''The Mock Tempest, or the Enchanted Castle'' is a

Restoration Restoration is the act of restoring something to its original state and may refer to: * Conservation and restoration of cultural heritage ** Audio restoration ** Film restoration ** Image restoration ** Textile restoration * Restoration ecology ...

era stage play, a

parody A parody, also known as a spoof, a satire, a send-up, a take-off, a lampoon, a play on (something), or a caricature, is a creative work designed to imitate, comment on, and/or mock its subject by means of satiric or ironic imitation. Often its sub ...

Thomas Duffet Thomas Duffet ( fl. 1673 – 1676), or Duffett, was an Irish playwright and songwriter active in England in the 1670s. He is remembered for his popular songs and his burlesques of the serious plays of John Dryden, Thomas Shadwell, Elkanah Se ...

; it premiered in 1674, and was first printed in 1675 by the bookseller William Cademan. In creating his farce, Duffet's target was not

Shakespeare's William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...

famous play, but the adaptation of it that

John Dryden '' John Dryden (; – ) was an English poet, literary critic, translator, and playwright who in 1668 was appointed England's first Poet Laureate. He is seen as dominating the literary life of Restoration England to such a point that the per ...

and Sir

William Davenant Sir William Davenant (baptised 3 March 1606 – 7 April 1668), also spelled D'Avenant, was an English poet and playwright. Along with Thomas Killigrew, Davenant was one of the rare figures in English Renaissance theatre whose career spanned b ...

wrote in the 1660s. According to critic Michael West, "There are frequent nautical metaphors, and 'more noyse and terrour than a Tempest at Sea'...."

Background

The first

Theatre Royal, Drury Lane The Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, commonly known as Drury Lane, is a West End theatre and Grade I listed building in Covent Garden, London, England. The building faces Catherine Street (earlier named Bridges or Brydges Street) and backs onto Dr ...

burned down of 25 January 1672. Its occupant, the

King's Company The King's Company was one of two enterprises granted the rights to mount theatrical productions in London, after the London theatre closure had been lifted at the start of the English Restoration. It existed from 1660 to 1682, when it merged wit ...

, suddenly faced a major problem, and a great disadvantage compared to the rival Duke's Company. One way in which the King's troupe responded to their situation was by staging parodies of their rivals' popular successes. One of those successes was '' The Tempest, or the Enchanted Island'', the Dryden–Davenant adaptation that had first been staged in 1667. In 1674 that work had been mounted in a new musical or "operatic" version, prepared by

Thomas Shadwell Thomas Shadwell ( – 19 November 1692) was an English poet and playwright who was appointed Poet Laureate in 1689. Life Shadwell was born at either Bromehill Farm, Weeting-with-Broomhill or Santon House, Lynford, Norfolk, and educated at B ...

. Duffet, a minor dramatist and songwriter, produced his lampoon before the end of that year; ''The Mock Tempest'' likely premiered on 19 November 1674. "The Design of this Play was to draw the Town from the Duke's Theatre, who for a considerable amount of time had frequented that admirable reviv'd comedy called ''The Tempest''."

The Plot

Duffet's ''Mock Tempest'' is set not in any exotic location, but securely in the London familiar to its audience, specifically the lower reaches of contemporaneous London society. The storm that opens the play, in both the Shakespeare and Dryden–Davenant versions, is replaced in Duffet's by a riot in a brothel. Mother Stephania, a bawd, leads her cohort of pimps, prostitutes, and aristocratic customers in a valiant but vain effort to drive off an assault from the town's apprentices. Holland's_Leaguer''..html" ;"title="Holland's Leaguer (play)#The brothel">Holland's Leaguer''.">Holland's Leaguer (play)#The brothel">Holland's Leaguer''.The local watch carries off all the participants to

Bridewell Bridewell Palace in London was built as a residence of King Henry VIII and was one of his homes early in his reign for eight years. Given to the City of London Corporation by his son King Edward VI for use as an orphanage and place of corre ...

prison (the "enchanted castle"); there, the jailkeeper Prospero Whiffe reveals that the raid on the brothel was inspired by his ethereal spirit Ariel, a pickpocket. The parody goes on to mangle the romances of Prospero's two daughters (called Dorinda and Miranda, in Dryden and Davenant's adaptation). Dryden and Davenant made Miranda and Dorinda ignorant of the opposite sex; Duffet's "Dorinda and Miranda" are ''very'' familiar with men, but get confused by the concept of a "husband": :''Dorinda:'' Husband, what's that? :''Miranda:'' Why that's a thing like a man (for aught I know) with a great pair of horns upon his head, and my father said 'twas made for women, look ye. :''Dorinda:'' What, must we ride to water upon't, sister? :''Miranda:'' No, no, it must be our slave, and give us golden clothes, pray, that other men may lie with us in a civil way, and then it must father our children and keep them. :''Dorinda:'' And when we are so old and ugly that nobody else will lie with us, must it lie with us itself? :''Miranda:'' Aye, that it must, sister. Along the way, Duffet mocks Davenant's musical adaptation of '' Macbeth'', staged in 1664 but first printed in 1674. (Duffet also ridicules Davenent's ''Macbeth'' in his Epilogue to his burlesque of

Elkanah Settle Elkanah Settle (1 February 1648 – 12 February 1724) was an English poet and playwright. Biography He was born at Dunstable, and entered Trinity College, Oxford, in 1666, but left without taking a degree. His first tragedy, '' Cambyses, King ...

's ''

The Empress of Morocco ''The Empress of Morocco'' is a 1673 tragedy by the English writer Elkanah Settle. It was originally staged by the Duke's Company at the Dorset Garden Theatre in London. The cast included Henry Harris as Muly Labas, William Smith as Muly Hame ...

'', another work of 1674.) The Duke of Mantua has a son who is a member of the

Religious Society of Friends Quakers are people who belong to a historically Protestant Christian set of Christian denomination, denominations known formally as the Religious Society of Friends. Members of these movements ("theFriends") are generally united by a belie ...

, satirically named "Quakero." The play is wide in scope, touching on "drunkenness, violence, mutilation, cannibalism; of pimping, prostitution, adultery, incest; of hypocrisy, cowardice, torture, execution; of urine, vermin, venereal disease; of deviance, dissolution, and death". The last act of Duffet's play features a parody of Ariel's song "Where the bee sucks, there suck I" from the final scene of ''The Tempest''. Duffet's version is "Where good ale is, there suck I". The parody version was sung by Betty Mackerel, an orange vender who was promoted to the stage. ''The Mock Tempest'' may have been revived in 1682.

A modern version

A modern adaptation of ''The Mock Tempest'' was mounted by Shakespeare Santa Cruz in 2007.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mock Tempest, The English Restoration plays Restoration comedy 1674 plays Plays and musicals based on The Tempest category:Plays set in the 17th century West End plays Plays by Thomas Duffet