 "The Crying of Lot 49" by Thomas Pynchon has several characters seeing a play called "The Courier's Tragedy" by the fictitious Jacobean playwright Richard Wharfinger.The events of the play broadly mirror those of the novel and give the main character, Oedipa Maas, a greater context with which to consider her predicament; the play concerns a feud between two rival mail distribution companies, which appears to be ongoing to the present day, and in which, if this is the case, Oedipa has found herself involved.As in "Hamlet", the director makes changes to the original script; in this instance, a couplet that was added, possibly by religious zealots intent on giving the play extra moral gravity, are said only on the night that Oedipa sees the play.