STAGE AND SCREEN The Theatre
The Country Wife." By W. Wycherley.- • At the Old Vic.
IT IS still customary to quote Lamb in discussing a Restoration comedy. "These sports of a witty fancy," Lamb Wrote, "are a world of themselves. . . . They have got out of Christendom into the land of. . . Cuckoldry—the Utopia of gallantry, where pleasure. is duty, and the Manners perfect freedom. It is altogether. a speculative scene of things, which has no reference whatever to the world that is." Now that The Country Wife has been admitted into the discreet repertory of the Old Vic, perhaps we may discard Lamb's largely fanciful apology. The plot is indeed fantastic (it will be recalled that it depends upon Homer's declaration of impotence, under cloak of which he sets out systematically to cuckold the town), but the whale atmosphere of the play; its vocabulary, its motives, its wit, is clearly one that issues not from imagination, but from observation, even if observa- tion infinitely exaggerated. Only hypocrisy can hope to disguise Wycherley's indecency under a pretence of fancy, but it is both hypocrisy and an anachronism to pretend that what is indelicate may not also be amusing.- The Country Wife is theatrically effective precisely becatise of the unabashed thoroughness with which it exploits its theme, and if we sometimes feel the need Of a little mare variety than is provided by the abortive sub-plot built on the cocksure foppery of Sparkish, we cannot but admire the magnificence of its disregard for evasions and half-measures. Mr. Tyrone Guthrie has slightly modified Wycherley's cynicism by interpolating a few gay and irrelevant little songs, aequiring some charmingly formal decorations by Mr. Oliver Mes.sel, and -giving the part of the calculating middle-aged row! Horner to the young and personable Mr. Michael Redgrave. But Wycherley cannot be repressed, and in the other parts reality keeps on breaking through. Miss Edith Evans magnificently presents, thergliitering grossness of Lady Fidget, Mr. Ernest Thesiger is .a faultless Sparkish, Mr. Richard Goolden is an admirable Fidget, Miss Ruth Gordon makes an endearing slut of Mrs. Pinchwife, and the other actors conspire with them to give the play the effect which its author intended for it.
DEREK VERSCIIOYLE.
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