The Relapse: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 09:51, 30 October 2005

Revision as of 11:54, 30 October 2005

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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 [[November 19]], [[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."{{ref|jennens}} The new play is assumed to have been ''The Relapse'',{{ref|londonstage}} 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]] summarizes: "This play was received with mighty applause".

''The Relapse'' is singled out for particular outrage in the [[Puritan]] clergyman [[Jeremy Collier]]'s anti-theatre [[pamphlet]] ''[[Short View of the Immorality and Profaneness of the English Stage]]'' (1698), which attacks its lack of [[poetic justice]] 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 for it. The subplot is an even worse offence against religion and morality, as it positively rewards [[vice]], allowing the trickster hero Tom to keep both the girl, her dowry, and his own bad character to the end. Vanbrugh failed to take the ''Short View'' seriously and published a joking reply,{{ref|vindication}} but Collier's attack 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. From 1777 Vanbrugh's original was replaced on the stage by [[Richard Brinsley Sheridan|Sheridan]]'s ''A Trip to Scarborough'', a close adaptation but with some "covering", as the [[prologue]] explains, drawn over Vanbrugh's "too bare" wit:

:"As change thus circulates throughout the nation,

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:That graceless wit which was too bare before."

Sheridan does not allow Loveless and Berinthia to [[consummation|consummate]] 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.

[[Image:Virtue in danger.png|frame|right|[[John Moffatt]] as Lord Foppington and [[Patricia Routledge]] as Berinthia in the musical ''Virtue in Danger'' (1963).]]

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.{{ref|harris}} ''The Man of Quality'' (1870) was one such robust production, ''Miss Tomboy'' (1890) another. Uniquely, Vanbrugh's original ''Relapse'' was staged once, in 1846, at the Olympic Theatre in London.

During the first half of the 20th century ''The Relapse'' was comparativelyrather neglected, along with other [[Restoration drama]], and it is unclear at what point the original took back command of the stage from Sheridan's version. The play is thought to have been brilliantly rehabilitated by [[Anthony Quayle]]'s 1947 production at the Phoenix Theatre, starring [[Cyril Ritchard]] as Lord Foppington and brought to [[Broadway]] by Ritchard in 1950.{{ref|ritchard}} A [[musical]] version, ''Virtue in Danger'' (1963), by [[Paul Dehn]] and "John Bernard", opened to mixed reviews. [[John Russell Taylor]] in ''Plays and Players'' praised the cast, which featured included [[Patricia Routledge]] as Berinthia and [[John Moffatt]] 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."{{ref|taylor}} Vanbrugh's original play is now again a favourite of the stage. A 2001 revival by [[Trevor Nunn]] at the [[Royal National Theatre|National Theatre]] was described by [[Sheridan Morley]] as "rare, loving and brilliantly cast".<!-- AsTaken hasout soof oftenits beenoriginal context, it's unclear what "rare" refers to or means here. If the caserevival was a rare one, this rather undercuts what's just been said. If it was of rare quality, this hints that others weren't so good. Et cetera. (Hoary) --> As so often with commentary on ''The Relapse'', Morley focused on the role of Lord Foppington and the relation betweenits different [[interpretation]]s of it: "[[Alex Jennings]] superbly inherits the role of Lord Foppington which for 20 years or so belonged to [[Donald Sinden]], and for another 20 before that to [[Cyril Ritchard]]."{{ref|morley}}

==Notes==