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.

This Companion illustrates the vitality and diversity of dramatic work 1660 to 1710. Twenty-five essays by leading scholars in the field bring together the best recent insights into the full range of dramatic practice and innovation at the time. Introduces readers to the recent boom in scholarship that has revitalised Restoration drama Explores historical and cultural contexts, genres of Restoration drama, and key dramatists, among them Dryden and Behn

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Fourteen specially commissioned essays provide essential information about staging, playwrights, themes and genres in the drama of the Restoration.

From 1642 to 1660, live theater was banned in England. The market for printed books, however—including plays—flourished. How did this period, when plays could be read but not performed, affect the way drama was written thereafter? As Katherine Mannheimer demonstrates, the plays of the following decades exhibited a distinct self-consciousness of drama’s status as a singular art form that straddled both page and stage. Scholars have commented on how the ban on live performance changed the way consumers read plays, but no previous book has addressed how this upheaval changed the way dramatists wrote them. In Restoration Drama and the Idea of Literature, Mannheimer argues that Restoration playwrights recognized and exploited the tension between print and performance inherent to all drama. By repeatedly and systematically manipulating this tension, these authors’ works sought to court the reader while at the same time also challenging emergent concepts of "literature" that privileged textuality and print culture over the performing body and the live voice.

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