The Roman Actor

How far should a role be taken? This entertaining tragedy puts an actor at the center of a dramatic and dangerous love triangle. Domitian, the tyrannical and jealous Roman Emperor, wreaks havoc and bloody vengeance as he accuses his wife of infidelity with the actor, Paris, whose only possibility of survival relies on pleasing an audience of one: the self-absorbed, lunatic Emperor. Regarded as the finest work of Jacobean dramatist Philip Massinger, The Roman Actor explores the balance between private and public moralities, as it nobly condemns tyranny, and examines the theater of power…and the power of theater, in this timely drama.