Restoration Theatre

1. Restoration Theatre

2. The English Civil Wars1642-1651 • Also called the Great Rebellion • Fought between— • Royalists- supporters of King Charles I and his son/successor, Charles II • Parlimentarians, aka Puritans, aka Roundheads • 1649—Charles I is captured, tried, and beheaded • 1651– Wars finally end with the flight of Charles II to France

3. The Commonwealth1651-1660 • Roundhead leader Oliver Cromwell establishes authoritarian control over Great Britain; this era is known as the Commonwealth. • 1658–- Oliver Cromwell dies; his son succeeds him, but is ineffectual. • 1660– Charles II resumes the throne, thus the House of Stuart is restored. • Hence, the years to follow are known as the Restoration period (until about 1700).

4. Effect on Theatre • The prevailing Puritan morality of Cromwell and the Parliamentarians leads to the outlawing of theatre from 1642-1647. • It is then vigorously suppressed from 1649-1660 (although musical entertainments were not banned) • The Globe Theatre is torn down. • Interiors of other popular theatres are dismantled. • Law is passed ordering that all actors be apprehended as “rogues”. • Actors still surreptitiously perform throughout this period. • Often officials were bribed to look the other way.

5. Theatre Returns! • In 1660, Charles II returned from France and restored the English throne to its former glory. • Upon his Restoration, Charles II almost immediately reversed Puritan sobriety by encouraging the kind of entertainment and theatrical activities that he had seen during his years of exile at the French court. • Just as the Puritans had torn down the Globe theatre to make room for public housing, many of the “Wooden O” theatres had been torn down as well. • This began the common usage of the proscenium stage.

6. Theatre Returns! • Candles and oil lamps were now being used to light theatres, which allowed performances to be held at night. • Women were legally allowed to act onstage. • The scenery was more believable and technical. • Fake stage walls called flats were built to show perspective and were layered to show depth.

7. Theatre Returns! • Until about 1680, the most dominant genre of play was the “heroic” play/tragedy. • Without many plays to choose from and even fewer playwrights, theatre managers had to rely on pre-Commonwealth plays. • The two playwrights most used were Beaumont (1585-1616) and Fletcher (1579-1625)

8. The Heroic Play/Tragedy • It was modeled after French Neoclassical tragedy. • It was written in rhyming pentameter couplets. • It presented characters of almost superhuman stature. • It had predominant themes that were exalted ideals of love, honor, and courage. • The heroic play was based on the traditional epic and romance. • The most popular writer of heroic plays was John Dryden. • Although Dryden continued to use the form though the mid-1670s, the genre had largely died out by 1680. • The term heroic play applies to plays with all of the attributes given above, but written in blank verse.

9. The Heroic Play/Tragedy • Usually set in exotic locations. • The stories revolved around rival claims of love. • There were drums and trumpets, rants and extravagance, stage battles, and rich costumes. • The Greeks felt that moral concerns were inductive and exploratory. The heroic plays were the opposite: deductive and dogmatic. • Dryden said, “…to lay down…what that precept of morality shall be, which you would insinuate into the people>” • In All For Love (Dryden, 1677) the moral is all too clear: Antony must choose between the path of honor and his illicit passion for Cleopatra. He chooses Cleopatra, and they are both destroyed.

10. John Dryden1631-1700 • English poet, dramatist, and literary critic who so dominated the literary scene of his day that it came to be known as the Age of Dryden. • Dryden joined the little band of dramatists who were writing new plays for the revived English theatre. • The Wild Gallant (1663), his first play, was a farcical comedy with a good deal of licentious dialogue. • The Indian Queen (1664) was his first heroic play.

11. Comedy of Manners • Restoration theatre is most noted for the comedy of manners. • Values had changed since Shakespeare’s day: the new audience consisted of fashionable young cynics and dilettantes, self-indulgent rakes and wits who prized glittering conversation and were interested only in seeing themselves on stage, no matter how satirical the portrait. • Thus came about the bawdy comedy of manners, which was heavily influenced by Moliere but chilled with the dry wit of the London aristocracy. • Romance and emotion gave way to intellect in sophisticated plays about cuckoldry, gossip, intrigue, and sexual license, yet tempered with a strong sense of decorum.

12. Comedy of Manners • A comedy of manners is a witty, cerebral form of comedy that depicts and often satirizes the manners and affectations of a contemporary society. • It is concerned with social usage and the whether or not characters meet certain social standards. • The plot is subordinate to the play’s brittle atmosphere, pithy dialogue, and pungent commentary on human foibles.

13. Characteristics of a Comedy of Manners • Witty dialogue • Sophisticated vocabulary • Cleverly constructed scenarios • Rapid twists in events, often precipitated by… • Miscommunications • Typically set in the world of the upper class • Ridicules the pretensions of those who consider themselves socially superior, deflating them with satire • Comments on the standards and mores of society and explores relationships between sexes. • Marriage is a frequent subject. • Little depth of characterization

14. Characteristics of a Comedy of Manners • Usually written by sophisticated authors for members of their own coterie or social class, the comedy of manners has historically thrived in periods and societies that combined material prosperity and moral latitude (freedom from narrow restrictions). • Playwrights took aim at affected wit and acquired follies, and satirized these qualities in caricatured characters with label-like names such as Sir Fopling Flutter and Tattle.

15. Examples of COM • The School for Wives (1662) and The Misanthrope(1666) by Moliere. • The Country Wife (1675) by William Wycherley • The Way of the World (1700) by William Congrieve • She Stoops to Conquer (1773) by Oliver Goldsmith • The Rivals (1775) and The School for Scandal (1777) by Richard Brinsley Sheridan (Sheridan is credited with writing some of the best English comedies since Shakespeare) • In the 19th century, the tradition was carried on by Oscar Wilde with Lady Windermere’s Fan (1892) and The Importance of Being Earnest (1895). • In the 20th century, the comedy of manners reappeared in the “drawing room plays” of Noel Coward, Somerset Maugham, Philip Barry and S.N. Behrman.

16. Influences • The New Comedy works of ancient Greek playwright Menander. • In turn, Menander’s plays were imitated by the Roman poets Plautus and Terence whose comedies were widely known and copied during the Renaissance. • Moliere

17. Moliere’s Concept of Comedy • “The comic is the outward and visible form that nature’s bounty has attached to everything unreasonable, so that we should see, and avoid, it. To know the comic, we must know the rational, of which if denotes the absence and we must see wherein the rational consists…incongruity is the heart of the comic…it follows that all lying, disguise, cheating, dissimulation, all outward show different from the reality, all contradiction in fact between actions that proceed from a single source, all this is in essence comic.”

18. Satire • Satire is more a tool than a genre. • Satire is when human vices, follies, abuses, or shortcomings are held up to censure by means of ridicule, derision, burlesque, irony, parody, caricature, or other methods, sometimes with an intent to inspire social reform. • Satire is a complex word that signifies not only a kind of literature, but also a mocking spirit or tone found in many literary genres. Essentially, it can be present in almost any kind of human communication because satire exists wherever wit is employed to expose something foolish or vicious to criticism. In this sense, satire is everywhere. • In literary works, satire can be direct or indirect. • Direct satire– the narrator speaks directly to the reader • Indirect satire– the author’s intent is realized within the narrative and its story

19. Other Restoration Genres • Opera • Comedy of Humours • Comedy of Intrigue • Complicated conspiracies and stratagems dominate the plot. The complex plots and subplots of such comedies are often based on ridiculous and contrived situations with large doses of farcical humor. • AphraBehn (1640-1689)—the first Englishwoman known to earn her living by writing.

20. Playhouses • London eventually passed a licensing act which limited plays to only two public theatres. • These theatres were called “legitimate theatres” because they were licensed. • The two most notable legitimate theatre were the Drury Lane theatre and the Covent Garden theatre. • Today, the term legitimate theatre generally means a theatre that shows plays rather than a theatre that shows movies. • The difference in spelling of the two words (theatre/theater) is also an indicator of what type of performance is being held inside.

21. The 18th Century • There were few actors who stood out among the rest. • David Garrick was both an actor and director who created a more realistic style of acting that mimicked real life. • Sarah Kimble Siddons and John Phillip Kimble were a brother and sister team who made a name for themselves as actors and began an legacy of a family of actors. • Edmund Kean would be most well known for his role of Shylock in The Merchant of Venice

22. The 19th Century • Three playwrights stood out in England in the 1800’s • George Bernard Shaw is considered to the be the finest English playwright since Shakespeare. He wrote Pygmalion. • Oscar Wilde wrote The Importance of Being Earnest as well as many other comedies of manners. • Sir William Gilbert and Sir Arthur Sullivan wrote hugely popular operettas such as The Mikado and HMS Pinafore.

23. The 19th Century • Several major areas of thought emerged as the leading forms of theatrical expression. • Romanticism was the idea that theatre was to be an emotional escape into adventure, beauty, and sentimental idealism. • This idea was developed by Goethe and Schiller in Germany. • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was a prominent German author. Wrote The Sorrows of Young Werther. • Friedrich von Schiller was a poet, playwright, writer, historian, and philosopher. Worked with Goethe on the Xenien collection. • Xenien collection was a collaboration between Goethe and Schiller; it was a collection of short, satirical poems in which both authors challenge opponents of their philosophical visions.

24. The 19th Century • Playwrights who practiced Romanticism: • Victor Hugo—wrote The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Alexander Dumas– wrote The Three Musketeers

25. The 19th Century • The opposite ideal was Realism. • Realism was a rebellion against Romanticism that depicted a selected view of real life. • Realism championed the idea of Moral Relativism. • Moral Relativism was the idea that morality depends on circumstance. • Henrick Ibsen was known as the father of modern realism. He believed that drama should draw our attention to social problems and generate change. He wrote A Doll’s House and HeddaGabler, both of which shocked audiences because they revealed real issues suffered by real people.

26. The 19th Century • Another school of thought was called expressionism. This type of theatre became the forerunner to avant-garde theatre. • August Strindberg wrote frequently about class and gender struggles. His characters were usually in intense internal conflict. In his play Mrs. Julia, he eliminated intermission to prolong the intensity of the scenes in his play, and to prolong the audience’s discomfort.

27. The Magic “If” • Konstantin Stanislavsky was the forerunner in theatrical idealism whose impact and educational process for acting is still used today. • He founded the Moscow Art Theatre. • He believed that those who were not born with artistic genius could achieve great acting. • Actors in his school used imagination as well as sense memory to recall experiences and substitute them for those of the character.

28. The Magic “If” • Stanislavsky created the “Magic If”, which stated that actors had to answer the question “What would I do IF I…” • The Stanislavsky System had four main goals: • Make external behavior (movement and voice) natural and convincing. • Know and carry out the objectives or inner needs of a character • To make the life of a character onstage continuous with a past and future and a life between scenes onstage • To commit to action (behaving in a way to get characters’ objective) and reaction (listening and responding to other characters).

29. Theatre in America • Theatre in America began slowly because most people still regarded it as “evil”. • Most historians agree that American theatre began around the same time as the American Revolution. • Theatre of this time was not really “American”. • Theatregoers attending a play in America would see English plays using English actors and English staging techniques.

30. Theatre in America • The first play was performed at the College of William and Mary in 1702. • The first theatre was built in Williamsburg in 1716. • The first American play was The Contrast, written by Royal Tyler.

31. Theatre in America • Theatre did not really become popular until the 19th century in America. • Showboats entertained audiences on trips down the Mississippi River. • Minstrel shows were popular in both America and England. • White actors would put on blackface and entertain audiences using the songs and jokes of African Americans.

32. Theatre in America • Vaudeville shows were another popular form of entertainment. • A Vaudeville show was a variety show featuring trained seals, singers, acrobats, jugglers, dancers, comedians, and animal acts. • These shows died away with the invention of the radio and are almost completely obsolete today.

33. Theatre in America • Melodramas were the favorite of many audiences. • These plays were extremely sentimental and are the precursors to today’s soap operas. • The playhouses were built in many major cities and followed the new trend of small auditoriums, narrow aprons, and, in 1880, incandescent lighting.

34. Theatre in America • Many actors became famous through touring the nation with performances. • They would play in a different city every night, similar to modern day music tours. • Touring plays were the most popular form of entertainment for fifty years, until radio and movies put a decline in business.

35. Famous American Actors • Edwin Booth—older brother of John Wilkes Booth; considered America’s best actor of the time; became famous for his role as Hamlet. • Joseph Jefferson—best known for his portrayal of Rip van Winkle. • Maude Adams– best known for her role as Peter Pan • Mrs. John Drew– became the matriarch of a family of great actors, including her great great granddaughter, Drew Barrymore.

36. Theatre in America • After touring shows began to fall in popularity, many shows settled into regular long-run performances on Broadway in New York City. • Broadway quickly became the theatrical hub in American theatre and has remained as such to this day.