This essay aims to explore the ways in which stage directions reflect the cultural and theatrical shifts of the early Restoration.

The core questions guiding this investigation are: how were moments preceding sexual impropriety navigated on stage? What might these depictions, through the mechanism of stage directions, indicate about the navigation of this deeply rooted cultural anxiety? For sake of specificity, I focus my inquiry on the relationship between the Pinchwifes (and, necessarily, Horner) in Wycherly’s The Country Wife.

In this essay, I will examine stage directions from the opening acts of both Shakespeare’s First Folio printing and Davenant’s and Dryden’s 1674 printing of The Tempest, or The Enchanted Island. In doing so, I note that many of the directions in Shakespeare’s play are embedded within the dialogue in manners that indicate a heightened emphasis on conveying important information vocally rather than just visually. I aim to argue that the various ways in which the latter’s changes are at least in part indicative—or, at the very least, evidence—of the advance in stage technologies because, where Shakespeare had to convey the magic of his storm through spoken dialogue, Davenant and Dryden were able to use mechanical effects to visually depict the tempest.

In this essay, I will be examining the Medieval staging of The Castle of Perseverance and of Mankind. In doing so, I hope to provide a new frame through which we can envision the relationships between entertainment, knowledge, and urban environs in East Anglia during the fifteenth century.