Presentation about the Restoration Period of Drama, the most popular type of comedy of the age - Comedy of Manners and Richard Sheridan, who wrote The School for Scandal, a representative play of the Restoration Age of Drama.

2. Historical Context
• Reopening of theaters
• Rejection of Puritanism
• Restoration of monarchy & revival of drama
• Focus on the social life
• Comedy of manners
• Heroic tragedies
• Satire

3. Characteristics of Restoration Drama
• Women actors & playwrights
• Favoured commercial purposes over artistic
purposes of drama
• Reinterpretation of Elizabethan plays
• Structure of the theatre changed
• French influence, especially Molière and
Pierre Corneille
• Heroic couplet

4. Restoration Playwrights
• Aphra Behn
• William Congreve
• William Wycherley
• George Etherege
• John Dryden
• John Vanbrugh
• George Farquhar
• Thomas Otway

5. TYPES OF RESTORATION DRAMA
• COMEDY OF MANNERS
• Satirized the social life
of wealthy, upper class
• Made use of vulgar
language, sexual
innuendos to expose
their immoral ways
• Full of witty, crisp
dialogues
• HEROIC TRAGEDIES
• Struggle between love
and honor
• Heroic virtues of noble
men and women who
were wonderfully
beautiful
• Written in heroic
couplet

6. Representative Plays
• COMEDY OF MANNERS
• The Way of the World
by William Congreve
• The Country Wife by
William Wycherley
• The Man of Mode by
George Etherege
• The School for Scandal
by Richard Sheridan
• HEROIC TRAGEDIES
• The Conquest of
Granada, All for Love
and Aurang-Zebe by
John Dryden
• Venice Preserved and
The Orphan by Thomas
Otway

7. DESIGN & ARCHITECTURE OF THEATRE
• Horse shoe theatre
• Proscenium arch
• Movable scenery
• Special effects
• Trap door effect
• Fireworks
• Baroque illusionist
painting
• “Flying” actors
• Music, dance, artificial
lighting and action
• Gorgeous costumes
• Stage machinery

10. PROSCENIUM ARCH

12. ILLUSIONIST CEILING
PAINTINGS

14. FUN FACT
• “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned” has
its roots in William Congreve’s tragedy ‘The
Mourning Bride.’
• The actual quote goes "Heav'n has no Rage,
like Love to Hatred turn'd, Nor Hell a Fury, like
a Woman scorn'd.“
• Aphra Behn, in addition to being a female
Restoration playwright was also a spy for the
British government!

15. COMEDY OF MANNERS

19. MAIN THEMES
• Satirized the middle and upper classes of
people
• Lust, greed, materialistic nature of people,
gossip and rumours, hypocritical nature and
false pretensions of the people
• Subjects like marriage, love, adultery, fortune
hunting
• Language : flamboyant display of witty, blunt
licentious dialogue

20. POPULAR RESTORATION COMEDIES

21. The Way of the World as performed by Shakespeare Theatre
Company

22. RICHARD SHERIDAN
Richard Brinsley Butler
Sheridan was an Irish-born
playwright and poet and
long-term owner of the
London Theatre Royal, Drury
Lane. For thirty-two years he
was also a Whig Member of
the British House of
Commons for Stafford,
Westminster and Ilchester.
Such was the esteem he was
held in by his contemporaries
when he died that he was
buried at Poets' Corner in
Westminster Abbey.

23. Popular Works
• The Rivals
• St Patrick's Day
• The Duenna
• A Trip to Scarborough
• The School for Scandal
• The Camp
• The Critic
• The Glorious First of June
• Pizarro

24. Illustration from The Rivals

25. ‘The Rivals’ was a hit at Covent Garden Theatre.

26. Illustrations from The School for Scandal