Restoration Drama

Historical Timeline
1625: Charles I accedes to the throne. Autocratic unconstitutional rule. Intolerance of
Religious Dissenters
1641: The Great Rebellion/English Revolution and Civil War. Overthrow of the
entire Church of England establishment
1642: Puritan authorities close the theatres.
1642-1660: England without theatrical activity - prohibition against acting passed by
Commonwealth
1649: Execution of Charles I . The I nterregnum. Abolishment of hereditary rank.
England - a Commonwealth. Oliver Cromwell - Lord Protector
1660: Twin restorations - The accession of Charles I I . The reopening of the
theatres.
16641666: The Great Plague and Fire of London
1685: Charles I I dies. Catholic brother J ames I I accedes
16881689: J ames I I , the final Stuart King of England, abdicates. Accession of
William of Orange and Mary Stuart (The Glorious Revolution)
Setting the Stage Restoration playhouses, audiences and performance
Restoration of 1660 - watershed of history - opportunity for the theatrical world to
begin anew
professional theatre + experienced actors + knowledgeable spectators had to be re-
created
explosion of dramatic writing: rich variety of dramatic forms
heroic drama
comedy of manners/humours/wit comedy
sentimental comedy/tragedy
tragedy
tragicomedy
farce
satiric mock-opera
Innovations
1. ESTABLISHMENT OF A THEATRICAL MONOPOLY
July 1660: royal warrant - performances in London - licensed to two companies
THE KINGS COMPANY (Thomas KILLIGREW)
THE DUKE OF YORKS COMPANY (William DAVENANT)
no rival companies
performances accompanied by music
own censors
permanent set of performers ~ medieval guild system
responsible for bringing the English-speaking theatre in line with mainstream
theatrical developments on the continent
2. ALTERED DESIGN OF PLAYHOUSES
Seating areas:
pit main seating area
stage boxes/front boxes/side boxes more expensive , desirable locations
1st, 2nd galleries less expensive tastes
proscenium arch (acting area forward of the curtain, thrusting well into the audience
space)
performers flanked by spectators feeling of intimacy - ideal for plays where
words, verbal exchange = important
witty retorts, frequent soliloquies/ asides to the audience
Proscenium
3. PERFORMANCE/PERFORMERS
revolutionary ADMISSION OF WOMEN ON THE STAGE by royal warrants
- ?? more plausible portrayal of women characters than transvestite male
actors (successful Renaissance transvestite convention)
closing of the theatres during the Interregnum had interrupted old system of
apprenticeship
eliminate obscene & corrupt aspects of English drama & encourage adoption
of purer standards for theatrical performance
later part of 17th c - new model of sexual relations: women + men entitled to
full & adequate individuality (social contract theories)
4. RESTORATION AUDIENCES
histrionics of players +++ contribution of spectators
theatre going = a game ~ sexual games played out in many plays of the period
spectators disrupted performances - conventions of playgoing/performing in
the 1600s - ample opportunities for fops/ruffians to misbehave
performative/presentational nature of RESTORATION theatre
epilogues/prologues/soliloquies/asides actors/dramatic characters addressed
audience directly
audiences talked back
courtiers & their satellites
fops & beaux & wits or would-be-wits
women of quality & courtesans
The Restoration Comedy of Manners
terms Restoration comedy and comedy of manners - virtually synonymous
witty, cerebral, cynical form of drama - typically focuses on the codes and conduct,
manners and fashions of a particular social class, and ridicules the pretensions of those
who consider themselves socially superior, deflating them with satire
action may be intricately plotted, yet the events themselves are of less significance
than the behaviour of the characters stock character types
rake of either sex
fops (fools whose vanity leads them to affect characteristics they don't possess)
wits (men and women of intelligence and spirit)
would-be wits (pretenders to knowledge, eternal attempts at clever repartee,
straining after a new simile)
conceited gallants who thought himself irresistible to the ladies
prudes (or false prudes)
pompous men-of-affairs, cuckolds
lovers, cits, and servants
plot - sexual relations, sex-antagonism (struggle of wit rather than of emotion)
issues of infidelity, marriage, divorce
Canonical Playwrights, REPRESENTATIVE WORKS
William Congreve
The Way of the World (1700); Love for Love (1695); The Double Dealer
(1694)
William Wycherley
The Country Wife (1675); The Plain Dealer (1677)
Aphra Behn
The Rover (1681)
John Dryden
Marriage A-la-Mode (1673)
George Etherege
The Man of Mode (1676); She Would I f She Could (1668)
John Vanbrugh
The Relapse; or, Virtue in Danger (1696); The Provok'd Wife (1697)
George Farquhar
The Beaux' Stratagem (1707)
WILLIAM CONGREVE
1670-1729
now largely read for his plays (poems, polished and epigrammatic; translations, short
lyrics, occasional poems, ballads)
The Way of the World - crowning glory of Restoration comedy and of "the comedy of
manners (dazzling dialogue, coruscating wit, daunting complexities of plots)
born at Bardsey in Yorkshire
1674 - moved the family to Ireland - Kilkenny College (interest in Greek; contact with
drama)
1686 Trinity College, Dublin
Smock Alley Theatre
well-read in literary and dramatic theory
warm friendship with Dryden (high opinion of Congreve as translator) - Ovid's Ars
Amatoria in 1709 and Metamorphoses in 1717
1691 joined fashionable London society, the literary circles
Works
I NCOGNI TA: OR, LOVE AND DUTY RECONCI L'D. A NOVEL 1692
THE OLD BATCHELOR, 1693
THE DOUBLE-DEALER 1693
LOVE FOR LOVE, 1695
THE MOURNI NG BRI DE, 1697
1695 "AN ESSAY CONCERNI NG HUMOUR I N COMEDY
Humor is from Nature, Habit from Custom; and Affectation from Industry. Humour, shews us
as we are. Habit, shews us, as we appear, under a forcible Impression. Affectation, shews us
what we would be, under a voluntary disguise.
1698, AMENDMENTS OF MR. COLLI ER'S FALSE AND I MPERFECT
CI TATI ONS
comedy has a moral purpose in laughing the audience out of vice
comedies must contain vicious and foolish characters if they are to achieve this moral
aim
passages must be considered in the scene in which they appear, not wrenched out of
context
words have a "diversity of subject" which gives a "diversity of signification"
THE WAY OF THE WORLD (1700)
virtually his last work for the stage - disillusioned by the poor reception of his play -
gave up writing for the stage
most complete and subtle comedy of manners
major response to Collierism
took exception to the lewdness and over-elaborate artificiality of the times
clearly resented the Puritanical attacks upon it
lines from Horace (title page) - immorality and unscrupulousness of society
(caution adulterers)
complex play, revolving around marriage and money
?series of plots and counterplots in the quest for control of Lady Wishfort's
fortune and her control over that of her niece Millamant
marital (dis)harmony and sexual intrigue
Millamant, witty lady - Mirabell, beau, consummate gallant
denied permission to marry by Millamant's aunt, Lady Wishfort
servant Waitwell is to impersonate a rich suitor for Lady Wishforts hand
Fainall - a pretender to wit
Marwood (a pretender, a seeming prude) seeks to mar the match between Mirabell and
Millamant
Lady Wishfort (would-be woman of quality)
Witwoud (seeks to pass himself off as a wit) but
Sir Willful (typical rustic)
differing ethical stances -
true wit embraces morality as well as intelligence
personal relationships in the play (pairing/sundering of marriage partners) stand
for broader social, political, economic relations legitimate/obsolete - eclipse of royal
prerogative new sovereign relations of property
nature of sovereignty ultimate locus of power in civil state - articulated through
characters Fainall & Mirabell represent 2 conflicting orders of power
one: essentially patriarchal Fainall vestigial Restoration rake - forced
by circumstances to dwindle into a husband yet still upholding the ethic
of the libertine
other; based on new relations of trust reformed rake Mirabell (new way
of the world)
opening scene: conversation between Mirabell and Fainall - chocolate house venue
of male sociability (news, gossip, wit, cards)
M: You are a very fortunate man, Mr. Fainall.
F: Have we done?
M. What you please. Ill play on to entertain you.
F has won the card game, but will lose the fortune/inheritance immense irony
M will ultimately control Fs estate
whole play something of a game settlement of fortunes & estates
nature of sovereign power
Fainall: real property women who represent the estates they possess - older political
condition in England: royalist perspective: property follows political legitimacy
Mirabell: property creates legitimacy triumph of legal document/negotiated
settlement sexual, social & political potency
Displacement of Fainall by Mirabell wordplay on will: no ones will may change the
way of the world: the legal sense: power of mutual consent modelled on the contract
and based on juridically recognised private property
PROVISO SCENE
Honore DUrfe LAstree (1627) handbook on gallantry how jaded appetite may be
preserved in marriage
both partners wish to protect their dear liberty, both equally fear liberty may
degenerate into libertinism
how two people can live harmoniously with each other while
retaining personal autonomy and dignity
remaining part of the social world
Millamant outlines the conditions under which she will "by degrees dwindle
into a Wife" - challenge to the despotism of the old marriage code - establish a
new marriage pattern that will look very much like a permanent courtship:
"I'll fly and be follow'd to the last Moment," "tho' I am upon the very Verge of Matrimony, I
expect you should sollicit me as much as if I were wavering at the Grate of a Monastery, with
one Foot over the Threshold. I'll be sollicited to the very last, nay and afterwards."
strong legal overtones
Millamant: 'These articles subscribed, if I continue to endure you a little longer, I may
by degrees dwindle into a wife',
Mirabell: 'These provisos admitted, in other things I may prove a tractable and
complying husband'
coolness of tone - depth of their emotional commitment
Hobbesian world of self-love, rivalry, and conflicting passions - Lockean compact
(peaceful and reasonable accommodation between individual and mutual needs)
act like strangers in public, so that they may act like lovers in private
together the lovers create a private world divorced from the follies and vices of the
society around them while retaining the freedom to interact with that society when
they must.
containment of parental or marital tyranny by law and contract
econstruction of a microcosmic household
separateness of the individual from society, suggesting the priority of the
individual.
consensual mapping of territory that Mirabell and Millamant achieve in
the proviso scene
careful negotiation of contractual harmony
election and creation of private space - a prime aim
more formal species of contract than the lovers' provisos (the conveyance of her estate
to Mirabell) enables Mrs Fainall to live in some peace and security with a rapacious
and contemptible husband,
both marital arrangements - the individual cannot simply be absorbed into the
institution
TITLE paradoxically links the ideas of universality (world) and idiosyncratic fashion
(way)
Reformist comedy: the witty rake hero of earlier Restoration comedy is sentimentally
reformed in Mirabell, while Fainall scapegoat figure carries off with him all the
dark associations of predatory libertinism
the Restoration rake becomes bifurcated into rakish villain and honest man (initially
Mirabell & Fainall indistinguishable as libertines- only gradually discriminated by
behaviour to mistress and wife)
defeated Fainall stands as a displaced signifier of the old Stuart and feudal
order
emergence of new bourgeois hegemony - members of emergent middle class
Mirabell & Millamant freely engage in contractual marriage based on love
Read epistemologically &ideologically key text for understanding intellectual &
political, social culture of Congreves period