What Restoration Playhouses Looked Like

The two components of theatre are the written and the performed but many times only the written aspect of theatre is studied.  Since plays are written for the stage, without a clear idea of what a Restoration stage looked like it is difficult to imagine the playwright’s intentions for the play.  

After Cromwell’s ban of the theatre in 1642, the theatre buildings sat and practically decayed for two decades before Charles II took the throne and allowed them to reopen.  The old theatre buildings were generally in bad condition and could not be used.  In conjunction with the disrepair, the Jacobean style of the buildings was not favorable for the new sets and lighting styles and new buildings were needed. 

            The seating in Restoration theatres could be arranged in a rectangular pattern within a narrow playhouse or in a semicircle configuration with rows radiating up the length of the auditorium from the stage to the back of the room.  The pit was reserved for the low class and the view of the entire stage was poor and at times slightly obstructed by elements of the play.  Because of the poor view, pit seats were the cheapest in the theatre.  Behind the pit was the gallery, where the middle class sat, which extended from the pit to the back of the theatre.  The Gallery seats had a good view of the stage and because of the better view they cost more, though certainly not as much as the box seats.  The box seats were built in a semicircle around the pit and galley and were level with or higher than the stage, giving the occupier an excellent view of the action.   Generally only the very wealthy could afford box seats because of the price, but for the view and the ability to avoid persons of lower stations, they paid the premium.

            The stage of some 17^th century theatres were framed in a proscenium arch that served to focus the attention of the audience on the actors (and actresses), while other theatres presented a stage that jutted forward into the audience through the proscenium arch or without one.  On stages that protruded into the auditorium, audience members would at times climb onto the stage and interact with the actors because there was no real barrier between the stage and the people, though this practice is most closely associated with earlier periods.