Article: Psycho drama; The Roman Actor Swan, Stratford-upon-Avon. (theater review)

Byline: RACHEL HALLIBURTON

THE Emperor Domitian's megalomania was summed up by the historian Suetonius when he wrote that the tyrant used to spend his time stabbing flies obsessively with a needlesharp pen. In Sean Holmes's production of The Roman Actor, Antony Sher reveals his character as precisely the kind of man who would indulge in such petty insecticides, with a finely tuned performance that demonstrates both the mummy's boy and the murderer behind his imperial facade.

Philip Massinger wrote this play for the King's Men in 1626, one year after Charles I acceded the throne - and while invoking imperial parallels, he cannot have been aware of the ...

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