John O'Keeffe was the most produced playwright on the London stage in the last quarter of the eighteenth century. His fifty-seven plays, representing almost all of the popular genres of the time, saw 2006 performances during that period. Shakespeare's plays had the next largest number of performances, at 1510, while the plays of Richard Brinsley Sheridan received 1090 performances. O'Keeffe's plays are perhaps the best examples of the mingling of humor and sentiment in eighteenth-century comedy. O'Keeffe's afterpieces, burlettas, musical farces, and full-length plays held the stage into the nineteenth century, but eventually fell out of favor due to the rise of melodrama. When the Royal Shakespeare Company revived his best play,
Wild Oats, in 1976, their production received glowing…
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Citation: Swanson, Michael. "John O'Keeffe". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 10 December 2007 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=11882, accessed 26 November 2024.]
