Most studies of plays-with-plays in Renaissance drama focus on the content of the inner play, but Rochester (English, U. of Saskatchewan, Canada), taking Massinger (1583-1640) as a case study,
looks at the representation of the audience of the play-within for clues to how the playwright imagined his relationship to the actual audience. She finds that he pays at least as much
attention to relations between the fictional audience and the performances they are watching as he does to the content of the play-within; that the onstage spectators typically misread,
overinterpret, or otherwise misconstrue the metadramatic insets; and that their response to the play structures the plot of the larger play. She considers The Roman Actor, The Picture, The
Guardian, and The City Madam. Annotation 穢2010 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
