What Shakespeare really meant
Shadowplay is an excellent addition to our understanding of Catholic culture, demonstrating what Shakespeare meant for his time. For example, after Catholic terrorists tried to kill the Scottish James I / VI by the Gunpowder Plot, Shakespeare wrote Macbeth about the terrible consequences of killing a Scottish king. Some Catholics in Shakespeares day were tortured for their faith and refused to give way. In Othello act 5, scene 2, Iago echoes their defiance: Demand me nothing; from this time forth I never will speak word, to be told: Torments will ope your lips. The coincidences between the writings of Shakespeare and the facts of his time are too many and too great to be PURE coincidence. Clare Asquith's Shadowplay demonstrates very convincingly that Shakespeares themes and fine details parallel (some of) the religious and political realities of Elizabethean / Jacobean England. We learn how the Bard of Avons writings for all time start with his commentary on his times.