The Playhouse to Be Let

Last updated February 28, 2019

The Playhouse to be Let is a Restoration stage play, a dramatic anthology of short pieces by Sir William Davenant that was acted in August 1663 at the theatre at Lincoln's Inn Fields, and first published in the 1673 collected edition of Davenant's works. The Playhouse to Be Let is noteworthy for providing the first English translation of a play by Molière.^[1]

Sir William Davenant, also spelled D'Avenant, was an English poet and playwright. Along with Thomas Killigrew, Davenant was one of the rare figures in English Renaissance theatre whose career spanned both the Caroline and Restoration eras and who was active both before and after the English Civil War and during the Interregnum.

This article presents lists of the literary events and publications in 1663.

Lincoln's Inn Fields is the largest public square in London. It was laid out in the 1630s under the initiative of the speculative builder and contractor William Newton, "the first in a long series of entrepreneurs who took a hand in developing London", as Sir Nikolaus Pevsner observes. The original plan for "laying out and planting" these fields, drawn by the hand of Inigo Jones, was said still to be seen in Lord Pembroke's collection at Wilton House in the 19th century, but is untraced. The grounds, which had remained private property, were acquired by London County Council in 1895. It is today managed by the London Borough of Camden and forms part of the southern boundary of that borough with the City of Westminster.

Form and content

Regarding this anthology, the early critic Gerard Langbaine wrote, "I know not under what Species to place this Play, it consisting of several Pieces of different Kinds handsomely tackt together...."^[2] Davenant exploited the standard five-Act structure of drama in his era to link five separate short plays, both newly written and previously existent:

Gerard Langbaine was an English dramatic biographer and critic, best known for his An Account of the English Dramatic Poets (1691), the earliest work to give biographical and critical information on the playwrights of English Renaissance theatre. He is sometimes called Junior or the Younger to distinguish him from his father (1609–58) of the same name, a Doctor of Divinity who was Provost of Queens College, Oxford (1646–58) and Keeper of the University Archives.

Act I provides an Introduction to the items that follow, in which four troupes of actors audition to fill a vacant theatre;
Act II is a condensation of Molière's 1660 one-act play Sganarelle , translated into French-accented broken English;
Act III is Davenant's 1659 "operatic tableau" The History of Sir Francis Drake ;
Act IV is Davenant's similar 1658 work The Cruelty of the Spaniards in Peru ;
Act V is the "Tragedy Travestie," a burlesque of traditional tragedy, involving Julius Caesar, Marc Antony, and Cleopatra.

This article presents lists of the literary events and publications in 1659.

The History of Sir Francis Drake was a hybrid theatrical entertainment, a masque or "operatic tableau" with an English libretto written by Sir William Davenant and music by Matthew Locke. The masque was most likely first performed in 1659 and produced by Davenant. As with his earlier The Siege of Rhodes (1656) and The Cruelty of the Spaniards in Peru (1658), Davenant cast The History of Sir Francis Drake as a musical drama to avoid the Puritan prohibition of stage plays during the English Commonwealth era. The three Davenant works were important in the evolution of English opera and musical theatre, and heralded the coming revival of drama with the Restoration of 1660.

This article presents lists of the literary events and publications in 1658.

The material in Act I provides a detailed view of a theatre manager interacting with actors, that throws light upon the theatrical conditions of Davenant's day.^[3] The anthology's blend of serious and comic works has caused critics to wonder about authorial intent, and even authorial identity.

Authorship

Davenant's authorship of the material in Acts III and IV is not disputed. French scholar André de Mandach attributed to rest of the work to Colonel Henry Howard.^[4] Henry Howard was one of four playwriting brothers; Sir Robert Howard, Edward Howard, and James Howard being his siblings. The Playhouse to Be Let was in fact attributed to Col. Howard during the eighteenth century.

Sir Robert Howard was an English playwright and politician, born to Thomas Howard, 1st Earl of Berkshire and his wife Elizabeth.

Edward Howard was an English dramatist and author of the Restoration era. He was the fifth son of Thomas Howard, 1st Earl of Berkshire, and one of four playwriting brothers: Sir Robert Howard, Colonel Henry Howard, and James Howard were the others. The brothers were sometimes confused in their own era, and Edward was sometimes given credit for his brother Henry's play The United Kingdoms.

Mandach argues that Davenant, as a practitioner of heroic drama, was unlikely to have ridiculed it. His argument has in general not persuaded other critics. In the play itself, Davenant writes that "burlesque discovers laughter not in the objects of its hatred, but rather in the objects of its affections."

Heroic drama is a type of play popular during the Restoration era in England, distinguished by both its verse structure and its subject matter. The subgenre of heroic drama evolved through several works of the middle to later 1660s; John Dryden's The Indian Emperour (1665) and Roger Boyle's The Black Prince (1667) were key developments.

Influence

The playlet in Act V of The Playhouse to Be Let has been called "the earliest burlesque dramatic piece in the English language."^[5] Davenant's comedy had a direct influence on The Rehearsal , the famous 1671 satire by the Duke of Buckingham and his collaborators.^[6]

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Lisle's Tennis Court was a building off Portugal Street in Lincoln's Inn Fields in London. Originally built as a real tennis court, it was used as a playhouse during two periods, 1661–1674 and 1695–1705. During the early period, the theatre was called Lincoln's Inn Fields Playhouse, also known as The Duke's Playhouse, The New Theatre or The Opera. The building was demolished and replaced by a purpose-built theatre for a third period, 1714–1728. The tennis court theatre was the first public playhouse in London to feature the moveable scenery that would become a standard feature of Restoration theatres.

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Sir Martin Mar-all, or The Feign'd Innocence is an English Restoration comedy, first performed on 15 August 1667. Written by John Dryden and based on a translation of L'Étourdi by Molière, it was one of Dryden's earliest comedies, and also one of the greatest theatrical successes of his career.

Robert Reece was a British comic playwright and librettist active in the Victorian era. He wrote many successful musical burlesques, comic operas, farces and adaptations from the French, including the English-language adaptation of the operetta Les cloches de Corneville, which became the longest-running piece of musical theatre in history up to that time. He sometimes collaborated with Henry Brougham Farnie or others.

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The Mock Tempest, or the Enchanted Castle is a Restoration era stage play, a parody by Thomas Duffet; it premiered in 1674, and was first printed in 1675 by the bookseller William Cademan. In creating his farce, Duffet's target was not Shakespeare's famous play, but the adaptation of it that John Dryden and Sir William Davenant wrote in the 1660s. According to critic Michael West, "There are frequent nautical metaphors, and 'more noyse and terrour than a Tempest at Sea'...."

References

↑ John Wilcox, The Relation of Molière to Restoration Comedy, New York, Columbia University Press, 1938; pp. 127-8.
↑ Gerard Langbaine, An Account of the English Dramatick Poets, London, 1691, pp. 99-100; quoted in Wilcox.
↑ Dane Fransworth Smith, Plays about the Theatre in England from The Reheasral in 1671 to the Licensing Act in 1737, London, Oxford University Press, 1936; pp. 7 and ff.
↑ André de Mandach, "The First Translator of Molière: Sir William Davenant or Colonel Henry Howard," Modern Language Notes, Vol. 66 No. 8 (December 1951), pp. 513-18.
↑ James Maidment and W. H, Logan, eds., The Dramatic Works of Sir William Davenant, Vol. 4, Edinburgh, William Paterson, 1873; p. 6.
↑ Robert D. Hume and Harold Love, eds., Plays, Poems, and Miscellaneous Writings Associated with George Villiers, Second Duke of Buckingham, 2 Volumes, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2007; Vol. 1, pp. 341-2.

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[1] John Wilcox, The Relation of Molière to Restoration Comedy, New York, Columbia University Press, 1938; pp. 127-8.

[2] Gerard Langbaine, An Account of the English Dramatick Poets, London, 1691, pp. 99-100; quoted in Wilcox.

[3] Dane Fransworth Smith, Plays about the Theatre in England from The Reheasral in 1671 to the Licensing Act in 1737, London, Oxford University Press, 1936; pp. 7 and ff.

[4] André de Mandach, "The First Translator of Molière: Sir William Davenant or Colonel Henry Howard," Modern Language Notes, Vol. 66 No. 8 (December 1951), pp. 513-18.

[5] James Maidment and W. H, Logan, eds., The Dramatic Works of Sir William Davenant, Vol. 4, Edinburgh, William Paterson, 1873; p. 6.

[6] Robert D. Hume and Harold Love, eds., Plays, Poems, and Miscellaneous Writings Associated with George Villiers, Second Duke of Buckingham, 2 Volumes, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2007; Vol. 1, pp. 341-2.