence for a live audience. In our version of the script, our research on these issues is represented through many characters, but especially through the characterizations of Horatio, Hieronimo, and Bel-Imperia.