The Country Wife Dramaturgical File

Historically, the Restoration Era details a time in 1660s England, Scotland,
and Ireland when Charles II returned as King. He was initially removed
by Oliver Cromwell and the Puritans (a radical sect of protestants), who
executed his father King Charles I and established the “Commonwealth
of England”. 

 

Charles I had gartered disgust by the English protestants for marrying a
French Catholic princess, Henrietta Maria, and the Puritans strongly
opposed this marriage and the King’s Catholic ties. When Charles I
tried to present edicts in Parliament in 1629, they would contradict
them and turn them down, which led to the King dissolving Parliament
for 11 years. The struggle that broke out between Parliament and King
Charles I led to the English Civil War, which lasted from 1642 to 1649.
After a decade of fighting, Cromwell and the Puritans got the upper
hand on the King, and they charged him with treason, and he lost his
head. Thus, the Commonwealth of England was born. This period of
English history is referred to as the interregnum. 

 

According to Villanova University history professor Dr. Emil Ricci, Cromwell was very popular with his English subjects, however over the years his people began to see him as a military dictator who was imposing martial law on them. When Cromwell died in 1658 and power passed on to his son Richard, who lacked all political skills completely, many English people began to see another monarchy forming. Once they gartered enough support, they asked the exiled Charles II to be king again. His return is known as the Restoration.  

 

The term “Restoration era” is often used to describe the restoration itself but also the whole reign of Charles II and his younger brother, James II, and stretches from the period of 1660-1710. The Restoration era saw a burst of literature that centered around the celebration and reaction of Charles II being restored. After the 18-year ban of public performance placed onto the English people by the Puritans, this return to performance kickstarted an English renaissance. The type of literature that was released during this era was far and wide, hitting every extreme, such as Paradise Lost, an epic poem by John Milton, John Locke’s Treatises of Government, and an explosion of bawdy comedies known as Restoration comedy or "comedy of manners", such as The Country Wife. The audiences for Restoration comedies were incredibly diverse, and included servants, aristocrats, and middle/working class members. The Restoration era also saw the first professional female playwright, Aphra Behn. British historian and army officer George Norman Clark describes the Restoration literature below: 
 

"The best-known fact about the Restoration drama is that it is immoral. The dramatists did not criticize the accepted morality about gambling, drink, love, and pleasure generally, or try, like the dramatists of our own time, to work out their own view of character and conduct. What they did was, according to their respective inclinations, to mock at all restraints. Some were gross, others delicately improper....The dramatists did not merely say anything they liked: they also intended to glory in it and to shock those who did not like it."[1]

 

Dr. Ricci also noted that Charles II and his court were very fond of the bawdy comedies brought to the stage, and Charles II was a huge fan of theatre in general. He offered patents to two companies: The King's Company (who first performed The Country Wife) and The Duke's Company, who later became one troupe called
United Company. This time period also saw the
debut of actresses onstage (as female roles were
played by men prior) and the concept of
celebrities. 

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The enjoyment of Restoration comedies began to
wane at the end of the 17th century, as the
public opinion began to turn towards seriousness
and sentimentality. The new monarchs William III
and his wife Mary disliked theatre, and several
lawsuits were being brought against playwrights
at the time by the Society for the Reformation of
Manners. By the time that British theatre critic Jeremy Collier wrote his essay Short View of the Immorality and Profaneness of the English Stage in 1698, comedies were well on their way to becoming sentimental drama.