News at Eleven: However, the Prayer Book is also a kind of

theatrical work, detailing the interactions of minister, congregation and God during moments of high drama. In fact, as Swift says, "The prayer book struggled, throughout this period, with its twin and rival, the commercial theater. Plays were the other great common work of the age, both written collaboratively and performed before crowds. It was against the theater that the Book of Common Prayer sought to define itself."

from The Washington Post: Shakespeare's Common Prayers

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