"We Should Be Colliers": Coal, Contagion and the Elizabethan Theater

Abstract: This article evaluates the significance of the collier's presence on the Elizabethan stage. Through analyses of plays including Damon and Pythias, Like Will to Like, The Devil and His Dame , and A Knack to Know a Knave , I trace the intersecting cultural and theatrical associations that stage colliers acquired for early modern audiences. I critique the geographically, racially, religiously, and socially prejudicial links contemporary authors drew between colliers and contagion, while also assessing the potential environmental implications of representing the coal trade at a time of rapid urban expansion and increasing atmospheric pollution. In conclusion, I argue that, for some playgoers at least, the stage collier's presence could have evoked both the social and the environmental price of Elizabethan England's growing reliance on coal and charcoal to fuel industrial, domestic, and even theatrical activity.