The Mock Tempest
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| The Mock Tempest, or The Enchanted Castle | |
|---|---|
 Front Page of Thomas Duffett's "The Mock-Tempest, Or the Enchanted Castle." The British Library. 1675. | |
| Written by | Thomas Duffet |
| Date premiered | 19 November 1674 |
| Place premiered | Theatre Royal, Drury Lane (London) |
| Subject | Parody of Dryden–Davenant adaptation of The Tempest |
| Genre | Burlesque / Parody |
The Mock Tempest, or the Enchanted Castle is a Restoration era stage play, a parody by Thomas Duffet; 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 famous play, but the adaptation of it that John Dryden and Sir William Davenant wrote in the 1660s.[1][2][3] According to critic Michael West, "There are frequent nautical metaphors, and 'more noyse and terrour than a Tempest at Sea'...."[4]
The first Theatre Royal, Drury Lane burned down on 25 January 1672. Its occupant, the King's Company, 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. 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."[5]