The Drama in Context
Part I The Drama in Context 1 The Post-1660 Theatres as Performance Spaces Edward A. Langhans Give actors the two boards and a passion that they say is all they need,and they will tear it to tatters to no avail unless they have a good play,a responsive audience and a workable performance space. This collective entertainment,as Jocelyn Powell has called it,cannot be really effective unless these interdependent elements of player, place,play and playgoer are properly balanced (1984: 15). It's a wonder,then,that great theatre ever happens at all,but it can and sometimes it does. Since a number of memorable plays came out of the Restoration period and stood the test of time, theatre then must have had some good things going for it. Indeed,it did,and it helped shape our modern theatre in some important ways. We may think of Shakespeare's Globe and the plays written for it as the beginning of theatre as we now know it in English-speaking countries,but our roots may lie more in the theatre of Charles II. Shakespeare's sweeping,sprawling playwriting,the open-air,sceneryless playhouse and all-male company for which he wrote,and the variegated audience he appealed to are really not much like the standard professional theatre of today. It is to the Restoration we owe,for better or for worse,relatively small,roofed theatres,scenery,artificial lighting,actresses,small-scale drama ± usually comedy that concerns itself chiefly with private rather than public matters, and audiences that are selective though not necessarily aristocratic,and educated though not always smart.
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