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16 Cards in this Set
- Front
- Back
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Theatres during the Civil War? |
1. Parliament had suspended theatre in 1642 2. Illicit performances took place in London and at fairs 3. Theatre continued in the Cavalier Court a. The future Charles II was well-versed in French drama |
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Theatre restored |
August 1660: Charles II grants two heriditary theatre licences to Sir William D'avenant and Thomaskilligrew Universal enthusiasm for the theatre had vanished during the Civil War. This led to relatively high admissions prices for a mixed audience of royals, courtiers, citizens. |
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Who was Killigrew? |
Head of the King's Company, with Charles II as patron |
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What did the King's Company do? |
1. Initially followed pre-Civil War theatrical traditions 2. Older, experienced actors 3. Held rights to much of Johnson |
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Who was D'avenant? |
Head of the Duke's Company, with Charles's brother as patron. |
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What did the Duke's Company do? |
1. Imitated earlier court theatre with scenery and female performers 2. Trained younger actors and performed new work (3. Later merged with the King's in 1682 - The United Company) |
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Describe theatre companies at the time |
1. They were businesses. 2. Regular 'staff' actors, engaged for the 'season' from September to June, plus hirelings. 3. Actors acted on approx. 200 days during the season, and toured the provinces and fairs outside the season. 4. Women played the female parts 5. Actors were marginal and vulnerable celebrities |
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What did Thomas Betterton do in 1695? |
He, alongside other established actors, set up their own company at Lincoln's Inn, operating under a licence. Moved to the Queen's Theatre in 1705 and received a patent from Queen Anne. |
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What kind of drama did they play? |
1. Initially a return to Elizabethan and Jacobean plays by Johnson, Shakespeare and Fletcher 2. Repertory system (short runs) enabled risk-taking with new drama 3. Actors had to hold multiple roles in their minds and be ready to perform at short notice 4. Comedies of manners and heroic couplet dramas both arguably explores questions of power and authority in the family and the state |
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What were restoration theatres like? |
1. Fully enclosed 2. Artificial lighting 3. Small - aristocratic audiences preferred intimacy 4. Performances took place in the afternoon 5. Seating in boxes, galleries and the pit 6. An audience conscious of itself, seated (and moving about) in a lighted auditorium 7. Performer's stage - proscenium arch with a forestage/'apron' that thrust into the auditorium, with proscenium entrance doors |
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What is Carolean Restoration comedy? |
Comedies with: 1. Libertine values 2. Values of 'the town': a. Loyalties to the Crown and Church, and a reworked Cavalier code of ethics 3. Urbanity 4. Sophistication 5. Classical education 6. Interest in the workings of the ruling class based in London |
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What is Comedy of Manners? |
Comedy established after the Glorious Revolution. Libertine values replaced by a new set of social virtues: 1. Honesty 2. Decency 3. Amiability 4. Integrity
Characters displayed good nature's and benevolence |
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What were the character types and their characteristics? |
1. Aristocratic rake: tamed in recognition of the need for post-Civil War social checks 2. Substandard male: cuckold, effeminate fop, lecherous older man, greedy businessman 3. Wealthy, witty and virtuous woman: transgressively appropriate masculine social and discursive power through wit, education and self-control. 4. Defective female: naive and sexually vulnerable young woman, hypocritical and scheming lady of fashion, lascivious elderly matron, loose widow 5. Difficult parent: challenged as arranged marriages now become marriages of mutual affection |
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What was the social context for comedy of manners? |
Satirically observes contemporary manners, behaviour, morality, hypocrisy. Examines gender, Sexuality and marriage, during the transition from puritan republicanism to constitional monarchy. |
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Describe Congreve's Way of the World |
1. Sophisticated verbal wit 2. Traces of the comedy of humours in characters' names 3. Compares and contrasts different types of relationship and different models of masculinity and femininty 4. Settings: chocolate house, park, fashionable home 5. Polite society wages sophisticated War through wit, deceit and sex 6. Critique of mercenary and arranged marriages 7. Advocates the companionate marriage of like-minded individuals |
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Describe the context to The Way of the World. |
1. Partial response to Collier's criticisms 2. Part of Millamant written for Anne Bracegirdle 3. Both embodies and critiques Restoration comedy 4. Initially less successful than Congreve's previous plats 5. Lately widely regarded as the crowning achievement of Restoration comedy and the greatest comedy since Shakespeare |
