william wycherley the country wife image:

William WycherleyWilliam Wycherley

The Country WifeThe Country Wife

Image: http://blogs.warwick.ac.uk/aliceeardley/monthly/0208/

William Wycherley

1640 — 1715

Studied law

Royal favourite until his secret marriage to an heiress

Image: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:William_Wycherley_by_Sir_Peter_Lely.jpg

Production

Debuted 1665 at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane

Image: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Country_Wife_1st_ed_1675.png

Critical reception

Highly successful, though risque

Out of favour from 1753 to 1924, replaced by Garrick’s The Country Girl (1766)

Now part of the theatrical repertory

Image: http://http-server.carleton.ca/~mflynnbu/PositivePresenceAbsence/Ignatius_Sancho.htm

1998 production

Image: http://georgehartpence.com/showphotos_1995to1999.aspx

Sudbury Dramatic Society, Suffolk, 2004

Image: http://sudburydramatic.com/countrywife.html

Addison Theater, Texas, 2007

The Court Live Theatre, New Zealand

Image: http://www.courttheatre.org.nz/index.cfm/1,18,html/The-Company

U of Colorado, Boulder, 2010

Image: http://www.athe.org/node/13

Adaptations

Shampoo (1975)

Image: http://3linesabout.blogspot.com/2008_02_01_archive.html

Lust (1992)

http://www.philipcrammond.com/heather_brothers/lust.htm

Structure

Three plots:

Horner’s “impotence”

Margery and Pinchwife

Alithea and Harcourt

Image: http://bnadesigner.com/countrywife

Antecedents

Terence’s Eunuchus

Molière’s School for Husbands (1661) and School for Wives (1662)

How do the three plots work together?

Upon reading it, does one or the other take precedence, or are they equally balanced?

Horner ...

Harcourt ...

Pinchwife ...

Sir Jasper Fidget ...

Margery ...

Lady Fidget ...

Alithea ...

Charles Hart

Edward Kynaston

Michael Mohun

William Cartwright

Elizabeth Boutell

Elizabeth Knepp

Elizabeth James

original cast

18th — 19thc: Outrage > “Immoral”

Early 20thc: Tentative recuperation > “Satiric”

Now > little consensus

Critical Reaction

Further questions

How does social class function in this play?

How would you produce it? i.e. what aspects would you emphasize, and how?

Image: http://www.twilightstouch.com/index.php?cPath=31_33

“The country wife” in a 1976 pulp porn novel,

playing on the “farmer’s daughter” stereotype

“The country wife” in a 1976 pulp porn novel,

playing on the “farmer’s daughter” stereotype