The Country Wife Dramaturgical File
Audio File
House Music Playlist for The Country Wife
From classic English violin music to contemporary hits from the 2020s by the Vitamin String Quartet, this house music playlist for The Country Wife is sure to delight and surprise all audience members while also hinting at the concept of the play.
The Country Wife Music
The Country Wife contains two pieces of music: a ballad sung by Lady Fidget when she is alone with her ladies and Master Horner, and a "dance of cuckolds" done at the finale of the play where the whole cast is onstage.
Lady Fidget's Song
In act 5, scene 4, Lady Fidget sings a song to her group of Honorable Ladies (Lady Squeamish and Dainty Fidget) and Master Horner before she reveals to them all that Horner is her lover. The song is often cut from modern renditions of the play since it is the only song sung by a character and it is arguably out of place. The lyrics to the song are provided below:
"Why should our damned tyrants oblige us to live
On the pittance of pleasure which they only give?
We must not rejoice with wine and with noise:
In vain we must wake in a dull bed alone,
Whilst to our warm rival the bottle they're gone.
Then lay aside charms,
And take up these arms.
'Tis wine only gives 'em their courage and wit;
Because we live sober, to men we submit.
If for beauties you'd pass,
Take a lick of the glass,
'Twill mend your complexions, and when they are gone,
The best red we have is the red of the grape:
Then, sisters, lay't on,
And damn a good shape." (Lady Fidget, pg 130, lines 97-120)
Mark James Walker, UK composer and musician, composed a backing track for the song since there is no official sheet music for the piece. The lyrics would be where the staccato strings are leading the song. Listen to the backing track below.
Dance of Cuckolds
The dance of cuckolds is in the final scene of the play, Act 5, Scene 4. The whole cast is onstage, and watches performers perform a dance. The dance itself is a single stage direction:
"A dance of cuckolds" (pg. 150, line 372)
Very little is given in the script about the dance, and it is only foreshadowed two scenes earlier with Sir Jaspar's promise to Horner that he would bring in "the Banquet and the Fiddles" (pg. 128, line 94).
David Gelineau of Comparative Drama wrote an article about the dance of cuckolds that can be found on the critical articles page of this website, and provides a good analysis into the significance of the song. Gelineau argues that the dance’s symbolism does more than display who has been cuckolded onstage but rather condemns England because the society is fundamentally dishonest and therefore the audiences seeing the play were dishonest people. Gelineau argues that Wycherley saw his goal as a playwright was to call out the audience’s cynicism as a form of satirical target, and Wycherley forces those in the audiences to identify themselves with the cuckolds.
Below is a playlist of suggestions for the instrumental "dance of cuckolds". Since our version of the play is meant to be highly anachronistic, it would be fun to ask the sound designer to create a remix of an older song mixed with a newer song.