Epilogue: Privacy and Drama, 1640–1660

Abstract

The epilogue investigates the rapidly changing uses of the term ‘private’ in the period immediately before, during, and after the closure of the theatres in 1642. Since ‘public’ entertainments were officially banned, drama had to become ‘private’ in order to survive. This privacy was bifurcated: on the one hand, ‘private’ referred to household performances, as it had done in the sixteenth century; on the other, it also referred to illegal, unlicensed performances at commercial theatres. The ‘public/private’ theatre division which emerged in the early seventeenth century made less sense in the changing culture of the English Republic and the new indoor theatres erected in the early Restoration, which rendered the older outdoor and indoor venues obsolete, also served to confine the terms to theatre history.