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Hey, Bishonen, there's this site called Misplaced Pages. I'm on it, like, all the time. You should check it out. It's kind of addictive, though, so don't edit articles, or you'll get hooked. It has this amazing ability to seem perfectible, even though it isn't, so you get suckered into continually thinking that you can make a difference, get rid of the bad, and supply the good. When you find out that the bad is like an ocean tide and that the good is like a towel under the door, you'll probably storm off. However, you end up coming back, thinking that you'll "just" do this or that, and that it'll be ok. Pretty soon, you find yourself trying to swap towels and run the drier. It's this cycle, until you realize that it's not perfectible, and you decide to just try to keep the old set of family photos dry or try to throw a life preserver to people you see out there who don't have boats. Anyway, so that's my welcome. Geogre 12:47, 15 July 2005 (UTC)

The first public British playhouse to use moveable scenery was the theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields, the home ground of the Duke's Company, which opened with a revamp of William Davenant's The Siege of Rhodes (1656) on 28 June 1661.

Background

Commonwealth stage ban and stealth performances

Public stage performances were banned in England during the Commonwealth, 1642–1660, a uniquely long and sharp break in dramatic tradition imposed by the Puritan regime. However, the ban was not 100% successful in keeping down the ideologically hateful make-believe of the stage: acting in private houses was commonplace, and in London, actors who had worked under Charles I managed to scrape a living and evade the authorities in stealth acting companies such as that of Michael Mohun at the Red Bull playhouse. The greatest loss of continuity during the Commonwealth was not in acting and production, but in the writing of plays, and in the lack of public arenas for schooling new young playwrights. The dramatic writers from the previous era were biding their time, and by the late 1650s, it was becoming obvious that that time was at hand. Secure in his assurance that the monarchy would be restored, William Davenant, who had been a prolific playwright and masque designer under Charles I, put on several elaborate productions of new work of his own at Rutland House, including his opera The Siege of Rhodes (1656).

The venues of the stealth companies were necessarily simple. Private houses, by contrast, sometimes had quite elaborate sets, as can be seen from the extant drawings for the original performance of The Siege of Rhodes at Rutland House.

Restoration theatre companies

When the performance ban was formally lifted at the Restoration of the monarchy in 1660, a new dramatic tradition was already underway. The stage-struck Charles II immediately encouraged the drama and took a personal interest in the scramble for acting licenses and performance rights which followed. Two middle-aged playwrights from the era of Charles I emerged victorious from the struggle, each with royal Letters Patent for a new (or refurbished) theatre company: Charles Killigrew and William Davenant. Killigrew was able to take over Michael Mohun's skilled veteran troupe for his new King's Company and to start with "what was essentially a going concern" (Hume), with the added advantage of performance rights (which according to tradition followed possession of the physical playscripts) to practically the whole classic repertory of William Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, the Beaumont and Fletcher team, and other popular draws. Nevertheless it was Davenant of the Duke's Company who hit the ground running. Davenant was an innovative and creative producer who had been planning for just such an opening for years, and he had soon turned his disastrous lack of performance rights and of experienced actors into advantages. It took time to get new plays written, but they did turn out to appeal even more to London audiences than the old standbys, and, while Davenant's young, scratched-together troupe was unskilled, it was willing and obedient, whereas Killigrew had to negotiate with powerful shareholders like Michael Mohun and Charles Hart, personal favorites of Charles II. Davenant also had the good luck of acquiring the untried young Thomas Betterton for the Duke's Company.

References

• Highfill, Philip Jr, Burnim, Kalman A., and Langhans, Edward (1973–93). Biographical Dictionary of Actors, Actresses, Musicians, Dancers, Managers and Other Stage Personnel in London, 1660–1800. 16 volumes. Carbondale, Illinois: Southern Illinois University Press. Where not otherwise indicated, all information on individual actors above is taken from their entries in this work. Passages quoted directly from it are footnoted.
• Hume, Robert D. (1976). The Development of English Drama in the Late Seventeenth Century. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
• Milhous, Judith (1979). Thomas Betterton and the Management of Lincoln's Inn Fields 1695—1708. Carbondale, Illinois: Southern Illinois University Press.
• Pepys, Samuel (ed. Robert Latham and William Matthews, 1995). The Diary of Samuel Pepys. London: Harper Collins. First published between 1970 and 1983, by Bell & Hyman, London. The shorthand in which Pepy's diaries were originally written was not accurately transcribed until this copyright edition. All web versions of the diaries are based on public domain 19th-century editions, which unfortunately contain many errors.
• Van Lennep, William (ed.) (1965). The London Stage 1660—1800: A Calendar of Plays, Entertainments & Afterpieces Together with Casts, Box-Receipts and Contemporary Comment Compiled From the Playbills, Newspapers and Theatrical Diaries of the Period, Part 1: 1660-1700. Carbondale, Illinois: Southern Illinois University Press.