Theater Review—

Baumgartner Produces Another Theatrical Adventure With ‘The Country Wife’

By Julie Stern

When you have a director with the talent, dedication and creative energy of Ruth Anne Baumgartner, good things are going to happen. Her ambitious goal of mounting a classic theatrical production each summer at The Little Theatre in Newtown is supported by the top-flight Town Players actors who are eager for the chance to work with her.

Having done a variety of Elizabethan and Jacobean plays, including last year’s highly successful Comedy of Errors, Ms Baumgartner has moved up a century or so to stage a sharply crafted version of William Wycherley’s Restoration-era comedy, The Country Wife. Performances, which began last weekend, continue through July 28.

The “Restoration” gets its name from the return of King Charles II from France where he lived in exile during the 18 years of moral austerity which saw the country ruled by a “lord Protector – Oliver Cromwell – and the imposition of strict puritanical standards.

The Puritans had closed all the theaters, viewing them as hotbeds of licentious behavior. When Charles returned to the throne, fresh from consorting with French actresses, he quickly opened them again, and the era of a new kind of dramatic entertainment began, drawing on the style and subject matter of French theater.

Restoration comedies are geared to a sophisticated taste: Cynical portraits of fashionable society, they poke fun at the foolish and gullible, while celebrating the wise guys who succeed in taking advantage of them, by seducing their wives. The male characters are either rakes or cuckolds, and the women are happily ready to cuckold their husbands by cheating on them with the rakes. Since the rakes are compulsively sexually active, venereal disease is frequently a staple of the plot.

Thus in The Country Wife, Horner, the main character, is a playboy who conceives a plan to have his doctor spread the word around that he (Horner) has been so disabled by a social disease he picked up in France, he is totally impotent – a veritable eunuch. This renders him so apparently harmless that all the gentlemen will trust him to be alone with their wives, allowing him limitless opportunities for dalliance.

His antagonist is Pinchwife, a nasty, suspicious misogynist who has recently chosen for himself a “country” wife – a young girl so innocent and unsophisticated that she will not be smart enough to cuckold him – which he expects all women to try. And just for insurance purposes, he keeps his wife, Margery, locked up whenever he leaves the house, and refuses to introduce her to other men.

Thus the central plot involves getting Horner and Margery hooked up in spite of Pinchwife’s efforts.

Second to this is matter of getting Pinchwife’s sister, Alicea, out of her engagement to the insufferably pompous Sparkish, so that she can get together with Horner’s charming friend, Harcourt.

Finally there is the comeuppance of the naïve Sir Jaspar Fidget, who is so anxious to have Horner keep his wife entertained while he pursues his business deals that he never worries about what exactly the two of them are actually doing in the bedroom behind the locked door.

In keeping with the conventions of the genre, the play does not evoke much in the way of empathy or identification with the characters. The audience is meant to laugh at the foibles of the vain and the clueless, and to smirk at the tactics of the young gallants and the ladies who respond to them: in the world of the Restoration, the only virtues that matter are cleverness and wit.

To make such material accessible and entertaining to a 20th Century suburban audience requires a firm directorial hand and sharp performances by the cast. Happily both of these are offered by the Town Players.

Aaron Kaplan has the languid bedroom eyes and casual self assurance of a young Warren Beatty in the part of Harry Horner, so hotly pursued by so many eager women that even he starts to look worn out.

Newtown veteran Rob Pawlikowski is properly hateful and suspicious as the arrogant Pinchwife,  and Ashley Nichols gives the best performance of all as his countrified – but not so dumb as he thinks – wife, Mrs Margery Pinchwife.

Michael Stanley needs to gain control of his lines but his demeanor is perfect as the smug blockhead Sparkish, who imagines himself to be so desirable that he can’t see his fiancée being courted by the handsome Harcourt, portrayed by Robert Jurgens. Marguerite Foster brings poise and stature to the part of Alicea, the lady in question.

George Lang bumbles happily as Sir Jaspar, and Leslie Van Etten Broatch and Elise Bochinski are all enthusiasm as the ladies he wants to see entertained by the man he imagines to be a eunuch.

Newtowners Travis Finlayson in a variety of small roles, and Janine Pixley as Alithea’s compliant maid contribute much to the spirit of the show.

What really adds to the production are the details in staging: Al Kulcsar’s imaginative sets, Ms Baumgartner’s rich and authentically decorated costumes, which were executed by a quartet of seamstresses, and the period dancing.

Every one of Ruth Anne Baumgartner’s productions is worth seeing, and The Country Wife is no exception.

Not only a theatrical venture, this is an excursion into history as well, complete with excellent program notes that comprise a well thought-out lesson and turn an enjoyable entertainment into a memorable learning experience.

(The Country Wife will be presented at The Little Theatre, on Orchard Hill Road in Newtown, weekends through July 28. Tickets are $12 for evening shows, $10 for the July 21 matinee. Call 270-9144 for additional information. The theater is on Orchard Hill Road in Newtown, off Route 25.)