Introductory

Paradoxically, at a time when the last vestiges of ancient aristocratic life are rapidly vanishing and democracy is the watchword of the age, the predominantly aristocratic drama of the reign of Charles II has once more come into its own again. True, voices have been raised occasionally to champion the claim that the comedy of this period is “insufferably dull” and to protest that

Such warnings are salutary when we think of the pronouncements of some among the more eccentric defenders of the Restoration theatre, but the charge of dulness is perhaps sufficiently met by pointing to the truly extraordinary interest displayed during recent years in stage revivals of these late seventeenth-century plays. We might be prepared to set aside the various productions of the Phoenix Society as having had appeal only to a special and limited audience, but we cannot ignore the way in which Congreve and his fellows have recently attracted the general public within the theatre's doors. The plays have come alive there and their wit has summoned forth the laughter they were intended to provoke. It is not without significance that only a few years ago appeared a “Playgoer's Handbook to Restoration Drama” in its title testifying to the widespread and theatrical interest in these works.