A brief history of plays about plays

1587 – The Spanish Tragedy by Thomas Kyd

Kyd’s The Spanish Tragedy is thought to be the first example of a play within a play and the start of a new genre – the revenge tragedy. The play follows the story of the murder of a Spanish king and one of his knights Don Hieronimo who seeks to avenge his death. The play culminates with Hieronimo inviting the murderers to act in a play with him and another member of the Spanish court. Unbeknownst to the actors, Hieronimo has swapped the fake daggers for real ones, allowing Hieronimo and one of his fellow actors the chance to kill the king’s murderers.  

1599 – Hamlet by William Shakespeare 

The Spanish Tragedy is said to have been one of the biggest inspirations for Shakespeare’s Hamlet, although Shakespeare created plays within many of his plays, including Love’s Labour’s Lost, The Taming of the Shrew, A Midsummer Night’s Dream and The Tempest. Similarly to Hieronimo, Hamlet stages a play to mirror the events of his father’s murder, but this time with the intent of provoking his uncle into admitting to the murder.  

Hamlet writes additional material for the play and names the play The Mousetrap. The Mousetrap was later adopted as a name for a play by Agatha Christie, which was then parodied in Tom Stoppard’s The Real Inspector Hound, and so the layers of plays about plays build.

1939 – Present Laughter by Noël Coward 

Noël Coward’s comedy Present Laughter offers a glimpse into the life of a successful but narcissistic actor named Garry Essendine, notably played by Andrew Scott at The Old Vic in 2019. The play depicts an almost farcical series of interaction between Garry and his secretary, his wife, his seductive admirers, a young playwright, all while Garry is grappling with having just turned forty. Coward has said that Garry is a caricature of his own persona, and the title is taken from a song which featured in Shakespeare’s The Twelfth Night.  

1948 – Kiss Me Kate by Cole Porter

Also inspired by Shakespeare, Kiss Me Kate is about the production of a musical adaptation of The Taming of the Shrew. Kiss Me Kate follows the story of Fred Graham, the show’s director, his leading lady come ex-wife Lilli Vanessi, actress Lois Lane who plays Bianca and her gambler boyfriend Bill. The action is constantly switches between the ‘on-stage’ musical and the ‘off-stage’ events, with the real-life happy ending coinciding perfectly with the happy ending of The Taming of the Shrew.  

1982 – The Real Thing by Tom Stoppard

The Real Thing centres around playwright Henry and the relationships he has with his wife Charlotte and his lover Annie, who are both actresses. Throughout the play Stoppard plays with ideas about how we know what is real, opening with a scene from one of Henry’s plays performed by two of the characters. Stoppard also uses this device in his play Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, which follows two of the minor characters from Hamlet, and brings us all the way back to where we began.