John Vanbrugh (1664–1726), author of The Relapse.

The Relapse, or, Virtue in Danger is a Restoration comedy from 1696 written by John Vanbrugh. The play is a sequel to Colley Cibber's Love's Last Shift, or, Virtue Rewarded. Download high resolution version (874x1163, 159 KB) Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name. ... Download high resolution version (874x1163, 159 KB) Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name. ... Sir John Vanbrugh in Godfrey Knellers Kit-cat portrait, considered one of Knellers finest portraits. ... Refinement meets burlesque in Restoration comedy. ... The year 1696 had the earliest equinoxes and solstices for 400 years in the Gregorian calendar, because this year is a leap year and the Gregorian calendar would have behaved like the Julian calendar since March 1500 had it have been in use that long. ... Sir John Vanbrugh in Godfrey Knellers Kit-cat portrait, considered one of Knellers finest portraits. ... A sequel is a work of fiction in literature, film, and other creative works that is produced after a completed work, and is set in the same universe but at a later time. ... Colley Cibber, actor, playwright, Poet Laureate, first British actor-manager, and head Dunce of Alexander Popes Dunciad. ... Colley Cibber himself, the author of Loves Last Shift, in the role of Sir Novelty Fashion. ...

In Cibber's Love's Last Shift, a free-living Restoration rake 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. King Charles II, the first monarch to rule after the English Restoration. ... The Tavern Scene from A Rakes Progress by William Hogarth. ...

Vanbrugh planned The Relapse around particular actors at Drury Lane, writing their stage habits, public reputations, and personal relationships into the text. One such actor was Colley Cibber himself, who played the luxuriant fop 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 not being produced at all, but the successful performance that was eventually achieved in November 1696 vindicated Vanbrugh's intentions, and saved the company from bankruptcy as well. The examples and perspective in this article do not represent a worldwide view. ... The present-day Theatre Royal in Drury Lane, sketched when it was new, in 1813. ... FOP (Formatting Objects Processor) is an XSL-FO processor written in Java, which provides the feature to convert XSL-FO files to PDF or direct-printable-files. ... The examples and perspective in this article or section may not represent a worldwide view. ...

Unlike Love's Last Shift, never again performed after the 1690s, The Relapse has retained its audience appeal. In the 18th century, however, its tolerant attitude towards actual and attempted adultery gradually became unacceptable to public opinion, and the original play was for a century replaced on the stage by Sheridan's moralised version A Trip to Scarborough (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^[1] and the consummate acting part of Lord Foppington, a burlesque character with a dark side.^[2] An audience is a group of people who participate in and experience or encounter a work of art, literature, theatre, music or academics in any medium. ... Adultery is generally defined as consensual sexual intercourse by a married person with someone other than his or her lawful spouse. ... Richard Brinsley Sheridan Richard Brinsley Sheridan (October 30, 1751 – July 7, 1816) was an Irish playwright and Whig statesman. ... Photo of Lucky St. ...

The Relapse as sequel

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). In the 1690s, the economic and political power balance of the nation tilted from the aristocracy towards the middle class after the Glorious Revolution of 1689, and middle-class values of religion, morality, and gender roles 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 and towards the conservative certainties and gender 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.^[3] However, Vanbrugh's play is also affected by the taste of the 1690s, and compared to a play like the courtier William Wycherley's The Country Wife 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. Colley Cibber, actor, playwright, Poet Laureate, first British actor-manager, and head Dunce of Alexander Popes Dunciad. ... -1... The middle class (or middle classes) comprises a social group once defined by exception as an intermediate social class between the nobility and the peasantry. ... The Glorious Revolution was the overthrow of James II of England in 1688 by a union of Parliamentarians and the Dutch stadtholder William III of Orange-Nassau (William of Orange). ... A bagpiper in Scottish military clan-uniform. ... Refinement meets burlesque in Restoration comedy. ... The word gender describes the state of being male, female, or neither. ... Backlash has meaning in both socio-political and engineering contexts. ... William Wycherley in 1675. ... William Wycherley in 1675. ...

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 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 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 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 Tavern Scene from A Rakes Progress by William Hogarth. ... FOP (Formatting Objects Processor) is an XSL-FO processor written in Java, which provides the feature to convert XSL-FO files to PDF or direct-printable-files. ... Cover of An autobiography, from the Greek auton, self, bios, life and graphein, write, is a biography written by the subject or composed conjointly with a collaborative writer (styled as told to or with). The term dates from the late eighteenth century, but the form is much older. ...

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 subplot, young Tom tricks his elder brother Lord Foppington out of his intended bride and her large dowry. 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). The trickster figure Renart the Fox as depicted in an 1869 childrens book by Michel Rodange. ... A subplot is a series of connected actions within a work of narrative that function separately from the main plot. ... A dowry (also known as trousseau) is a gift of money or valuables given by the groomss family to that of the bride to permit their marriage. ...

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 slashed the salaries and traditional perks of his skilled professional actors, antagonizing such popular performers as Thomas Betterton, the tragedienne Elizabeth Barry, and the comedienne Anne Bracegirdle. Colley Cibber wrote in his autobiography that the owners of the United Company, "who had made a monopoly 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. 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 threats in the actors' petition were met with an answering lockout 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 actors' company took shape under the leadership of Betterton and was granted a Royal "licence to act" on March 25, to the dismay of Rich, who saw the threat too late. Christopher Rich is the name of: Christopher Rich (1657–1714), an early 18th-century London theatre manager; Christopher Rich (b. ... Thomas Betterton (c. ... Elizabeth Barry changed like Nature which she represents, from Passion to Passion, from Extream to Extream, with piercing Force and with easy Grace. Elizabeth Barry (1658–November 7, 1713) was an English actress. ... Anne Bracegirdle, (c. ... Colley Cibber, actor, playwright, Poet Laureate, first British actor-manager, and head Dunce of Alexander Popes Dunciad. ... In economics, a monopoly (from the Latin word monopolium - Greek language monos, one + polein, to sell) is defined as a persistent market situation where there is only one provider of a product or service. ... 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 offices of state. ... See stock (disambiguation) for other meanings of the term stock A stock, also referred to as a share, is commonly a share of ownership in a corporation. ... A lockout is a work stoppage in which an employer prevents employees from working. ... Mary I Queen of England and Ireland Mary I (February 18, 1516–November 17, 1558) was Queen of England and Queen of Ireland from July 6, 1553 (de jure) or July 19, 1553 (de facto) until her death. ... A cooperative (also co-operative or co-op) is a group of persons who join together or co-operate, to carry on an economic activity of mutual benefit. ... March 25 is the 84th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (85th in leap years). ...

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 injunctions 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. An injunction is an equitable remedy in the form of a court order that either prohibits or compels (restrains or enjoins) a party from continuing a particular activity. ... WGS-84 (GPS) Coordinates: 53. ...

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.^[4]

Love's Last Shift cast

The Love's Last Shift cast list. Please click for larger image.

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: Image File history File links Download high resolution version (2513x3194, 272 KB) I created this image by downloading the appropriate scan (image no. ... Image File history File links Download high resolution version (2513x3194, 272 KB) I created this image by downloading the appropriate scan (image no. ...

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.^[5]

The only well-regarded performers available were the Verbruggens, John and Susanna, 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, 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, who had just joined Rich's troupe, playing a rakish young lover), the modest and lacklustre (Jane Rogers, playing Amanda, and Mary Kent, playing Sir Novelty's mistress 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. 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. John Baptista Verbruggen, d. ... Susanna Verbruggen (c. ... A leading actor, leading actress, or simply lead, plays the role of the protagonist in a film or play. ... Hildebrand Horden was a London actor who died in 1696, at an early age. ... Mary Kent was a London actress whose career lasted from 1692 to 1718, the wife of Drury Lane actor Thomas Kent. ... Madame de Pompadour the mistress of King Louis XV of France. ... George Powell was a 17th century London actor and playwright who was a member of the United Company. ... Alcoholism is the consumption of, or preoccupation with, alcoholic beverages to the extent that this behavior interferes with the drinkers normal personal, family, social, or work life, and may lead to physical or mental harm. ...

The Relapse cast

The Relapse cast list. Please click for larger image.

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 (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,^[6] 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. Image File history File links Download high resolution version (1711x2387, 142 KB) I created this image by downloading the appropriate scan (image no. ... Image File history File links Download high resolution version (1711x2387, 142 KB) I created this image by downloading the appropriate scan (image no. ... Sir John Vanbrugh in Godfrey Knellers Kit-cat portrait, considered one of Knellers finest portraits. ...

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 was one of the original rebels and had been offered a share in the actors' company, but became disgruntled when his wife Susanna, 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. John Baptista Verbruggen, d. ... Susanna Verbruggen (c. ...

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'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."^[7] Anthony Aston vividly described Verbruggen as "a little in-kneed, which gave him a shambling gait, which was a carelessness, and became him."^[8] 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!" Thomas DUrfey (Tom Durfey) (1653 - February 26, 1723), was an English writer and wit. ... Anthony Aston (d. ...

Young Colley Cibber as Vanbrugh's Lord Foppington, "brutal, evil, and smart".

Hildebrand Horden, who had played a "wild" young lover in Love's Last Shift, was the only young, handsome, potential romantic lead 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 by 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 Coupler's lecherous groping. The two-dimensional work of art depicted in this image is in the public domain in the United States and in those countries with a copyright term of life of the author plus 100 years. ... Hildebrand Horden was a London actor who died in 1696, at an early age. ... A leading actor, leading actress, or simply lead, plays the role of the protagonist in a film or play. ... A breeches role (also pants role or trouser role) is a role in which an actress appears in male clothes (breeches being tight-fitting knee-length pants, the standard male garment at the time breeches roles were introduced). ... Mary Kent was a London actress whose career lasted from 1692 to 1718, the wife of Drury Lane actor Thomas Kent. ... Since its coinage, the word homosexuality has acquired multiple meanings. ...

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. Colley Cibber, actor, playwright, Poet Laureate, first British actor-manager, and head Dunce of Alexander Popes Dunciad. ...

Vanbrugh's preface to the 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: A preface (Med. ... see also: The First Edition, a musical group fronted by Kenny Rogers. ... George Powell was a 17th century London actor and playwright who was a member of the United Company. ...

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 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. Traditional city flag City coat of arms Motto: (Latin: Shall Neptune favour the traveller) Coordinates : , Time Zone : CET (GMT +1) Administration Département Loire-Atlantique (44) Région Pays-de-la-Loire Mayor Jean-Marc Ayrault (PS) (since 1989) Intercommunality Urban Community of Nantes City (commune) Characteristics Land Area 65. ...

Stage history

Trickster subplot in The Relapse: Tom Fashion, pretending to be Lord Foppington, parleys with Sir Tunbelly Clumsey in a 19th-century illustration by William Powell Frith.

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." 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 summarizes: "This play was received with mighty applause." Image File history File links The_Relapse_Act3_Scene3. ... Image File history File links The_Relapse_Act3_Scene3. ... The trickster figure Renart the Fox as depicted in an 1869 childrens book by Michel Rodange. ... A subplot is a series of connected actions within a work of narrative that function separately from the main plot. ... Detail of a nude by Frith William Powell Frith (January 19, 1819 - November 9, 1909), was an English painter specialising in portraits and Victorian era narratives, who was elected to the Royal Academy in 1852. ... November 19 is the 323rd day of the year (324th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar. ... The year 1696 had the earliest equinoxes and solstices for 400 years in the Gregorian calendar, because this year is a leap year and the Gregorian calendar would have behaved like the Julian calendar since March 1500 had it have been in use that long. ... Charles Gildon ( 1665 - 1724), 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. ...

The Relapse is singled out for particular censure 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. The subplot is an even worse offence against religion and morality, as it positively rewards vice, 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,^[9] 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's A Trip to Scarborough, a close adaptation but with some "covering", as the prologue explains, drawn over Vanbrugh's "too bare" wit: The Puritans were originally members of a group of English Protestants seeking purity — further reforms from the established church — during the Protestant Reformation, though many later sought separation from the church. ... Jeremy Collier (1650-1726) was an English bishop. ... Polish soldiers reading a German leaflet during the Warsaw Uprising A pamphlet is an unbound booklet (that is, without a hard cover or binding). ... Short View of the Immorality and Profaneness of the English Stage is an anti-theatre pamphlet written in 1698 by the Puritan divine Jeremy Collier. ... DVD cover Poetic Justice is a 1993 film starring Janet Jackson and Tupac Shakur and directed by John Singleton. ... Vice is the opposite of virtue. ... Richard Brinsley Sheridan Richard Brinsley Sheridan (October 30, 1751 – July 7, 1816) was an Irish playwright and Whig statesman. ... A prologue (Greek πρόλογος, from προ~, pro~ - fore~, and lógos, word), or rarely prolog, is a prefatory piece of writing, usually composed to introduce a drama. ...

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 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. As a verb, consummate means to bring something to its completion, such as a transaction, concept, plan or action. ... Matchmaking is any expert-run process of introducing people for the purposes of dating and mating, usually in the context of marriage. ...

John Moffatt as Lord Foppington and Patricia Routledge (later of Keeping Up Appearances fame) 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.^[10] 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 in London. Image File history File links Virtue_in_danger. ... John Moffatt was an associate producer of “Full House” on ABC from 1994 to 1995. ... Patricia Routledge as Hyacinth Bucket Patricia Routledge, CBE (born February 17, 1929) is a popular British actress, best known for television roles such as Hyacinth Bucket in Keeping Up Appearances. ... Keeping Up Appearances was a British sitcom, which ran on BBC1 from 1990 to 1995. ...

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's 1947 production at the Phoenix Theatre, starring Cyril Ritchard as Lord Foppington and brought to Broadway by Ritchard in 1950.^[11] 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 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."^[12] Vanbrugh's original play is now again a favourite of the stage. A 2001 revival by Trevor Nunn at the National Theatre was described by Sheridan Morley 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 interpretations: "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."^[13] Refinement meets burlesque in Restoration comedy. ... Anthony Quayle Sir John Anthony Quayle (7 September 1913 – 20 October 1989) was an English actor and director. ... Cyril Ritchard was born December 1, 1897 in Sydney, Australia and died December 18, 1977 in Chicago, Illinois. ... Broadway theatre[1] is often considered the highest professional form of theatre in the United States. ... Musical theater (or theatre) is a form of theatre combining music, songs, dance, and spoken dialogue. ... Screenwriter Paul Dehn (1912 - 1976) began his show-business career in 1936 as a movie reviewer for several London newspapers. ... John Russell Taylor (born in Dover on June 19, 1935 and educated at Dover Grammar School) is a British critic and author, who was educated at Cambridge University. ... Patricia Routledge as Hyacinth Bucket Patricia Routledge, CBE (born February 17, 1929) is a popular British actress, best known for television roles such as Hyacinth Bucket in Keeping Up Appearances. ... John Moffatt was an associate producer of “Full House” on ABC from 1994 to 1995. ... Sir Trevor King (born 14 January 1940) is a loser and film director. ... The Royal National Theatre from Waterloo Bridge The Royal National Theatre is a building complex and theatre company located on the South Bank in London, England immediately east of the southern end of Waterloo Bridge. ... This page meets Wikipedias criteria for speedy deletion. ... Interpretation, or interpreting, is an activity that consists of establishing, either simultaneously or consecutively, oral or gestural communications between two or more speakers who are not speaking (or signing) the same language. ... Alex Jennings (born 10 May 1957) is a British actor. ... Sir Donald Sinden KBE OBE born 1923 is a British stage actor. ... Cyril Ritchard was born December 1, 1897 in Sydney, Australia and died December 18, 1977 in Chicago, Illinois. ...

Restoration Comedy, a play by Amy Freed that draws on both The Relapse and Colley Cibber's prequel Love's Last Shift, premiered at Seattle Repertory Theatre in 2005, starring Stephen Caffrey as Loveless, Caralyn Kozlowski as Amanda, and Jonathan Freeman as Lord Foppington, and directed by Sharon Ott.^[14] Amy Freed (born 1958) is an American playwright. ... Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace is one of the best-known prequels. ... Colley Cibber himself, the author of Loves Last Shift, in the role of Sir Novelty Fashion. ... Seattle Repertory Theatre located at the Seattle Center Seattle Repertory Theatre (Seattle Rep) is a Tony Award winning regional theatre located in the heart of Seattle, Washington at the Seattle Center. ... The introduction to this article provides insufficient context for those unfamiliar with the subject matter. ...

Notes

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 offices of state. ... Colley Cibber, actor, playwright, Poet Laureate, first British actor-manager, and head Dunce of Alexander Popes Dunciad. ...

References