Restoration comedy: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 01:58, 15 November 2004

Revision as of 02:24, 15 November 2004

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London again had two competing companies. Their dash to attract audiences briefly revitalized Restoration drama, but also set it on a fatal downhill slope to the lowest common denominator of public taste. Rich's company notoriously offered [[Bartholomew Fair]]-type attractions — high kickers, jugglers, ropedancers, performing animals — while the cooperating actors, even as they appealed to snobbery by setting themselves up as the only legitimate theatre company in London, were not above retaliating with "prologues recited by boys of five, and epilogues declaimed by ladies on horseback" (Dobrée, xxi). The demand for new plays stimulated [[William Congreve]] and [[John Vanbrugh]] into writing some of their best comedies, but also gave birth to the new genre of sentimental comedy, which was soon to replace Restoration comedy in the public favour.

At the end of the war of the theatres, [[John Rich (producer)|John Rich]] took over from his father and introduced [[pantomime]] as a low-cost alternative to comedies. An increased emphasis on large audiences similarly meant an increasingly middle-class comedy that featured members of the artisan class, and tragedy soon moved to the domestic space (e.g. the works of [[George Lillo]]).

==Actors==