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The English Restoration: Theatre Returns from Exile

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The English Restoration: Theatre Returns from Exile The English Restoration: Theatre Returns from Exile In 1649, Oliver Cromwell and his followers, the religiously conservative Puritans, beheaded King Charles I, and for over eleven years England was ruled by Cromwell. In 1658, after Cromwell died, the royal family was asked to return to England from France, where they had been living in exile. In 1660, Charles II became king and the monarchy was “restored” to power, which is why this period of time is called the Restoration Period. When the English royalty and nobility returned to England, they brought with them a taste for the French theatrical practices that they had enjoyed as audience members in France. This pleased the English because the Puritans had closed all theatres in 1642. With the Restoration came a resurgence of theatrical activity. As you may recall, English theatre during the Renaissance had not been like the theatre popular in Italy and France. English playwrights and producers did not use painted perspective scenery, for example, but had continued to use very few furnishings to suggest a location for the action. After the Restoration, the Elizabethan practices and the Italian and French stage arrangements were merged to form a unique, new kind of theatre. This combination of styles affected the form of the plays, the organization of the theatre companies, the theatre buildings themselves, and the use of scenery on stage. The Restoration was not a period of great tragic plays. Most of the Restoration tragedies were heroic tragedies about extraordinary heroes who did extraordinary deeds. While entertaining, these plays were usually too far removed from reality to have much credibility. The really popular plays of the period, the ones still performed today, are the comedies, which are known as “comedies of humours” or “comedies of manners.” Thomas Shadwell (1642– 1692), who wrote The Sullen Lovers, was a popular playwright during this period and one of the first to write comedies of manners. His plays focused on eccentric characters in modern-day settings. Other important playwrights include John Dryden (1631– 1700), Sir George Etherege (1634–1691), and William Wycherley (1640–1715), who wrote The Country Wife, a very popular play from the period. William Congreve (1670–1729), who wrote The Way of the World, which is still produced, and Sir Richard Steele (1672–1729), who wrote The Conscious Lovers, also wrote the sentimental comedies that were so popular during this period. These comedies of manners usually made fun of members of the upper class and nobility, and of their preoccupation with appearances, reputation, and piety. These characters were always shown to be greedy, vain, and obsessed with flirting and romance. The audience members, most of whom were from the upper class and nobility, used the plays as a way to laugh at themselves and their neighbors. Going to the theatre during this period usually had as much to do with “being seen” as it did with enjoying the play. Theatre companies were changing drastically during the Restoration. For example, for the first time in English history, women were performing the roles of the female characters. Another change was taking place in the way actors, both male and female, were being paid. Prior to the Restoration, the Elizabethan companies of actors were paid by collecting a share of the profits of the production. During the Restoration period, outside investors began to own the buildings and finance the productions, keeping the profits, if there were any. The actors were contracted at a set fee for a set period of performances. This change marked the beginning of today’s commercial theatre. The theatre buildings were also changing. The Elizabethan theatre buildings had been circular, open-air structures. The new Restoration theatre buildings were enclosed with a roof. They merged the popular Italian and French staging practices, which included a proscenium stage opening, and an apron. This apron was an extended platform that spread out in front of the proscenium arch, upon which much of the play’s action was performed. The apron was a lasting reminder of Elizabethan staging practices that focused on the use of an open platform. Another addition to the stage in this period was a “raked” or slanted floor. This type of floor improved the audience’s ability to see the action on the back of the stage. The English Restoration: Theatre Returns from Exile ■ CHAPTER 10: The Production Process ■ 181 The audiences at Restoration theatres had a choice of pit seating, box seating, or gallery seating. The pit (the floor space closest to the stage) was unlike the French pit in that it was furnished with benches. The boxes, which offered the most comfort and privacy to the wealthier audience members, provided eye-level viewing. The galleries were rows of seating recessed into the side and back walls of the theater building, rather like balconies. Restoration scenery was much like the Italian Renaissance scenery. The scenery was painted in perspective on wings, shutters, and sometimes rolled backdrops. Painted boards were added to hide stagehands who shifted the wings to change the set. Unlike the Italians, who used a complicated system of ropes to move the wings simultaneously, the English depended upon stagehands to slide the flats out of the way, revealing the new setting behind them. By the end of the Restoration period, in the late 1700s, society was changing and the middle class made up of merchants and traders was emerging, becoming increasingly powerful financially and politically. As a result, theatre changed, reflecting this cultural change by dramatizing the lives of people from the middle class. ■ Look closely at the facial expressions and postures of these four characters from a 1957–58 Broadway production of William Wycherley’s The Country Wife. What adjectives would you use to describe these stock characters from a Restoration comedy of manners? .
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