English Renaissance theatre: Difference between revisions

The rising [[Puritan]] movement was hostile to the theatres, which the Puritans considered to be sinful for several reasons. The most commonly cited reason was that young men dressed up in female costume to play female roles. Theatres were located in the same parts of the city in which brothels and other forms of vice proliferated. When the Puritan faction of Parliament gained control over the city of London at the beginning of the [[English Civil War]], it ordered the closing of all theatres on Sept. 2, [[1642]]—though this was largely because the stage was being used to promote opposing political views. After the [[English Restoration|monarchy was restored]] in [[1660]] the theatres re-opened. The English King and many writers had spent years in France and were influenced by the flourishing French theatre of [[Louis XIV of France|Louis XIV]], especially in tragedy. However, Restoration audiences had no enthusiasm for structurally simple, well-shaped comedies such as those of [[Molière]], but demanded bustling, crowded multi-plot action and fast comedic pace, and the Elizabethan features of multitude of scenes, multitude of characters, and melange of genres lived on in [[Restoration comedy]]. The Renaissance classics were the mainstay of the Restoration repertory, although many of the tragedies were adapted to conform to the new taste.

 

==List of playwrights==

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