The Parson's Wedding

The Parson's Wedding is a Caroline era stage play, a comedy written by Thomas Killigrew. Often regarded as the author's best play, the drama has sometimes been considered an anticipation of Restoration comedy, written a generation before the Restoration; "its general tone foreshadows the comedy of the Restoration from which the play is in many respects indistinguishable."

Firm evidence for the play's date of authorship is lacking. Scholars have generally dated the play to c. 1637 or to the 1639–41 period. The play was allegedly composed in Basel in Switzerland. Killigrew may have been in the city in December and January in the winter of 1635–36, and perhaps began to draft the play at that time. Yet Killigrew apparently was also in Switzerland, in Geneva and Basel, in March 1640, and in Switzerland again in April 1641.

The play was performed in 1641, by the King's Men, in the Blackfriars Theatre. In Act V, Scene i, Killigrew refers to Joseph Taylor, the long-time leading man of that company; here, Killigrew is imitating Ben Jonson, who played the same trick of reference in his The Devil is an Ass (1616). In that play, Jonson mentions Richard Robinson, a King's Man actor who was cast of the play in which he's mentioned.

Killigrew based his play, loosely, on the Spanish drama La Dama Duende (The Phantom Lady) by Pedro Calderón de la Barca. Some critics have also noted resemblances with Shackerley Marmion's The Antiquary (c. 1635) and Lording Barry's Ram Alley (c. 1607).

...
Wikipedia