Restoration Theater

• Duke's Company, Sir William Davenant • King's Company, Thomas Killigrew

Restoration Theatre

• New structures and new technology• New or newly revised texts• New approaches to acting• New approaches to/from audiences

Theater Buildings

• Jacobean theatres, closed since 1642 were in a state of disrepair – Cockpit had been used in 1658 for "private"

staging of Davenant’s "musical entertainment" or "opera,"

• Continental style required– Stages with proscenium arches, – Depth to support movable scenery and "flats”

http://www.british-history.ac.uk/no-series/london-map-morgan/1682

Restoration Theatres

Lincoln Inn Fieldsto Dorset Gardens

1661 Temporary use of Lisle’s Tennis Court1671 Dorset Gardens Theatre

Duke’ Theatre, The Empress of Morocco (1673)

Lincoln Inn Fields

1671 Dorset Gardens Theatre1695 New company led by Thomas Betterton & William Congreve sets up a new version of the Lincoln's Inn Fields Theatre

Dorset Gardens Theatre, as it was pictured in the libretto of The Empress of Morocco (1673)

Drury Lane

1663 Theatre Royal built for King’s Company1674 Rebuilt after fire by Wren1682 King’s and Duke’s companies combine at Theatre Royal

Drury Lane Theatre 1674 Wren section 1776 w. Adam modifications

Genres of Drama

• Tragedy• Heroic drama• Restoration Comedy– Farce– Aristocratic comedy (early)• Wit & Comedy of Manners – Fletcher• Humours – Jonson

• Restoration spectacular, or machine play

Restoration Tragedies

• Leave out comic interludes• No discourse between upper class heroes and

commoners• Often moral or political purpose

1677 Nathaniel Lee The Rival Queens• Edit Shakespeare to new tastes

1677 Dryden All for Love1681 Tate History of King Lear

Dryden All for Love or, the World Well Lost

• 1677 Tragedy– Blank verse– Based on Antony and Cleopatra– Classical unities: minimal subplot, one locale,

single day• Political subtext– Dedicated to Danby– Urges moderation and accord with King Charles

1681 Nahum Tate History of King Lear

”I found the whole…a Heap of Jewels, unstrung and unpolisht; yet so dazling in their Disorder, that I soon perceiv’d I had seiz'd a Treasure.” The solution was to"rectifie what was wanting in the Regularity and Probability of the Tale,"

Rectification of Lear

• Love between Cordelia and Edgar

• No fool• Edmund plots to rape Cordelia• Rescue by the English people• Restored Lear gives the throne

to Edgar and Cordelia

Spectacular and Semi-opera

1667, 1674 Dryden and Davenant The Enchanted Island (The Tempest) with music by Matthew Locke and Henry Purcell1674 Shadwell Psyche1685 Dryden Albion and Albantus1692 Dryden The Fairy-Queen, based on Midsummer’s Night Dream

Other Adaptations

1662 Davenant The Law Against LoversText from Measure for Measure with added characters from Much Ado

1662 Davenant Romeo and JulietAdded dialog between Juliet and dying Romeo

1682 Thomas Durfey The Injured Princess Adaptation of Cymbeline

Wit• Contemporary setting• Double-entendres• Revelation of hypocrisy• Rakes, jealous husbands, clever servants, abandoned

lovers, etc., • Often a secondary plot with conventional lovers

“Methinks wit is more necessary than beauty and I think no woman ugly has it and no handsome woman agreeable without it”

Horner in The Country Wife

Drolleries

Humours

• Character typesNot personal defects “peculiar to all, or most of the same Country, Trade, Profession or Education” “Humour shews us as we are.Habit shews us, as we appear, under a forcible Impression.Affectation shews what we would be, under a voluntary Disguise.”

Thomas Benetton

Off color jokes

Belinda: I could never yet agree what Face I should make, when they come blurt out with a nasty thing in a Play : For all the Men presently look upon the Women, that's certain ; so laugh we must not, tho' our Stays burst for’t because that's telling Truth, and owning we understand the Jest. For my part I always take that occasion to blow my Nose.Lady Brute: You must blow your Nose half off then at some Plays.

John Vanbrugh The Provok’d Wife, 1709

Aphra Behn “Astrea”

1670 The Forc’d Marriage1677 The Rover1688 Oroonoko, tale of an enslaved African prince, a work noted for exploration of slavery, race, and genderRoyalist supporter

The stage how loosely does Astræa tread Who fairly puts all characters to bed.

Pope

Behn The Feign’d Courtizans

The devil take this cursed plotting Age,‘T has ruin’d all our Plots upon the Stage;Suspicions, New Elections, Jealousies,Fresh Informations, New discoveries,Do so employ the busie fearful Town,Our honest calling here is useless grown;Each fool turns Politician now, and wearsA formal face, and talks of State-affairs…

ProloguePlay dedicated to Nell Gwynn

1679

Epilogues

• Often contrasted the personality of the dramatic character with the reputation of the performer

• Comic, poetic bids for the audience's good opinion

• Often given by a leading actress

Acting

Action “Action is motion and motion is the support of nature– The audience is fixed by even irregular or fantastic

action and drowsy [even] when the best actor speaks without action

Speaking– Musical proportions of words to sentences; syllables to

words and word order

Thomas Betterton

Audience Expectations

• Actors typecast by audience (but not always by director)

• Women to play women’s roles (ordered by Charles II

• Women’s sexualized roles– Tragic heroine– Couch scenes– Rape scenes– Breeches roles

ActressesDid not the Boys Act Women’s Parts Last Age?Till we in pitty to the Barren StageCame to Reform your Eyes that went astray,And taught you Passion the true English WayHave not the Women of the Stage done this?Nay took all shapes, and used most means to Please.How many on's, you naughty Men, you know,Have used you but too well? nay and some few,(But not too much of that) been Constant too.And if to damne us now is our Reward,I say no more; but - Faith 'tis very hard.

Epilogue, Elkanah Settle The conquest of China by the Tartars 1676

OthelloRowe’s Shakespeare1609

Breeches roles

• Elizabeth Howe found that out of ~375 plays produced in London between 1660 and 1700, 89, nearly a quarter, contained one or more roles for actresses in male clothesYou'l' hear with Patience a dull Scene, to see,In a contented lazy waggery,The Female Mountford bare above the knee.

Thomas Southerne's Sir Anthony Love (1690), Epilogue

Howe, Elizabeth. The First English Actresses: Women and Drama, 1660-1700. Cambridge University Press, 1992.

Breeches Roles

Tis worth Money that such Legs appear,These are not to be seen so cheap elsewhere.

Actress Elizabeth Boutell

Doublet and breeches

Warrior ActressesAnd though these Martial Dresses are not common,Well Arm'd, you'l find it hard to Foile a Woman.Think not our Courage, for our Sex less bold;Nor us so Brittle, but our Strength can hold.For Fighting Gallants, when you led the Dance,Some of our Sex went after You to France:And Female Bully into Breeches got,Some say, The Last Sea Fight stood Cannon Shot.Why may not Women have as Generous EndsIn Conquering Enemies, as Obliging Friends?

Epilogue, Settle Conquest of China

Acting

Actions suit the words. Words and action suit the person portrayed.

Continue to act even when not speaking.Gestures are the common speech of all

mankindGildon, Charles. Life of Mr. Thomas Betterton.

Robert Gosling, 1710.

Leading Actors

Thomas Betterton (1635-1710) Solyman in Davenant Siege of Rhodes, 1663

Elizabeth Barry (1656-1713)Congreve Mourning Bride, 1703

Anne Bracegirdle (1671-1748)

• Popular in breeches roles

• Reputation for modesty• Along with Betterton

and Barry, leader in United Company

John Lacy (1615-81) in: Sauny the Scot

(adaptation of Taming of the Shrew),

The Country Chaplain, The Cheats

Attending the Theatre

• Cheap seats 1 s; pit 2s 6do Cheap meal 2 ½ d; coffee 1d; quart of beer 1doWages – carpenter 2s 6d/day

But what Rabble was it to provoke? Are the Audience of a PIayhouse (which are generally persons of Honour, Noblemen and Ladies, or at worst, as one of your Authors calls his Gallants, Men of Wit and Pleasure about the Town) are these the Rabble of Mr. Hunt?

Dryden when accused of inciting the rabble.

Arriving

Let our gallant (having paid his half-crown, and given the door-keeper his ticket) presently advance himself into the middle of the pit, where having made his honour to the rest of the company, but especially to the vizard-masks, let him pull out his comb, and manage his flaxen wig with all the grace he can.

Mask for a doll c. 1690-1700 owned descendants of Pepys

Arriving

Having so done, the next step is to give a hum to the China orange-wench, and give her her own rate for her oranges (for ’tis below a gentleman to stand haggling like a citizen’s wife) and then to present the fairest to the next vizard-mask.

Laughing Audience from Hogarth

Mary Meggs or “Orange Moll”

Licensed to sell “oranges, lemons, fruit, sweetmeats and all manners of fruiterer's and confectioner's wares.”Resuscitated a patron who choked on fruit.Convey message from an actress to PepysEmployed Nell Gwyn as orange girl

Price of oranges: 6d

The Audience

Hither come the country gentlemen to show their shapes, and trouble the pit with irrelevances about hawking, hunting, their handsome wives and their housewifery. There sits a beau like a fool in a frame, that dares not stir his head nor move his body for fear of incommoding his wig, ruffling his cravat, or putting his eyes or mouth out of the order his maitre de danse set it in; whilst a bully beau comes drunk into the pit, screaming out, “Damn me, Jack, ’tis a confounded play, let’s to a whore, and spend our time better.”

Henry Misson Memoirs, 1698

LeavingSIR NOVELTY FASHION. Then you must know, my coach and equipage are as well known as myself; and since the conveniency of two playhouses, I have a better opportunity of showing them; for between every act- whisk — I am gone from one to th’other: — Oh! what pleasure ’tis, at a good play, to go out before half an act's done!NARCISSA. Why at a good play?SIR NOVELTY FASHION. Oh madam, it looks particular, and gives the whole audience an opportunity of turning upon me at once: then do they conclude I have some extraordinary business, or a fine woman to go to at least: and then again, it shows my contempt of what the dull town think their chiefest diversion.

Colley Cibber Love’s Last Shift, 1696