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.
- ISBN10 071901526X
- ISBN13 9780719015267
- Publish Date 25 April 1986 (first published 29 March 1974)
- Publish Status Out of Print
- Out of Print 22 May 1996
- Publish Country GB
- Imprint Manchester University Press
- Format Paperback
- Pages 208
- Language English