Editing Restoration comedy (section)

===War of the theatres, 1695–1700===
The company owners, wrote the young United Company employee [[Colley Cibber]], "had made a monopoly of the stage, and consequently presum'd they might impose what conditions they pleased upon their people. [They] did not consider that they were all this while endeavouring to enslave a set of actors whom the public were inclined to support."<ref>Milhous, p. 66.</ref> Performers like the legendary [[Thomas Betterton]], the tragedienne [[Elizabeth Barry]] and the rising young comedian [[Anne Bracegirdle]] had the audience on their side, and confident of this walked out.<ref>Milhous, pp. 68–74.</ref>

The actors gained a Royal "licence to perform", so bypassing Rich's ownership of the original Duke's and King's Company patents from 1660 and forming their own cooperative company. This venture was set up with detailed rules for avoiding arbitrary managerial authority, regulating the ten actors' shares, setting the conditions of salaried employees and the sickness and retirement benefits of both categories. The cooperative had the good luck to open in 1695 with the première of [[William Congreve (playwright)|William Congreve]]'s famous ''Love For Love'' and the skill to make it a huge box-office success.<ref>Milhous, pp. 52–55.</ref>

London again had two competing companies. Their dash to attract audiences briefly revitalised Restoration drama, but also set it on a fatal slope to the lowest common denominator of public taste. Rich's company notoriously offered [[Bartholomew Fair]]-type attractions – high kickers, jugglers, rope dancers, performing animals – while the co-operating actors, while appealing to snobbery by setting themselves up as the one legitimate theatre company in London, were not above retaliating with "prologues recited by boys of five and epilogues declaimed by ladies on horseback".<ref>Dobrée, xxi.</ref>