ABSTRACT
The most obvious change saw the appearance of women in every department of the theatre, from taking money at the door, to sharing in theatrical enterprises, as Marie Bryant did when she bought a one-twelfth share in the Fortune Theatre in 1623. After the disruptions of the Civil War and the Commonwealth, the Cavalier theatre returned, rejuvenated and refreshed. A visit to one of the indoor ‘private’ theatres in the 1630s was a social event: thus, in Sir William Davenant’s The Wits, fashionable young Pallatine suggests to his companions that they should ‘meet at the play fair and perfumed’ before an evening’s excitement. Richard Brome’s work exemplifies how the mid-century theatre struggled to articulate an alternative politics. Politics and religion are not a productive mix because where successful politics requires flexibility and imagination, those with a strong faith inevitably dismiss compromise: they seek power for their own religious principles to the disadvantage of those of another religion.
