International human rights as a legal regime is founded on the premise that the State is both the violator and the protector of the same set of rights. Universal positivism is the effort to eliminate the internal contradiction embedded within the heart of human rights law. This is done by creating international legal regimes that break through the sovereign veil of States for the benefit of the individuals within the States. This is a benevolent authoritarian move since international human rights treaties cannot be adjusted or addressed by the democratic will of its rights-holding subjects. Universal positivism’s focus on the State as the object of suspicion obscures the intrinsic dependency on the State for the actualizations of said rights, and how a democratic legal order will protect the individuals within the State in ways that international human rights cannot.

This chapter explores the dramatic performance of libel. Aggrieved amateur playmakers across England made canny use of costume, props, meter, and other theatrical technologies to disseminate libels. Drawing from the Star Chamber records, the first section surveys the varieties of media and performance genres employed by libelers, including festive games, pageants, songs, and shows; street theater; and professional playing. Examples such as the Wells Shows of 1607, “The Death of the Lord of Kyme” in 1601, and even Shakespeare’s Merry Wives of Windsor illustrate the thorough hybridity of libelous performance. The rest of the chapter is devoted to two major case studies: the Kendal Stage Play of 1621 and the university play Club Law (1599–1600). These are prime examples of activist theater: they aimed not just to entertain their audiences but also to mobilize them, defame them, or otherwise incite them to action. Situated in their respective local contexts – the struggle over tenant right in Kendal and town–gown conflict in Cambridge – the surviving traces of these plays document the circulation of communal feelings that made libelous performance such a potent medium for bad publicity.