william wycherley the country wife image:
TRANSCRIPT
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