ABSTRACTA paradigm shift for Marxist interpretation might substitute pleasure for ideology as the special product of Shakespeare’s theatre. Requiring analysis beyond market generalisations, specificities of self-expanding capital, especially compulsory competition, invite comparison of the new purpose-built theatres with the privatising land enclosures of the agrarian-capitalist revolution. For pleasures best paid in admission beforehand, as also seen for prostitution, theatre could gain productive potential through innovative competition with other pleasure producers – incorporating, competing with, or even poaching from London’s burgeoning alternative entertainments (brothels, gambling, animal sports, etc.). Aside from some negative, coercive outcomes reflecting the perceived “twin evils” of land enclosure and engrossment, theatre could also develop what Marx thought of as capitalism’s positive civilising trait: the ability to experience multiple pleasures. Brief historical episodes exemplify theatre’s becoming such an industry: rioting echoing anti-enclosure riots, a fenced structure at the Fortune theatre, increasing privatisation in Shakespearean brothel scenes, representations of boredom accompanying entertainment, scenes of pleasure choice, and a trend toward extreme miscellany leading to a radically disparate D’Avenant play in the Restoration. Self-valorising, entertainment logic is embodied in Shakespearean representations of mirth becoming “too much fun” – bubbles of entertainment value parallel to capital’s own intrinsic tendency of crisis and collapse.