Synopsis - The Play
Harry Horner, aided by
an unscrupulous doctor named Quack, hatches a plan to convince
the whole of London Society that a severe case of venereal
disease has rendered him impotent. His reputation as a notorious
womanizer is irreparably damaged and he soon becomes a figure
of fun, a harmless has-been who no longer poses any threat
to the wives, sisters and daughters of the "respectable" men
of the Town. Horner's intention, of course, is to use his
new reputation as a eunuch as a means of gaining access to
these women. His plan is so successful that one of these respectable
gentlemen, Sir Jaspar Fidget, actually brings his wife to
Horner' s lodging and practically begs him to become her escort.
Will Horner continue undetected or will the husbands become
suspicious? Well.........
Jack Pinchwife, a jealous country husband, lives in permanent
fear of being cuckolded (adulterously betrayed) and has married
a young girl from the country in the belief that she's too
silly and innocent to betray him. However, he is forced to
visit London in order to marry off his sister Alithea to the
foolish Sparkish, and his wife is soon spotted and pursued
by Horner. Pinchwife, who has not heard the rumor about Horner's
supposed impotency, frantically tries to keep his young wife
from Horner's clutches but everything he tries seems to backfire
on him until a solution appears to solve all his problems.
Or does it?
Frank Harcourt is a young gentleman of wit who enjoys the
variety of pleasures that London has to offer and has rarely,
if ever, considered the possibility of marriage. This all
changes as soon as he meets, and falls in love with, the beautiful
Alithea. The only problem is that she is due to marry Sparkish
the following day! Harcourt leaps into action and is forced
to use all his wit and ingenuity to woo Alithea and prevent
her marriage to Sparkish. Alithea is determined to fulfill
her obligations and marry according to the wishes of her brother,
Pinchwife. Who will she marry?
(Read the script)
(Posted
October 2003)
The Period
On May 25th 1660 King Charles
II returned to England from his long exile in France and so
ended England's eleven-year experiment with Republicanism.
Charles Stuart was restored to the throne by a euphoric nation
eager to free itself from the harsh Puritan rule which had
so disappointed and, eventually, repressed the citizenry of
the country. The period in English history known as The Restoration
had begun.
Charles II, soon to be
known as 'The Merry Monarch', had, during his stay in France,
developed a taste for the good things in life and the theatre,
outlawed and despised by the Puritans, was high on his list
of pleasurable activities which he was keen to re-introduce
to his kingdom. The old Elizabethan theatres had either been
torn down at the beginning of the Civil War in 1642 or were
unusable after eighteen years of neglect, so existing, suitable
buildings (indoor tennis courts) were pressed into service
as theatres.
With this new type of theatre
came a new type of performer - women. For the first time in
England women were permitted to appear on the stage in public
performances. Before long, the well-heeled Ladies and Gentleman
of London grew bored of seeing old plays re-vamped and re-written
- they wanted new plays which reflected their lifestyle and
interests.
And so Restoration Comedy
was born - combining complicated plots, biting satire, outrageous
farce, verbal dexterity and extreme 'humours' characterization,
it was a theatre like no other. There were more than four
hundred plays written between 1660 and 1710 yet the plays
dropped from the repertoire for nearly two hundred years until
they were revived by The Phoenix Society in 1915.
Now it is the turn of The
Lisbon Players to bring one of these wonderful plays, 'The
Country Wife', back to the attention of the theatre-going
public. |
