File:Shakspere to Sheridan; a book about the theatre of yesterday and to-day (1922) (14596703828).jpg

Identifier: shaksperetosheri00thal (find matches)
Title: Shakspere to Sheridan; a book about the theatre of yesterday and to-day
Year: 1922 (1920s)
Authors: Thaler, Alwin, 1891-
Subjects: Theater -- England History English drama -- History and criticism Actors and actresses -- England Theaters -- England London
Publisher: Cambridge : Harvard University Press (etc., etc.)
Contributing Library: University of California Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

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ant, successful playwright and laureate ofthe old regime, had kept his eyes open while he was inFrance, and had introduced the new Art Prospective inScenes to London some years before General Monk pro-claimed the restoration of the Merry Monarch.^ Whenthat time came, the new playwrights and managers didnot fail to remember the scenic and operatic possibilitiesof the dramatic romance of pre-Restoration days. Dry-den, Howard, Crowne, and a host of other dramatistshastened (in Colley Gibbers phrase) to outdo the usualoutdoing of Beaumont and Fletcher and Heywood —and the managers, DAvenant and Killigrew, gladly pro-duced the new monstrosity — the heroic drama. But neither the heroic plays with all their fine show andsplendid rant, nor yet the cleverest and merriest innuen-does of the brilliant new Restoration comedy of manners,were able to hold their own against the competition of en-tertainments even less akin to the old drama. Many * His Siege oj Rhodes was first presented in 1656.
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OLD LAMPS AND NEW 9 causes combined to make the Restoration theatres far lessattractive to the general public than those of the preced-ing era had been. In Shaksperes day, the Globe and theBlackfriars, the Fortune, the Swan, the Whitefriars, andthe Red Bull ^ — often as many as half-a-dozen houses atthe same time — enjoyed a consistent prosperity. Afterthe Restoration two theatres authorized by royal patent,Killigrews and DAvenants, divided between them amonopoly of the stage, and yet they frequently had butslender audiences. To seek the reasons at this pointwould take us too far afield. We shall meet them pres-ently, together with ample contemporary evidence —laments in prologues and epilogues, managers pleas toaudiences, and the like — to attest the lack of patronage.For the moment the point is rather to observe how themanagers sought to woo the fickle public. They did their best — by providing novelty uponnovelty: music and dancers, pantomimes (spectacularsilent drama ^^r

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