Aphra Behn stages the social scene in the Restoration theatre.

9781604975499

Aphra Behn stages the social scene in the Restoration theatre.

Lewcock, Dawn.

Cambria Press

2008

245 pages

$104.95

Hardcover

PR3317

Since the fairly recent re-discovery of Behn, scholars have closely examined her as a feminist archetype, rebel and radical author. Few, however, have placed her so well in her own true contexts as Lewcock (history of theater and drama emeriti, Cambridge U. Institute of Continuing Education) does here. She considers Behn's plays as theatrical artifacts and examines their presentation in light of the most recent knowledge of seventeenth-century productions on the scenic stage. Lewcock finds innovative ways to analyze the dramas, including employing the witness of Pepys, Jeffrey Boys and the King, as well as that of Behn herself. She closely describes the marketing of Behn's plays according to the sensibilities of the time, the role of satirical criticism in the theater world, the workings of sex without sex, movement patterns and costume, and the role of the audience member as confidant, voyeur, participant, and spectator.

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