![]() For the next one hundred years, popular plays bore little resemblance to the kind of robust comedies produced during Shakespeare’s golden age. The Restoration period began in 1660 when King Charles II was restored to the throne and he reopened the theatres. The lavish style of masques stayed in fashion until 1642, when the Puritans closed the theatres. After Shakespeare’s death in 1616, his own plays were often performed with min-masques inserted at the top of the show and during several intervals throughout. In his final solo work, The Tempest, Shakespeare even mocks this new chic movement by having spirits perform a masque which puts the main character, Prospero, to sleep. Writers such as Lily, Beaumont, Fletcher, and Jonson were making a lot of money and pleasing their upper-class friends by producing these shows that combined poetic drama, music, song, dance, elaborate costuming, and stage spectacle. Near the end of Shakespeare’s career, indoor playhouses like the Blackfriars were inundated with entertainments called masques. ![]() Notes from the Director comedy to die for
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