Restoration Plays and Players - An Introduction

"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 and on screen. 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 contents

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.

About the author

David Roberts is Professor of English and Dean of the Arts at Birmingham City University. He is the author of Pinacotheca Bettertonaeana: The Library of a Seventeenth-Century Actor (2013) and Thomas Betterton: The Greatest Actor of the Restoration Stage (Cambridge, 2010), which was shortlisted for the Theatre Library Association's George Freedley Memorial Award in 2011. He has also written many journal articles, including in Shakespeare Quarterly.

Product details

• Authors: David Roberts, David (Birmingham City University) Roberts
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press ELT
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 30.10.2014
• EAN: 9781107617971
• ISBN: 978-1-107-61797-1
• No. of pages: 260
• Subjects: Fiction > Poetry, drama; Humanities, art, music > Linguistics and literary studies > General and comparative literary studies; Englisch, Theaterwissenschaft, 17. Jahrhundert (1600 bis 1699 n. Chr.), Vereinigtes Königreich, Großbritannien, Literaturwissenschaft: 1600 bis 1800, Literaturwissenschaft: Dramen und Dramatiker