Part 1: 1 page response
For this assignment, watch the supplemental videos and concentrate on the primary readings that describe the theatre-going experience in this era. Then, write about a 1 page reaction to what you are seeing/reading. How does this theatre reflect the times? Throughout the whole semester we have examined the ways in which theatre is mostly a reflection of the current culture. How do you see it operating here?
Video:
Restoration Audiences: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YIJXaBflc30
This video is a staging of The Country Wife, but it tries to contextualize what a Restoration play would have looked like back in the day. So I would recommend the first few minutes when the focus is on the audience.
Part 2: 2-3 page response
1. For your first part: identify at least three ways that this play is an example of Restoration comedy. Go back to the lecture and find the characteristics that I assigned for it, and give me solid and specific examples. (Make this about 2/3 of a page.)
2. Second, what do you think Behn is doing with the presentation/treatment of women in this play. Some moments, women have agency and doing things for themselves and at others they are being bartered like cattle. I think it is important that the playwright of this play is a woman. Do you see any subversive agenda or theme she is highlighting. (Make this about a page.)
3. Last, go to Act II, Scene II: the first scene between Angellica and Willmore. The scene is inherently about a woman selling herself for sex. Willmore doesn’t want to pay and doesn’t think that she should. But, in my mind, this scene is about theatre. If I were to say that Willmore is critiquing theatre (possibly Behn’s critique of Restoration theatre), find a passage in II.II of Willmore’s that support the above statement. If this is, indeed, about theatre, what could Behn be saying?
