RESTORATION AND 18TH CENTURY ENGLISH THEATRE

1
RESTORATION AND 18TH CENTURY ENGLISH THEATRE
2

• RESTORATION AND 18TH CENTURY ENGLISH THEATRE
• King Charles II
• Restored to throne 1660
• Fashioned theatre after that in France
• Elizabethan playhouses had been torn down by
  Puritans so new ones were needed

3

• New indoor theatres were built
• Women were allowed to perform
• Audience
• sophisticated aristocracy
• Play comedies / satires

• John Dryden
• All for Love
• William Congreve
• The Way of the World
• Restoration ended in 1737

4

• SATIRE
• Satire is a play in which sarcasm, irony, and
  ridicule are used to expose or attack folly or
  pretension is society
• Stories represented real people and real events
• Strengths and weaknesses in characters are
  exposed and all characters are held up to moral
  standards either civically or divinely

5

• Parliament limited public playhouses to 3
• The term Legitimate Theatre was born
• Then, it meant plays were censored.

6

• Oliver Goldsmith (1728-1774)
• Considered best comedy writer since Shakespeare

7
Romanticism
8
Romanticism

• Relied on emotions and feelings
• Melodrama- most popular type of Romanticism where
  the hero always succeeded
• Playwrights made clear distinctions between good
  and evil
• Forces of good always won

9

• MELODRAMA
• Comes from "music drama"
• music was used to increase emotions or to
  signify characters (signature music).
• A simplified moral universe good and evil are
  embodied in stock characters.
• Episodic form
• the villain poses a threat, the hero or heroine
  escapes, etc.with a happy ending.
• Usually 2-5 acts
• (five acts reserved for "serious" drama).
• Many special effects
• fires, explosions, drownings, earthquakes.

10
Realism

• 1820-1920

11

• Began as reaction against Romanticism
• Mid century dramatic style Realism
• Seeks the truth / depicts a selected view
• Presented things as in real life (often dealt
  with social problems)
• Major author Henrik Ibsen (1828-1906)
• Father of Realism
• Revolutionary themes
• Ghosts
• A Dolls House
• Realistically showed the days problems

12

• Henrik Ibsen
• Drama depicting real people, real events
• Ibsen's early plays are wild and epic,
  concentrating on romantic visions of the rebel
  figure in search of an ultimate truth which is
  always just out of reach
• "modern" phase suppresses his Romanticism and
  focuses instead on the problems of modern society
• These plays are characterized by their "realism,"
  which he hoped would help audiences to more
  easily digest his radical views

13

• Englands George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)
• Pygmalion
• Wanted to reform the world through his work

14

• Oscar Wilde (1856-1900)
• The Importance of Being Earnest
• Comedy of Manners

15

• 20th century playwrights include Arthur Miller
  (The Crucible and Death of a Salesman)
• Tennessee Williams (The Glass Menagerie)
• Lillian Hellman most influential female
  playwright

16

• MUSICAL THEATRE
• A play in which the story is told through a
  combination of spoken dialogue and musical
  numbers
• Andrew Lloyd Webber composer of a variety of
  musicals
• Cats
• Jesus Christ Superstar
• Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat
• Phantom of the Opera
• Evita