The Enchanted Isle
The Restoration
Charles II becomes king; monarchy is restored.
For the first time ever, women were on the big stage.
The actress became a controversial profession to have.
Sex work and body work plus extramarital affairs
Actress was borderline sex work; eroticization and objectification
Restoration Theater
Concessions and sex workers; a rowdy and horny place
Ladies on stage and in the audience; repetoires
Retelling of William Shakespeare's Tempest
Repression under Cromwell, so now people are letting out their desires through theater.
Collier
"Smut is still more insufferable with respect to religion..." (538). The religions of the Ancient Greeks and Romans were hedonistic and it was reflected in their poetry as well as theater that was inspired by those cultures. He urges the supremacy of Christianity due to its "pure" culture.
He hates that women attend plays: "Do women all the regards to decency and conscious behind them when they come to the playhouse?" (537)
Moving away from one-sex model; the start of modern science, but people still believed in humours.
"Poets make women speak smuttily"
no difference between "mirth and madness"
Panic over women in hoop skirts for... reasons.
Prologue
An actress is playing a boy, but if a male audience member wants to make her woman again, he can sleep with her; women in pants; not so straight; breeches roles allows actresses to show off shape more
Act 1
Prospero did not introduce men to Dorinda and Miranda so they're jumpscared. They question their genders and wonder where they came from. What is gender and what is sex? How are babies made?
"We Women were made for him" - still reinforces the inferiority of women
Act 2
young men are wild behind closed doors
Hippolito the boy; many layers of irony; Prospero does not explain women to Hip, just like he did not explain men to his daughter. "Something between young men and angels;" a little bit gay.
"The scene changes, and discovers Hip in a cave walking, his face from the audience"
Dorinda and Miranda's language encourages the audience to look at the female actress' legs