The Relapse - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The Relapse, or, Virtue in Danger is a Restoration comedy

Restoration comedy

Restoration comedy refers to English comedies written and performed in the Restoration period from 1660 to 1710. After public stage performances had been banned for 18 years by the Puritan regime, the re-opening of the theatres in 1660 signalled a renaissance of English drama...

from 1696 written by John Vanbrugh

John Vanbrugh

Sir John Vanbrugh – 26 March 1726) was an English architect and dramatist, perhaps best known as the designer of Blenheim Palace and Castle Howard. He wrote two argumentative and outspoken Restoration comedies, The Relapse and The Provoked Wife , which have become enduring stage favourites...

. The play is a sequel to Colley Cibber

Colley Cibber

Colley Cibber was an English actor-manager, playwright and Poet Laureate. His colourful memoir Apology for the Life of Colley Cibber describes his life in a personal, anecdotal and even rambling style...

's Love's Last Shift, or, Virtue Rewarded.

In Cibber's Love's Last Shift, a free-living Restoration

English Restoration

The Restoration of the English monarchy began in 1660 when the English, Scottish and Irish monarchies were all restored under Charles II after the Interregnum that followed the Wars of the Three Kingdoms...

rake

Rake (character)

A rake, short for rakehell, is a historic term applied to a man who is habituated to immoral conduct, frequently a heartless womanizer. Often a rake was a man who wasted his fortune on gambling, wine, women and song, incurring lavish debts in the process...

is brought to repentance and reform by the ruses of his wife, while in The Relapse, the rake succumbs again to temptation and has a new love affair. His virtuous wife is also subjected to a determined seduction attempt, and resists with difficulty.

Vanbrugh planned The Relapse around particular actors at Drury Lane

Theatre Royal, Drury Lane

The Theatre Royal, Drury Lane is a West End theatre in Covent Garden, in the City of Westminster, a borough of London. The building faces Catherine Street and backs onto Drury Lane. The building standing today is the most recent in a line of four theatres at the same location dating back to 1663,...

, writing their stage habits, public reputations, and personal relationships into the text. One such actor was Colley Cibber himself, who played the luxuriant fop

Fop

Fop became a pejorative term for a foolish man over-concerned with his appearance and clothes in 17th century England. Some of the very many similar alternative terms are: "coxcomb", fribble, "popinjay" , fashion-monger, and "ninny"...

Lord Foppington in both Love's Last Shift and The Relapse. However, Vanbrugh's artistic plans were threatened by a cutthroat struggle between London's two theatre companies, each of which was "seducing" actors from the other. The Relapse came close to being not produced at all, but the successful performance that was eventually achieved in November 1696 vindicated Vanbrugh's intentions, and saved the company from bankruptcy

Bankruptcy

Bankruptcy is a legal status of an insolvent person or an organisation, that is, one that cannot repay the debts owed to creditors. In most jurisdictions bankruptcy is imposed by a court order, often initiated by the debtor....

as well.

Unlike Love's Last Shift, never again performed after the 1690s, The Relapse has retained its audience

Audience

An audience is a group of people who participate in a show or encounter a work of art, literature , theatre, music or academics in any medium...

appeal. In the 18th century, however, its tolerant attitude towards actual and attempted adultery

Adultery

Adultery is sexual infidelity to one's spouse, and is a form of extramarital sex. It originally referred only to sex between a woman who was married and a person other than her spouse. Even in cases of separation from one's spouse, an extramarital affair is still considered adultery.Adultery is...

gradually became unacceptable to public opinion, and the original play was for a century replaced on the stage by Sheridan

Richard Brinsley Sheridan

Richard Brinsley Butler Sheridan was an Irish-born playwright and poet and long-term owner of the London Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. For thirty-two years he was also a Whig Member of the British House of Commons for Stafford , Westminster and Ilchester...

's moralised version A Trip to Scarborough
A Trip to Scarborough
A Trip to Scarborough is an 18th century play by Richard Brinsley Sheridan , first performed on 24 February 1777. Sheridan based his work on John Vanbrugh's The Relapse , removing much of the bawdy content....

(1777). On the modern stage, The Relapse has been established as one of the most popular Restoration comedies, valued for Vanbrugh's light, throwaway wit and the consummate acting part of Lord Foppington, a burlesque

Burlesque

Burlesque is a literary, dramatic or musical work intended to cause laughter by caricaturing the manner or spirit of serious works, or by ludicrous treatment of their subjects...

character with a dark side.

Sexual ideology

Love's Last Shift can be seen as an early sign of Cibber's sensitivity to shifts of public opinion, which was to be useful to him in his later career as manager at Drury Lane (see Colley Cibber

Colley Cibber

). In the 1690s, the economic and political power balance of the nation tilted from the aristocracy

Aristocracy

Aristocracy , is a form of government in which a few elite citizens rule. The term derives from the Greek aristokratia, meaning "rule of the best". In origin in Ancient Greece, it was conceived of as rule by the best qualified citizens, and contrasted with monarchy...

towards the middle class

Middle class

The middle class is any class of people in the middle of a societal hierarchy. In Weberian socio-economic terms, the middle class is the broad group of people in contemporary society who fall socio-economically between the working class and upper class....

after the Glorious Revolution

Glorious Revolution

The Glorious Revolution, also called the Revolution of 1688, is the overthrow of King James II of England by a union of English Parliamentarians with the Dutch stadtholder William III of Orange-Nassau...

of 1689, and middle-class values of religion, morality, and gender role

Gender role

Gender roles refer to the set of social and behavioral norms that are considered to be socially appropriate for individuals of a specific sex in the context of a specific culture, which differ widely between cultures and over time...

s became more dominant, not least in attitudes to the stage. Love's Last Shift is one of the first illustrations of a massive shift in audience taste, away from the analytic bent and sexual frankness of Restoration comedy

Restoration comedy

and towards the conservative certainties and gender

Gender

Gender is a range of characteristics used to distinguish between males and females, particularly in the cases of men and women and the masculine and feminine attributes assigned to them. Depending on the context, the discriminating characteristics vary from sex to social role to gender identity...

role backlash of exemplary or sentimental comedy. The play illustrates Cibber's opportunism at a moment in time before the change was assured: fearless of self-contradiction, he puts something into his first play to please every section of the audience, combining the old outspokenness with the new preachiness. The way Vanbrugh, in his turn, allows the reformed rake to relapse quite cheerfully, and has the only preaching in the play come from the comically corrupt parson of "Fatgoose Living", has made some early 20th-century critics refer to The Relapse as the last of the true Restoration comedies. However, Vanbrugh's play is also affected by the taste of the 1690s, and compared to a play like the courtier William Wycherley

William Wycherley

William Wycherley was an English dramatist of the Restoration period, best known for the plays The Country Wife and The Plain Dealer.-Biography:...

's The Country Wife
The Country Wife
The Country Wife is a Restoration comedy written 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. The title itself contains a lewd pun...

of 20 years earlier, with its celebration of predatory aristocratic masculinity, The Relapse contains quite a few moments of morality and uplift. In fact it has a kind of parallel structure to Love's Last Shift: in the climactic scene of Cibber's play, Amanda's virtue reforms her husband, and in the corresponding scene of The Relapse, it reforms her admirer Worthy. Such moments have not done the play any favours with modern critics.

Love's Last Shift plot

Love's Last Shift is the story of a last "shift" or trick that a virtuous wife, Amanda, is driven to in order to reform and retain her rakish

Rake (character)

husband Loveless. Loveless has been away for ten years, dividing his time between the brothel and the bottle, and no longer recognizes his wife when he returns to London. Acting the part of a high-class prostitute, Amanda lures Loveless into her luxurious house and treats him to the night of his dreams, confessing her true identity in the morning. Loveless is so impressed that he immediately reforms. A minor part that was a great hit with the première audience is the fop

Fop

Sir Novelty Fashion, written by Cibber for himself to play. Sir Novelty flirts with all the women, but is more interested in his own exquisite appearance and witticisms, and Cibber would modestly write in his autobiography

Autobiography

An autobiography is a book about the life of a person, written by that person.-Origin of the term:...

45 years later, "was thought a good portrait of the foppery then in fashion". Combining daring sex scenes with sentimental reconciliations and Sir Novelty's buffoonery, Love's Last Shift offered something for everybody, and was a great box-office hit.

The Relapse plot

Vanbrugh's The Relapse is less sentimental and more analytical than Love's Last Shift, subjecting both the reformed husband and the virtuous wife to fresh temptations, and having them react with more psychological realism. Loveless falls for the vivacious young widow Berinthia, while Amanda barely succeeds in summoning her virtue to reject her admirer Worthy. The three central characters, Amanda, Loveless, and Sir Novelty (ennobled by Vanbrugh into "Lord Foppington"), are the only ones that recur in both plays, the remainder of the Relapse characters being new.

In the trickster

Trickster

In mythology, and in the study of folklore and religion, a trickster is a god, goddess, spirit, man, woman, or anthropomorphic animal who plays tricks or otherwise disobeys normal rules and conventional behavior. It is suggested by Hansen that the term "Trickster" was probably first used in this...

subplot

Subplot

A subplot is a secondary plot strand that is a supporting side story for any story or the main plot. Subplots may connect to main plots, in either time and place or in thematic significance...

, young Tom tricks his elder brother Lord Foppington out of his intended bride and her large dowry

Dowry

A dowry is the money, goods, or estate that a woman brings forth to the marriage. It contrasts with bride price, which is paid to the bride's parents, and dower, which is property settled on the bride herself by the groom at the time of marriage. The same culture may simultaneously practice both...

. This plot takes up nearly half the play and expands the part of Sir Novelty to give more scope for the roaring success of Cibber's fop acting. Recycling Cibber's merely fashion-conscious fop, Vanbrugh lets him buy himself a title and equips him with enough aplomb and selfishness to weather all humiliations. Although Lord Foppington may be "very industrious to pass for an ass", as Amanda remarks, he is at bottom "a man who Nature has made no fool" (II.i.148). Literary historians agree in esteeming him "the greatest of all Restoration fops" (Dobrée), "brutal, evil, and smart" (Hume).

Background: theatre company split

In the early 1690s, London had only one officially countenanced theatre company, the "United Company", badly managed and with its takings bled off by predatory investors ("adventurers"). To counter the draining of the company's income, the manager Christopher Rich

Christopher Rich (theatre manager)

Christopher Rich was a lawyer and theatrical manager in London in the late 17th and early 18th century, and the father of the important impresario John Rich...

slashed the salaries and traditional perks of his skilled professional actors, antagonizing such popular performers as Thomas Betterton

Thomas Betterton

Thomas Patrick Betterton , English actor, son of an under-cook to King Charles I, was born in London.-Apprentice and actor:...

, the tragedienne Elizabeth Barry

Elizabeth Barry

Elizabeth Barry was an English actress of the Restoration period.She worked in big, prestigious London theatre companies throughout her successful career: from 1675 in the Duke's Company, 1682 – 1695 in the monopoly United Company, and from 1695 onwards as a member of the actors' cooperative...

, and the comedienne Anne Bracegirdle

Anne Bracegirdle

Anne Bracegirdle was an English actress.Little is known of Bracegirdle's early life. Her precise date of birth is a source of great dispute due to conflicting records of her life. She was baptised in Northampton on 15 November 1671, although her tombstone says that she died at the age of 85...

. Colley Cibber

Colley Cibber

wrote in his autobiography that the owners of the United Company, "who had made a monopoly

Monopoly

A monopoly exists when a specific person or enterprise is the only supplier of a particular commodity...

of the stage, and consequently presumed they might impose what conditions they pleased upon their people, did not consider that they were all this while endeavouring to enslave a set of actors whom the public… were inclined to support." Betterton and his colleagues set forth the bad finances of the United Company and the plight of the actors in a "Petition of the Players" submitted to the Lord Chamberlain

Lord Chamberlain

The Lord Chamberlain or Lord Chamberlain of the Household is one of the chief officers of the Royal Household in the United Kingdom and is to be distinguished from the Lord Great Chamberlain, one of the Great Officers of State....

. This unusual document is signed by nine men and six women, all established professional actors, and details a disreputable jumble of secret investments and "farmed" shares, making the case that owner chicanery rather than any failure of audience interest was at the root of the company's financial problems. Barely veiled strike

Strike action

Strike action, also called labour strike, on strike, greve , or simply strike, is a work stoppage caused by the mass refusal of employees to work. A strike usually takes place in response to employee grievances. Strikes became important during the industrial revolution, when mass labour became...

threats in the actors' petition were met with an answering lockout

Lockout (industry)

A lockout is a work stoppage in which an employer prevents employees from working. This is different from a strike, in which employees refuse to work.- Causes :...

threat from Rich in a "Reply of the Patentees", but the burgeoning conflict was pre-empted by a suspension of all play-acting from December until March 1695 on account of Queen Mary's illness and death. During this interval, a cooperative

Cooperative

A cooperative is a business organization owned and operated by a group of individuals for their mutual benefit...

actors' company took shape under the leadership of Betterton and was granted a Royal "licence to act" on 25 March, to the dismay of Rich, who saw the threat too late.

The two companies that emerged from this labour/management conflict are usually known respectively as the "Patent Company" (the no-longer-united United Company) and "Betterton's Company", although Judith Milhous argues that the latter misrepresents the cooperative nature of the actors' company. In the following period of intense rivalry, the Patent Company was handicapped by a shortage of competent actors. "Seducing" actors (as the legal term was) back and forth between the companies was a key tactic in the ensuing struggle for position, and so were appeals to the Lord Chamberlain to issue injunction

Injunction

An injunction is an equitable remedy in the form of a court order that requires a party to do or refrain from doing certain acts. A party that fails to comply with an injunction faces criminal or civil penalties and may have to pay damages or accept sanctions...

s against seductions from the other side, which that functionary was quite willing to do. Later Rich also resorted to hiring amateurs, and to tempting Irish actors over from Dublin. But such measures were not yet in place for the staging of The Relapse in 1696, Rich's most desperate venture.

Casting

Vanbrugh is assumed to have attempted to tailor his play to the talents of particular actors and to what audiences would expect from them, as was normal practice (Holland), but this was exceptionally difficult to accomplish in 1695–96. Love's Last Shift had been cast from the remnants of the Patent Company—"learners" and "boys and girls"—after the walkout of the stars. Following the surprising success of this young cast, Vanbrugh and Rich had even greater difficulty in retaining the actors needed for The Relapse. However, in spite of the continuous emergency in which the Relapse production was mounted, most of Vanbrugh's original intentions were eventually carried out.

Love's Last Shift cast

To cast Love's Last Shift in January 1696, the Patent Company had to make the best use of such actors as remained after the 1694 split (see cast list right). An anonymous contemporary pamphlet describes the "despicable condition" the troupe had been reduced to:

The disproportion was so great at parting, that it was almost impossible, in Drury Lane, to muster up a sufficient number to take in all the parts of any play; and of them so few were tolerable, that a play must of necessity be damned, that had not extraordinary favour from the audience. No fewer than sixteen (most of the old standing) went away; and with them the very beauty and vigour of the stage; they who were left being for the most part learners, boys and girls, a very unequal match for them that revolted.

The only well-regarded performers available were the Verbruggens, John

John Verbruggen

John Baptista Verbruggen, d. 1708, was an English actor working in London. Verbruggen is first mentioned as a member of the United Company in a Lord Chamberlain's warrant in 1688. His name does not appear in any cast lists until October 1690...

and Susanna

Susanna Verbruggen

Susanna Verbruggen , aka Susanna Mountfort, was an English actress working in London. Her first recorded stage appearance may have been as early as 1681 in D'Urfey's Sir Barnaby Whig...

, who had been re-seduced by Rich from Betterton's company. They were of course used in Love's Last Shift, with John playing Loveless, the male lead

Leading actor

A leading actor, leading actress, star, or simply lead, plays the role of the protagonist in a film or play. The word lead may also refer to the largest role in the piece and leading actor may refer to a person who typically plays such parts or an actor with a respected body of work...

, and his wife Susanna the flirtatious heiress Narcissa, a secondary character. The rest of the cast consisted of the new and untried (for instance Hildebrand Horden

Hildebrand Horden

Hildebrand Horden was a London actor who died in 1696, at an early age. The date of his birth is not known. He joined the United Company in 1694, just before it split in two as the senior actors, headed by Thomas Betterton, walked out and set up a cooperative company in Lincoln's Inn Fields...

, who had just joined Rich's troupe, playing a rakish young lover), the modest and lacklustre (Jane Rogers, playing Amanda, and Mary Kent

Mary Kent

Mary Kent was an English actress, whose career lasted from 1692 to 1718, and the wife of Drury Lane actor Thomas Kent. Her dates of birth and death are not known. Mary Kent appeared in many playbills from 1692 onwards in London, playing minor parts in the United Company until the company's...

, playing Sir Novelty's mistress

Mistress (lover)

A mistress is a long-term female lover and companion who is not married to her partner; the term is used especially when her partner is married. The relationship generally is stable and at least semi-permanent; however, the couple does not live together openly. Also the relationship is usually,...

Flareit), and the widely disliked (the opportunist Colley Cibber, playing Sir Novelty Fashion); people who had probably never been given the option of joining Betterton. Betterton's only rival as male lead, George Powell, had most likely been left behind by the rebels with some relief (Milhous); while Powell was skilled and experienced, he was also notorious for his bad temper and alcoholism

Alcoholism

Alcoholism is a broad term for problems with alcohol, and is generally used to mean compulsive and uncontrolled consumption of alcoholic beverages, usually to the detriment of the drinker's health, personal relationships, and social standing...

. Throughout the "seduction" tug-of-war between Rich and Betterton in 1695–96, Powell remained at Drury Lane, where he was in fact not used for Love's Last Shift, but would instead spectacularly demonstrate his drinking problem at the première of The Relapse.

The Relapse cast

Vanbrugh planned The Relapse, too, round these limited casting resources and minor talents, which Peter Holland has argued explains the robust, farcical character of the play; Vanbrugh's second comedy, The Provoked Wife
The Provoked Wife
The Provoked Wife is the second original comedy written by John Vanbrugh. The often-repeated claim that Vanbrugh wrote part of his comedy The Provoked Wife in the Bastille is based on allusions in a couple of much later memoirs, but is regarded with some doubt by modern scholars...

(1697), written for the better actors of the cooperative company, is a much subtler piece. The Relapse was written in six weeks and offered to the Patent Company in March, but because of the problems with contracting and retaining actors, it did not première until November. It is known from Cibber's autobiography that Vanbrugh had a decisive say in the ongoing casting changes made during these seven months; it is not known whether he altered his text to accommodate them.

To reinforce the connection with Love's Last Shift and capitalize on its unusual success, Vanbrugh designed the central roles of Loveless, Amanda, and Sir Novelty for the same actors: John Verbruggen, Jane Rogers, and Colley Cibber. Keeping Rogers as Amanda was not a problem, since she was not an actress that the companies fought over, but holding on to John Verbruggen and Colley Cibber posed challenges, to which Rich rose with energetic campaigns of bribery and re-seduction. Filling the rest of the large Relapse cast presented a varied palette of problems, which forced some unconventional emergency casting.

John Verbruggen

John Verbruggen

was one of the original rebels and had been offered a share in the actors' company, but became disgruntled when his wife Susanna

Susanna Verbruggen

Susanna Verbruggen , aka Susanna Mountfort, was an English actress working in London. Her first recorded stage appearance may have been as early as 1681 in D'Urfey's Sir Barnaby Whig...

, a popular comedienne, was not. For Rich, it was a stroke of luck to get Susanna and John back into his depleted and unskilled troupe. John's availability to play Loveless remained precarious, however. In September, when The Relapse had still not been staged after six months of trying (probably because Rich was still parleying with Cibber about his availability as Lord Foppington), John was still complaining about his employment situation, even getting into a physical fight over it at the theatre. This misbehaviour caused the Lord Chamberlain to declare his contract void and at the same time order him to stay with the Patent Company until January 1697, to give Rich time to find a replacement. The original Loveless was thus finally guaranteed for an autumn season run of The Relapse. Since the loyal Verbruggen couple always moved as a unit, Susanna's services were also assured.

The Verbruggens were essential to the play, not least because Vanbrugh had customized the sprightly temptress Berinthia to Susanna's talents and reputation for witty, roguish, sexually enterprising characters, most recently Mrs Buxom in Thomas D'Urfey

Thomas d'Urfey

Thomas D'Urfey was an English writer and wit. He composed plays, songs, and poetry, in addition to writing jokes. He was an important innovator and contributor in the evolution of the Ballad opera....

's Don Quixote (a success thanks to "the extraordinary well acting of Mrs Verbruggen", wrote D'Urfey). Although John was less well known, his acting skills were considerable and would flourish after January 1697 in the cooperative company, where commentators even started to compare him with the great Betterton. Verbruggen was considered a more natural, intuitive or "careless" actor, with "a negligent agreeable wildness in his action and his mien, which became him well." Anthony Aston

Anthony Aston

Anthony Aston was an English actor and dramatist.He began to be known on the London stage in the early years of the 18th century. He had tried the law and other professions, which he finally abandoned for the theatre...

vividly described Verbruggen as "a little in-kneed, which gave him a shambling gait, which was a carelessness, and became him." Modern critics do not find the Loveless part very lively or irresistible, but Vanbrugh was able to count on Verbruggen's shambling male magnetism and "agreeable wildness" to enrich the character. This would originally have worked even in print, since cast lists were included in the published plays: most 1690s play readers were playgoers also, and aware of the high-profile Verbruggens. Happily married in private life and playing the secret lovers Loveless and Berinthia, the Verbruggens have left traces of their charisma and erotic stage presences in Vanbrugh's dialogue. The Relapse even alludes to their real-life relationship, in meta-jokes such as Berinthia's exclamation, "Well, he is a charming man! I don't wonder his wife's so fond of him!"

Hildebrand Horden

, who had played a "wild" young lover in Love's Last Shift, was the only young, handsome, potential romantic lead

Leading actor

Rich had. He was presumably cast by Vanbrugh as Tom Fashion, Lord Foppington's clever younger brother (Holland), and it was a blow to the Patent Company when he was killed in a tavern brawl (more glamorously referred to as a "duel" in older sources) in May. At the première in November, Tom Fashion was instead played as a breeches role

Breeches role

A breeches role is a role in which an actress appears in male clothing .In opera it also refers to any male character that is sung and acted by a female singer...

by Mary Kent

Mary Kent

, an unusual piece of emergency casting that puts a different face on a uniquely frank homosexual scene where Tom keeps skipping nimbly out of the way of the matchmaker

Matchmaking

Matchmaking is any process of matching two people for the purpose of marriage or a sporting contest.-Practice:In some cultures, the role of the matchmaker was and is quite professionalized...

Coupler's lecherous groping.

Colley Cibber

Colley Cibber

was a rather unsuccessful young actor at the time of the split, with a squeaky voice and without any of the physical attractiveness of the soon-to-be-dead Horden. After the success of Love's Last Shift, his status was transformed, with both companies vying for his services as actor and playwright. He made an off-season transfer to Betterton's company in the summer of 1696 and wrote part of a play for the rebels before being re-seduced by Rich by means of a fat contract (Milhous). Cibber as Lord Foppington was thus also assured, and finally the première of The Relapse could be scheduled with some confidence. Cibber's performance in it was received with even greater acclaim than in his own play, Vanbrugh's Lord Foppington being a larger and, in the estimation of both contemporaries and modern critics, much funnier part than Sir Novelty Fashion. Vanbrugh's play incorporates some of the ad-libbing and affectations of Cibber's by all accounts inspired performance in Love's Last Shift. Cibber has thus imprinted not only his own playwriting but also his acting style and squeaky personality on Vanbrugh's best-known character.

Vanbrugh's preface

Preface

A preface is an introduction to a book or other literary work written by the work's author. An introductory essay written by a different person is a foreword and precedes an author's preface...

to the first edition

First edition

The bibliographical definition of an edition includes all copies of a book printed “from substantially the same setting of type,” including all minor typographical variants.- First edition :...

preserves a single fleeting concrete detail about the première performance: George Powell was drunk. He played Amanda's worldly and sophisticated admirer Worthy, the "fine gentleman of the play", and apparently brought an unintended hands-on realism to his supposedly suave seduction attempt:

One word more about the bawdy, and I have done. I own the first night this thing was acted, some indecencies had like to have happened, but it was not my fault. The fine gentleman of the play, drinking his mistress's health in Nantes
Nantes
Nantes is a city in western France, located on the Loire River, from the Atlantic coast. The city is the 6th largest in France, while its metropolitan area ranks 8th with over 800,000 inhabitants....

brandy from six in the morning to the time he waddled upon the stage in the evening, had toasted himself up to such a pitch of vigour, I confess I once gave Amanda for gone.

Stage history

The desperate straits of the United Company, and the success of The Relapse in saving it from collapse, are attested in a private letter from 19 November 1696: "The other house [Drury Lane] has no company at all, and unless a new play comes out on Saturday revives their reputation, they must break." The new play is assumed to have been The Relapse, and it turned out the success Rich needed. "This play", notes Colley Cibber in his autobiography, "from its new and easy turn of wit, had great success, and gave me, as a comedian, a second flight of reputation along with it." Charles Gildon

Charles Gildon

Charles Gildon , was an English hack writer who was, by turns, a translator, biographer, essayist, playwright, poet, author of fictional letters, fabulist, short story author, and critic. He provided the source for many lives of Restoration figures, although he appears to have propagated or...

summarizes: "This play was received with mighty applause."

The Relapse is singled out for particular censure in the Puritan

Puritan

The Puritans were a significant grouping of English Protestants in the 16th and 17th centuries. Puritanism in this sense was founded by some Marian exiles from the clergy shortly after the accession of Elizabeth I of England in 1558, as an activist movement within the Church of England...

clergyman Jeremy Collier

Jeremy Collier

Jeremy Collier was an English theatre critic, non-juror bishop and theologian.-Life:Born in Stow cum Quy, Cambridgeshire, Collier was educated at Caius College, University of Cambridge, receiving the BA and MA . A supporter of James II, he refused to take the oath of allegiance to William and...

's anti-theatre pamphlet

Pamphlet

A pamphlet is an unbound booklet . It may consist of a single sheet of paper that is printed on both sides and folded in half, in thirds, or in fourths , or it may consist of a few pages that are folded in half and saddle stapled at the crease to make a simple book...

Short View of the Immorality and Profaneness of the English Stage
Short View of the Immorality and Profaneness of the English Stage
In March of 1698, Jeremy Collier published his anti-theater pamphlet, A Short View of the Immorality and Profaneness of the English Stage; in the pamphlet, Collier attacks a number of playwrights: William Wycherley, John Dryden, William Congreve, John Vanbrugh, and Thomas D’Urfey...

(1698), which attacks its lack of poetic justice

Poetic justice

Poetic justice is a literary device in which virtue is ultimately rewarded or vice punished, often in modern literature by an ironic twist of fate intimately related to the character's own conduct.- Origin of the term :...

and moral sentiment. Worthy and Berinthia, complains Collier, are allowed to enact their wiles against the Lovelesses' married virtue without being punished or losing face. The subplot is an even worse offence against religion and morality, as it positively rewards vice

Vice

Vice is a practice or a behavior or habit considered immoral, depraved, or degrading in the associated society. In more minor usage, vice can refer to a fault, a defect, an infirmity, or merely a bad habit. Synonyms for vice include fault, depravity, sin, iniquity, wickedness, and corruption...

, allowing the trickster hero Tom to keep the girl, her dowry, and his own bad character to the end. Vanbrugh failed to take Short View seriously and published a joking reply, but Collier's censure was to colour the perception of the play for centuries. While it remained a popular stage piece through the 18th century, much praised and enjoyed for its wit, attitudes to its casual sexual morality became increasingly ambivalent as public opinion became ever more restrictive in this area, and more at odds with the permissive ethos of Restoration comedy. From 1777 Vanbrugh's original was replaced on the stage by Sheridan

Richard Brinsley Sheridan

's A Trip to Scarborough, a close adaptation but with some "covering", as the prologue

Prologue

A prologue is an opening to a story that establishes the setting and gives background details, often some earlier story that ties into the main one, and other miscellaneous information. The Greek prologos included the modern meaning of prologue, but was of wider significance...

explains, drawn over Vanbrugh's "too bare" wit:

As change thus circulates throughout the nation,

Some plays may justly call for alteration;

At least to draw some slender covering o'er,

That graceless wit which was too bare before.

Sheridan does not allow Loveless and Berinthia to consummate

Consummation

Consummation is the initial sexual act made within a marriage.Consummation can also refer to:* Consummation , 1970 recordingSee also:* Consummation of days, event predicted in Daniel Chapter 12, verses 1-4...

their relationship, and he withdraws approval from Amanda's admirer Worthy by renaming him "Townly". Some frank quips are silently deleted, and the matchmaker Coupler with the lecherous interest in Tom becomes decorous Mrs Coupler. A small-scale but notable loss is of much of the graphic language of Hoyden's nurse, who is earthy in Vanbrugh's original, genteel in Sheridan. However, Sheridan had an appreciation of Vanbrugh's style, and retained most of the original text unaltered.

In the 19th century, A Trip to Scarborough remained the standard version, and there were also some ad hoc adaptations that sidelined the Lovelesses' drawing-room comedy in favour of the Lord Foppington/Hoyden plot with its caricatured clashes between exquisite fop and pitchfork-wielding country bumpkins. The Man of Quality (1870) was one such robust production, Miss Tomboy (1890) another. Vanbrugh's original Relapse was staged once, in 1846, at the Olympic Theatre

Olympic Theatre

The Olympic Theatre, sometimes known as the Royal Olympic Theatre, was a 19th-century London theatre, opened in 1806 and located at the junction of Drury Lane, Wych Street, and Newcastle Street. The theatre specialised in comedies throughout much of its existence...

in London.

During the first half of the 20th century The Relapse was relatively neglected, along with other Restoration drama, and experts are uncertain about exactly when Vanbrugh's original again resurged to prominence on the stage and thereby marginalized Sheridan's version. These experts now believe the play may have been first brilliantly rehabilitated by Anthony Quayle

Anthony Quayle

Sir John Anthony Quayle, CBE was an English actor and director.-Early life:Quayle was born in Ainsdale, Southport, in Lancashire to a Manx family....

's 1947 production at the Phoenix Theatre, starring Cyril Ritchard

Cyril Ritchard

Cyril Ritchard was an Australian stage, screen and television actor, and director. He is probably best remembered today for his performance as Captain Hook in the Mary Martin musical production of Peter Pan....

as Lord Foppington and brought to Broadway

Broadway theatre

Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...

by Ritchard in 1950. A musical version, Virtue in Danger (1963), by Paul Dehn

Paul Dehn

Paul Dehn was a British screenwriter.-Biography and work:Dehn was born in 1912 in Manchester, England. He was educated at Shrewsbury School, and attended Brasenose College, Oxford...

and "John Bernard", opened to mixed reviews. John Russell Taylor

John Russell Taylor

John Russell Taylor is an English critic and author. He is the author of critical studies of British theatre; of critical biographies of such important figures in Anglo-American film as Alfred Hitchcock, Alec Guinness, Orson Welles, Vivien Leigh, and Ingrid Bergman; of Strangers in Paradise: The...

in Plays and Players praised the cast, which included Patricia Routledge

Patricia Routledge

Katherine Patricia Routledge, CBE is an English character comedy actress and singer. She is best known for her role as character Hyacinth Bucket in the British television series Keeping Up Appearances and Hetty Wainthropp in the British television series Hetty Wainthropp Investigates...

as Berinthia and John Moffatt

John Moffatt (actor)

John Moffatt is an English actor and playwright, perhaps best known for his portrayal of Hercule Poirot on BBC Radio....

as Lord Foppington, but complained that the production was "full of the simpering, posturing and sniggering which usually stand in for style and sophistication in Restoration revivals." Following Sir Donald Sinden's outstanding and award-winning performance at the Aldwych Theatre

Aldwych Theatre

The Aldwych Theatre is a West End theatre, located on Aldwych in the City of Westminster. The theatre was listed Grade II on 20 July 1971. Its seating capacity is 1,200.-Origins:...

in the mid-1970's Vanbrugh's original play is now again a favourite of the stage. A 2001 revival by Trevor Nunn

Trevor Nunn

Sir Trevor Robert Nunn, CBE is an English theatre, film and television director. Nunn has been the Artistic Director for the Royal Shakespeare Company, the Royal National Theatre, and, currently, the Theatre Royal, Haymarket. He has directed musicals and dramas for the stage, as well as opera...

at the National Theatre

Royal National Theatre

The Royal National Theatre in London is one of the United Kingdom's two most prominent publicly funded theatre companies, alongside the Royal Shakespeare Company...

was described by Sheridan Morley

Sheridan Morley

Sheridan Morley was an English author, biographer, critic, director, actor and broadcaster. He was the eldest son of actor Robert Morley and grandson of actress Dame Gladys Cooper, and wrote biographies of both...

as "rare, loving and brilliantly cast." As so often with commentary on The Relapse, Morley focused on the role of Lord Foppington and its different interpretation

Interpretation (aesthetics)

An interpretation in philosophy of art, is an explanation of the meaning of some work of art. An interpretation expresses an understanding of a work of art, a poem, performance, or piece of literature.- One or many :...

s}: "Alex Jennings

Alex Jennings

Alex Jennings is an English actor whose roles have included Charles, Prince of Wales in The Queen .-Early years:...

superbly inherits the role of Lord Foppington which for 20 years or so belonged to Donald Sinden

Donald Sinden

Sir Donald Alfred Sinden CBE is an English actor of theatre, film and television.-Personal life:Sinden was born in Plymouth, Devon, England, on 9 October 1923. The son of Alfred Edward Sinden and his wife Mabel Agnes , he grew up in the Sussex village of Ditchling, where their home doubled as the...

, and for another 20 before that to Cyril Ritchard

Cyril Ritchard

."

Restoration Comedy, a play by Amy Freed

Amy Freed

Amy Freed is an American playwright. She was nominated as a finalist in the drama category of the 1998 Pulitzer Prizes for her play Freedomland. In addition to Freedomland, she is the author of The Beard of Avon , The Psychic Life of Savages, and other plays...

that draws on both The Relapse and Colley Cibber's prequel

Prequel

A prequel is a work that supplements a previously completed one, and has an earlier time setting.The widely recognized term was a 20th-century neologism, and a portmanteau from pre- and sequel...

Love's Last Shift
Love's Last Shift
Love's Last Shift, or The Fool in Fashion is an English Restoration comedy by Colley Cibber from 1696.The play is regarded as an early herald of a shift in audience tastes away from the intellectualism and sexual frankness of Restoration comedy and towards the conservative certainties and gender...

, premiered at Seattle Repertory Theatre

Seattle Repertory Theatre

Seattle Repertory Theatre is a major regional theatre located in Seattle, Washington, at the Seattle Center. It is a member of Theatre Puget Sound and Theatre Communications Group. Founded in 1963, it is led by Artistic Director Jerry Manning and Managing Director Benjamin Moore...

in 2005, starring Stephen Caffrey

Stephen Caffrey

Stephen Caffrey , is a former Irish footballer who has retired from League of Ireland First Division club Athlone Town .-Career:...

as Loveless, Caralyn Kozlowski as Amanda, and Jonathan Freeman as Lord Foppington, and directed by Sharon Ott.