Several aspects of the play have led critics to treat it as a key development and a marker of the final decadent phase of English Renaissance drama.
A 1638 production of Aglaura at the English royal court borrowed Inigo Jones's scenery from Luminalia, the Queen's masque of that year.
Unusually, Suckling wrote the play as a tragedy, but added an alternative happy ending, so creating an optional tragicomedy.
Critics – Richard Brome[1] was prominent among them – mocked the folio edition of Aglaura, especially the unusually broad page margins that compensated for the limited text.
[2] Aglaura was revived during the Restoration era; it was reportedly played at the Red Bull Theatre on 27 February 1662, in the original version, "the tragical way."
Sir Robert Howard was impressed with Suckling's dual ending, and imitated it in his own play The Vestal Virgin.
In the original tragic version, Aglaura secretly marries Thersames, but mistakenly stabs him to death, thinking he is the king.