Restoration comedy

Restoration comedy is the name given to English comedies written and performed in the Restoration period from 1660 to 1700. After public stage performances had been banned for 18 years by the Puritan regime, the re-opening of the theatres in 1660 signalled a rebirth of English drama. Restoration comedy is famous or notorious for its sexual explicitness, a quality encouraged by Charles II (1660-1685) personally and by the rakish aristocratic ethos of his court. Socially diverse audiences were attracted to the comedies by up-to-the-minute topical writing, by crowded and bustling plots, by the introduction of the first professional actresses, and by the rise of the first celebrity actors. This period saw the first professional woman playwright, Aphra Behn.

After Restoration comedy

Stage history

During the 18th and 19th centuries, the sexual frankness of Restoration comedy ensured that theatre producers cannibalised it or adapted it with a heavy hand, rather than actually performed it. Today, Restoration comedy is again appreciated on the stage. The classics, Wycherley's The Country Wife and The Plain-Dealer, Etherege's The Man of Mode, and Congreve's Love For Love and The Way of the World have competition not only from Vanbrugh's The Relapse and The Provoked Wife, but from such dark unfunny comedies as Thomas Southerne's The Wives Excuse. Aphra Behn, once considered unstageable, has had a major renaissance, with The Rover now a repertory favourite.

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Literary criticism

Distaste for sexual impropriety long kept Restoration comedy not only off the stage but also locked in a critical poison cupboard. Victorian critics like William Hazlitt, although valuing the linguistic energy and "strength" of the canonical writers Etherege, Wycherley, and Congreve, always found it necessary to temper aesthetic praise with heavy moral condemnation. Aphra Behn received the condemnation without the praise, since outspoken sex comedy was considered particularly offensive coming from a woman author. At the turn of the 20th century, an embattled minority of academic Restoration comedy enthusiasts began to appear, for example the important editor Montague Summers, whose work ensured that the plays of Aphra Behn remained in print.

Related Topics:
William Hazlitt - Canonical - Montague Summers

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"Critics remain astonishingly defensive about the masterpieces of this period", wrote Robert D. Hume as late as 1976. It is only over the last few decades that that statement has become untrue, as Restoration comedy has been acknowledged a rewarding subject for high theory analysis and Wycherley's The Country Wife, long branded the most obscene play in the English language, has become something of an academic favourite. "Minor" comic writers are getting a fair share of attention, especially the post-Aphra Behn generation of women playwrights which appeared just around the turn of the 18th century: Mary de La Rivière Manley, Mary Pix, Catharine Trotter, and Susannah Centlivre. A broad study of the majority of never-reprinted Restoration comedies has been made possible by Internet access (unfortunately by subscription only) to the first editions at the British Library.

Related Topics:
Mary de La Rivière Manley - Mary Pix - Catharine Trotter - Susannah Centlivre - British Library

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