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Aphra Behn was an English playwright, poet, prose writer and translator from the Restoration era. As one of the first English women to earn her living by her writing, she broke cultural barriers and served as a literary role model for later generations of women authors. Rising from obscurity, she came to the notice of Charles II, who employed her as a spy in Antwerp. Upon her return to London and a probable brief stay in debtors' prison, she began writing for the stage. She belonged to a coterie of poets and famous libertines such as John Wilmot, Lord Rochester. Behn wrote under the pastoral pseudonym Astrea. During the turbulent political times of the Exclusion Crisis, she wrote an epilogue and prologue that brought her legal trouble; she thereafter devoted most of her writing to prose genres and translations. A staunch supporter of the Stuart line, Behn declined an invitation from Bishop Burnet to write a welcoming poem to the new king William III. She died shortly after.
"Restoration comedy" is English comedy written and performed in the Restoration period of 1660–1710. Comedy of manners is used as a synonym for this. After public stage performances were banned for 18 years by the Puritan regime, reopening of the theatres in 1660 marked a renaissance of English drama. Sexually explicit language was encouraged by King Charles II (1660–1685) personally and by the rakish style of his court. Historian George Norman Clark argues:
The best-known fact about the Restoration drama is that it is immoral. The dramatists did not criticize the accepted morality about gambling, drink, love, and pleasure generally, or try, like the dramatists of our own time, to work out their own view of character and conduct. What they did was, according to their respective inclinations, to mock at all restraints. Some were gross, others delicately improper.... The dramatists did not merely say anything they liked: they also intended to glory in it and to shock those who did not like it.
This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1696.
Susanna Verbruggen, aka Susanna Mountfort, was an English actress working in London.
Thomas Southerne was an Irish dramatist.
The History of the Nun, or The Fair Vow Breaker, is a novella by Aphra Behn published in 1689. It is a piece of amatory fiction.
Abdelazer; or, The Moor's Revenge is a 1676 play by Aphra Behn, an adaptation of the c. 1600 tragedy Lust's Dominion. It is Behn's only tragic play.
The Feign'd Curtizans, or, A Nights Intrigue is a 1679 comedic stage play by the English author Aphra Behn. Behn dedicated the play, originally performed at the Duke's Company in London, to the well-known actress and mistress of King Charles II, Nell Gwyn.
Anthony Leigh was a celebrated English comic actor.
Mary, Lady Slingsby, born Aldridge, was an English actress. After a marriage lasting 1670 to 1680 to John Lee, an actor, during which she was on the stage as Mrs. Lee, she was widowed. She then married Sir Charles Slingsby, 2nd Baronet, a nephew of Sir Robert Slingsby, and performed as Lady Slingsby. Theatre historians have pointed out the difficulty in identifying her roles in the period when Elinor Leigh, wife of Anthony Leigh, was performing as Mrs. Leigh, because the homophones "Lee" and "Leigh" were not consistently spelled at the time.
The Dutch Lover is a comedic play written by Aphra Behn, first performed and published in 1673. It came out during the Third Anglo-Dutch War and is an example of wartime propaganda, seen most obviously in the ludicrous character of Haunce van Ezel, the 'Dutch lover' of the title.
The Town-Fopp: or, Sir Timothy Tawdrey is a Restoration comedy written by Aphra Behn and first staged in 1676. It deals with an unhappy marriage and its dissolution.
Sir Patient Fancy: A Comedy, is a comedic play written by Aphra Behn, first performed in 1678. It is Behn's first overtly political play. It was staged by the Duke's Company at the Dorset Garden Theatre in London with a cast that included Nell Gwyn as Lady Knowell, Anthony Leigh as Sir Patient Fancy, John Crosby as Leander Fancy, Thomas Betterton as Wittmore, William Smith as Lodwick Knowell, James Nokes as Sir Credulous Easy, John Richards as Curry, Elizabeth Currer as Lady Fancy, Mary Betterton as Isabella, Emily Price as Lucretia and Anne Shadwell as Maundy.
Joseph Williams was an English stage actor of the seventeenth and early eighteenth century.
Elinor Leigh was a British stage actor of the seventeenth century.
Elizabeth Currer was an Irish stage actress of the Restoration Era. She was a member of the Duke's Company during the 1670s and subsequently part of the merged United Company from 1682. Although she was likely acting in London several years earlier than this, her first known role was in The Conquest of China in 1675. Due to the irregular spelling of the time her surname is sometimes written as Carrier, Corer and Currier amongst other variants.
John Wiltshire was an English stage actor of the Restoration Era. He joined the King's Company in 1675, before transferring to the rival Duke's Company in 1679 possibly as a replacement for Matthew Medbourne who was arrested in the Popish Plot and subsequently died in Newgate. From 1682 until his death he was part of the merged United Company. According to the autobiography of Colley Cibber he subsequently joined the English Army as captain and was killed in action fighting with William III's forces in Flanders during the Nine Years' War. His surname is also sometimes spelled as Wilshire.
George Bright was an English stage actor of the seventeenth and early eighteenth century. He specialised in playing "comic dullards, fops and bouncy servants". After beginning his career in Dublin he joined the Duke's Company at the Dorset Garden Theatre in 1679 and then became part of the merged United Company in 1682.
Margaret Osborne or Osborn was an English stage actress of the seventeenth century She was a long-standing member of the Duke's Company from 1671, acting at Lincoln's Inn Fields and the Dorset Garden Theatre. She went to Dublin to work at the Smock Alley Theatre in 1677, but returned to the Duke's Company around two years later She subsequently joined the merged United Company in 1682 and was still acting in the 1690s.
John Crosby was an English stage actor of the Restoration Period. He first recorded performance is in 1662 when he appeared in Ignoramus at Whitehall Palace, likely as a child actor. It was further eight years before he was solidly established in the Duke's Company in 1670 beginning with The Forc'd Marriage by Aphra Behn. He became a regular with the company over the following decade, often playing young lover roles. He retired from the stage in 1679 and later became a justice of the peace for Middlesex. He died on 8 April 1724 and was buried in St Sepulchre.
References
- ↑ Behn, Aphra, 1640-1689. (2016). The false count, or, A new way to play an old game : as it is acted at the Duke's Theatre. Copyright Group. ISBN 9781785438387. OCLC 974263159.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link) - ↑ Van Lennep, W. The London Stage, 1660-1800: Volume One, 1660-1700. Southern Illinois University Press, 1960. p.302
- ↑ Pacheco, Anita (1 November 2004). "Reading Toryism in Aphra Behn's Cit-Cuckolding Comedies". The Review of English Studies. 55 (222): 690–708 (693). doi:10.1093/res/55.222.690. ISSN 0034-6551.
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