Sir William Davenant, the Court Masque, and the English Seventeen ...

These are discussed in chapter 7 with certain other especially lavish productions by Settle which were shown towards the end of the century. However, discord and mismanagement in the companies restricted their repertoire, and extravagant experimentation eventually ended when financial and commercial considerations made the more expensive presentations no longer viable. In summing up the situation by the end of the century, the study concludes that the possibilities of the scenic stage were not entirely fulfilled in the seventeenth century but that elements derived from it which continued into the eighteenth century. Theatre practitioners had learnt to use the stagecraft and mechanical techniques of the masque stage to integrate the visual with the aural aspects of a production, and dramatists, once concerned solely with the aural expression of their theme, had become playwrights allowing for the visual elements in their texts—something which might not have happened in the way that it did without the original inspiration of Sir William Davenant.