Book excerpt: TEMPORARY Bergman looks at the representation of criminals in early modern Spanish theatre and the connection between criminality, the portrayal of criminal heroes on stage, and public displays of law enforcement within and outside the playhouse. His main purpose is to see to how Baroque spectacle (a term of art in theatre that refers to a particular event, often in expressions of popular culture) appears either to align itself, work against, or be independent of the social means of control of the day. His main argument is that that the propaganda power of early modern Spanish spectacle has been vastly overstated. Ted L. L. Bergman is a Lecturer in Spanish, University of St Andrews.