Staging the Old Faith

Staging the Old Faith is the first book length study to examine Caroline theatre as a space where the concerns of the English Roman Catholic community are staged.

Rebecca Bailey juxtaposes a detailed analysis of Queen Henrietta Maria’s ground-breaking performances which showcased to an elite audience her role as defender of English Catholics, against an exploration of how this community responded to such a startling vision, in particular through the politically charged texts of James Shirley and William Davenant.

This engagement on the stage with the anxieties and hopes of the English Catholic community (properly contextualised within the wider and increasingly fragmented religious landscape in the years leading to civil war) opens up Caroline commercial theatre as a site which energetically discussed the explosive religio-political topics of the cultural moment.