Introduction...1
First Part: The context of The Law Against Lovers...5
1.1
Davenant's adaptation as a “new” play...5
1.2
Innovations in the Restoration theatre... 13
1.2.1.
Actresses...13
1.2.2.
Music and dance...19
1.2.3.
New stage conditions...25
1.3
Theatre and politics...33
1.3.1.
The influence of King Charles II...33
1.3.2.
The Restoration in the theatre...38
Second Part: Davenant's operation...43
2.1
Moral intentions...43
2.2
Aesthetic issues...61
2.2.1.
Improving Shakespeare: Aristotle's lesson...61
2.2.2.
Poetic justice...65
2.2.3.
Verse and heroic genre...68
2.3
Updating the language...76
Conclusions...90
Introduction
In 1642, at the beginning of the English Civil War, theatres were closed down by the Puritans, and they were reopened only with the Restoration of King Charles II in 1660. After this twenty-year break, theatre managers needed to start to stage plays as soon as possible, and they therefore turned to the Renaissance drama: while plays by Beaumont and Fletcher were staged without virtually changing them, Shakespeare's works were adapted by playwrights to the new taste. One of these adaptations was
The Law Against Lovers (1662), written by Sir William Davenant, whose
peculiarity is that of being a conflation of Measure for Measure and Much
Ado About Nothing.
Judging from surviving records, Davenant's play was not very popular at the time, nor does it appear to be well known or appreciated nowadays: mainly for this reason studies of this adaptation have been relatively scarce so far. Yet Davenant's tragicomedy proves to have numerous peculiarities which make it interesting: the purpose of this essay is to analyse the play's features, and to demonstrate the relevance of The Law
Against Lovers in the history of the reception of Shakespeare. Its influence
in this respect is demonstrated, for instance, by the fact that in 1700 Charles Gildon was influenced by Davenant when he wrote his own adaptation of Measure for Measure.
In the first part we will consider the context in which Davenant's play was staged. The Restoration is a unique period in the history of English drama: theatres had been closed for almost two decades, and this is one of the reasons that made it possible for Davenant, in 1662, to present to his audience an adaptation of two Shakespearean works as if it had been an original work. In the second paragraph we will describe and analyse the innovations of Restoration drama, namely the introduction of actresses on the public stage, the ever growing importance of songs and dances and the use of movable scenery. These were all novelties for the time, and they were brought about, to all likelihood, both by Davenant's sojourn in France during his exile (as a courtier of the future Charles II) and by his experience with royal masques during the Jacobean and Caroline periods. Finally, in the third paragraph, we will comment on the involvement of Charles II in the Restoration theatre, and put forward a possible political reading of The Law Against Lovers.
In the second part of this study we will consider the text of the adaptation in a more detailed way. First of all, from a moral perspective it is important to highlight that The Law Against Lovers has nothing of the licentiousness typical of later Restoration comedies: the low-life scenes of Measure for
Measure are omitted, and the behaviour of the characters is made either
more honourable or more heroic. Secondly, due to their exile in Paris, French critics and playwrights prompted English writers to start debating
over some important aesthetic issues. French criticism was in turn highly indebted to Aristotle, who prescribed the observance of the unities of time, space and action: as far as The Law Against Lovers is concerned, we will focus particularly on the last one, establishing whether we can find a sub-plot as the one concerning Benedick and Beatrice in Much Ado About
Nothing. A further issue, recurrent at the time, concerned poetic justice,
the principle whereby the good are to be rewarded and the bad are to be punished. This is a point with which other adapters of Shakespeare (as John Dryden and Nahum Tate) also grappled, and in our case it is interesting to see whether, and to what extent, Angelo is punished, and also whether he should be punished in the first place, according to Davenant's reading. A third important issue was whether tragedies should be written in blank verse or in rhyme: although The Law Against Lovers is almost entirely in blank verse, there are some scenes in which rhymed verse is used. Finally, we will analyse the linguistic changes made by Davenant on the two source plays: although it is generally said that Shakespearean adapters wanted to “improve” the original texts, the situation here appears to be more complex. As a matter of fact, while some changes are inevitable, due to the natural development of English, others are intentional, and they either serve the function of simplifying the language, and thus make the message of the play clearer, or they are a more straightforward form of censorship against Shakespeare's bawdy
First part: The context of The Law Against Lovers
1.1 Davenant's adaptation as a "new" play
Sir William Davenant's The Law Against Lovers is one of the very first adaptations of Shakespeare in the history of Restoration theatre, and it is probably the most peculiar among the Shakespearean adaptations of the time. The reasons of its peculiarity are numerous, the first and most evident being the fact that it mixes two Shakespeare plays, namely
Measure for Measure and Much Ado About Nothing. For the sake of
preciseness, the outline of the plot derives from the first of these two plays, whereas from the second one Davenant took just three characters, i.e. Benedick and Beatrice (the so-called “witty couple”), and Balthasar (re-spelled “Balthazar” by Davenant), who is - and this is by no means a coincidence - a singer.
Although mixing two plays might appear strange to anyone, even to a complete layman, there is a very specific reason for this operation, which is linked not only to Davenant's activities as a theatre manager and playwright, but also to the historical period of the Restoration. In 1660 theatres reopened after an eighteen-year silence and, understandably, theatre managers were in urgent need of plays to be staged. Few new plays were available, and it was therefore necessary to turn to pre-Restoration plays: for this reason a royal warrant was issued on 12
December 1660, giving Davenant the right to perform nine plays by Shakespeare:
Whereas Sr William Davenant, Knight hath humbly prsented (sic) to us a proposition of reformeinge some of the most ancient Playes that were playd at Blackfriers and of makeinge them, fitt, for the Company of Actors appointed under his direction and Comand, Viz: the playes called the Tempest, Measures, for Measures, Much adoe about Nothinge... the Tragedy of Mackbeth, the Tragedy of Hamlet prince of Denmarke.1
It is worth noting that it was Davenant who chose these plays (“hath humbly prsented to us a proposition”). In addition to these, Davenant could stage some other eleven plays by other pre-war playwrights such as Beaumont and Fletcher, making up a total of twenty. As Katherine West Scheil puts it: “Based on such a small repertory, one would think that Davenant would want to get as much mileage out of each play that he was allowed to perform”.2 In other words, it would have been far more logical to
stage all the plays singularly, instead of mixing two plays to obtain a new one. As the head of the Duke's Company, Davenant would have been required to guarantee always “new” plays to be performed by his actors and actresses. As we shall see, there are more strictly literary (but also political) reasons for his conflation of Measure for Measure and Much Ado
About Nothing.
The two theatre managers of the early Restoration period, Thomas Killigrew and William Davenant, were entirely responsible for the success
1 There were also Romeo and Juliet, The Twelfth Night, Henry VIII and King Lear. The warrant is quoted in Barbara A. Murray, Restoration Shakespeare: Viewing the Voice, Madison, Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2001; p.39.
2 Katherine West Scheil, “Sir William Davenant's Use of Shakespeare in 'The Law Against Lovers'”, Philological Quarterly, 76 (1997): 369-386, p. 371.
of their companies, respectively the King's and the Duke's. What this meant is clearly stated in the warrant granted by King Charles II on 21 August 1660: “We [ . . . ] do hereby give and grant unto the said Thomas Killigrew and Sir William Davenant full power and authority to erect two companies of players, consisting respectively of such persons as they shall choose and appoint [ . . . ]”. 3
Therefore, Davenant's choice of what to perform could determine the success, or the failure, of his company. Unlike Killigrew, he decided to “emphasise novelty in his theatre, rather than rely on the reputations of pre-Restorationauthors”. 4 This simple but successful strategy is the basis
for The Law Against Lovers, which is presented as a completely new play: as a matter of fact it bears no reference to Shakespeare in the title (both the prologue and the epilogue are missing, but it is unlikely that any allusion to Shakespeare could be found there). This is quite a unique feature not only among Davenant's adaptations, but also among those written by other playwrights, who usually either maintained the Shakespearean title or added a subtitle. 5
If one considers the canon of Davenant's works, the peculiarity of this
3 The complete grant is quoted in Peter Thomson, The Cambridge Introduction to English Theatre, 1660-1900, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2006; p. 10. Italics mine.
4 Scheil, op. cit., p. 371.
5 To name but a few: Davenant and Dryden's The Tempest; or, the Enchanted Island, Dryden's Troilus and Cressida; or, Truth Found too Late, Tate's The History of King Lear, Ravenscroft's Titus Andronicus; or, the Rape of Lavinia. For a more comprehensive list showing how playwrights decided whether to allude or not to the Shakespearean original, see Loretta Innocenti, La scena trasformata: Adattamenti neoclassici di Shakespeare, Firenze, Sansoni Editore, 1985; pp. 151-164.
tragicomedy lies in the fact that it is the only adaptation included in the folio edition of his works (published posthumously in 1673), which for the rest contained only his original plays. 6 Thus, while adapters of
Shakespeare generally wanted to “improve” his texts, especially on the linguistic level, one may think that Davenant wanted to substitute himself to Shakespeare. 7
As we have seen, this conflation of Measure for Measure and Much Ado
About Nothing led to the creation of a play that in the second half of the
17th century was entirely thought to be Davenant's: as a matter of fact, of
the five eye-witnesses we have knowledge of, none of them considered
The Law Against Lovers as an adaptation, which means that they failed to
recognise characters like Angelo and Isabella from Measure for Measure and Benedick and Beatrice from Much Ado About Nothing. 8 The diarist
6 For an analysis of the inclusion of The Law Against Lovers in the Folio see Carla Dente, “'The Law Against Lovers': da Shakespeare a Davenant”, in Forms of Migration, Migration of Forms eds. V. Cavone, C. Corti and M. Trulli, Bari, Progedit, 2009, pp.24-34.
7 Incidentally, Davenant's friend John Aubrey reports a curious anecdote about the rumour according to which Davenant would have been an illegitimate son of Shakespeare's: “Now Sir William would sometimes, when he was pleasant over a glasse of wine with his most intimate friends [ . . . ] say, that it seemed to him that he writt with the very same spirit that did Shakespeare, and seemed contented to be thought his Son”. See Aubrey's Brief Lives, ed. Oliver Lawson Dick, London, Secker and Warburg, 1950, p.25.
8 In their defence, it should be noted that we do not have a single record of a performance of Measure for Measure between 1604 and the closing of the theatres in 1642. See Measure for Measure, ed. N. W. Bawcutt, New York, Oxford University Press, 2008, p.26. As for Much Ado About Nothing, we only have evidence of the 1600 Quarto (which reads “sundrie times publikely acted”) and of a performance in 1613 at Whitehall. See Much Ado About Nothing, ed. Sheldon P. Zitner, New York, Oxford University Press, 2008, pp.58-59. Moreover, during the Interregnum, only three Shakespeare's plays had been republished: The Merchant of Venice, Othello and King Lear. See Gary Taylor, Reinventing Shakespeare: A Cultural History, from the Restoration to the Present, London, The Hogarth Press, 1990, p. 10.
Samuel Pepys went to see Davenant's play on February 18, 1662, and judged it “a good play and well performed, especially the little girl's, whom I never saw act before, dancing and singing; and were it not for her, the loss of Roxalana would spoil the house”. 9 Two Dutch visitors, Jacques
Thierry and Will Schellinks, even “judged [it] to be their [the Duke's Company] best play”. John Evelyn and Edward Browne merely report their seeing the play. 10 None of them makes any reference to Shakespeare
whatsoever. Although this may seem almost inconceivable to a modern scholar, even more surprising is the fact that, during the Restoration, Shakespearean adaptations which kept the original title were not recognised as such either: Scheil reports two telling comments by Pepys about his attendance of a performance of Henry VIII: he first calls it “a rare play to be acted this week of Sir William Davenant's” and then writes about the “goodness of the new play of Henry the 8th”. 11
Approximately half a century had passed from Shakespeare's death in 1616, and relevant changes in taste had inevitably occured. Once again, Pepys proves an important witness: he attended seventy-six performances of Beaumont and Fletcher's plays and forty-five of Shakespeare's, twenty-seven of which adapted, and he arguably enjoyed Davenant's own adaptations: in addition to The Law Against Lovers and Henry VIII (which
9 The Diary of Samuel Pepys, ed. John Warrington, 3 voll, Everyman's Library, 1963. “Roxalana” refers to the actress Elizabeth Davenport.
10 Scheil, op. cit., pp. 374-375. 11 Idem. Emphasis added.
he both liked, as we have just seen), he saw Macbeth, The Tempest and
Hamlet respectively nine, eight and five times. Apparently, Hamlet was his
favourite among these. 12 Nonetheless, there are notable exceptions: for
instance, on March 1, 1662, Pepys records that he “saw 'Romeo and Juliet', the first time it was ever acted, but it is a play of itself the worst that ever I heard”. 13
Although Pepys was only one person, a very small part of the audience, his judgements on Shakespeare's and Davenant's texts seem to be representative of his age. Shakespeare's adapters agreed with Pepys, and “despite their admiration for Shakespeare's genius, [they] also admitted that his works were far from perfect and that his beauties were offset by a variety of faults”. 14 The “faults” referred to, as will be discussed further in
more detail, are: the language, his failure to follow the three unities of action, place and time, and his lack of attention for poetic justice. To say it in Gary Taylor's words, “Restoration audiences did not much care for Shakespeare's rambling history plays or his sentimental romantic comedies, and as often as not, they preferred Shakespeare à la Davenant [ . . . ] to Shakespeare au naturel”. 15
12 Taylor, op. cit., p. 29; Taylor concludes that “Pepys, at least, did not like his Shakespeare straight”.
13 The Diary of Samuel Pepys, ed. John Warrington. Barbara A. Murray adds: “although, to be fair to Shakespeare, the cast kept forgetting their lines”. See Murray, op. cit., p.49.
14 Jean I. Mardsen, “Improving Shakespeare: from the Restoration to Garrick”, in The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare on Stage, eds. Stanley Wells and Sarah Stanton, Cambridge University Press, 2002, p.22.
To return to the heart of the matter, it should be noted that, although we only have evidence of just three performances,16 and although there is no
evidence to suggest that it became a favourite in the repertoire, The Law
Against Lovers seems to have had some influence on later playwrights. In
1700, Charles Gildon wrote an adaptation which he entitled Measure for
Measure; or, Beauty the Best Advocate: this could be seen as an at least
partial conflation of Shakespeare's original and Davenant's adaptation (Scheil talks of “Gildon's fusion of Shakespeare and Davenant”). 17 For
instance, Gildon follows Davenant's decision to move the scene from Vienna (in Shakespeare) to Turin and to omit the low-life scenes. Furthermore, Gildon is indebted to Davenant for the character of Balthazar (although Benedick and Beatrice are not included), and for some linguistic choices. 18 Finally, keen as he was on staging a successful comedy, Gildon
surely did not forget those elements that had made Davenant's adaptation popular about forty years before; as a matter of fact, Gildon's prologue reads: “Let Neither Dance, nor Musick be forgot”. 19
As it has been established, Davenant's contemporaries did not consider
The Law Against Lovers as a Shakespearean adaptation like we do
16 The first on February 15 (attended by Jacques Thierry and Will Schellinks), the second one on February 18 (the one that Pepys saw) and the third one on December 17 (performance recorded by Evelyn). See Scheil, op. cit., pp. 374-375.
17 Katherine West Scheil, The Taste of the Town: Shakespearian Comedy and the Early Eighteenth Century Theater, Bucknell University Press, 2003, p.107
18 Frederick W. Kilbourne, Alterations and Adaptations of Shakespeare, The Poet Lore Company, Boston, 1906. Kilbourne also reports an example which shows Gildon's debt to Davenant from a mere linguistic point of view (which will be quoted in the last paragraph, “Updating the language”), pp. 52-53.
nowadays, but rather as a “new” play: the fact that nobody recognised the two source plays and its inclusion in the 1673 Folio are the two strongest pieces of evidence that can confirm this state of affairs. However, towards the end of the century things started to change, and this affected the reception of Davenant's adaptation. In 1691, Gerard Langbaine wrote in his An Account of the English Dramatick Poets: “a Tragi-Comedy made up of two Plays written by Mr. Shakespear, viz. Measure for Measure, and Much Ado About Nothing”. 20
In conclusion, Davenant's expertise as a theatre manager and playwright (which we shall analyse further), as well as his direct experience of the pre-Restoration stage, permitted him to write a new play using two old ones that his public did not (and, for the reasons mentioned above, could not) recognise. Using Scheil's words: “Although nearly impossible for a modern reader or audience to imagine, in the first years of the re-opened Restoration theatres it was possible to design a play involving Beatrice, Benedick, Angelo, and Isabella and to claim it as your own”. 21
20 Actually, already in late 1662 an anonymous letter read: Then came the Knight agen with his Lawe
Against Lovers the worst that ever you sawe In dressing of which he playnely did shew it Hee was a far better Cooke then a Poet And only he the Art of it had
Of two good Playes to make one bad ...
The writer concluded saying: “And these are all the new playe wee have had”. While the author failed to recognise these “two good Playes” as Shakespeare's, he correctly considered The Law Against Lovers as an adaptation of two earlier texts. The letter is reported in Scheil, "Davenant's Use", p. 382.
1.2.1 Innovations in the Restoration theatre: actresses
Reading the dramatis personae of The Law Against Lovers, one will find, apart from the omission of Elbow, Froth and Mistress Overdone, an entirely new character: Viola. She is described as "sister to Beatrice, very young". 22 However, this is interesting not because Davenant eliminated
some characters and added new ones, but because for the first time in the history of English theatre playwrights wrote new parts for actresses.
As is well known, in Renaissance drama it was boy actors who performed female roles, however difficult it may be today to imagine. According to contemporary theatre-goers, some of these boys were actually believable as a woman character. Elizabeth Howe reports an interesting example: in 1610, attending a performance of Othello by the King's Men, a spectator found that the acting of the boy, who played Desdemona, was really convincing: " [ . . . ] Desdemona, killed by her husband, in death moved us especially when, as she lay in her bed, her face alone implored the pity of the audience". Howe relevantly adds: "[u]nquestionably, boy or not, she
was a woman to him". 23 Such credible actors were also present at the
reopening of the theatres in 1660: the most famous is perhaps Edward Kynaston, whom Pepys described as "the prettiest woman in the whole house". 24
22 Sir William Davenant, The Law Against Lovers, in The Dramatic Works of Sir William Davenant: with prefatory memoir and notes, 5 voll, Edinburgh, 1872-1874.
23 Italics mine. See Elizabeth Howe, The First English Actresses: Women and Drama 1660-1700, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1992, p. 20.
Therefore, one may ask why, and how, women started to be admitted to the public stage in the 1660s. 25 Obviously there are various factors that
contributed to one of the most significant innovations brought about by the Restoration. The answers we shall analyse below, however, are all linked in some way to that eighteen-year period known as the Interregnum and, at least partly, to Davenant himself (Gabriel Egan even calls it “Davenant's innovation” 26 ).
The absence of (almost)27 any theatrical performance between 1642 and
1660 put an end to the aforementioned tradition of having boys performing female roles. In Elizabethan and Caroline theatres, boys were specifically trained in order to play women: however, during the Puritan Republic of Oliver and Richard Cromwell, as plays could not be staged, this practice was accordingly lost. Furthermore, this had a consequence that might be called meta-literary: Gary Taylor subtly remarks that "Shakespeare's fondness for having boys who play women who disguise themselves as boys lost some of its ironic point once actresses took over the roles
25 Once again, Howe stresses an important fact: here we are referring to the introduction on the stage of professional actresses, as "Englishwomen may occasionally have performed in public entertainments such as mystery plays as early as the fifteenth century". See Howe, op. cit., p.19. The author cross-refers to T. R. Graves, Women on the Pre-Restoration Stage, in Studies in Philology, 22 (1925) 184-187.
26 See the entry for "Davenant" in The Oxford Companion to Shakespeare, eds. Michael Dobson and Stanley Wells, New York, Oxford University Press, 2008.
27 George C. D. Odell, for instance, informs us that "[ . . . ] Davenant, in 1656, by some exercise of influence, and especially by change of name from play, to entertainment and opera, managed for a short time to regularise, more or less, performances on the public stage". See George C. D. Odell, Shakespeare from Betterton to Irving, 2 voll, New York Scribner, p.6; for a more detailed account of (especially of Davenant's) theatrical activities during the said period the reader is referred to Montague Summers, The Playhouse of Pepys, New York, Humanities Press, 1964.
[ . . . ]". 28 Incidentally, it may be said that “some of its ironic point” is
regained in the fact that now the opposite could happen, that is women playing male roles: for instance, in the prologue of the adaptation of The
Tempest (1667), written by Davenant and Dryden, we read that the role of
Hippolito will be performed by an actress: “We [ . . . ] by our dearth of
Youths are forc'd t'employ / One of our Women to present a Boy” (italics
mine). 29
A second factor that contributed to the introduction of actresses on the public stage is closely connected with the forced exile of the son of the beheaded King Charles. The future Charles II and his court spent a long time in France, and especially in Paris, where women could already perform. Given the King's influence on the Restoration theatre, and given the fact that also the two courtiers Killigrew and Davenant were at times present, one is not surprised to find actresses on the public English stage as early as 1660. 30 Evidently, the English monarch and the two future
theatre managers appreciated this innovative feature. In confirmation of this, a noteworthy event must be mentioned: "[w]hen Sir William Davenant eventually returned to London he used a female singer, Mrs Coleman, in a private production of his opera The Siege of Rhodes, some time in the late 1650s [1656]". 31 Bearing this consideration in mind, it is almost surprising
28 Taylor, op.cit., p.19.
29 Deborah Payne Fisk, "The Restoration Actress", in A Companion to Restoration Drama, ed. Susan J. Owen, Malden, Blackwell, 2001, p. 81.
30 Howe, op. cit., p.23. 31 Idem.
that just one female character was added to The Law Against Lovers. Since this play was staged in 1662, one could say that Davenant was still carefully testing his audience, with the aim of seeing how they would have responded to the change. Or it may well have been that in 1662 the availability of actresses was still moderate.
Both Killigrew and Davenant felt the need to modernise the stage by employing women in their companies as soon as theatres reopened (and even before, as in the case of The Siege of Rhodes). This extraordinary innovation was therefore regarded as a sort of prerequisite, necessary if the two playwrights wanted to compete with Continental theatre. 32
What is more, they may have started to detect the unsuitability of boy actors with regard to actresses, whom they had just seen in France: performances were now more realistic. An important document that explains well this change in perspective is the prologue written by Thomas Jordan for Killigrew's revival of Othello (dated December 8, 1660, and generally considered the date of the appearance of the first English actress). First he notes how unnatural it is to have "men act, that are between / Forty and fifty, Wenches of fifteen", and then that "With bone so large, and nerve so incomplyant / When you call Desdemona, enter Giant". 33 Moreover, theatres were also smaller, and from close-up it would
have become obvious to the audience that Desdemona, or any other
32 See Fisk, op. cit., pp. 72-74. 33 Idem, p.74.
female character, was played by a man, and therefore unsuitable to the role.
The last element that we shall mention seems not to have been taken into serious consideration by scholars. Once again, the historical context is fundamental: the monarchy was restored after a long period during which England was a Puritan Republic. Puritans preached against the theatre in general, let alone the common practice of having boys perform female roles. Therefore, Gary Taylor maintains that "[w]omen started to appear on the stage partly to palliate the old Puritan objection to transvestism ("men in the habit of women"). 34
All these elements led to the introduction of women on the English stage, which was made official only in the royal grant of April 25, 1662: Killigrew and Davenant were henceforward to have women playing female characters, so that plays might "be esteemed not only harmless delight[s] but useful and instructive representations of human life [ . . . ]". 35
David Thomas and Arnold Hare claim that it was Davenant who persuaded King Charles II that “all the women's parts to be acted in either of the said two companies for the time to come may be performed by women”. 36 As
they point out, Davenant was more experienced than Killigrew in working with women: first of all he had written parts for women of the royal court
34 Taylor, op.cit., p.18
35 See Restoration Theatre, eds. John Russel Brown and Bernard Harris, London, Arnold, Stratford Upon Avon Studies, 1965. The grant is reported more extensively in Restoration and Georgian England, 1660-1778, ed. David Thomas, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1989, p. 18.
who played in the masques of the 1630s and early 1640s, and secondly, as we have seen, he had worked with Mrs Coleman during the staging of his The Siege of Rhodes, performed in 1656. 37
As far as consequences are concerned, from the point of view of the audience this innovation was probably well received. However, theatre-goers who went to see a performance to pass the time were unlikely to be much interested in the improvement of the acting of female roles. It is instead more plausible to suspect that their appreciation was sexual rather than critical: the audience was especially fond of the so-called “breeches parts” or “breeches roles”, as these were opportunities to admire the legs of the young actresses. 38 Just one (recurrent) comment made by Pepys
about the "talents" of an actress will suffice: "the very best legs that ever I saw; and I was very well plesed with it". 39 Whatever the motives, this
revolution in acting would prove commercially successful.
A more important consequence, though, must be taken into consideration. From the point of view of playwrights the availability of actresses influenced the way they wrote and, in our specific case, adapted older plays. New female characters were now added to the original texts, and pre-existing female roles expanded. This is visible in The Law Against
Lovers, where on the one hand Davenant created the character of Viola,
37 Idem, p.138
38 The Cambridge History of British Theatre, vol 2, 1660 to 1985, ed. Joseph Denohue, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2004, pp.75-76.
and on the other expanded that of Julietta. 40
The character of Viola, younger sister to Beatrice in the play, was performed by the popular young actress Moll (Mary) Davis. 41 As is clear
from reading Davenant's text, Viola does not add anything to the plot. 42
Throughout the play we see her make some Beatrice-like comments, deliver some brief speeches, but her appearance was most of all memorable for her dancing and singing. Davenant may have written the part specifically for Davis, and this choice proved successful, as the above-quoted comment by Pepys demonstrates. Davenant here proves to be a competent playwright and theatre manager, as he was quick to grasp the potential of having women on the stage.
1.2.2 Innovations in the Restoration theatre: music and dance
The innovation of the Viola character has more to do with the staging of the play (and more in general with extra-literary issues) than with the plot of the play itself. It may be said that the role of the young actress Moll Davis (who played Viola) was to whet the audience's appetite. As mentioned above, Viola is remembered especially for her dancing and singing, which contemporary theatre-goers arguably enjoyed. In the case
40 The latter operation was common not only with Davenant, but also with many other playwrights: for instance, in his adaptation of Shakespeare's King Lear, Nahum Tate "enlarged the role of Cordelia for the superb Elizabeth Barry". See Fisk, op. cit., p. 81. 41 Scheil, "Davenant's Use", p.378.
42 On the contrary, in the adaptation of The Tempest, written collaboratively by Davenant and Dryden, the two playwrights added two female characters in order to create symmetrical couples: both Miranda and Ariel, in fact, are given a sister, respectively Dorinda and Sycorax. See Fisk, op. cit., p. 81.
of The Law Against Lovers we find Viola dancing with castanietos (i.e. castanets) in Act III, a song sung by Viola alone in Act IV and a song sung by Lucio, Beatrice, Benedick and Viola (but not by Balthazar) in Act V. In 1662 Davenant had not only already worked with women but he had also used music in some of his works, notably, in the masques written in the 1630s and early 1640s. The last of these was Salmacida Spolia (1640), that was “unusual in being entirely set to music”. 43 Moreover, in
1639 Davenant had been granted a royal patent allowing him to build a new theatre “wherein plays, musical entertainments, scenes or other like presentments may be presented”. 44 The project, however, was never
realised.
In the meantime, he had become a favourite at court. The court masques he wrote were much appreciated, especially by Queen Henrietta Maria. 45
Secondly, he was in high favour with the Queen also because of his conversion to Catholicism. 46 His influence at court enabled him to be
appointed Poet Laureate after the death, in 1637, of the former one, Ben Jonson. 47 It should therefore not surprise us that Davenant managed to
43 The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. Stanley Sadie, 2nd edition, 7
voll, Macmillan Publishers Limited, 2001. Montague Summers, however, claims that also another masque, The Triumphs of the Prince D'Amour was entirely set to music. See Summers, op. cit., p. 15.
44 Idem. Also Summers, op. cit., pp. 24-26.
45 In 1673 Davenant's wife dedicated the Folio to the future King James II, using these words: "your Most Excellent Mother did graciously take him [Davenant] into her family; [ . . . ] she was often diverted by him, and as often smiled upon his endeavours". This dedication is quoted in Summers, op. cit., p.15.
46 Idem, p. 29.
47 The question is very controversial, as it is not clear whether Jonson and Davenant were considered poets laureate as Dryden would have been later. For some interesting observations see Summers, op. cit., p. 23.
stage some plays even when, during the Interregnum, theatres were closed and theatrical activities banned.
To call these performances “plays” may be misleading: we should think of them as semi-operas, in which music becomes a more important element than the plot or the action of the play itself. In May 1656 Davenant produced at Rutland House The First Days Entertainments, “a series of dialogues interspersed with music”. 48 Later that year, in September, he
staged The Siege of Rhodes, “mainly set in recitative, though each of the five 'entries' ends with a chorus”. 49 Finally, he produced two other such
operas: The Cruelty of the Spaniards in Peru, and The History of Sir
Francis Drake, respectively in 1658 and 1659. 50
Despite the success obtained with these “musical experiments”, after the Restoration Davenant decided not to continue his activities in this vein: this is probably due to the fact that with the Restoration of the Stuart monarchy, the ban on public performances was lifted. Instead he turned his efforts to spoken drama, as he had done before 1642. 51 This is
confirmed by the fact that, at the opening of the theatres, he soon re-staged The Siege of Rhodes in an expanded version, but this time as a spoken play. However, Davenant “had a profound influence on the subsequent development of English opera through his encouragement to
48 Sadie, op. cit.
49 Idem. Odell and Summers define it "the first English opera"; see Odell, op. cit., p. 96, and Summers, op. cit., p. 38.
50 Odell, op. cit., p. 101.
51 For a detailed analysis of his works during the Caroline theatre the reader is referred to Summers, op. cit., pp. 1-28.
the use of incidental music in the plays produced at the Duke's Theatre [ . . . ]”. 52 It is now appropriate to explain what “incidental music” means in
the case of The Law Against Lovers.
In producing this adaptation, Davenant chose to write two new songs, despite the availability of three songs in Much Ado About Nothing: “Sigh no more, ladies” (II.iii), sung by Balthasar, “The God of love” (V.ii), sung by Benedick, and “Pardon, goddess of the night” (V.iii), again by Balthasar. 53
In The Law Against Lovers these songs are absent, partly because Davenant took only the Beatrice and Benedick episode from Much Ado, and partly because they would not have fitted in the plot. Therefore, as far as music is concerned, Davenant did not want to alter Shakespeare, but rather to change him completely.
Knowing that Balthasar is presented by Shakespeare as “a singer”, one would consequently expect to find Davenant's Balthazar singing as well. However, paradoxically enough, the modern reader's expectations are disappointed, as his singing is taken over by Viola. Moreover, in Act V, when as many as four characters are singing, Balthazar is absent from the stage, and he enters only when the song ends. Thus, it would seem that Davenant took this character not with a functional intent, but rather with a deliberately symbolic one.
The two new songs are connected with the plot of The Law Against
52 Sadie, op. cit.
Lovers. The first song is “Wake all the dead!”, sung by Viola in Act III in the
presence of Beatrice, her older sister. These verses are presented as Lucio's, but then they are revealed to be Benedick's: this is part of the plan to make Beatrice and Benedick fall in love with each other. 54 However,
strangely, the verses do not praise Beatrice, but they end up being an excuse for commenting on the “law against lovers” 55 ; the first line of the
second stanza shows well the real function of this song: “The State is now love's foe, love's foe” (Act III, pp. 152-153). 56
The second song is “Our ruler has got the vertigo of State” (Act V): it consists of four stanzas, sung respectively by Lucio, Benedick, Beatrice and Viola, and a chorus (Act V, pp.191-192). In this song, too, the characters want to express their views on Angelo's misgovernment, although Eschalus had previously warned them that Angelo would not like it.
Finally, Viola's dance with castanietos deserves at least to be mentioned, if for no other reason than its importance as a popular and successful stage device. This too is connected with the plot, although Hazelton Spencer maintains that Davenant invented “a lame excuse” for having Viola dance.57 In Act IV, after the plot to free Claudio and Julietta has been 54 Thus the "eavesdropping episodes" from Much Ado are excised and substituted. 55 Barbara A. Murray, op. cit., p. 41.
56 Sir William Davenant, The Law Against Lovers, in The Dramatic Works of Sir William Davenant: with prefatory memoir and notes, 5 voll, Edinburgh, 1872-1874; vol. 5. As no division into scenes is present, in all subsequent quotations the page number will be given.
57 Hazelton Spencer, Shakespeare Improved: The Restoration Versions in Quarto and on the Stage, Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1927, p. 141.
settled (in Davenant's version they have both been imprisoned), Beatrice, Benedick and Balthazar decide to
… cast off the serious faces of
Conspirators, and appear to the deputy As merry, and as gay, as nature in
The spring. This house shall be all carnival, All masquerade. (Act IV, p. 168)
Immediately after, the stage direction reads: “Enter VIOLA dancing a saraband, awhile with castanietos”, and they all dance.
Once again Davenant demonstrates his sensibility to contemporary tastes: the Restoration audience enjoyed both musical pieces and dances, especially if performed by a young actress like Moll Davis. This is confirmed not only by judgements of theatre-goers like Pepys (whose appreciation of “the little girl's dancing and singing” is quoted above), but also by playwrights. For example, Edward Howard, in the preface to his
Six Days' Adventures, or the New Utopia (1671), wrote: “Scenes, Habits,
Dancing, or perhaps an actress, take more with Spectators, than the best Dramatick wit”. 58
Scheil claims that the two songs featured in The Law Against Lovers met with some success. “Wake all the dead” is partially quoted by Edward Ravenscroft in his The Careless Lovers (1673). 59 As for “Our ruler has got
the vertigo of state”, it was reprinted four times by The New Academy of
Complements, Erected for Ladies, Gentlewomen, Courtiers, Gentlemen, Scholars, Souldiers, Citizens, Country-men, and all persons in 1669, 1671,
58 The preface is quoted in Scheil, The Taste of the Town, p. 36 59 Scheil, "Davenant's Use", p. 378.
1681 and 1684. 60 Moreover, Moll Davis's popularity is confirmed by the
fact that her song “My lodging it is on the Cold Ground” (in Davenant's The
Rivals) “was so well-known that it was parodied by her rival Nell Gwyn in
James Howard's 'All Mistaken' [1665]”. 61 Thus, the success of a play like
The Law Against Lovers seems to have depended on the playwright's
choice of popular and attractive actresses and on what Pepys called “divertissement”, for which he probably meant dancing and singing. To this effect, it is worth quoting Pepys's telling comment on his seeing Davenant's adaptation of Macbeth which he saw on January 7, 1667: “To the Duke's house, and saw 'Macbeth,' which, though I saw it lately, yet appears a most excellent play in all respects, but especially in
divertissement, though it be a deep tragedy [ . . . ]". 62
1.2.3 Innovations in the Restoration theatre: new stage conditions When The Law Against Lovers was staged by the Duke's Company in 1662, the audience was probably not yet used to other important innovations, like the introduction of movable scenery and the use of machinery. Thus, there were not just changes on the stage, but the stage itself underwent a sort of revolution: new and old plays had to be adapted accordingly. Also in this case Davenant played a fundamental role, and
60 Idem. 61 Idem.
62 The Diary of Samuel Pepys, ed. John Warrington, 3 voll, Everyman's Library, 1963. Italics mine.
therefore it is necessary to review his productions.
When, in September 1656, Davenant produced The Siege of Rhodes, French and above all Italian opera would appear to have been his main influences. In his diary John Evelyn describes his visit to Venice in 1645: he went to the opera, where he observed that plays were presented "in recitative musiq [ . . . ], with variety of sceanes painted and contrived with no lesse art of perspective, and machines for flying in the aire, and other wonderful motions; taken together, it is one of the most magnificent and expensive diversions the wit of man can invent". 63 The influence that all
this had on Davenant is manifest when we read the subtitle to The Siege
of Rhodes: "A Representation by the Art of Prospective in Scenes and the
Story sung in Recitative Musick". 64
The Siege of Rhodes was presented to an audience of probably four
hundred people, in a room at the back of Rutland House, in Aldersgate Street. 65 The room was not large enough, and consequently Davenant
could not possibly think of reproducing "Opera as it was known in Italy or even in France". 66 As a matter of fact, due to lack of room and funds, it
would have been impossible to make any use of those "machines for flying in the aire" Evelyn writes about. 67
Nonetheless, Davenant was able to stage the "first English opera" (as
63 This extract of Evelyn's diary is quoted in Summers, op. cit., p. 38. 64 Idem.
65 Odell, op. cit., p. 96. 66 Summers, op. cit. 39. 67 Idem.
Odell and Summers, among others, define it) with painted scenery. It should be remembered that Davenant wrote five masques for the court of Charles I, the last of which was Salmacida Spolia (1640). In that occasion the scenes were painted by Inigo Jones's pupil: John Webb. 68 The latter
was the scene-painter also for The Siege of Rhodes: thus, the same playwright and the same scene-painter who had staged the last court masque before the Civil War and had therefore used painted scenes in a private theatre found themselves together to present the first play with scenery in a public theatre. 69 Still, in the preface, Davenant felt the need
to apologise for the scenes, because they were "confine'd to eleven foot in height, and about fifteen in depth, including the places of passage reserv'd for the musick. This is so narrow an allowance for the fleet of Solyman the Magnificent, his Army, the Island of Rhodes, and the varieties attending the Siege of the City, that I fear you will think we invited you to such a contracted Trifle as that of the Cæsars carved upon a Nut". 70
So, for the first time in the history of English public theatre, the audience could at least get an idea of where the action was taking place. This was achieved through the use of movable scenery, which in this occasion,
68 Odell, op. cit., p. 97. Copies of Webb's painted scenes could be found in Thomas, op. cit., pp. 86-91.
69 Idem, pp. 96-97. Once again, it is worth to stress the adjective "public": as Allardyce Nicoll points out, during the last part of the reign of Charles I (1625-1649), there are some references to the use of scenes, but only in private performances. For instance, "masques, of course, had always had gorgeous scenery [ . . . ], but after all the masque was purely a private affair". See Allardyce Nicoll, "Restoration Drama, 1660-1700" in A History of English Drama, 1660-1900, 4th ed., 6 voll, Cambridge, Cambridge
University Press, 1965, p. 29. 70 Odell, op. cit., pp. 96-97.
unlike what would happen in later productions, were merely "picture[s] hung up behind the actors", and not "an environment in which they [the actors] moved". 71 Moreover, the images painted by Webb were highly
conventional, and they could easily turn out not to correspond to the scene being enacted on stage. 72 Some years later Dryden will admit that "we
sufficiently understand that the scenes, which represent cities and countries to us, are not really such, but only painted on boards and canvas". Nevertheless, "ought they not to be laboured with so much the more diligence and exactness, to help the Imagination? Since the Mind of Man doth naturally bend to, and seek after Truth; and therefore the nearer anything comes to the Imitation of it, the more it pleases". 73
In the last act we find the assault of Solyman's army: due to space limitations and lack of resources, Davenant and his collaborator were obliged to draw the soldiers on one of the canvas, thus creating a bizarre effect, probably not just for a modern theatre-goer. No matter how "ludicrous" it may seem, "the device long persisted". 74
Finally, despite all the limitations and all the difficulties that Davenant had to overcome, the staging of The Siege of Rhodes proved to be highly influential on later productions during the Restoration theatre. For
71 Idem, p. 101.
72 For instance "the painting of Rhodes 'in prosperous estate' continued in view while Ianthe and her two women discoursed in far-off Sicily". Odell, op. cit., 100.
73 See Dryden's Essay of Dramatick Poesy, collected in J. Churton Collins, Critical Essays and Literary Fragments, Westminster, Archibald Constable and Co., 1903, p. 96.
instance, such terms like "side-wings", "shutters" and "grooves", scenes changed in full view of the audience, and music played between "acts", were all to become commonplace in most of the plays already as early as in the 1660s. 75 From a more general point of view, the importance and
influence of Davenant's opera stand high not only among his works, but also in the history of English drama: his sensibility to public taste and the influence of Italian opera led him to introduce "three innovations to the English public stage: an opera, painted stage sets, and a female actress-singer [the already mentioned Mrs. Coleman]. 76
After 1660, Davenant started to produce spoken plays using movable scenery, which "consisted of painted flats on wings and back shutters". 77
These wings, organised in pairs, were sometimes fixed (as they were, for example, in The Siege of Rhodes), but at times they could slide in grooves, revealing a new scene behind. 78 We have already seen, at least
partially, these elements in the representation of The Siege of Rhodes but, while the latter was staged with all the difficulties deriving from a ban of the government on theatrical activities and was attended by a selected audience, now the theatre was strongly supported by the monarchy and plays were attended by the general public.
Despite all the efforts (especially by Davenant), the scenery of early
75 Odell, op. cit., p. 100.
76 "Sir William Davenant", in Encyclopædia Britannica Online, 2011. Web. 03 Apr. 2011. <http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/152470/Sir-William-Davenant>
77 Mongi Raddadi, Davenant's Adaptations of Shakespeare, Stockholm, Almqvist &
Wiksell, 1979, p. 25.
Restoration theatre was not as rich as it was on the Continent (Italy and France), nor as it was in the royal masques of the 1630's. Evelyn, after seeing either The Cruelty of the Spaniards in Peru or The History of Sir
Francis Drake, thus commented on May 5, 1659: "a new Opera, after the
Italian way, in recitative music and sceanes, much inferior to the Italian
composure and magnificence". 79 Although the diarist is referring to what
Professor Odell terms "Davenant's operas", the judgement could probably be applied to most early Restoration plays.
Another feature of the stage at the reopening of the theatres, and another clear instance of the influence of Continental theatre and of the royal masque, is the use of the "machines for flying in the aire", as Evelyn terms them. 80 The new technology was employed especially for the appearance,
or disappearance, of supernatural characters. 81 The Law Against Lovers
does not prove a good example, but other Shakespearean adaptations of Davenant's do, like Macbeth (in which the witches are seen entering the stage "flying"),82 The Tempest, and a "lavishly decorated" Henry VIII, in
which Davenant "showed off his theatre's capacity for grand scenic effects". 83
As far as the staging of The Law Against Lovers is concerned, only few
79 Odell, op. cit., p. 101. Italics mine. 80 See above, note 42.
81 Raddadi, op. cit., p. 25. 82 Raddadi, op. cit., p. 29.
83 Michael Dobson, "Adaptations and revivals", in The Cambridge Companion to English Restoration Theatre, ed. Deborah Payne Fisk, Cambridge University Press, 2000, p. 44.
details are worth mentioning. First of all, the Provost offers a parley from the "battlements" (Act V, p. 196): in this case Davenant probably made use of the proscenium balcony. Then, "hangings" are required when Beatrice, Viola and Juliet hide themselves to spy on Benedick (Act I, p. 121). Unfortunately, stage directions here are scant, and the prologue and the epilogue, which could give us some information about the staging, are both missing, leaving us in doubt as to the richness of the scenery.
Barbara A. Murray notes that Davenant's change of location from Vienna to Turin could be explained from a merely technical point of view: one of Davenant's Caroline plays, Love and Honour (1634), revived in October 1661 with scenes, was set in Savoy. Some months later, in February 1662, Davenant set The Law Against Lovers in Turin, the capital of Savoy: thus "Davenant could reuse familiar scenery without overtaxing his audience's imagination".84 Such a strategy was arguably common to the Duke's
Company. For instance, in this tragicomedy a terraced garden (where the characters sing and dance) was needed, but a garden had probably been used in October, 1661, for the staging of The Adventures of the Five
Hours. Similarly, the prison that was probably used in September in Twelfth Night could have been reutilised again for the prison scenes in The Law Against Lovers. 85
Two consequences of the introduction of movable scenery should be kept
84 Murray, op. cit., p. 40. 85 Idem.
in mind. The first concerns the history of Shakespearean performance: from Davenant onwards innovations in the staging and production of new plays would be applied to older ones, and therefore also to Shakespeare's: it could be said that, as Taylor puts it, Davenant "initiated the tradition of theatrical anachronism". 86 The second consequence is connected to
Shakespearean criticism: changeable scenery highlighted how many times Shakespeare changed scene, therefore his disregard for the unity of place, which soon became one of the main defects ascribed to Shakespeare by Davenant's fellow playwrights and by contemporary critics. 87
In conclusion, through the introduction of actresses, the ever growing importance of dancing and singing, and the use of movable scenery, the reception of Shakespeare's plays inevitably changed. Although modern scholars agree that Davenant's adaptations are inferior in many aspects to the original texts, in the second half of the 17th century some of them
proved successful. Notwithstanding one's personal opinion, they represent an important step in the stage history of Shakespeare's works.
86 Taylor, op. cit., pp. 15-16. 87 Taylor, op. cit., p. 16.
1.3.1 Theatre and politics: the influence of King Charles II
Several scholars have pointed out the connection between early Restoration theatre and the political situation of the time. The end of the Puritan Republic and the return of the monarchy were both bound to become a concern for dramatists: thus plays dealing with usurpation and restoration started to emerge, and apparently Roger Boyle, Earl of Orrery was the initiator of this genre. 88 However, only few scholars have paid
attention to the parallelism that could be established in The Law Against
Lovers between Angelo and Oliver Cromwell and between the Duke and
Charles II. 89 But first of all there are extra-literary factors that need to be
taken into consideration.
Charles II had a rather direct control over theatrical activity during the Restoration. The new king landed at Dover on May 25, 1660, and only three months later, on August 21, he allowed Killigrew and Davenant to form two companies of actors. 90 Some observations may clarify the
relationship between monarchy and drama at the reopening of the theatres, a link so strong that scholars have been led to describe early Restoration theatre as a "Royalist institution". 91
First of all, the short lapse of time between the landing at Dover and the
88 Jessica Munns, "Images of Monarchy on the Restoration Stage", in A Companion to Restoration Drama, ed. Susan J. Owen, Malden, Blackwell, 2001, p. 111.
89 Only Michael Dobson has seriously considered Davenant's adaptation from this perspective.
90 Taylor, op. cit., p. 9. The royal warrant alluded to has been partially reported and analysed above.
issue of the warrants should make evident not only the interest, but also the active involvement of Charles II in the theatre. It may well be argued that also previous monarchs were involved in the drama of the time: the Queen's Company worked under the patronage of Elizabeth I, and the company of actors and actresses headed from 1660 onwards by Killigrew was the direct continuation of the King's Men whose patron was James I. Nonetheless, as we shall now see, the influence of Charles II was much greater than that of any of his predecessors.
Charles's interest in the theatre dates back to the years of his exile, therefore well before 1660. As a matter of fact, he spent a considerable period of time in France, where he attended various performances, during which he started to taste some of the later innovations discussed above: he saw French and Italian opera (later developed by Davenant in 1656 with The Siege of Rhodes), in which actresses could already act and where some "machines" were used. Thus, the new characteristics of the stage were readily welcomed by the king, since, unlike the majority of theatre-goers in the early 1660s, he was already familiar with them. 92
Moreover, we should not forget that Killigrew and Davenant were two courtiers, and as such they were very close to the king. 93 The royal
92 However, we should be careful not to overestimate the influence of Charles II on the introduction of actresses on the stage. While a number of theatre historians have attributed "the advent of actresses after 1660 either to Charles II's predilection for pretty women or to his years of exile abroad [ . . . ]", there is strong evidence suggesting that "the request for actresses originated within the theatre companies, not the government". See Fisk, op. cit., pp. 72-73.
93 While the former could boast early connections with the court, the latter was of much humbler origin. See Taylor, op. cit., p. 13.
warrant issued by Charles on August 21 allowed the creation of "only two patent companies of actors under Royal patronage" and also determined that "all other companies were to be banned". 94 Other groups of actors,
that had been active in London during the 1630s, hoped to re-obtain the rights to perform on the public stage, but their expectations were disappointed by the establishment of this duopoly over all theatrical activity. 95
King Charles II was different from his predecessors also because he attended public theatres. Elizabeth I, James I and his father surely enjoyed watching plays, but they would never demean themselves by going to a public theatre: indeed performances took place either at court, at Whitehall, or in indoor playhouses (the so-called private theatres). The strong bond between the court and the theatre is thus also strengthened by Charles's theatre-going, witnessed more than once by Pepys. 96 In
Taylor's words, it may be said that "before 1642 plays went to the monarch; after 1660 the monarch went to plays". 97
The new king did not confine himself to attending performances in public theatres: indeed he also took active part in the production of plays. For
94 Thomas, op. cit., p. 7. 95 Idem.
96 For example, on February 6, 1667, he went to the Duke's Theatre, and "the King was there"; on December 21, 1668, he wrote: "Thence to the Duke's playhouse, and saw [probably Davenant's] 'Macbeth'. The King and the Court there [ . . . ]". Other examples and all of Pepys's comments on Restoration theatre have been usefully collected in one volume: see Helen McAfee, Pepys on the Restoration Stage, New York, Yale Univeristy Press, 1916. The reported examples are on pp. 279-280.
instance, on some occasions he lent his ceremonial robes to actors that had to play the role of a king. Downes notes that Love and Honour, a play by Davenant, was “Richly Cloath'd; The King giving Mr. Betterton his Coronation Suit [ . . . ]. 98 Moreover, he was close to some of the
playwrights of the time, and so it happened at least twice that he offered them some advice. Hughes reports two examples: the first is Crowne's Sir
Courtly Nice: it “adapts Moreto's No puede ser, which had been proposed
to Crowne as a model by Charles II”; 99 the second is Tuke's The
Adventure of Five Hours, whose preface to the third edition reads: “[the
plot was] recommended to me by his Sacred Majesty, as an Excellent Design; whose Judgement is no more to be doubted, than his commands are to be Disobey'd”. 100
Finally, Charles II and the court influenced “the kinds of masculinity displayed on stage”. 101 The king was notorious for his love affairs with
actresses (notably with the popular Nell Gwyn and with Moll Davis, the actress who played Viola in The Law Against Lovers), the court imitated him, and male rakishness became a recurrent topic in later Restoration plays. The king was at times flattered because royalist characters were represented as sexually desirable. At the same time the introduction of
98 John Downes, Roscius Anglicanus, ed. Montague Summers, London, Fortune Press, 1929, p. 21.
99 Derek Hughes, English Drama, 1660-1700, New York, Oxford University Press, 2002, p. 320.
100 Summers, op. cit., p. 213.
101 Laura J. Rosenthal, "Masculinity in Restoration Drama", in A Companion to Restoration Drama, ed. Susan J. Owen, Malden, Blackwell, 2001, p. 96.
these characters served as a kind of criticism to the strict sexual morality of the Puritans. 102
As we have seen, dramatists presented the libertine in a favourable light to the audience. Besides being “sexually desirable”, he was the man rebelling against the institution of marriage, who lived his life to the full by indulging in the enjoyment of the senses: in this respect he was seen as an image of freedom. Such desire to be free, especially from the restraints imposed upon everyone by the society, emerged as a consequence and reaction to the strict Puritan morality of the government. Nevertheless, with the Restoration, not everybody was happy with what happened at court: indeed strong criticism soon arose, regarding both the morally degraded life led by the king himself, and the fact that this behaviour could cause a distraction from his political responsibilities.
However, while it is true that the king was depicted or alluded to in several plays as a libertine, at the same time it was implied that he had always everything under control. 103 In other words, his notorious relationships with
actresses such as Nell Gwyn and Moll Davis were not an obstacle to his commitment to his duties as a monarch. At this point, we could draw a parallel between Charles II and one of the characters of The Law Against
Lovers, Benedick. He is indeed the libertine figure of Davenant's
102 Idem.
103 See Richard Braverman, "The Rake's Progress Revisited", in Cultural Readings of Restoration and 18th Century Theatre, eds. J. Douglas Canfield and Deborah C.
adaptation, but he is also the one who heads the revolt against Angelo, and who has the control over the situation. 104
Analysing The Law Against Lovers from a more specifically political point of view, it should become clearer how the Restoration of Charles II may have been depicted in specific plays.
1.3.2 Theatre and politics: the Restoration in the theatre
William Davenant wrote the prologue for the first play that was performed on the Restoration stage (a revival of Ben Jonson's Epicœne; or, The
Silent Woman)105 , which reads:
Greatest of Monarchs, welcome to this place Which Majesty so oft was wont to grace Before our Exile, to divert the Court,
And balance weighty Cares with harmless sport. This truth we can to our advantage say,
They that would have no KING, would have no Play: The Laurel and the Crown together went,
Had the same Foes, and the same Banishment. 106
From these verses, it seems as if Davenant had wanted to establish a sort of continuity between pre-Restoration theatre (that is, “Before our Exile”) and the cultural situation of 1660, to the extent that he “found himself, immediately after the Interregnum, [ . . . ] to convince both Charles II and
104 For a more detailed analysis see Braverman, op. cit., pp. 141-168.
105 The play was to be performed by the King's Company, headed by Killigrew: the fact that Davenant, and not Killigrew, wrote the prologue highlights the importance of this playwright not only in the theatrical circles, but also at court. It may also be a sign of Davenant's superiority in comparison with Killigrew. For additional information about this performance see Leslie Hotson, The Commonwealth and Restoration Stage, Cambridge, Harvard Univeristy Press, 1928, pp. 208-209.
106 Michael Dobson, The Making of the National Poet: Shakespeare, Adaptation and Authorship, 1660-1769, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1994, pp. 19-20.
his theatre-going subjects that the English Revolution had [ . . . ] not taken place”. 107
To turn now to the focus of the discussion, it has been mentioned above that there are, among others, political reasons for the conflation of
Measure for Measure and Much Ado in Davenant's The Law Against Lovers. Davenant had close connections with the court (he was Poet
Laureate under two kings, Charles I and his son), and had consequently experienced trouble during the Interregnum: being a royalist, and being involved in contemporary history, it is easily understandable why he chose a play like Measure for Measure as his main source. Davenant's play is “about a challenge to authority”108, whose ending describes the
“Restoration” of the Duke, and the end of the government of the “puritan” Angelo.
Thus, The Law Against Lovers, like other Shakespearean adaptations, raises the question of the “proper comportment of authority and the respective duties of ruler and ruled [ . . . ]”. Moreover, from this point of view, Davenant probably wants to convey the idea that patriarchal authority is best. 109 However, unlike later adapters, he does not express
his Royalist ideas overtly. 110
As in Measure for Measure, the Duke decides to leave the country (here
107 Dobson, National Poet, p. 20. 108 Murray, op. cit., p. 38.
109 Murray, op. cit., pp. 37-8. 110 Idem.
