Introduction: Performance and the Paper Stage, 1640–1700

Abstract

• The second half of the seventeenth century was marked by attempts to limit access to the London theaters and by important developments in the trade in playbooks.1 The public theaters were closed when civil war broke out in 1642, and they remained closed for eighteen years. The punishments for performing plays during the ban were severe; as ordinances for theater closure state, punitive measures included the confiscation of profits and costumes, public whipping, arrests, and fines for audience members.2 The theaters were reopened shortly after the monarchy was restored in 1660, but only two playhouses were licensed for performance in London for most of the period 1660–1700, with their managers—William Davenant (Duke’s Company) and Thomas Killigrew (King’s Company)—to “suffer no rival companies.”3 This was further reduced to just one theater from 1682 to 1695, and admission prices radically increased in comparison to the Elizabethan and Jacobean outdoor playhouses.4 Thus, although Restoration is used frequently to describe the supposedly simultaneous return of the monarchy and the theaters, for