High on the long list of plays that ought never to be written are plays about how the great men of our civilization—Shakespeare, Newton, Mozart, and the like—first set their winged feet on the path that was to lead them up, up, and away from the rest of us. Doomed as such enterprises are, they continue to be turned out with unabatable zest by playwrights possessing a certain type of second-rate talent. The distinguishing mark of these playwrights is that they not only live beyond their intellectual means but are unaware of doing so; irresistibly tempted to dabble in the mystery of the nature of their betters, they feel not the slightest sense of being unfit for the task….

The latest specimen of mock-Elizabethiana to be presented here is "A Cry of Players."… The author of "A Cry of Players," William Gibson, archly refrains from identifying...