THE RESTORATION COMEDY OF MANNERS – AT A GLANCE

To a student of English literature, the chief interest for Restoration theatre lies in the ‘Comedy of Manners’. The title, ‘Comedy of Manners’- of course, is derived from manners, rather social manners representing the social follies and foibles of the age through comedy.

The Act of the Parliament which closed down theatres in 1642 on the grounds of moral corruption that the playhouse was breeding, in a way, hastened the inevitable. The Caroline drama had neither the grace of the Elizabethans nor did it echo the spirit of the age in the way Elizabethan drama did. Considered to be a mode of entertainment for the idle few, it came to be shunned by the people of good taste. But with the restoration of monarchy in 1660, Charles II travelled from France to England with his band of gallant court-wits and the theatre was re-opened with renewed vigour.

The sudden release from repression took yet another extreme form – the society and the court became full of vices, the theatre became the favourite hunting ground for all the gentlemen and ladies of the sophisticated society. It evidently gained the favour of the court but lost touch with the common people. In this artificial world of drama, flourished the ‘Comedy of Manners’. It grew out of a native tradition nurtured by Fletcher and Jonsonian ‘Humour Comedy’, tempered by the reminisces of Moliere.

The Restoration Comedy of Manners depict a highly sophisticated society where there is a prosperous leisured class whose preoccupation is not with the serious business of life, but with the superficialities, mainly the flirtation which relieves the boredom of idleness and the dialogues which build up the barren waste of time. “Beyond Hyde Park, all is a desert”, says Sir Fopling Flutter, one of the typical representatives of the society. The men and women of these plays move and talk not as they do in real life, but as they ought to do in the social order, to which they belong. In other words, that order being artificial, its representation must be equally so. According to Allardyce Nicoll, ‘Comedy of Manners’ thrives on some stock ingredients: presence of at least one pair of witty lovers, the woman as emancipated as the man, with dialogues being free and graceful. Love in these plays is a game played between two willing partners of the opposite sex without any kind of relation to emotion or feeling. The early impetus must have come from ‘The Wild Gallant’ (1663) and ‘The Secret Love’ (1667), the two plays of John Dryden.

But the first real exponent of Restoration Comedy of Manners was George Etherege. Known for his three comedies: ‘The Comical Revenge’, ‘She Would if She Could’, ‘The Man of Mode’, George Etherege was the first English dramatist to transpose Moliere’s wit, skill and delicacy to the English stage. ‘The Comical Revenge’ (1664) was a tentative effort, but ‘She Would if She Could’ (1668) evoked for the first time in shape and form, the restoration society of fine gentlemen and witty ladies through dialogues reflecting the very tones of civil conversation. ‘The Man of Mode’ (1676), on the other hand, has the breezy brilliance of epigrammatic wit in a cultured and thoughtless atmosphere. The plot is that of a love-intrigue, moving in a world where hearts are non-existent and polite manners accompanied with graceful expressions can cover up a multitude of sins.

William Wycherley, a Puritan at heart presented an already familiar world of fools and gallants involved in an eternal love-chase in his three comedies, 'Love in a Wood', 'The Gentleman Dancing Master' and 'The Country Wife', His play 'The Plain Dealer', first performed in 1676 is a sharp critique of the age apart from being brilliantly farcical. Though the play owes much to Moliere's 'Le Misanthrope'(1666), Wycherley's individual spirit still stands out. The protagonist of the play is not a libertine, but a gentleman whose very name Manly suggests his opposition to the elegant Dorimants (derived from Mr. Dorimant of Etherege's 'Man of Mode') of the time. As a dramatist, Wycherley does not stand very high in the Restoration period, but his criticism has the power of Jeremy Collier - it moves.

Comedy, in its truest interpretation, as George Meredith saw it, should hold up a mirror to its age and depict the eccentricities, the deviations from some agreed norms. But in the Restoration comedy, errors are not of a moral code, but of deviations from wit and good manners. William Congreve explored this aspect of comedy to its full potential with a brutal frankness. He would people his stage with two types of characters, the ‘wits’ and the ‘gulls’. The conclusion arrived at, is not a trial of good over evil, but of the quick-witted over the stupid. His most celebrated play, ‘The Way of the World’ does not have much of a plot, its charm lies in its chiselled dialogues. “There is not so impudent a thing in nature as the saucy look of an assured man, confident of success. The pedantic arrogance of a very husband has not so pragmatic an air. Ah! I’ll never marry unless I am  first made sure of my will and pleasure”, says the heroine Millamant to her exasperated suitor Mirabel. Paradoxically, ‘The Way of the World’ was not a success when it was produced in 1700 forcing Congreve to go into a self-imposed exile.

The Comedy of Manners, however, did not completely disappear after Congreve. In the early years of the new century, it was humanised by competent practitioners like George Farquhar and John Vanbrugh. Two memorable plays by Farquhar are ‘The Recruiting Officer’(1706) and ‘The Beaux’ Stratagem’(1707). The first is a satire, a product of his own experience in the service during the war of Spanish succession, while the second one mixes sentiment with scintillating restoration wit and is compact in thought and dialogue. John Vanbrugh’s two notable comedies are ‘The Relapse’(1696) and ‘The Provoked Wife’(1697). An architect by profession, Vanbrugh is admired for attributing lively dialogues to his characters. 

Other important names associated with ‘Comedy of Manners’ are that of  Thomas Otway ('The Cheats of Scapin') and Mrs. Aphra Behn ('The Rover', 'Sir Patient Fancy', 'The Lucky Chance').

The Restoration Comedy of Manners flourished in an age ideally suited for it and its in-built capacity to entertain the audience in any urban civilised society has been witnessed in the stage-success of Richard Sheridan ('School for Scandal') and Oscar Wilde's works.