ABSTRACT
More likely to have been performed were the ‘drolls’, short farcical dramas deriving from folk plays and jigs suitable for fairgrounds, market squares and inns, as well as grander venues, such as the Red Bull Theatre. More sophisticated were the ‘closet dramas’, full-length plays which probably never saw the light of public performance because of the interdict on the theatres. The ending is therefore ironically unrealistic: the marriages of the leading characters are blessed by an angel who descends from the heavens, employing sophisticated stage scenery of the type seen in the court theatres. The real driving force behind attempts to restart practical professional theatre was William Davenant, erstwhile favourite of the queen who had been imprisoned in the Tower as 1650. The effects were significant, however, as marking the transfer of the scenic apparatus of the Caroline court theatre to the nearly public stage.
