Talk:Restoration spectacular

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject England, an attempt to build a comprehensive and detailed guide to articles on England on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, you can edit the article attached to this page, or visit the project member page, where you can join the project and/or contribute to the discussion.
FA	This article has been rated as FA-Class on the quality scale.
Top	This article has been rated as top-importance on the importance scale.

	Restoration spectacular is a featured article; it (or a previous version of it) has been identified as one of the best articles produced by the Wikipedia community. If you can update or improve it, please do.
	This article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page as Today's featured article on February 3, 2006.
Article Milestones Date Process Result August 3, 2005 Featured article candidate Promoted Current Status: Featured article

This article was the showcase article of the London Portal in December 2006.

Congratulations. If you want any pictures, I've added some to Augustan drama that might be useful. (I also uncovered a very interesting bit of evidence that suggests a whole story. Rich's Covent Garden opens in 1732, and its first play is The Way of the World. Hogarth does a print satirizing Cibber, Wilks, etc. in their attempt to out-do Rich, in A Just View of the Modern Stage, and the toilet paper being used in that rehearsal is the script of The Way of the World. A mini-sermon suggesting that the Drury Lane folks are so obsessed with beating Rich that they've forgotten what Rich hasn't -- to put on real plays when you can and trash when you can't? The other plays being used for toilet paper are probably references to other Lincoln's Inn Fields/Covent Garden performances, too. While the patent theaters observed the patent system, all of those plays would "belong" to somebody, and this belonging (e.g. Hamlet belonging to Duke's, then onward to Drury Lane), and perhaps there is a suggestion there, too?) Geogre 04:41, 5 August 2005 (UTC)

Contents 1 Disregard conspiracy theory 2 Quodlibet 3 Shyster Sons 4 Bravo

[edit] Disregard conspiracy theory

It's impossible. They're a decade apart. Geogre 22:23, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Quodlibet

The numbers of performers used, mainly dancers, is staggering, ...

How much? A ballpark figure is fine, too. I have no idea what numbers would be considered normal for such a performance.

Its twelve-foot-high working fountain and six dancing real live monkeys have become notorious in theatre history.

I can't help but think some of these Restoration folks would've made a smash in Vegas. JRM · Talk 17:33, 13 August 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for taking a look, JRM. The thing is, I don't really know any more about the actual performances than what I say, which is usually what I see from the stage directions. My secondary sources are just that vague: they say "large numbers". Milhous: "The Dorset Garden spectacular is really defined by the number of sets required and their elaborateness; the number of people called for, both performers and support personnel; the amount of money invested; and the length of time needed to prepare such a show." Then she goes on to discuss the sets, the money, and the rehearsal time; but she never does get any more specific about the number of people. She doesn't commit herself even to a ballpark figure, she says "many" and changes the subject. Hume is the same, even though both of them are generally pretty willing to share speculations and guesswork.

I do get a sense of numbers from the stage directions, but I guess it would be original research to share it. Look at the first scene I quote in the context: no numbers are specified for the cupids and cyclops, and I assume the lack of them is itself a reference to a mass effect. Several little cupids flying round each pillar..? Very young actors, perhaps children. Say 15 little cupids, 6 bigger cupids on the pillars, 6 cyclops, all of them professional-level dancers. And then "vast numbers" of townspeople in the next scene. Hmmmm. If it was possible to get the gold paint off the cupids in a hurry for the next scene, and have a lot of smooth quick changes of clothes between scenes throughout, maybe 30-35 highly skilled dancers and another 20 extras would do for the whole performance. Besides the salaried 6 or 7 actual actors of the main parts (who didn't sing) plus some trained solo singers, like Vulcan. I was hoping the quotes would give the reader a general impression of a lot of people. Maybe that'll come across better if I quote more stage directions, and they're fun anyway, IMO. The over the top-ness of the stage directions was the big reason I wrote the page. When you say "normal", do you mean in ordinary legit comedy and tragedy? That I can easily estimate, and I wouldn't call it any kind of research, because anybody could who has read a few of the plays. Maybe 10—12 real actors and 3—4 walk-on parts, and in the most elaborate heroic plays a few more extras for battle scenes. But is that useful to know? Hmm. OK, I've put in something vague, see what you think. You reckon the dancing monkeys are Vegas, you should see what Geogre's impresarios get up to in the 18th century! Bishonen | talk 22:07, 13 August 2005 (UTC)

It may be vague, but it meets the basic demand of explaining why "staggering" was used, which is a rather POV evaluation if you have no context. The new edit supplies the context, so the objection vanishes. (Of course we're not required to make up or extrapolate actual numbers in the article, but then we should explain why we can't give them.)

Also, that's the only thing that struck me reading through the entire article, so that should mean something. (Probably that featured articles are generally pretty good—gee!)

"Dragons, whirlwinds, thunder, ocean waves, and even actual elephants were on stage." I see what you mean. Interesting how the taste for bombastic stages remains pretty much constant in time: from the naval battles staged in the Colosseum all the way to contemporary times. JRM · Talk 08:22, 14 August 2005 (UTC)

Is this sentence correct? "The public stage ban 1642–1660 imposed by the Puritan regime represents a long and sharp break in dramatic tradition, but was still never completely successful in suppressing the ideologically hateful make-believe of play-acting." Is "ideologically hateful" what is really meant here? --Xyzzyplugh 19:37, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Shyster Sons

From the section titled 1690's - Opera. "While the monopoly United Company's takings were being bled off by Davenant's shyster sons"

That's hardly a NPOV term. Care to fix it?

--Capnned 04:49, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

It's a descriptive term for the way they acted. I've added an inline reference. Bishonen | talk 06:17, 4 February 2006 (UTC).

[edit] Bravo

This is a very enjoyable article with plenty of encyclopedia-appropriate humour. House of Scandal 12:56, 25 January 2007 (UTC)