"Messiahs and Machiavellians" is an innovative exploration of modern evil in works of early- and late-modern theatre, raising issues about ethics, politics, religion, and aesthetics that speak to our present condition.Paul Corey examines how theatre which expressed a key political dynamic both in the Renaissance and the twentieth century lays open the impulses that instigated modernity and, ultimately, unparalleled levels of violence and destruction. Starting with Albert Camus "Caligula" and Samuel Beckett s "Waiting for Godot," then turning to Machiavelli s "Mandragola" and Shakespeare s...