The Mulberry-Garden

The Mulberry-Garden is a comedy by Restoration poet and playwright Sir Charles Sedley (1639-1701) and was published in 1668

In his diary, Samuel Pepys mentions Sedley's long awaited play: "It being the first day of Sir Charles Sidly's new play, so long expected, The Mulbery guarden" Pepys, however, who frequented the theatre was disappointed after the première in the Theatre in Bridges Street on 18 May 1668. Apart from this short critique, no other comment on the performance is known. Pepys was not only disappointed with the language and design of the play; a lover of music like himself also disapproved of the musical setting.

The play was performed again on 20 May 1668, following on another probable performance the previous day.The Mulberry-Garden was still performed on 29 June 1668. While the play was not a smash hit, it had the average reception of so many other comedies at the time. The new edition of The Mulberry-Garden (1675) suggests that the play was revived for the theatre season of 1674/75.

As far as is known, The Mulberry-Garden was not revived after Sedley's death (1701). Unlike the well-known comedies The Country Wife, The Man of Mode and Ravenscroft's London Cuckolds, Sedley's play never belonged to a canon of plays which were regularly performed in the eighteenth century.

The Mulberry-Garden is a typical split-plot tragicomedy, which was a popular and thriving genre of Restoration comedy between 1660 and 1671. The multi-plot structure generally comprises a heroic couple (e.g. Althea and Eugenio, Diana and Philander in Sedley's play) in a high plot with a chivalric or aristocratic code of impeccable moral integrity, whose discourse is usually presented in (rhyming) couplets. Therefore heroic high plots in tragicomedies share with heroic drama in general the basic conception to instruct the spectator and to raise in him an admiration for the heroic characters (see Lisideus's definition of drama in John Dryden's Essay of Dramatick Poesie).

A satiric middle plot introduces a witty "gay couple" (Olivia and Wildish, a polite rake) that manages to live the free spirit of self-determination, although their love is frequently threatened by blocking characters (Olivia's uncle, the Puritan Sir Samuel Forecast). On the third level, the gulling plot, certain stereotypical characters, such as the sanctimonious Puritan (Sir Samuel), the modish gallant (Estridge and Modish), or the lecherous old ogler, are satirized. Examples of this type of play are James Howard's The English Mounsieur (1663/1674), George Etherege's Comical Revenge: or, Love in a Tub (1664), John Dryden's An Evening's Love: or, The Mock Astrologer (1667), and William Wycherley's Love in a Wood (1671). Although tragicomedies generally do not feature heroic characters in epic-like situations, they uphold class distinctions, social hierarchies, and aristocratic values in the high plots.

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