This study examines the early history plays - the first tetralogy and "King John" - as plays, not only by analyzing their theatrical dimensions but also be connecting their staging with the playhouse as a social institution and with the theatricality of Elizabethan culture in the 1590s.

Part I Theatre, history, politics: theatrical dimensions of the dramatic text; theatricality and politics; the theatre as an institution. Part 2 "Henry VI": spectacles of chaos; from ceremony to "practice". Part 3 "Henry VI": madness and butchery; savage comedy and the audience's nightmare. Part 4 "Henry VI": the law of the scabbard; ritualizing atrocity. Part 5 "Richard III": the actor's audience; faction and providence. Part 6 "King John": John and "The Arts of Fallacy"; the political language of excess. Part 7 Paradox, play, politics.