Shakespeare’s Hamlet so dominates the English Renaissance revenge tragedy tradition that most modern audiences struggle even to name another revenge drama, especially by a different playwright of the same era. Yet, Thomas Kyd’s The Spanish Tragedy and John Marston’s Antonio’s Revenge also form crucial parts of the same tradition, showing how playwrights of the late Elizabethan period wrestled with questions of justice and morality as they expanded the genre’s conventions. All three also engage in delightful metatheatrical banter, sometimes with each other and sometimes with a possibly lost play now called the Ur-Hamlet, which scholars would give much to unearth.
At the London Literary Salon, we have frequently offered studies of Hamlet, and last year we also offered a study of The Spanish Tragedy. In January 2026, we are offering John Marston’s Antonio’s Revenge, which I like to call ‘Hamlet on hallucinogens and performed by children’ (in this case, a theatrical troupe called The Children of Paul’s). I have also described it as ‘Hamlet like you have never seen it before’, and comparing Hamlet with Antonio’s Revenge reveals strong resonances in structure and theme, but also key differences in tone and philosophical depth. These differences illuminate both Shakespeare’s and Marston’s distinct styles, while also showcasing their shared anxieties of the theatrical world.
As revenge tragedies, Hamlet and Antonio’s Revenge have striking similarities. For instance, each begins with the death of a father and a son’s obligation to avenge that death. In both plays, the ghost of the murdered man returns to demand vengeance: Hamlet’s father’s ghost calls upon him to “revenge his foul and most unnatural murder,” just as the ghost of Andrugio in Marston’s play commands Antonio to “revenge thy father.”
But the differences between the plays are more fascinating than their likenesses. Antonio is a muscular revenger, one who is profoundly physical and unapologetically outraged at his father’s fate. Action drives this play from the outset. It opens on the grotesque and sensational, and it stays there. Antonio’s path is marked by theatrical excess, and disguises, madmen, poisoned swords and grisly murders abound. Where Hamlet is haunted by doubt, Antonio is consumed by fury. His vengeance is brutal and unrestrained, leaving little room for reflection.
The similarities and differences in language are equally fascinating. Shakespeare’s verse is psychologically rich, moving between the colloquial and the poetic to reveal subtle layers of emotion. Marston’s language is darker, harsher, and more ornate, brimming with cynicism. His characters seem to speak in and represent moral absolutes, while Shakespeare’s figures inhabit complexities and nuance. Marston’s world is a nightmare of vice and corruption; Shakespeare’s Denmark is a decaying court that still contains the possibility of meaning.
Reading plays by his contemporaries allows us to see Shakespeare not as a solitary genius but as part of a lively, competitive and collaborative theatrical culture. His plays contribute to a vibrant ecosystem of dramatists – Kyd, Marlowe, Jonson, Marston, Webster, and so on – all interrogating the same fascinating impulses of a golden age.
Julie Sutherland‘s six-week study Antonio’s Revenge by John Marston: Hamlet Like You’ve Never Seen It Before begins on 7 January 2026.
