The theatre during the English Restoration period

The  Theatre in England after the Shake-scene

Ben Jonson (1573-1637) was the best known playwright after Shakespeare during the first half of the seventeenth century during the reign of James I and Charles I of England. He was also the first writer to claim for the copyright of his works and best known for his successful courtly masques (actors had to wear masks) and satirical plays such as Volpone (The Fox, 1605), The Alchemist and Bartholomew´s Fair in which the characters are portrayed often as caricatures according with the stock types of Latin theatre or like based in medieval theory of humours.

 It was popular in Elizabethan and Jacobean periods a popular style of theatre named the “revenge tragedy” popularized by Thomas Kyd in The Spanish Tragedy (1592) and then by John Webster (1572-1632) in his major plays The White Devil and The Duchess of Malfi (1612) with many perturbing and macabre scenes.

During the Civil war (1642-1651) between the Royalists (the aristocratic Cavaliers) and the Parliamentarians (the bourgeois Roundheads) many theatres were closed because of the sociopolitical turmoil till they were banned in the Rump Parliament (1649-53) by the victorious Puritans in the Interregnum (1649-60) especially during the Commonwealth lead by the Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell (1653-58).

When the monarchy was restored after the crowning of Charles II the theatre flourished partly due to the personal support of The Merry King and the welcoming attitude of the English society to entertain themselves again in the theatres. New genres were acclaimed such as the heroic drama or tragedies mainly by John Dryden, the pathetic drama and comedy of manners which reflected the optimistic and cheerful society of the period. The most famous playwrights were George Etherege The Man of Mode (1676)and Love in a Tub, William Wycherley Love in a Wood (1671), The Country Wife (1676) or The Gentleman Dancing Master (1763) and William Congreve´s Love for Love (1695) and The Way of the World (1700), they all focused on the sensuality, vices and hypocrisies of their time and the audiences were delighted with witty rascals on stage such as the famous rakes or aristocratic womanizers of the Restoration and frivolous themes to entertain themselves rather than to meditate on serious topics.

In the eighteenth century the provocative Restoration comedy lost favour to be replaced by the sentimental comedy or domestic tragedy such as George Lillo´s The London Merchant (1731), the interest in the Italian commedia and operas influenced the acclaimed fair-boot burlesque or musical entertainment in theatres, ancestors of the English music hall.

Women Actresses and Playwrights: Elizabeth Tanfield Cary (1585-1639) was the first woman to publish an original play in English named The Tragedy of Mariam, the Fair Queen of Jewry, a closet drama or play not intended to be performed onstage.  

During the Restoration(1660-1710) women were welcomed to the stage and famous actresses were acclaimed in different aspects: their wit, beauty or capacity to move the spectators into tragedies or comedies, for example Samuel Pepys refers in his diary to visit the playhouse many times a week just to watch some pretty actresses. Attractive heroines wearing men´s clothes were very alluring to male spectators and soon the breeches roles in the Restoration comedies for women were in vogue were they acted as libertine men empowering them to overtake male freedom in the first subversive gender roles on stage. Famous actresses included Charles II´s mistress Nell Gwyn, the tragedienne Elizabeth Barry and the comedian Anne Bracegirdle and Susanna Mountfort. The first famous woman playwright was Aphra Behn (1640-1689), she earned her living as a spy, translator and writer with her famous novel Oronooko and her plays The Forced Marriage (1670) and famous comedy The Rover (1687).