Restoration Drama and Comedy of Manners
When Charles II returned to the English throne in 1660, one of his first acts was to reopen the public theaters that Puritan rule had shut down for nearly two decades. What followed was an explosion of theatrical energy: Restoration drama, and in particular the comedy of manners, became the dominant literary form of the period (roughly 1660–1710). These plays used razor-sharp wit and social satire to dissect the values, vanities, and sexual politics of England's upper classes.
Characteristics of Restoration Drama
The reopening of the theaters brought major changes to how plays were staged and written. The proscenium arch stage replaced the older thrust stage, framing the action like a picture and creating a clearer separation between performers and audience. For the first time in English theater, women appeared on stage, replacing the boy actors of Shakespeare's era.
The plays themselves relied on a recognizable cast of stock characters:
- Rakes (witty, sexually adventurous libertines who drive the plot)
- Fops (vain, overdressed men obsessed with fashion, played for laughs)
- Naive country characters (outsiders to London society, easily duped)
- Clever heroines (sharp-tongued women who match or outmaneuver the men around them)
Dialogue was the real engine of these plays. Characters traded rapid, polished exchanges loaded with double entendres and innuendo. Playwrights also made heavy use of asides and soliloquies, letting characters reveal their true motives directly to the audience while other characters remained unaware. The gap between what characters said publicly and what they actually thought was a constant source of comedy.
Satire in Restoration Comedies
Comedy of manners plays weren't just entertaining; they held up a mirror to Restoration society and found it ridiculous. Their satirical targets included:
- Marriage customs: Arranged marriages and "mercenary matches" (unions based on money rather than affection) were a favorite target. Plays exposed how marriage functioned as an economic transaction, not a romantic one.
- Sexual double standards: Rakish men were celebrated for their conquests, while women who behaved similarly were labeled "fallen." Playwrights highlighted this hypocrisy, sometimes sympathetically, sometimes just for laughs.
- Upper-class pretension: Snobbish aristocrats, vulgar nouveau riche (newly wealthy social climbers), and self-righteous Puritans all got skewered through exaggerated character flaws.
- Political corruption: Thinly veiled references to real contemporary figures let playwrights comment on court politics without naming names directly.
- Gender roles: Many plays scrutinized women's limited options in a patriarchal society, portraying clever heroines who had to navigate a system stacked against them.
Beneath the comedy, these plays also reflected a broader cultural shift toward individualism and the growing influence of middle-class values on English society.
Contributions of Key Restoration Playwrights
Several playwrights defined and refined the comedy of manners over this period. The genre evolved noticeably across their careers, moving from blunt provocation toward more polished sophistication.
- George Etherege helped establish the genre's conventions with The Man of Mode (1676), which set the template for the witty, rakish hero navigating London society.
- William Wycherley wrote biting, often explicit satires. The Country Wife (1675) uses a man who pretends to be impotent to gain access to other men's wives, exposing the jealousy and hypocrisy lurking beneath polite society. The Plain Dealer (1676) pushed even further with its harsh social critique.
- Aphra Behn broke ground as one of the first professional female playwrights in England. Her best-known play, The Rover (1677), centers on cavaliers and courtship during carnival season, giving unusual attention to women's perspectives on love and economics.
- William Congreve is often considered the genre's finest practitioner. The Way of the World (1700) features some of the most intricate and elegant dialogue in English comedy, particularly the famous "proviso scene" in which Mirabell and Millamant negotiate the terms of their marriage as equals.
- John Vanbrugh pushed boundaries with The Relapse (1696), which combined risqué content with pointed social critique and helped spark debates about morality on the stage.
The trajectory from Wycherley's raw, confrontational satire to Congreve's refined wit reflects changing audience tastes over the period. Collectively, these playwrights established conventions that shaped English comedy well into the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.