een closed, Davenant had used scenery in
his operas, to keep them out of the forbidden pale of professional plays;
and now in 1660, when he came forth as a regular theatre manager, he
continued to use scenery, and introduced it into the production of comedies
and tragedies.

But the use of scenery was not the only innovation that carried the
Restoration theatre far beyond its Elizabethan prototype. Play-houses were
now regularly roofed; and the stage was artificially lighted by lamps. The
shifting of scenery demanded the use of a curtain; and it became possible
for the first time to disclose actors upon the stage and to leave them
grouped before the audience at the end of an act.

All of these improvements rendered possible a closer approach to
naturalness of representment than had ever been made before. Palaces and
flowered meads, drawing-rooms and city streets, could now be suggested by
actual scenery instead of by descriptive passages in the text. Costumes
became appropriate, and properties were more nicely chosen to give a flavor
of actuality to the scene. At the same time the platform receded, and the
groundlings no longer stood about it on the sides. The gallants were
banished from the stage, and the greater part of the audience was gathered
directly in front of the actors. Some traces of the former platform system,
however, still remained. In front of the curtain, the stage projected into
a wide "apron," as it was called, lined on either side by boxes filled with
spectators; and the house was so inadequately lighted that almost all the
acting had to be done within the focus of the footlights. After the curtain
rose, the actors advanced into this projecting "apron" and performed the
main business of the act beyond the range of scenery and furniture.

With the "apron" stage arose a more natural form of play than had been
produced upon the Elizabethan platform. The Drama of Rhetoric was soon
supplanted by the Drama of Conversation. Oratory gradually disappeared, set
speeches were abolished, and poetic lines gave place to rapid repartee.
The comedy of conversation that began with Sir George Etherege in 1664
reached its culmination with Sheridan in a little more than a hundred
years; and during this century the drama became more and more natural as
the years progressed. Even in the days of Sheridan, however, the
conventions of the theatre were still essentially unreal. An actor entered
a room by walking through the w