The document provides context about English Restoration drama from 1660-1700. It summarizes that after the English monarchy was restored under King Charles II in 1660, theater reopened in London. Comedies of manners became popular, often depicting the immoral world of the aristocracy and focusing on wit, adultery, and intrigue. Playwrights like William Wycherley wrote plays in this style, with his work The Country Wife given as an example.

1. 1500 1600 1700 1800 1900 2000
Restoration
Drama
(England)
Neoclassical
Drama
(France)
Elizabethan Drama
Shakespeare
(England)

2. Restoration England
1660-1700
For history of the monarchy after Queen Elizabeth I, go to:
http://www.royal.gov.uk/history/stuart.htm

3. Charles I

4. Charles I

5. Charles II as a Child

6. Execution of Charles I

7. Oliver Cromwell
Protectorate
during
the Interregnum

8. Inigo Jones

9. Inigo Jones’ Backdrop Design for Opera

10. Inigo Jones’
Theatre

11. Costume Design by Inigo Jones

12. Conversion of Hall into Theatre

13. Charles II

14. Charles II

15. Charles II Healing Subject

16. London c. 1690

17. Great Fire of London (1666)

18. London Theatres (1762)

19. Thomas Killigrew & William Davenant

20. Notables:
• women onstage beginning 1660
• repertory system
• possession of parts
• audience comprised primarily of leisure class
• favorite genre: comedy of manners
• most comedy of manners plays about sex and adultery
• indoor theatres with proscenium arch
• actors in front of arch on forestage
• changeable scenery behind proscenium arch
• monopoly of theatres (only 2 allowed regular drama)

21. Nell Gwynne

22. Nell
Gwynn
Persuades
Charles II
to Build
Hospital

23. Nell Gwynn

24. Samuel Pepys

26. Duke’s Theatre, Dorset Gardens

27. Empress of Morocco at Dorset Garden (1673)

28. Shakespeare’s Tempest at Dorset Gardens
"The front of the stage is opened, and the band of 24 violins, with the
harpsichords and theorbos ... are placed between the pit and the stage.
While the overture is playing, the curtain rises, and discovers a new
frontispiece, joined to the great pilasters on each side of the stage ...
behind this is the scene, which represents a thick cloudy sky, a very
rocky coast, and a tempestuous sea in perpetual agitation. This tempest
(supposed to be raised by magic) has many dreadful objects in it, as
several spirits in horrid shapes flying down amongst the sailors, then
rising and crossing in the air. And when the ship is sinking, the whole
house is darkened, and a shower of fire falls upon 'em. This is
accompanied with lightning, and several claps of thunder, to the end of
the storm."

29. Drury Lane Theatre

30. Drury Lane (Cross-Sectional)

31. Drury Lane (1674)

32. Diagram of Covent Garden Theater, 1732

33. The Wits at the Red Bull Theatre (1672)

34. Covent Garden, 1674

35. Oil Lamp and Lucerna

36. Hogarth’s Etching of Beggar’s Opera

38. Drury Lane Theater, London 1808

39. Hogarth’s
The
Laughing
Audience
(1733)

40. Vizard (mask)

41. The Comedy of Manners
 pictures the carefree, immoral world of the aristocracy.
 brilliant, witty comedies.
 "virtue" comes form succeeding in catching a lover or cuckolding a
husband without getting caught
 "honor" comes from reputation, not integrity.
 "witty"—saying things in clever ways.
 influenced by the comedies of Moliere in France.
 example: Tartuffe, by Moliere; or The Country Wife, by Wycherley.

43. William Wycherley

44. Online Text: Wycherley’s The Country Wife
http://www.bibliomania.com/0/6/274/1876/frameset.html

45. Mr. Horner.
Mr. Harcourt.
Mr. Dorilant.
Mr. Pinchwife.
Mr. Sparkish.
Sir Jasper Fidget.
A Boy.
A Quack.
Waiters, Servants, and Attendants.
Mrs. Margery Pinchwife.
Alithea, Sister of Pinchwife.
Lady Fidget.
Mrs. Dainty Fidget, Sister of Sir Jasper.
Mrs. Squeamish.
Old Lady Squeamish.
Lucy, Alithea’s Maid.
Characters
in
The Country Wife

46. Horn. [aside]. A quack is as fit for a pimp, as a midwife for a bawd;
they are still but in their way, both helpers of nature.—[Aloud.]
Well, my dear doctor, hast thou done what I desired?
Quack. I have undone you for ever with the women, and reported
you throughout the whole town as bad as an eunuch, with as much
trouble as if I had made you one in earnest.
Horn. But have you told all the midwives you know, the orange
wenches at the playhouses, the city husbands, and old fumbling
keepers of this end of the town? for they’ll be the readiest to report
it.
Quack. I have told all the chambermaids, waiting-women, tire-
women, and old women of my acquaintance; nay, and whispered it
as a secret to ’em, and to the whisperers of Whitehall; so that you
need not doubt ’twill spread, and you will be as odious to the
handsome young women as—

47. Horn.As the small-pox. Well—
Quack. And to the married women of this end of the town, as—
Horn. As the great one; nay, as their own husbands.
Quack.And to the city dames, as aniseed Robin, of filthy and
contemptible memory; and they will frighten their children with
your name, especially their females.
Horn.And cry, Horner’s coming to carry you away. I am only afraid
’twill not be believed. You told ’em it was by an English-French
disaster, and an English-French chirurgeon, who has given me at
once not only a cure, but an antidote for the future against that
damned malady, and that worse distemper, love, and all other
women’s evils?

48. Aphra Behn (1640-1689)

49. Ticket for a Benefit

50. Breeches Role