In this highly original and energetic study, Theodore B. Leinwand views Jacobean theater--particularly Jacobean city comedy--as a measure of the way Londoners of the time perceived each other. In forming a sophisticated view of the relations between Jacobean comedy and life, Leinwand makes a solid contribution not only to Jacobean theater, but, more broadly, to our understanding of the cultural, social, and political contexts within which all literature is produced.     Central to Leinwand's thesis is the belief that Jacobean theater was shaped by the city, and that in turn the theater both crystallized and criticized the attitudes of city dwellers for city dwellers. While The City Staged is an important study in its central focus, it becomes especially valuable when seen as a well-defined laboratory in which the vexing relationship between art and society may be studied.