- All's Well That Ends Well
- Antony and Cleopatra
- As You Like It
- The Comedy of Errors
- Coriolanus
- Cymbeline
- Hamlet
- Henry IV, Part 1
- Henry IV, Part 2
- Henry V
- Henry VI, Part 1
- Henry VI, Part 2
- Henry VI, Part 3
- Henry VIII
- Julius Caesar
- King John
- King Lear
- Love's Labor's Lost
- A Lover's Complaint
- Macbeth
- Measure for Measure
- The Merchant of Venice
- The Merry Wives of Windsor
- A Midsummer Night's Dream
- Much Ado About Nothing
- Othello
- Pericles
- The Rape of Lucrece
- Richard II
- Richard III
- Romeo and Juliet
- Shakespeare's Sonnets
- The Taming of the Shrew
- The Tempest
- Timon of Athens
- Titus Andronicus
- Troilus and Cressida
- Twelfth Night
- The Two Gentlemen of Verona
- Venus and Adonis
- The Winter's Tale
This conversation between Colonel Lanser and Mayor Orden occurs just before Alexander Morden’s trial. Despite an earlier conversation with Doctor Winter in which Winter guessed that the invaders want to stage a trial for Alex merely for the show of it, Mayor Orden is perplexed as to why the conquerors intend to try the young man even though they know they’ll execute him eventually. Lanser’s response to this question is frank, as he explains that “punishment” must sometimes be “dramatized” so as to discourage other “potential criminal[s]” from committing the same crimes. As if to emphasize the importance of performative…