Some Background Information English and French Theatres to 1800

January 13 & 20, 2016 à Restoration of the Monarchy and Restoration Comedy - Restoration comedy = comedies written and performed from 1660 to 1710. - Comedy of manners - Refinement meets Burlesque - topical writing, - crowded and bustling plots, - introduction of the first professional actresses, and rise of celebrity actors - aristocratic comedies – reflection of the atmosphere at Court à celebration of aristocratic macho lifestyle of unremitting sexual intrigue and conquest

à Patent companies, 1660–1682 - King’s Company – Duke’s Company - Thomas Killigrew and William Davenant Professional Actors

Nell Gwyn (1650 – 1687) Thomas Betterton (1635 – 1710) Theatre and Audience

à Theatre Royal, Drury Lane –Thomas Killigrew in 1672.

à Covent Garden, renovated and enlarged in 1732

à Commercial Theatre with paying audience

à New audience – Freed from Puritanism

à Intense relationship between actor and the public – intense rivalries in which theatergoers acted as judge and jury

à Riots due to: choice of plays, changes in casting, ticket prices, even styles of performances;

à Power of control of the theatre in the hands of the paying public.

à The Licensing Act of 1737 – control and censorship à Reason: Isaac Newton (1642-1727)

• Symbol of the 18th century English thought

• Rationality of controlled experimentation and repeated observation

• Logical order in the world

• Investigations of the material universe – Law of Gravity

• Application of mathematics to problems of motion

• Newton – universe as an intricate but regulated coherence (image of the clock, a mechanism of balanced parts that interrelate according to discernable principles);

• God – an engineer who made occasional necessary adjustments in the machine à John Locke (1632-1704) • Replaced confusion and mystery with regularity and reason; • Argued persuasively that the power of reason is at the core of human nature – “Reason must be our best judge, and guide in all things.” • Advocate of common sense – Opposed religious emotion • Shifted the focus of intellectual inquiry from unknowable matters of faith to discernible patterns of social conduct. à Some Consequences: • Massive adherence to rationality • Some writers became strict empiricists, rejecting all phenomena that could not be proved with the senses. à Some Reactions:

• Anthony Ashley Cooper, 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury (1671-1713) – drew the connection between reason and feeling.

• Plays are not philosophical essays.

• They communicate the emotional structure characterization as much as the logical and linguistic capacities of the individual.

• Moral goodness, beauty, and emotion are all associated with one another.

• Beauty in human action has the same impact on the soul as does the beauty of the art world. – It generates feelings of pity and kindness within us.

• The characters of the drama must engage in sensible and just action themselves.

• Must be examples of good conduct to insure that the appropriate feelings are created in the audience • They need to prove their goodness to themselves and to the audience.

è Thus, dramas of sensibility usually have a virtuous individual who acts to reform or save another individual who has lost his or her virtue

è In Comedy the reformation or salvation is successful, while in Tragedy the wayward individual fails to follow the example.

è The Tragedy is always unnecessary and unfortunate; the audience feels pity for the poor soul who fails to follow his senses. à Jeremy Collier (1650-1726) and the call against some aspects Comedy of Manners – “A Short View of the Immorality and Profaneness of the English Stage” (1698) – admits the talents of English authors but condemns their purposes, finding that Restoration plays: - Laughed at serious matters, - Portrayed lewdness without censure, - Used foul language, - Abused clergy - Rewarded vicious behavior

à Few playwrights recanted publicly (Dryden), others gave up playwriting altogether (Congreve) Governmental Regulation and Censorship:

à Royal Warrant of 1662: Charles II’s royal warrant declaring that all female roles be played only by female actresses.

à Licensing Act of 1737 The Act strengthened the censorship exercised by the Lord Chamberlain (to whom the Master of Revels reported) by requiring companies to submit all scripts for approval before performing them. • Acting à Gay Couple à Breeches Roles – Transvestism à By the late eighteenth century four clearly distinguishable ranks existed: 1. Players of leading roles, 2. Players of secondary roles, 3. Players of third-line parts (often called “walking ladies” or “walking gentlemen”), and 4. General utility performers à The style of acting varied from formal to realistic. Until about 1750, the dominant approach was oratorical, as epitomized in the playing of Thomas Betterton, Booth, and James Quinn. à Charles Macklin and David Garrick urged the adoption of a style based upon direct observation of life. • Heroic Tragedy - Elevated language – Presentation of heroes with few of the passions of the average person

- Use of prose in tragedy – pathetic tone for the life of a mere ordinary Londoner

- Many sentimental characteristics: a pure and suffering heroine, a trusty and loyal friend, an honorable merchant, servants who follow their masters, a wayward hero, and a villain who uses the customs of society to her own benefits • Heroic Tragedy - Thomas Otway (1652-1685) – The History and Fall of Caius Marius (an adaptation of Romeo and Juliette) [1680], The Orphan (1680), Venice Preserv’d (1682) - John Dryden (1645-1700) [Faithfully followed Aristotle’s prescription for the rules of unities] – The Conquest of Grenada (1670), All for Love (1677) - George Lillo (1691-1739) – The London Merchant (1731) Comedy of Manners

à The Comedy of Manners contrasts the manners of behavior of those who stray from the social norm in some way with those who represent approved behavior.

à Laughter requires a situation familiar and close to the audience;

à Laughter requires an object of humor, usually someone whose actions vary from the audience’s expectation of normal behavior.

à Contrasting the person with abnormal behavior with someone who represents the norm – The abnormality is emphasized and the humor increased. Comedy of Manners

à Playwrights: • William Wycherly (1641-1715) – The Country Wife (1675), The Plain Dealer (1676)

• William Congreve (1670-1729) – Love for Love (1695), The Way of the World (1700)

• Aphra Behn (1640-1689) – The Rover, or the Banish’t Cavaliers (1677 & 1681), Sir Patient Fancy (1678) Sentimental Comedy

à Plays present exemplary characters whose actions are a model of behavior for the audience

à Characters must have a moral problem – the solution will demonstrate their goodness.

à Characters are seldom ridiculed or banished for that would be uncharitable.

à The successful resolution of the problem lies in an application of charity and forgiveness.

à Comic endings are not meant to be humorous, but uplifting. – They include a repentance, followed by tears of reunion. à Invariably there is a wayward hero wed or betrothed to an all-suffering heroine, • She trusts in the ultimate goodness of her man and endures four acts of shame and unhappiness until she can win him over in the fifth act.

• One or both of these characters usually has a trusting loyal friend who encourages reform in the hero and endurance in the heroine.

• Servants either loyally follow their masters or foolishly mimic the hero’s bad habits.

• Women are idealized and the class structure is rigidly asserted. à Sir Richard Steele (1672-1729) – assertion that comedies should make people cry, not laugh;

à The playwright was not satisfied to create an effective dramatic world; his responsibility extended to the audience, for the final test of the play is its impact on the behavior of the audience.

à The play titles alone indicate the intention of the sentimental style: • Sir Richard Steele’s The Conscious Lovers (1722), and The Tender Husband (1705), Accomplish’d Fools (1705). • Colley Cibber’s The Careless Husband (1721), The Lady’s Last Stake; or The Wife’s Resentment (1707), The Sick Lady’s Cure (1707). à Other cases: • George Lillo’s The London Merchant, or The History of George Barnwell (1731), The Christian Hero (1735), Fatal Curiosity (1736) and Elmerick, or Justice Triumphant (1740). Lillo also composed a ballad opera, Sylvia, or The Country Burial (1730), and adaptations of Shakespeare's Pericles (1738, retitled Marina) and the anonymous Elizabethan play Arden of Feversham (posthumously performed in 1759). Elsewhere in Europe

à Drame: Featuring a tortured heroine whose life was defended through quarrels and duels, and some even ventured into the realm of horror. – Domestic Tragedy

à Comédie Larmoyante or Comedy of Tears: • Based on the peril of an innocent woman and her eventual salvation through her own moral goodness and the efforts of those around her

à Gross, irreverent farces were a third type of popular drama • Parodied serious comedy through the use of stock characters, songs, and special effects à Some Playwrights: • Marivaux (1688-1763) – The Double Inconstancies, or The Inconstant Lovers (1723), The Game of Love and Chance (1730), The False Confessions (1737)

• Beaumarchais (1732-1799) – The Barber of Seville (1775), The Marriage of Figaro (1784), The Guilty Mother, or the Other Tartuffe (1792), Eugenie (1767)

• Goldoni (1707-1798) – The servant of Two Masters (1753), Mirandolina (1753)

• Carlo Gozzi (1720-1806) – The King Stag (1762)

• Lessing (1729-1781) – Realistic drama in its portrayal Minna von Barnhelm (1767), Nathan the Wise (1779)