Theatre: The Country Wife, Haymarket; Rent, Duke of York’s
A rarity at the Haymarket. A new production of a straight play. Such is the despair over the creeping musicalisation of the West End that this feels less like a review and more like a life-and-death prognosis on a stricken prince whose wellbeing has become an obsessive hobby among theatre critics and other intellectual pseuds. First the bad news. William Wycherley’s 332-year-old sex romp is about as entertaining as I would be if I were 332. The plot is dazzlingly crass. Horner, a self-adoring womaniser, returns home from a spell in France and spreads the rumour that he has lost his genitals. By thus winning the trust of London’s husbands the self-confessed castrato hopes to emulate the eunuchs of antiquity who operated as guardians and (if the right bits had survived their mutilation) as lovers to royal wives. ‘Eunuch’ means ‘bed chamber attendant’. Horner’s scheme works a treat and soon he’s got every belle in town beating a path to his breeches. The plot, which is already pretty dense, gets thicker when an ageing miser Pinchwife arrives in town with his beautiful stupid young bride. Horner and chums start to circle like wasps so Pinchwife togs his wife up as a man and introduces her as his brother-in-law. See? Hardly timeless comedy. The characters are as crude and oafish as the storyline. Only the elegance of the script delivers the occasional joy. A crusty husband dismisses his wife with, ‘Go to your business, I say, pleasure, whilst I go to my pleasure, business.’
The design is a fusion (i.e., a mismatch) between then and now. Modern fabrics, period tailoring. Toby Stephens as Horner lives in a turquoise apartment so bright that my eyes briefly filmed over.
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