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John Webster "Lots of blood. That's the only writing." |
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OK, I'll admit it--this, more than anything else, is what made me do this theme, because when the sadistic little boy said his name was John Webster, I died laughing. Everyone else in the theater--my wife included--looked at me like I was an idiot. John Webster was a playwright of the later Elizabethan and Jacobean periods; he is sometimes referred to as the last of the Elizabethan playwrights, and he is remembered as writing some of the most violent and bloody plays of the time. I was introduced to him in an English seminar entitled "Decadence." As if the seminar title weren't intriguing enough, the course number was 666; I had no choice but to sign up. He even worked as a playwright for Philip Henslowe (Henslowe mentions him in his diary, in 1602). His two most famous plays are The White Devil and The Duchess of Malfi, both of which seem to demonstrate that strong passions inevitably lead to violence.
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