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Director: John Colmans
Performances: Friday 21st, Sat 22nd Weds 26th, Thurs 27th, Friday 28th and Sat 29th July - Evenings 7.30 pm . Matinées 3 pm Saturdays. Performed at the Little Oak Wood Open Air Arena.
The play: Harry Horner has hit on a foolproof plan to have his way with society women, or so he reckons. He has it rumoured that he is now no threat to womanly virtue because a nasty foreign disease has robbed him of his virility. This, he reckons, will bring him in close touch with women because their husbands will not protect them so much, and he will be able to tell which women are up for a bit of fun according to how much they regret his alleged new condition. In particular, his sights are set on Margery, up in town with he jealous husband as he arranges his sister’s marriage. Horner and his rakish pals are on the hunt… William Wycherley’s bawdy and pointed Restoration comedy of manners is well suited to Garden Suburb Theatre’s lovely open air arena in Little Oak Wood in Hampstead Garden Suburb.
| Margery Pinchwife | Natalie Adzic |
| Mr Pinchwife | Colin Gregory |
| Horner | Chris Radnedge |
| Harcourt | Jason Thorn |
| Sparkish | Calvin Moore |
| Alithea | Marilyn Greene |
| Lady Fidget | Ruth Oliver |
| Sir Jaspar Fidget | Bernard Smith |
| Dainty Fidget | Rosie Nicchita |
| Mrs Squeamish | Imogen Colmans |
| Old Lady Squeamish | Pam Walker |
| Quack | Michael Henry |
| Boy | Aubrey Lewis |
| Parson | Ken Carter |
The Country Wife is a Restoration comedywritten in 1675 by William Wycherley. A product of the tolerant early Restoration period, the play reflects an aristocratic and anti-Puritan ideology, and was controversial for its sexual explicitness even in its own time. Even its title contains a lewd pun. It is based on several plays by Molière with added features that 1670s London audiences demanded: colloquial prose dialogue in place of Molière's verse, a complicated, fast-paced plot tangle, and many sex jokes. It turns on two indelicate plot devices: a rake's trick of pretending impotence in order to safely have clandestine affairs with married women, and the arrival in London of an inexperienced young "country wife", with her discovery of the joys of town life, especially the fascinating London men.
The scandalous trick and the frank language have for much of the play's history kept it off the stage and out of print. Between 1753 and 1924, The Country Wife was considered too outrageous to be performed at all and was replaced on the stage by David Garrick's cleaned-up and bland version The Country Girl, now a forgotten curiosity. The original play is again a stage favourite today, and is also acclaimed by academic critics, who praise its linguistic energy, sharp social satire, and openness to different interpretations.
GST is affiliated to the National Dramatic and Operatic Association