I was hoping this was going to be addressed in class but the opportunity did not come up. So, I know it might help me and possibly some other students to know we should read the play. Reading the short introduction does not help that much and so I pose the question for example: ‘How would have the audience reacted to “The Country Wife”‘? This play is a comedy and more direct than “Marriage A La Mode with references to affairs and honourable behaviour but would have the content been shocking at all? It is a relief that such issues are being addressed publicly or would the production of the play be outrageous?
If I can understand how the audience reacted in the Eightenth Centrury I might be able to get more out of the plays.
am, [if you are wondering Willliams name is now Jeta]
All the plays we are reading were successful to one extent or another; some were wildly popular, some more modestly so. There was indeed a backlash against the perceived immorality of the Restoration theatre, however, which accounts in part for the fact that later plays were not nearly so cheerfully libertine.