Restoration_Drama_Background

RESTORATION BACKGROUND The long, brilliant chapter of renaissance drama came to a close with the ban of theatres by the commonwealth government in 1642. There was of course evasion of the law; but whatever performances were offered had to be given in secrecy, before small companies in private houses, or in taverns located three or four miles out of town. No actor or spectator was safe, especially during the early days of the Puritan rule. Least of all was there any inspiration for dramatists. It was natural, upon the return of Charles II , that French influence should be felt, particularly in the theatre. In August, 1660, Charles issued patents for two companies of players, and performances immediately began. Certain writers, in the field before the civil war, survived the period of theatrical eclipse, and now had their chance. Among these were Thomas Killigrew and William Davenant, who were quickly provided with fine playhouses. The plays were now accused of elitism where were performed exclusively for the elite class and thus lost their identity as a popular mode of entertainment. The absence of natural light made the use of artificial lighting and effects indispensable. The three-dimensional Elizabethan stage metamorphosized into a one-dimensional , curtained one. Women finally took their rightful places as female actors as opposed to the Elizabethan chaps dressed as women. Famous playwrights of the ban period include D’Avenant and Dryden. D’Avenant wrote the play, ‘The Siege of Rhodes’ which is generally noted as marking the entrance of women upon the English stage. It is also remembered for its use of movable machinery, which was something of an innovation. The panorama of The Siege offered five changes of scene which was also a new development. Dryden took a stab at pointing out the technical inconsistencies of Shakespeare’s work in contrast with that of Ben Johnson’s in his ‘defence of poesie’. Although he idolized Shakespeare, he wrote ‘all for Love’ as the remake of ‘Anthony and Cleopatra’ excluding the technical errors.he is also noted for his brilliant use of the heroic couplet in his work ‘Aurangazeb and the conquest of Granada’. Artificiality was a trademark of restoration tragedy wherein an actor would indulge in excessive melodrama. For example, at the end of dryden’s play, ‘All for Love’ , Cleopatra kills herself and eventually dies, but not before a long, heartfelt exchange between an almost dead Anthony. The plays adapted pseudo-historic themes that were not terribly readable. Otway (Venice preserved), Nathaniel Lee and Nicholas Rowe were other noted restoration playwrights. By the time the theaters were reopened in England, Corneille and Racine in France had established the neo-classic standard for tragedy, and Molière was in the full tide of his success. These playwrights, with Quinault and others, for a time supplied the English with plots. Characters, situations, plots, themes--these things travelled from country to country, always modifying and sometimes supplanting the home product. With this influx of foreign drama, there was still a steady production of the masterpieces of the Elizabethan and Jacobean periods. Othello, Henry IV, A Midsummer Night's Dream, two plays by Ben Jonson, and others were regularly enacted. It must have been about this time that the practice of "improving" Shakespeare was begun, and his plays were often altered so as to be almost beyond recognition. In almost every important respect, Restoration drama was far inferior to the Elizabethan. Where the earlier playwrights created powerful and original characters, the Restoration writers were content to portray repeatedly a few artificial types; where the former were imaginative, the latter were clever and ingenious. The Elizabethan dramatists were steeped in poetry, the later ones in the sophistication of the fashionable world. The drama of Wycherley and Congreve was the reflection of a small section of life, and it was like life in the same sense that the mirage is like the oasis. It had polish, an edge, a perfection in its own field; but both its perfection and its naughtiness now seem unreal. Restoration comedy or the comedy of manners deals with the relations and intrigues of men and women living in a sophisticated upper class society. It relies on the wit and sparkle of it dialogue for comic relief, often in the form of repartee. It also mocks social standards and decorum by would-be wits, jealous husbands, conniving rivals and foppish dandies. The heroes of the Restoration comedies were lively gentlemen of the city, profligates and loose livers, with a strong tendency to make love to their neighbors' wives. Husbands and fathers were dull, stupid creatures. The heroines, for the most part, were lovely and pert, too frail for any purpose beyond the glittering tinsel in which they were clothed. Their companions were busybodies and gossips, amorous widows or jealous wives. Over all the action is the gloss of superficial good breeding and social ease. Only rarely do these creatures betray the traits of sympathy, faithfulness, kindness, honesty, or loyalty. They follow a life of pleasure, bored, but yawning behind a delicate fan or a kerchief of lace. Millamant and Mirabell, in Congreve's Way of the World, are among the most charming of these figures. Everywhere in the Restoration plays are traces of European influence. The Plain Dealer of Wycherley was an English version of The Misanthrope of Molière; and there are many admirable qualities in the French play which are lacking in the English. The Double Dealer recalls scenes from The Learned Ladies (Les femmes savantes); and Mr. Bluffe, in The Old Bachelor, is none other than our old friend Miles Gloriosus, who has traveled through Latin, Italian and French comedy. The national taste was coming into harmony, to a considerable extent, with the standards of Europe. Eccentricities were curbed; ideas, characters, and story material were interchanged. The plays, however, were not often mere imitations; in the majority of them there is original observation and independence of thought. It was this drama that kept the doors of the theater open and the love of the theater alive in the face of great public opposition. Etherege, Wycherley, Congreve, Van Brugh and Farquhar were dubbed the ‘big 5’ of restoration comedy. These were mainly courtiers who were on speaking terms with royalty. Their influence was so far reaching that when Wycherley was imprisoned, the king himself issued an order of release. Their object of satirical attack was pretending to be what you are not thus soughting to deflate pretence. Since it is a comedy of manners, they involved social concerns and were baptized ‘drawing room comedy’. As a rule, the heroes of restoration comedy are very witty with heavy ounces of cynicism. ‘The country wife is a man-centered, patriarchal play. A search for a chaste woman in London leads the protagonist to marry a country wife. At the end of the play, the country wife uses her mask of innocence to her advantage and becomes morally worse than the women of London. The Man of Mode, or, Sir Fopling Flutter is a Restoration comedy by George Etherege. Gibbons argues that the play "offers the comedy of manners in its most concentrated form".[1] Despite the subtitle, the fop Sir Fopling is only a marginal character; the rake Dorimant is the protagonist. Freshly returned from being "cultured" in Paris, Fopling attempts to emulate the love 'em and leave 'em style of Dorimant. Meanwhile Dorimant has plans to use Fopling in a scheme to lose his current lover Miss Loveit in order to seek out a new conquest. Confusion and deception are rampant in Congreve’s “ the way of the world," but compared to "The Country Wife" and other earlier drama, Congreve's play shows a different kind of chaos--one marked with contracts and greed instead of the hilarity and mix-up of Horner and other rakes. The evolution of society, as mirrored by the plays themselves is apparent. Vanbrugh and Farquhar wrote after the peak period of the restoration drama but are still remembered because of the quality of their plays. Vanbrugh was best known for comedies that capture the hilarious idiosyncrasies and unique subject matter of marital discord as seen in ‘The Relapse’ and ‘The Provoked Wife’. Although the Puritans had lost their dominance as a political power, yet they had not lost courage in abusing the stage. The most violent attack was made by the clergyman Jeremy Collier in 1698, in a pamphlet called A Short View of the Immorality and Profaneness of the English Stage, in which he denounced not only Congreve and Vanbrugh, but Shakespeare and most of the Elizabethans. Three points especially drew forth his denunciations: the so-called lewdness of the plays, the frequent references to the Bible and biblical characters, and the criticism, slander and abuse flung from the stage upon the clergy. People often accuse restoration comedy of obscenity and profanity. In its defense, it is a critique of restoration society and the characters are more often than not punished for their obscenity.