French Neoclassism, British Restoration, and early 18th Century Theatre

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French Neoclassism, British Restoration, and
early 18th Century Theatre
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Brief History Lesson - France

• From 1550-1620 much civil strife and wars
• Not many professional companies, theatres were
  rented and fees charged.
• Farces became popular
• In 1625 Cardinal Richelieu comes to power and in
  1635 he establishes the French Academy - a
  prestigious literary academy to maintain purity
  of the French culture, language, and literature
• In 1645 Giacamo Torelli is hired to redesign the
  court theaters. After this, there were always at
  least 2 professional theatre companies in Paris
  and often more.
• With the decline of religious strife and the
  establishment of the Academy educated men began
  to write plays.
• Neoclassicism is still the determining factor of
  whether a play is good or not.
• Plays written in rhyming couplets (verse) most of
  the time.

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French Playwrights

• Pierre Corneille (1606-1684)
• Founder of French tragedy (although he wrote 6
  comedies)
• Most famous play Le Cid (1637) was based on
  Spanish folklore. The story revolves around the
  love 2 people have for one another - 1 father
  insults the other and then in a subsequent dual
  the father of the daughter is killed in a dual by
  the son of the other. In the end the King allows
  the 2 to marry - with a wedding date set for a
  year after the final scene.
• According to Neoclassical ideals this is NOT a
  good play Unities are observed (takes place in
  a single play) and there is Unity of Action (no
  subplots) BUT while Unity of Time is observed,
  Verisimilitude is stretched (too much happens in
  24 hours), Decorum is violated (the heronine
  agrees to marry the man who kills her father -
  something no respectable woman of her class would
  do).

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French Playwrights

• Jean Racine (1639-1699)
• Tragic Dramatist and rival to Corneille
• Most famous play Phedre (1677) which not only
  established him as a peer to Corneille, but
  established him with the younger generation as
  the leading French Dramatist
• Story line to Phedre Elaborating on the
  aftermath of the Trojan War, Andromaque shows
  Hector's widow, Andromache, caught in the
  crosscurrents of passion. Her captor, King
  Pyrrhus, forces a marriage with her, abandoning
  his fiancee, Hermione, who then instigates his
  assassination at the hands of her love-maddened
  suitor, Oreste.

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French Playwrights- Moliere

• Real name Jean Baptists Poquelin
• (1622-1673), born to a rich family, he drops the
  family social class to pursue a career on the
  stage (at age21)
• Marries actress Madeleine Bejart to create the
  LIllustre Theatre (later joined by her brother
  and sister)
• Considered Frances leading comedic playwright
• Both an actor and playwright who headed his own
  theatrical troupe by 1660
• Wrote most of the plays the troupe performed.
• Played in the court of Louis XIV

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Moliere (continued)

• Influenced by commedia,Roman comedies, and early
  French farce
• Less witty then English restoration - more
  farcical and slapstick-y
• Clever verbal elegance and wit often overshadowed
  by farcical business and visual gags (people came
  to see bits)
• Most famous plays
• School for Wives (1662)
• The Miser (1668)
• Tartuffe (1669)
• Imaginary Invalid (1673) Moliere (playing the
  lead) dies a few hours after performing. Denied
  rites by the church (he was an actor), the King
  interceeds and grants him a Christian burial.

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French Actors

• Highly oratorical/declamatory in style
• Actors probably supplied their own contemporary
  costumes
• The careers of actors of either sex was seen as
  morally wrong by the Chruch and actors were
  excommunicated.
• Actors took stage names that often described the
  typical roles they played

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French Theaters

• Both public and private
• Often placed in existing structures (like tennis
  courts) that were extremely narrow and the
  facilities for sets and scene changes were
  non-existent
• Performances took place twice a week starting at
  2 or 3pm. Several works would be presented (a
  comic prologue, a tragedy, a farce, and finally a
  song)
• Nobles might sit on the side of the stage during
  the performance
• Spectators were notably vocal during performances
• The place directly in front of the stage (without
  seats called the parterre was reserved for men,
  but being the cheapest tickets was usually a mix
  of social groups. Elegant people watched the show
  from the galleries. Princes, musketeers, and
  royal pages were given free entry. Honest woman
  did not go to the theater until after 1630.

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Brief History Lesson - England

• Before 1642 - the royalty supported the theatre.
• In 1642 the Puritan Revolution happens - Charles
  I is beheaded and Oliver Cromwell takes over the
  countrys leadership.
• From 1642-1660 Theatre is outlawed as immoral
  (in England only)
• Charles II (Charles Is son) returns from exile
  in France and is restored to the throne in 1660.
  He had lived in the court of Louis XIV and helped
  bring the styles of Italy and France to English
  Theatre.
• This type of theatre was designed primarily for
  the aristocracy and as a blacklash to the Purtian
  ideal.

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First Actresses (in England)

• Considered novel and risque (especially in the
  physical seduction scenes)
• In comedy - daringly suggestive comedy scenes
  became especially common.
• In tragedy - She-tragedy - tragic plays that
  focused on sufferings of an innocent and virtuous
  woman.
• Breeches Roles - actresses appeared in male
  clothes to play a witty heroine who is in hiding
  or who wants the freedom usually afforded to men.

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Restoration Comedy of Manners

• Witty Dialog
• Sophisticated sexual behavior of a highly
  artificial and aristocratic society
• Virtue comes from succeeding in catching a
  lover or cuckolding a husband without getting
  caught
• Honor comes from reputation, not integrity
• Witty - saying things in clever ways
• Use of names to show character personality traits
  (example Mrs. Malaprop from malFrench for
  ill -- ill appropriate

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English Playwrights of the Restoration

• William Congreve (1670-1729) - The Way of the
  World (1700)
• William Wycherly (1640-1715) - The Country Wife
  (1675)
• George Etheridge (1637-1691) - She Would If She
  Could

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Plot Line of The Country Wife

• Horner's impotence trick provides the main plot
  and the play's organizing principle. The
  upper-class town rake Horner mounts a campaign
  for seducing as many respectable ladies as
  possible, first spreading a false rumour of his
  own impotence, in order to be allowed where no
  complete man may go. The trick is a great success
  and Horner has sex with many married ladies of
  virtuous reputation, whose husbands are happy to
  leave him alone with them. The Country Wife is
  driven by a succession of near-discoveries of the
  truth about Horner's sexual prowess (and thus the
  truth about the respectable ladies), from which
  he extricates himself by quick thinking and good
  luck. Horner never becomes a reformed character,
  but keeps his secret to the end and is assumed to
  go on merrily reaping the fruits of his planted
  misinformation, past the last act and beyond.

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18th Century - Sentimentalism

• Characterized by over-emphasis or arousing
  sympathetic responses to misfortune
• Begins in England 1690s to 1730s
• Viewpoint at this point people are good, their
  instincts let them retain goodness.
• Comedies pulled their characters from the rising
  middle class.
• Conservative, sentimental, moralistic

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English Comedy Playwright

• Oliver Goldsmith (1731-1774) - wrote
  laughing comedies
• Born in Ireland, son of a clergyman
• Perennially in debt and addicted to gambling
• Most famous play She Stoops to Conquer
  (1773)Wealthy country man Mr. Hardcastle
  arranges for his daughter Kate to meet Charles
  Marlow, the son of a wealthy aristocrat, hoping
  the pair will marry. Unfortunately Marlow is
  nervous around upper-class women, yet the
  complete opposite around the lower-class females.
  On his first acquaintance with Kate, the latter
  realizes she will have to pretend to be common,
  to make marital relations with the man possible.
  Thus Kate stoops to conquer, by posing as a
  barmaid, hoping to put Marlow at his ease so he
  falls for her in the process.

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English Comedy Playwright

• Richard Sheridan (1751-1816)
• Born in Dublin to a fairly wealthy
  family - mom playwright and
  novelist and dad a sometime
  actor-manager and author
• Became a member of Parliament in 1780
• 2 Plays considered most famous
• The Rivals (1775)
• School for Scandal (1777)

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English Playwrights - Serious

• Joseph Addison (1672-1719)
• Father was Dean of Lichfield
• Educated at Oxford
• Most famous play Cato The action of the
  play involves the forces of Cato
  at Utica, awaiting the arrival of Caesar just
  after Caesar's victory at Thapsus (46 B.C.). The
  sons of Cato, Portius and Marcus, are both in
  love with Lucia, the daughter of Lucius, a
  senatorial ally of Cato. Juba, prince of Numidia,
  another fighting on Cato's side, loves Cato's
  daughter Marcia. Meanwhile, Sempronius, another
  senator, and Syphax, general of the Numidians,
  are conspiring secretly against Cato. In the
  final act, Cato commits suicide, leaving his
  supporters to make their peace with the
  approaching Caesaran easier task after Cato's
  death, since he has been Caesar's most implacable
  foe

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18th Century Staging

• 2 doors in the proscenium opening on to the apron
• Most of the acting was done on the apron
• Theatre seating increased
• Still gallries and boxes
• Stock sets were used, lit by candle-light
• Costumes were elaborate and contemporary

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18th Century Theatre (cont)

• Lines of business - actors would play 1 kind of
  role and seldom stray from it
• Companies used possession of parts - an
  agreement that when an actor joins a company he
  owns a particular role
• Playing for points was very common getting
  applause and doing an encore after particular
  speeches as you can imagine, this wasnt very
  realistic
• The repertory system was commom rotating a large
  number of plays.