Drama, amongst other staged spectacles, was the target of unceasing attack from moralists and reformers from the 1550s. This virulent criticism, strongest in the 1580s and 1590s, was partly an expression of Protestant iconophobia, and partly a Puritan association of the theatre with moral and sexual laxity. Philip Stubbes's An Anatomy of Abuses (1584), one of the most outspoken works in this populous tradition, denounces plays for ‘alluring … People … to Theatres and vnclean assemblies’, ‘Venus pallace, & sathans synagogue’:

His list also specifies the danger of examples ‘painted before your eyes’ by a ‘Cosoners trick’ (146). At the same time, such reformists recognised a need for visual representation and drama's efficacy as a vehicle. A particular kind of drama was allowed, as a concession to flawed, sense-bound human capacities which must be reached through concrete forms. Such images would be