top of page

Initial Response

Line and Staging Moments

  1. Favorite Line: “O my husband! – Prevented! – and what’s almost as bad, found with my arms about another man – that will appear too much – what shall I say? – Sir Jaspar come hither. I am trying if Master Horner were ticklish, and he’s as ticklish as can be. I love to torment the confounded toad. Let you and I tickle him.” (Lady Fidget, 101)

    I found this moment to be absolutely hilarious because Lady Fidget was in the embraces of another man, and her husband walks in on them. She immediately claims that she was trying to tickle him and recites her whole thought process aloud to the audience. Not only is her excuse a good cover-up, but it also demonstrates how witty the women in The Country Wife are, and how gullible their husbands can be.
     

  2. Favorite Moment: “Wife! My Lady Fidget! He is coming into you the back way!” “Let him come, and welcome, which way he will.” (Sir Jaspar/Lady Fidget, 103)

    The Country Wife is riddled to the brim with innuendos, and almost everything carrying some representation of sex. The moment where Master Horner and Lady Fidget have sex in the room next to her unsuspecting husband is one of those sensational moments and this particular instance is definitely one of the highlights. 
     

  3. Most Significant Line: “Vain fops, but court, and dress, and keep a pother / To pass for women’s men with one another; / But he who aims by women to be prized, / First by men, you see, must be despised.” (Master Horner, 150)
    The last line of the play before the epilogue, recited by the main character, Master Horner, is the most significant line of the play because Horner concludes that men who truly want to be manipulating womanizers have to be willing to have other men look down on them. Throughout the play, men are often fooled and cuckolded because they care so much about their honor. The only character who ends up truly winning is Master Horner, and the only way he did it was destroying his reputation first. In a society where many people are liars and manipulators, it reaps benefits to be one as well.
     

  4. Most Significant Moment: “Let’s see – ‘For I can defer no longer our wedding. Your slighted Alithea.’ – What’s the meaning of this? My sister’s name to’t? Speak, unriddle!” (Pinchwife, 120)

    This moment in the play is when Pinchwife’s wife, Margery, crafts the lie that her sister-in-law is planning to marry the man she loves so that Margery’s husband won’t kill her. Her sister-in-law is completely unaware this is happening and was actually supposed to marry a different man earlier in the play. This moment really begins the web of lies for the play and creates the direct action that leads to all of the characters being in the same room together trying to figure out the truth (and almost dueling to get the answers they need). 

Positives

  1. Powerful Women: The Country Wife is riddled to the brim with powerful, cunning, and manipulative women: most specifically Lady Fidget, Mrs. Squeamish, and Alithea Pinchwife. While the women do everything that they can to protect their honor in the eyes of society, they do not really care about what is done in private. Lady Fidget describes women’s virtue as “the statesman’s religion, the Quaker’s word, the gamester’s oath, and the great man’s honor – but to cheat those that trust them” (Lady Fidget, 137). All the women have power in their own right, even those kept under lock and key such as Margery Pinchwife. I was so impressed and pleasantly surprised by this, and it’s one of the many reasons why I love restoration comedy. In the eras of romanticism and sentimentality, the women are often seen as the ones crying and begging for help, but in restoration, they are the ones making the men’s head spin and making them feel weak. The women in the play hold the power to make their husbands lose their reputation through cuckholding them, and they dangle that in front of them like a carrot on a stick. It is easily one of my favorite parts of the play and the era. It makes me really excited and inspires me to want to play one of these characters one day. As a result of all of this, we may receive a lot of desire from female actors to play these roles, and they also could present themselves as good thesis roles for some of the actors. 
     

  2. Weak Men: Opposite to the powerful women of The Country Wife, many of the male characters are terrified of losing their reputations and honor as a result of their wives cuckholding them. The most notable example is Master Pinchwife, who is so scared of losing his wife that he “locks her up” (Pinchwife, 124) and describes her to his friends as “of no beauty but her youth; no attraction but her modesty; wholesome, homely, and housewifely, that’s all.” (Pinchwife, 23). While the men talk a big game in the play, in private they are terrified of their wives betraying them. None of the male characters desire to marry for love except one of them, and even when they are married, they see their wives as a massive burden to them because they trust them so little. I found this to be absolutely hilarious, and it is one of my favorite things about The Country Wife. I found it so enjoyable because in other plays before the era, men held all the power in each piece, but in this play and others in the restoration era, men and women are on an even playing field, and in the end, the women are the true winners of the story. It’s such a rare trope to see that I find it delightful every time I read it. This type of character would be delightful for some of our male actors, and again, could present some wonderful thesis opportunities since they are so rare onstage.
     

  3. Innuendos: Due to the fact that The Country Wife is in the often-called bawdy restoration era, several of the lines in the play are sexual innuendos, said by both the men and the women. Master Horner often makes reference to the clap, otherwise known as gonorrhea, at one point asking Pinchwife if he “wert thou not well cured of thy last clap?” (Master Horner, 111). There are also several references to items as sexual objects, such as the china piece that Lady Fidget’s husband asks her to buy with Master Horner. While Sir Jaspar thinks that the pair are looking at china pieces in his home, they are actually having sex. When they return, Lady Fidget announces that they have been “toiling and moiling for the prettiest piece of china” (Lady Fidget, 106). Wycherley used the cleverness of his language to impregnate the whole play with sexual innuendos, and to those who have a great understanding of the language, it is an absolute delight. I found myself laughing out loud while I was reading the play and having to pause just to enjoy the wit of the language. I wish I could find a way to incorporate some of the witty phrases said by Master Horner and Lady Fidget in my own life, because they are simply so enjoyable. However, these innuendos might be something that need to be stated to audiences in advance, especially those who may have a desire to bring children, that there are many sexual references that should be taken into account.
     

  4. Huge Set: The Country Wife presents the opportunity for an incredibly large box set due to the size and scale of the production, as well as the types of houses that existed at the time, and the many location changes that take place within it. This is an incredibly exciting prospect to me, and I would hope that I can work with the set designer, props designer, and scenic charge to make sure that we are keeping every element of furniture, wallpaper, and colors as period accurate as we wish to be.

Challenges

  1. Difficult Language: For as hilarious as The Country Wife is, it has language that would be very confusing and hard to understand for a 21st century audience member. With characters using language such as “the orange wenches at the playhouses, the city husbands, and old fumbling keepers” (Horner, 7) as well as “waiting women, tire-women, and old women of acquaintance” (Quack, 7). Throughout the process of my reading of the play, I was constantly pausing to research words and keeping a glossary on the page of all the different language. I worry that the restoration dialogue might be very hard for an audience to understand, and that as a result they might get bored and not enjoy the performance. It may be a good idea for me to include a glossary into this program, or possibly have opera-style headings onstage to translate the more difficult words or phrases such as one might translate a different language.
     

  2. Very Long: The play itself is roughly 155 pages, spanning of 5 acts and primarily dialogue, and not a great deal of action outside that. At the end of the play, there is a “dance of cuckholds” (150) and a few threats of a duel, but outside of that, it is a very long play with a lot of talking. While I thoroughly enjoyed the play, there were a few moments where I believed some of the play could be cut for length to keep an audience’s attention. To compete with plays of the modern day, it would be good to shorten it just a little if at all possible. I think it would be worthwhile to find places to shorten the play, just because it is so long, and it would be wise for me to outline potential places to do so with the director. A potential suggestion could be some lines throughout Act 2, Scene 4 AKA the scene in Covent Garden where everyone is out shopping. 
     

  3. Margery Pinchwife and Abuse: In contrast to many of the strong female characters in The Country Wife, Margery Pinchwife stands as the slight outlier. Due to the fact that she is from the country, she knows very little about London customs, and as a result is kept under lock and key by her husband. There are several points in the play where her husband, Pinchwife, threatens multiple times to kill her. At one point, Margery writes in her letter to Master Horner that he should not let him see the letter, “lest he should come home and pinch me, or kill my squirrel” (Master Horner, 110). This relationship in The Country Wife is an abusive one and could be traumatic to specific audience members who may have experienced past relationship trauma. As someone who has experienced some relationship trauma in years past, I was experiencing chills from Margery’s unfortunate situation, and so I think it would be important to have a content warning for this relationship in the play. This could be included in our program, or written on our posters.
     

  4. Accents: In The Country Wife, each of the characters are from a different area of England. Due to the fact that the play is set in London, it will be important that all of the actors reflect having a dialect that engages with that era. Some characters, such as Margery, may have a separate dialect to separate her from other characters. It will be a challenge, especially for potential American actors, to learn and adapt to a new dialect style over the course of a show. Do we want to hire a form of dialect coach to help actors learn the British/English dialect, and not just “The Queen's Language” (AKA stereotypical, British English)? And also, which dialects will we choose for actors, since some of these characters are from different areas and therefore speak differently.

Questions

  1. In the character list, why does Wycherley include the names of the (supposedly) original actors who played the characters? He includes the names such as “Mr Hart as Master Horner” and “Mrs. Rutter as Old Lady Squeamish” (2). What is the significance of including the original actors for this play? Would we need to cast different people, and who would we attribute to these lines? 
     

  2. Actors in this show will need to have some form of a rehearsal corset because it does take a long time to get used to wearing a proper corset. Should I as a dramaturg be involved with the costume designer as to the type of corset, and when in the rehearsal process should they start wearing it? 
     

  3. This show is technically restoration-style drama, meaning that we should probably keep some element of the show in period. However, this is also theatre, and we are allowed to be flexible with accuracy especially in a show such as this. How close are we trying to keep it to period-style comedy, and what are the lengths in which we are trying to expound upon that?

Crack + Thread

Reputation and Honor: The Country Wife, similar to the restoration society of the time, strongly carries a thread of holding a strong public reputation and having high honor while not exactly reflecting that honor behind closed doors. Characters in The Country Wife want to hold a high social status by appearing honorable in public but are decidedly the opposite in private. For example, Pinchwife, who is terrified to death of his wife cheating on him and repeatedly declaring that he “will not be a cuckold, I say; there will be danger in making me a cuckold” (Pinchwife, 110) was once considered by his friends a notorious “whoremaster” (Master Horner, 109). The three most honorable ladies in the play, Lady Fidget, Dainty Fidget, and Mrs Squeamish, who are so concerned about their honor that they will not show their naked face in a room with a man without their husband, all end up sleeping with the same man. The only character who is exempt to this is Master Horner, who does not care about his reputation as much as others. Even still, he uses his reputation as a bartering chip to attain his goals. In the end, through a web of lies created by all of the characters, everyone’s reputation is saved: and their obsession with reputation and honor blinds them from the truth.

It is through the thread of reputation that I make my most powerful connection to The Country Wife. Through my past experiences in high school and undergraduate college experience, I have seen this type of scenario play through the social lives of many communities. People will lie and deceive others as a means of protecting their honor and reputation so that they can still be seen as reliable. This happened to me in the past with old friends, who would tell me how much they care about me to my face but behind my back they would betray me. As a result of that, I have tried everything in my power to be an honest person and act the same way in private as I do when I am in public. I hold myself to a strict moral code and I take this play as a good lesson in how it can be dangerous to have a public self and a hidden self.

Audio + Visual Moments

  1. Audio Elements

    1. On page 134, Lady Fidget sings a song to Master Horner and her other friends in private about how “wine only gives [men and women] their courage and wit” (Lady Fidget, 134). Her character is the only person who sings in the play, but her song helps reveal more information about her character and what she is actually like in private when she is with her closest friends. The song ultimately gives the audience a look into her true character. 
       

    2. On page 150, after everything has been resolved, the whole cast takes the floor and performs what Whycherly calls “a dance of cuckholds” (150) because so many of the men in the play have become cuckolds by the end. The music that is played over the dance is supposed to be light and beautiful, and very significant to the fact that while everything appears to be in order and innocent, almost every male character is ignorant to what their wives have done.
       

  2. Visual Elements

    1. The first important visual moment in The Country Wife is the moment when Master Horner, Harcourt and Dorilant all make fun of Pinchwife for his marriage while Pinchwife makes frequent asides to the audience about how angry he is that they discovered it. Pinchwife will lie to his friends faces, but then immediately turn to the audience and wish “a pox on [Horner] for his simile” (Pinchwife, 22) for discovering his secrets. This scene begins the ever-growing web of lies that Pinchwife puts himself in by claiming that Margery is ugly and false.

    2. The second important visual moment in the play is when ignorant Master Sparkish allows his best friend, Harcourt, to court his fiancée Alithea. When she confronts Sparkish and tells him that Harcourt has been trying to court her, he is not worried, but when Alithea reveals that Harcourt called Sparkish a “senseless, drivelling idiot” (Alithea, 40), Sparkish draws his sword because now his “honor is concerned” (Sparkish, 40). This moment foreshadows many of the later ones, where the male characters threaten to duel when their honor is at stake. It also starts the conflict between the trio of them as Harcourt tries to court Alithea.
       

    3. The third important visual moment is when Master Horner finds Pinchwife and his wife, who he has disguised as a man, shopping in the town. Horner immediately realizes that it is Margery in disguise but pretends he does not as a trick. He kisses her repeatedly in front of her husband, saying that he should “send the kiss to his [sister]” on his behalf (Master Horner, 77). He then encourages his friends Harcourt and Dorilant to do the same. This moment enrages Pinchwife, who is watching his wife get kissed by three separate men right in front of him. It is also incredibly comical and would undoubtedly arise a laugh from the audience.
       

    4. The fourth most important visual moment is when Margery writes the letter to Master Horner about her love for him, and ultimately switches the letter with the one her husband wants her to send. Her thought process in this monologue and her ultimate decision to join the world of manipulators is an important character shift and a huge part of her education and her entrance into London society. 
       

    5. The final most significant visual moment is the “dance of cuckolds” (150) at the end of the play. It is the only moment where all of the characters are onstage together and experiencing merriment, despite the fact that there are still many lies between them. It is undoubtedly the most enjoyable moment of the play.

Concretes

  1. The China: The china, that is picked by Lady Fidget and Master Horner, is the most prominent innuendo for sex. While the pair are supposedly searching for the “prettiest piece of china” (Lady Fidget, 106) but are actually having sex in the room. When Mrs Squeamish begins to ask for china (meaning sex), Master Horner promises her that “he will have a roll-wagon for her” (Master Horner, 106) at another time. While the women and Master Horner understand what the word means, the other characters in the room are blissfully innocent.
     

  2. Margery’s Letter: Margery Pinchwife has two significant letters in the play – the first one is the letter that her husband makes her write to dismiss Master Horner from her life. He makes her write several words she does not like, such as “nauseous” and “loathed” (Pinchwife, 95). Margery then writes a separate letter professing her love to Horner and switches them while he is away. In the end, the letter delivered to Horner by Pinchwife is actually the love letter. The second significant letter of the play is the love letter that Margery writes to Horner that, when her husband discovers it half-written, she spins the lie that it’s actually from his sister, Alithea. Both of these letters create further lies in the play, and places Margery right at the center of the action. 
     

  3. Masks: Masks are often worn by the “honorable” women of the play, especially Lady Fidget and her friends. Lady Fidget believes her mask to be the thing that protects her honor, and when she is caught without wearing it, she cries out to her husband that she needs her mask, for she “would not be seen here for the world” (Lady Fidget, 126). Masks serve as something for the honorable women to hide behind and protect them. 

Echoes, Repetitions, Returnings

  1. Mistaken identities and identity swaps are repeated issues for the characters in The Country Wife. Margery often switches identities and dresses in costume: once when she goes into the city and dresses as a man with her husband, but also when she dresses as Alithea to see Master Horner. Harcourt also disguises his identity to be a canonical gentleman, his twin brother “Ned Harcourt of Cambridge” (Sparkish, 87) so that Sparkish can’t marry Alithea. Mistaken and disguised identities in the play help characters achieve their goals but also end up creating side-effects such as confusing other characters and complicating their lives.
     

  2. Another frequent returning is the idea of duels as a means of protecting one’s honor. When Alithea claims that Harcourt insulted Sparkish, he immediately draws his sword to fight Harcourt in the means of protecting his honor. Pinchwife also draws his sword on Master Horner when he discovers that he may have cuckolded him. To the men in the play, a duel is the only way to recover from hurt honor. 
     

  3. An unfortunate repetition throughout The Country Wife is the idea that women exist as the property of men and that they cannot be seen without the company of their husbands. Both Pinchwife and Sir Jaspar keep constant watch of their wives, and Sir Jaspar only allows his wife to spend so much time with Master Horner is because he is “a mere eunuch” (Sir Jaspar, 88) and therefore not someone who can cuckold him.

Summary

  1. My Summary: The Country Wife is about a rake, Master Horner, who ruins his reputation by pretending to be a eunuch so that he can sleep with women as often as he likes without fear of being killed or punished. He sleeps with many women, including a whole group of friends, right under their husbands’ noses. Master Horner manages to make one of his friend’s wives, Margery Pinchwife, an innocent naïve woman from the country, fall in love with him, enraging her husband who is unaware of Master Horner’s lie. His relationship with Margery almost ruins his secret and nearly destroys the reputation of the women he slept with and their husbands. Moments before the truth is revealed, one of the maids spins a web of lies to protect everyone’s reputations and save the lives of all the characters. The characters have a final dance together, now living in perfect harmony and ignorance of the truth. 
     

  2. Why This Play Now: The Country Wife is a witty and bawdy comedy, full of many laughs, clever characters, and classic theatrical tropes. It is an absolutely hilarious and enjoyable comedy for all mature audiences.  In a world where we are wracked by so much death from political uprising, a global pandemic that is killing hundreds of thousands, and many people facing loneliness and depression, a play such as this would be the perfect break from the horror that many would enjoy. Through the use of software such as Zoom, this play could easily be adapted for online performance, especially because the set does not change frequently during the play. It could also be modernized with updated language for all audiences to enjoy.  The Country Wife celebrates the inappropriate -- a concept that so many seek to hide in their lives – by including stories of adultery, intercourse, and double entendres. It can be so hard for audiences in their professional lives or in their home lives to celebrate the things that society often seeks to punish, and The Country Wife provides a home for that. On the flip side, The Country Wife also serves as an important reminder to be truthful of who you are inside and out, as lies can lead to destroyed reputations. Wycherley’s play serves as a reminder that honesty truly is the best policy, and that spinning a web of lies can be dangerous and life-threatening. It also teaches to not control people, because the more pressure you put on them, the more inspired they will be to break the rules.

Theatre History Connection

The Country Wife by William Wycherley was a product of the Restoration Era, or the time when Charles II was restored to the throne after it was taken by Puritans and Charles was sent into exile. The Puritans banned any stage performances, and once it was lifted, there was an explosion of theatrical work from many playwrights such as Aphra Behn, John Dryden, and Wycherley himself. This play remains as one of the most famous works of theatre that came out from this tolerant English restoration period, along with others written by the French playwright Moliere. In the style of Moliere, the play also also included a complicated plot with many sub-plots. The restoration period was also the beginning of women being allowed to perform, which Wycherley took full advantage of in his work. Audiences were amazed by seeing real women cross-dress in the play and found it to be highly entertaining. The Country Wife contains incredibly sexual themes and also included hints of anti-Puritan sentiment, which was fitting for the era due to the terrible reign of Oliver and Richard Cromwell. However, some of the sexual language was a bit to explicit for the stage, and as a result it did not stay on restoration stages long. Other playwrights such as David Garrick tried to make the play less bawdy, which was successful for its time period. Decades later, the play rejoined the stage and became a huge hit and is considered a stage favorite to this day. 

bottom of page