Elizabeth I

The play concerns a travelling troupe of actors who perform their version of the Great Queen, Elizabeth. The travelling actors are harrassed out of their theaters and stages by Puritans and Cambridge Dons. During one such performance in an English farm town, the real Queen Elizabeth appears in person and is mightily distressed at the player-queen's performance of the decapitation of her rival, Mary, Queen of the Scots. The play's theme is Elizabeth herself, as an enigmatic folk-hero, trying desperately to pursue her policy of peace in a world of men hell-bent on war.