THE2000:Notes:3-26-07
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Contents |
The Restoration
Restoration Drama: Comedies of Manners
- Comedies of manners � poked fun at the social conventions of the upper class
- Emphasized witty dialogue and filled with sexual innuendo
Playwrights
- Aphra Behn � female, wrote complicated plots
- wrote The Rover
- William Congreve � a bridge between restoration comedy and traditional comedy
Performers and Acting Companies
- Women appear on stage for the first time
- The emergence of theatre entrepreneurs.
- Two men had a monopoly on producing theatre in London
18th Century Drama
- Many plays strayed from traditional "comedy and tragedy" definitions we have grown to know and love.
England's Contributions
- Ballad Opera
- Ex. The Beggars Opera
- Sentimental Comedy
- Ex. The Rivals
Acting in the 18th Century
- David Garrick � actors during this time started to have followers
- English actor
- Rejected bombastic style of performing
- Favored individual characterization
- Also a director
19th Century Dramatic Forms
- Romanticism � rejected neo-classical rules (in fact, rejected all artistic rules believing that genius creates its own rules)
- Hero seeks justice knowledge and truth
- Melodrama � literally means "song drama"
- Suspenseful plots, emphasis on surface effects.
