The Provoked Wife
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Book Overview
In this late Restoration comedy Vanbrugh not only pushes the unhappily
married couple, which had been good for no more than a raucous subplot
in earlier comedies of manners, centre-stage - he also makes the
audience sympathise with the wife: The only thing Sir John and Lady
Brute agree on is that they ought not to have married each other; now
he spends his time in drunken debauchery with his cronies, while she
tries to withstand the advances of her admirer Constant. After a series
of farcical accidents involving cross-dressing and the eternal
lover-in-the-wardrobe, the couple end where they began. Since the scene
in which Sir John disguises as a clergyman was deemed 'immoral and
profane', an alternative scene (in its way equally profane) was
written, in which he disguises as his own wife. This edition provides
both versions and discusses the play's continuing popularity on the
stage.
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