Every now and then all those classes in Theatre History come in handy. I was reading our scripture for this week and a term from one of those classes just jumped out at me: Restoration Comedy. Oh yeah, you are saying with skepticism clouding your eyes, I remember not reading a single thing about that!
Or, maybe you did. I can’t be the only one who spent hours of an undergraduate degree program studying things of dubious usefulness for most of life. Can I? Never mind, I don’t think I want to know.
Restoration Comedy, also called Comedy of Manners, was a late 17th and early 18th Century theatrical style that was all the rage among the classes in England and the Continent. Part of the reason for its popularity is that it made fun of the aristocracy. The lower classes loved seeing those with power being made to look like fools. And those in power enjoyed seeing their colleagues taken down a peg, secure in the knowledge that the object of the joke was that other guy and not them! But in fact, while the antics of the upper crust was the context of the comedy, it was never designed to question the status quo and seen by many historians as shoring up the class system in the minds and hearts of the whole of society.
Yet, boundaries were pushed. Another significant milestone of Restoration Comedy was the advent of women! Oh, wait, women had, of course, been around before this period of history. But this is the first time in modern history when women acted on the stage in any significant numbers. In the Elizabethan period all the female parts were played by young boys, because ... well, because. Let’s just leave it at that.
Not only on stage, however, but the first women playwright appeared writing Restoration Comedy. And a good thing too, because the subject matter was, well, let’s just say a little more palatable when presented between men and woman. Ribaldry, that was the term that fit, risque humor, flirtations and innuendo. What was once taboo was now subject for public humor, not explicit by today’s standards, but earthy, human, real life men and women, relationships and misunderstandings, longing and desire, failure and success, hope and disappointment, anything and everything played out on the stage of human experience, and played for laughs.
That’s how they got away with it, you know. Because it was comedy, no one thought to take it seriously. No one thought that humor could change reality from an oppressive social system into something more, something different. And yet, changes were afoot.
Psalm 126:1-6 When the LORD restored the fortunes of Zion, we were like those who dream. 2 Then our mouth was filled with laughter, and our tongue with shouts of joy; then it was said among the nations, "The LORD has done great things for them." 3 The LORD has done great things for us, and we rejoiced. 4 Restore our fortunes, O LORD, like the watercourses in the Negeb. 5 May those who sow in tears reap with shouts of joy. 6 Those who go out weeping, bearing the seed for sowing, shall come home with shouts of joy, carrying their sheaves.
Some of the most significant Psalms are some of the shortest one. Like Psalm 23, this one is only six verses long. And yet it points to a deep reality. Wait, you are thinking, “a deep reality”? OK, it is a nice psalm, even fun in a way, laughter and shouts of joy, great, good. But deep? It isn’t even the end of tears and proclamation of heaven, because the last couple of verses remind us that we are still in the midst of the struggle. Sowing in tears and go out weeping. It isn’t all good news, no rainbows and unicorns here. There is still the struggle of daily living. There is still the risk of loss, the futility of pouring out not knowing that your efforts will bring a return or not, there is still the recognition of the fragility of life and hope.
And you can’t help but feel lost in these six verses anyway. Is the bad time over? Have we returned home, are the dreams realized? If so then why is there a prayer for restoration halfway through? “When the Lord restored the fortunes ...” writes the psalmist only to turn around a few verses later and write “Restore our fortunes, O Lord!” Did it happen and we lost it? Or is the dream only a dream and we woke up and there wasn’t anything to laugh about, nothing to shout with joy for? Are we still waiting for the Lord to do great things for us? Or did it happen and we missed it somehow, we lost our grip on those great things and lost our grip on joy?
We want our fortunes restored. The recent mega-lottery storyline has us all thinking, boy, if that was me ... We are still convinced that if we only had a little more, were a little better off, all would be well. But maybe that is a misunderstanding of the psalmist’s idea of fortune. Maybe the call is for something else entirely. Not the material well-being provided by a good harvest, not the sheaves we would bring in when the weather conditions are ideal and the timing is perfect. Restore our fortunes, O Lord.
What was restored in the era of Restoration Comedy? The year 1660 is considered the beginning of this renaissance in British Theatre, and it was also not coincidentally the year the Puritan ban and subsequent closings of all the playhouses in the country. What was restored was the ability to laugh, to enjoy poking fun at the antics of human frailty and pretension. The joy of exposing human life at its most vulnerable, our creatureliness.
Sometimes we get so wrapped up in the seriousness of our situations, the struggle and brokenness, the slights real and imagined from those who seem to be our enemies, we are overwhelmed by the tears with which we sow that we can’t even imagine reaping, let alone shouting for joy as we do it.
Perhaps what we are begging for, praying for is the ability to laugh again, to hope again. Living as a person of hope and joy is a claiming a fortune no lottery can award.
Restore our fortunes, O Lord. Fill our mouths with laughter and our tongue with shouts (shouts, mind you, not chuckles under our breath, not grins behind our hands, but shouts) of joy.
Or, maybe you did. I can’t be the only one who spent hours of an undergraduate degree program studying things of dubious usefulness for most of life. Can I? Never mind, I don’t think I want to know.
Restoration Comedy, also called Comedy of Manners, was a late 17th and early 18th Century theatrical style that was all the rage among the classes in England and the Continent. Part of the reason for its popularity is that it made fun of the aristocracy. The lower classes loved seeing those with power being made to look like fools. And those in power enjoyed seeing their colleagues taken down a peg, secure in the knowledge that the object of the joke was that other guy and not them! But in fact, while the antics of the upper crust was the context of the comedy, it was never designed to question the status quo and seen by many historians as shoring up the class system in the minds and hearts of the whole of society.
Yet, boundaries were pushed. Another significant milestone of Restoration Comedy was the advent of women! Oh, wait, women had, of course, been around before this period of history. But this is the first time in modern history when women acted on the stage in any significant numbers. In the Elizabethan period all the female parts were played by young boys, because ... well, because. Let’s just leave it at that.
Not only on stage, however, but the first women playwright appeared writing Restoration Comedy. And a good thing too, because the subject matter was, well, let’s just say a little more palatable when presented between men and woman. Ribaldry, that was the term that fit, risque humor, flirtations and innuendo. What was once taboo was now subject for public humor, not explicit by today’s standards, but earthy, human, real life men and women, relationships and misunderstandings, longing and desire, failure and success, hope and disappointment, anything and everything played out on the stage of human experience, and played for laughs.
That’s how they got away with it, you know. Because it was comedy, no one thought to take it seriously. No one thought that humor could change reality from an oppressive social system into something more, something different. And yet, changes were afoot.
Psalm 126:1-6 When the LORD restored the fortunes of Zion, we were like those who dream. 2 Then our mouth was filled with laughter, and our tongue with shouts of joy; then it was said among the nations, "The LORD has done great things for them." 3 The LORD has done great things for us, and we rejoiced. 4 Restore our fortunes, O LORD, like the watercourses in the Negeb. 5 May those who sow in tears reap with shouts of joy. 6 Those who go out weeping, bearing the seed for sowing, shall come home with shouts of joy, carrying their sheaves.
Some of the most significant Psalms are some of the shortest one. Like Psalm 23, this one is only six verses long. And yet it points to a deep reality. Wait, you are thinking, “a deep reality”? OK, it is a nice psalm, even fun in a way, laughter and shouts of joy, great, good. But deep? It isn’t even the end of tears and proclamation of heaven, because the last couple of verses remind us that we are still in the midst of the struggle. Sowing in tears and go out weeping. It isn’t all good news, no rainbows and unicorns here. There is still the struggle of daily living. There is still the risk of loss, the futility of pouring out not knowing that your efforts will bring a return or not, there is still the recognition of the fragility of life and hope.
And you can’t help but feel lost in these six verses anyway. Is the bad time over? Have we returned home, are the dreams realized? If so then why is there a prayer for restoration halfway through? “When the Lord restored the fortunes ...” writes the psalmist only to turn around a few verses later and write “Restore our fortunes, O Lord!” Did it happen and we lost it? Or is the dream only a dream and we woke up and there wasn’t anything to laugh about, nothing to shout with joy for? Are we still waiting for the Lord to do great things for us? Or did it happen and we missed it somehow, we lost our grip on those great things and lost our grip on joy?
We want our fortunes restored. The recent mega-lottery storyline has us all thinking, boy, if that was me ... We are still convinced that if we only had a little more, were a little better off, all would be well. But maybe that is a misunderstanding of the psalmist’s idea of fortune. Maybe the call is for something else entirely. Not the material well-being provided by a good harvest, not the sheaves we would bring in when the weather conditions are ideal and the timing is perfect. Restore our fortunes, O Lord.
What was restored in the era of Restoration Comedy? The year 1660 is considered the beginning of this renaissance in British Theatre, and it was also not coincidentally the year the Puritan ban and subsequent closings of all the playhouses in the country. What was restored was the ability to laugh, to enjoy poking fun at the antics of human frailty and pretension. The joy of exposing human life at its most vulnerable, our creatureliness.
Sometimes we get so wrapped up in the seriousness of our situations, the struggle and brokenness, the slights real and imagined from those who seem to be our enemies, we are overwhelmed by the tears with which we sow that we can’t even imagine reaping, let alone shouting for joy as we do it.
Perhaps what we are begging for, praying for is the ability to laugh again, to hope again. Living as a person of hope and joy is a claiming a fortune no lottery can award.
Restore our fortunes, O Lord. Fill our mouths with laughter and our tongue with shouts (shouts, mind you, not chuckles under our breath, not grins behind our hands, but shouts) of joy.
Shalom,
Derek
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