The 1820s in England existed in a kind of twilight zone between the end of the Regency (concluded with the ascension of the Prince Regent to the throne as King George IV in 1820), and the dawn of the Victorian Age, when George's niece, Victoria was crowned in 1837. Profoundly uninterested in statecraft, George left governing the country to his ministers while pursuing the pleasures of wine, women, food and fashion. While his extravagant lifestyle threatened to bankrupt the treasury, and his unsuccessful attempts to divorce his wife caused him nothing but ridicule and scandal, he was also a patron of the arts and occasional trendsetter; the construction of his seaside pleasure dome, the Royal Pavilion in Brighton, popularized the idea of fashionable seaside resorts with their attendant spas, gardens, restaurants, and theaters.
It was not a particularly innovative time for the drama onstage. Romantic-era Gothic melodramas, frivolous domestic comedies, spectacular "sensations," and Commedia del Arte-inspired pantomimes featuring Harlequin and Columbine were the principal repertoire of most theater companies, alongside Shakespeare. All playgoers, from the groundlings in the pit to the aristocrats in the upper boxes knew their Shakespeare, and were very particular about how he was delivered. An unpopular performer might be shouted down, mid-speech; a performer once touched by greatness might be forgiven much, even in decline.
At this time, the celebrated tragedian Edmund Kean was at the end of his brilliant, but notorious career. An incendiary performer in his heyday, his life was plagued by ill health, poor judgement and scandal; his futile attempt to defend himself against a crim-con suit ("criminal conversation," ie: adultery) with the wife of a London alderman made him such a laughingstock, he had to go tour America for a year before English audiences would have him back.
While you might call Kean the first tabloid celebrity, his expressionistic acting style also pioneered a new way to perform Shakespeare onstage, a shift from previous generations of actors planted in the spotlight delivering speeches. Kean had the star power to fill houses all by himself, traveling from one venue to the next, but otherwise, theaters mostly employed their own companies. The London "patent houses," Theatres Royal Drury Lane and Covent Garden, were the only ones licensed to perform drama in the city during the winter season, but there were many Theatres Royal outside the metropolis where an actor could find work in any season, not to mention a proliferation of smaller theaters in more marginal towns.
Then there were the strollers, acting companies largely unattached to any particular theater who traveled circuits around various regions, setting up in the occasional small rural theater (if they were lucky), or in whatever barns, inn yards, converted brewhouses, or guildhalls they could find. They traveled with their own props, costumes, and playscripts, generally led by an actor-manager who arranged their venues and played the plummiest principal roles himself. It was a precarious existence, but theater was popular, and despite the fact that it was considered not quite respectable (or perhaps because of it), there were plenty of starstruck folk eager to try their luck onstage — so many that they soon had their own Bible, Rede's Road To The Stage, a guide to the profession for aspiring actors, promptly dubbed "Rede's Road to Ruin," by various gatekeepers of public morality.
In particular, women who exhibited themselves upon the stage were commonly assumed to be tramps or tarts, or soon to become such, which is why many actresses chose the more matronly and supposedly dignified title of "Mrs.," married or not. The realities of married life for a woman, however, were far less flexible.
Everything she owned, as well as any income produced by her own labors, became the property of her husband. She was not allowed to sign a legal document on her own, without a husband or some other gentleman trustee to act on her behalf. She had no legal recourse if she was mistreated, or even beaten, unless her husband was caught in the act of "life-threatening cruelty" — and she could prove that she had not "earned" it. She herself effectively became just one more piece of property that her husband owned, should he choose to enforce the full extent of his legal rights.
Divorce was all but unheard of, and legal separation almost impossible to obtain. Only if her husband died might a woman hope to gain a measure of social equality as a widow, and legal autonomy to manage her own affairs.
Meanwhile, homosexuality was not only considered morally indecent, it was a capital crime. Prosecution to the full extent of the law was rare at this time, however, unless it became a factor in some legal case brought to the attention of the court (as Oscar Wilde was to discover, to his cost, less than a century later). Even so, a judge could choose a more "lenient" punishment, like the stocks, the pillory, or hard labor.
Legal and moral attitudes regarding slavery, however, were relatively enlightened in this era. Slavery was still practiced in the British sugar islands of the West Indies, but owning slaves was illegal in Britain, and British ships had been forbidden to traffic in human cargo for the slave trade since 1807. The abolitionist movement to end the institution in the islands was gaining popularity in London — despite the outrage of the planter class — a sweeping tide of public opinion and political policy that would soon lead to the abolition of slavery in the British colonial islands in 1834.
Tory's quest for personal freedom reflects all of these social issues, within the microcosm of life imitating art imitating life that is the theater. Through it all, the ever-relevant words of Shakespeare provide both mirror and compass. As Jack exults to Tory in Runaways, "There’s no censure in Shakespeare, and every facet of life is represented, bawds and kings and villains and fools. Everything you could ever think or feel or want, Shakespeare has already written about it. And everything that happens in your own life affects how you to read him, so his words always seem new and fresh, however often you play them."
For Tory and Jack, all the world is indeed a stage, and A Comedy of Marriage is their grand finale.
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