How did the Puritans' view of theater impact Elizabethan society?

As their
name implies, the Puritans were a religious group which, during the sixteenth century in
England, wanted to purify the Church of England. They wanted church leaders to have less power
and the laity to be more directly involved in the affairs of the Church. Above all, the Puritans
wanted the Anglican services and rituals to be simplified and less ornate. Eventually they
defied the authority of the Church leadership and demanded that every congregation should have
the right to manage itself with lay leaders. They were persecuted for their beliefs and
eventually fled first to Holland and then to America. 

The Elizabethan
theater, for most of the sixteenth century, consisted of traveling troupes who would perform
wherever they could. The themes of their plays histories, like the Faustian Chapbook, and
comedies or tragedies emmulating Greek and Roman to add legitimacy (until Henry VIII's break
with the Pope, all plays had been religios ones). For the Elizabethans, these...