Restoration Plays and Players
Restoration Plays and Players
Introducing readers to the key texts, theatrical practice and context of late seventeenth-century drama, David Roberts combines literary and theatrical approaches to show how Restoration plays were written, performed, received and printed. Structured according to the 'life cycle' of the dramatic text, this book reproduces extracts from twenty-four of the most influential Restoration plays to provide readers with a comprehensive and colourful introduction to the period's drama. Roberts encourages readers to look beyond a limited canon of established plays and practice, and to see how Restoration Drama has been revived and adapted on the modern stage. Restoration Plays and Players is of great interest to undergraduate and non-specialist readers of seventeenth-century drama, Restoration literature and theatre studies.
- Examining extracts from 24 of the most influential and distinctive Restoration plays, this book is accessible to non-specialists and students without prior knowledge of the works discussed
- Guides readers beyond the plays by providing a social context for theatre in the period
- Gives readers a full understanding of the Restoration play by looking at the whole 'life cycle' from original source to modern revival
Reviews & endorsements
‘In addition to discussions of a generous selection of plays, Roberts provides students with succinct, informative and well-paced accounts of the personnel and material circumstances of Restoration Theatre, including the actors, the managers, the theatres and the growth of print culture. There is much to admire here.' Derek Hughes, University of Aberdeen
'[Roberts'] theatrical primer will be a welcome addition to any bookshelf for teachers of later seventeenth-century drama. The book’s successive chapters cover almost every imaginable topic. … Roberts is particularly good at bridging his close readings of individual plays with the political, social, financial, commercial, managerial, and professional worlds these works circulated in, were shaped by, and shaped themselves.' Andrew Benjamin Bricker, Renaissance and Reformation
Product details
December 2014Hardback
9781107027831
260 pages
235 × 156 × 19 mm
0.5kg
12 b/w illus. 1 table
Available
Table of Contents
- List of figures
- Preface
- 1. Regime change theatre
- 2. The life cycle of the Restoration play
- 3. Playwrights
- 4. Companies
- 5. Actors
- 6. Playhouses
- 7. Audiences and critics
- 8. Texts and publishers
- 9. Revivals and adaptations
- Further reading
- Timeline
- Index.
