Restoration Plays and Players
An Introduction

An accessible and engaging introduction to Restoration drama, this book looks at the texts, performances, playhouses and people of seventeenth-century theatre.

David Roberts (Author)

9781107027831, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 30 October 2014

260 pages, 12 b/w illus. 1 table
23.5 x 15.6 x 1.9 cm, 0.5 kg

'[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

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.

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.

Subject Areas: Literary studies: plays & playwrights [DSG]