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◙With some Restoration comedies, it is important to "put your mind in the gutter" as they say.  If you don't pick up on double entendres and innuendo very easily, then you may need to read a play more than once to get all the subtleties of the sexual subplots.

 

◙When doing a production of these plays, remember that they were written for an upper-class audience.  This makes some plays not as universal because the playwright wrote it for one group of people.  Keep in mind that your audience and Wycherley's audience are very different.

 

◙Women did act on the stage, but sadly not for their talents in the realistic portrayal of women.  As an actress in a modern production of a Restoration play you need to find your own balance between the modern realistic style of acting, and the showy declamatory style of the women who originally acted in the plays. 

 

◙Even the virtuous actresses showed off their bodies and played off of the attention of males.  It was a requirement of the time to act a certain way if you wanted to be onstage.  It wasn't about being of loose morals, it was just a fact of life.