Rehearsing the revolution
Subtitle: radical performance, radical politics in the English Restoration
By: Odai Johnson.
Publisher: University of Delaware Press; Associated University Presses
Published: 2000
Place of publication: Newark, [Del.]; London
Language: eng
Number of pages: 184
Subjects: Theater -- Political aspects -- Great Britain -- History -- 17th century.; Politics and literature -- Great Britain -- History -- 17th century.; English drama -- Restoration, 1660-1700 -- History and criticism.; Radicalism -- Great Britain -- History -- 17th century.; Political plays, English -- History and criticism.; Great Britain -- Politics and government -- 1660-1688.; Great Britain -- History -- Puritan Revolution, 1642-1660 -- Influence.; Great Britain -- History -- Revolution of 1688 -- Causes.
Description: "The middle years of the English Restoration were an intensely political time, marked by the nomination of a Catholic successor, James II, the formation of the Whig party to oppose that appointment, and the contest that followed, known as the Exclusion Crisis. Rehearsing the Revolution traces the role of performance in the fervent years of the Exclusion Crisis when the boundaries of allegiance between the King and the King's playhouse were stretched, tested, and occasionally ruptured.

It charts the limits of representation within the royal theater where Whig playwrights were challenging Stuart mythography, before moving out onto the streets where the contracts of representation were less circumscribed by royal interests. It was on the streets of London that the Whig party staged massive civic performances - the Pope-Burning pageants - that allowed the circulation of the Exclusion platform."--BOOK JACKET.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 169-179) and index.