THE HOSPITAL PLAYERS 

65th Production

The Provoked Wife

By Sir John Vanbrugh

3rd - 7th October 1967

In 1690, Vanbrugh was arrested at Calais 'upon information received from a lady in Paris,' for travelling without a passport; he was presumably acting as an agent. Louis XIV eventually had Vanbrugh moved to the Bastille where he apparently led a not unpleasant life. He was allowed considerable freedom to come and go and, probably influenced by the French Theatres he was allowed to visit, he began to sketch out the comedy which was eventually to become 'The Provoked Wife.'

On his release from France, Vanbrugh settled down to playwriting. The first of his plays to be presented was 'The Relapse;' this was followed by an adaptation of an existing play which Vanbrugh entitled 'I Aesop.' He then completed 'The Provoked Wife,' which was produced at Lincoln's Inn Fields Theatre about 20th May, 1697, by Thomas Betterton, who also played the part of Sir John Brute.

Subsequent to 'The Provoked Wife,' although he collaborated with Congreve and others in the adaptation of French works, Vanbrugh the playwright gave way to Vanbrugh the architect. His last play, however, also promised to be his best but 'A Trip to London' was uncompleted at his death; Colley Cibber later took the remaining fragments for his play 'The Provoked Husband.'

Both 'The Relapse' and 'The Provoked Wife' came under severe attack from the puritan element of society at the time of their production. Dr. Blair said of 'The Provoked Wife' that it was 'a piece the indecencies of which ought to explode it out of all respectable society;' Charles James Fox, however, speaking in relation to the same play, said of Vanbrugh 'he was almost as great a genius as ever lived.'