Theatre History Overview - Part 12 - Restoration

In 1660, Charles II was restored to the throne of England. He had been in France during the past years when theatre had been banned in England, partly due to the puritans fidning that it was sinful. Because he had been in France, he brought the influence of French theatre back to England.

The popular type of theatre during the restoration was Restoration Comedy. These comedies often exaggerated or made fun of society and rulers. The audience were mainly upper class because they could afford to go see theatre. They knew that the plays made fun of them and enjoyed this lampooning. Restoration Comedies also included Comedies of Manners. A Comedy of Manners play would often reverse roles or attitudes, satirizing the behaviors of society. There would often be disguises and misunderstandings that the audience would know, but the characters in the play would not know. Everything would be revealed to the characters at the end of the play.

Compared to how plays were often written in verse, often using the heroic couplet, plays written during the restoration used prose. Rather than having a national type of play, such as an English Comedy of Manners, plays from countries all across Europe were welcomed on stages. Every country had an influence on every other country when it came to plays and theatre.

During the restoration, women were allowed to be on stage and act. Women also began to appear as playwrights. The woman playwright that is probably the best known from the restoration is Mrs. Aphra Behn. While the Puritans did not like t heatre, women being involved with theatre was extremely upsetting to them. Puritans would attack theatres with pamphlets and other protests. The most violent attack happened in 1698 when a pamphlet called A Short View of the Immorality and Profaneness of the English Stage was written by the clergyman Jeremy Collier.

Due to Collier's attack, king James II issued a proclamation "against vice and profaneness." Playwrights were prosecuted and actors and actresses were fined. This did not deter the writers and actors of the restoration. Insteead, writers attacked the Puritans by writing new plays which riducled Puritans.

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