THE COUNTRY WIFE

proposed by Greg Shilling '04

Mon Staff:
Stage manager: Erica Rotstein
Production Managers: James Egelhofer and Erica Saleh
Set Designer: Emily Pudalov
Set Design Mentor: Henry Ben Clarendon
Lighting Designer: Dov Liebowitz-Novak
Sound Designer: Adam Griska
Technical Director(s): Maya Bruhns and an as yet to be named co.
Master Electrician: Dana Kroplick
Costume Designers: Ann Sulzberger and Cassie Tharinger

Le Budget:
Rights: FREE!!!!!!!!! Yay, free!
Set: $400
Costumes: $100
Props: $40
Publicity: $60

Introduction: The Country Wife in Context

Probably the first thing you would notice is the terrible smell. Try and imagine the worst stench you can, add to that the stink of manure, urine, body odor, mold, decaying flesh and rotten food. In addition to this general olfactory malaise, try and imagine your own terrible stink. Now don't take it personally. Everyone stank, kings and duchesses the same as work-a-day peasants, and everywhere stank: taverns, homes and palaces. The reason for this unimaginable stench is that there does not yet exist any way to halt bacteria from its merry act of decomposing. No moment of your life or act that you commit is not permeated by a putrid stench.

Now try and imagine yourself and what you look like. You are young and would still be considered attractive since you still have a little bit of hair and a few of your teeth left. You might even have most of your teeth if you have used a commercially available tooth polish. If so, however, the oxidizing agent in the polish would long ago have turned your teeth a permanent and revolting shade of black.

Your skin is better than most since you have only started to use the white paint necessary for court life. And even though this paint is lead-based, you only have the very beginnings of the cancerous lesions and puss-filled sores that will later plague your skin in old age. When this happens though, you will be unconcerned, since this lead-based white paint is available in abundance.

Aside from all this, take hear it in the fact that you are still young and healthy! Except for the inevitable syphilis and gout, you have no serious diseases and can probably expect to live without constant pain for the next five to ten years. Congratulations!

This is this world into which I would like you to place The Country Wife and my vision of it. Don't be fooled by the opaque language and aristocratic roster of players. The comedy of manner aspect of this play is only a veneer, a layer of lead-based paint employed to conceal a festering and putrid sore, a swirling mass of human vice and (in)human cruelty. The physical decay I have described above is mirrored in the souls of the characters. It is this context into which my vision for the Country Wife sits. What at first glance appears as a pretty and pedestrian comedy of manners becomes, on closer examination, an extremely dystopian and disturbing nightmare vision. The world of The Country Wife is a grotesque one in which syphilis is more common than the flu and husbands whore out there wives. It is also an extremely cruel world, in which women are locked in cages, husbands carve the word "whore" into their wives faces and lying and cheating are the only ways to get ahead. Like the paint used to cover those hideous skin blemishes, the apparent civility of The Country Wife is but a mask for a putrid, swirling mass.

THE PRODUCTION

As you may have guessed by now, my vision for The Country Wife is quite a bit darker than what one might expect just from reading the script. I see The Country Wife as a seething mass of aberrant sexuality and human cruelty, a giant, festering sore that will not heal. However, I also see the Country Wife as a rollicking-good-farce, a play that made me laugh out loud the first time I read it.

These two visions may seem highly opposed, but in my mind they are closely aligned. There is a thin line between comedy and revulsion. It's the reason why horror movies are so much fun and why the best jokes are also the most offensive. They share a common attribute: danger. We can deal with danger in two ways, we can fetishize it to the point where it is no longer seen as a real threat (a la slasher films), or we can deny its power through humor.

The Country Wife and my production of it combines these two modes and they work in tandem. It seduces us with its humor. The comedy of the Country Wife is often akin to the gentle and witty observations of an Oscar Wilde play. However, the perceived innocuousness is only a distraction. Although we've been lead by this garden path into the depths of hell and initiated into the evil and uncanny world of a decaying human soul. It is my firm belief that the sinister and twisted design of this show will not diminish the comedy, but rather the two will work in tandem, augmenting and facilitating each other.

Perhaps the greatest obstacle to my production, ironically, is the script itself. For one thing, it is far, far, far too long. For another, the Byzantine plot is very confusing and could potentially be difficult for the audience to understand. The first problem is, I believe, easily remedied. I am right now paring down the script to what I hope will be a lean hour-and-a-half evening of theater. Much of the more unclear dialogue can (and must) be cut. A great deal of text consists of jokes that both slow the momentum of the plot and are completely incomprehensible without footnotes. Secondly, a number of episodes are either unduly confusing (for instance, Harcourt dressing up like a parson. Whats that all about?) or are unnecessary (I'm thinking of the second of the three letter writing scenes). I have no qualms about bastardizing (and in parts rewriting) Wycherly. Wycherley is so absent from the popular knowledge (as opposed to, say, Shakespeare), I think very few people will know or care if portions of the text or events are missing. And if they do care, this is meant to be an iconoclastic production and they will have to deal with it.

The second problem is a little more difficult: making sure the plot is understood. As described above, the excising of text will streamline the story and hopefully make it easier to understand. While I would really loathe the idea of including a plot summary in the program, there are other ways to assure the audience understands the complicated plot.

Two ideas for providing cleverly concealed glosses occur in the preshow and the intermission. I see the preshow as both a chance to initiate the audience into the world of the play and provide them with some helpful clues for navigating through it. The actors can perhaps talk to the audience conversationally and in character about relationships and how things stand. I also envision a medicine-type-show in which the quack lionizes the benefits of medical castration. Something like this would help to explain Horner's very strange plan for picking up women, an initial point that is essential for understanding the rest of the play.

The intermission will be a gesture towards the intermezzi of 17th century theater. These performance pieces appeared between acts of the show and consisted of short ballets or comic skits situated around similar themes as the main attraction. This could be a very exciting opportunity for alternative modes of story telling: dance, improvisation, etc. which can help to gloss the more confusing aspects of the story.

The language of the play can also be problematic. Even with modern spellings, some of the constructions can seem archaic and opaque. However, this problem does not deter anyone from producing Shakespeare. Wycherley's language is actually quite a bit easier than Shakespeare's, since it lacks the perquisite knowledge of history and mythology. Wycherley intended his language to be saucy, piquant and easily understood. In that spirit, I see no problem in rescuing certain passages into clearer English.

THE PROCESS

While making sure the plot comes across clearly is my duty as director and editor of the text, the great bulk of creating the world sits on the shoulders of the actors. Although I have definite ideas for how the characters should be played (Horner should likeable, Margery must be played with wide eyed naivety, Pinchwife must be played with grim intensity, etc) this play leaves a lot of room for individual interpretation. I've tried very hard not to have ideas that are so narrow and precise that actors could never live up to them. I'm most excited for the actors to create their own characters and make them their own. This play was written in that glorious age before playwrights began to think of themselves as novelists. By that I refer to the great latitude offered by the characters as written. As far as characterization, Wycherley has given us 14 more or less blank canvas roles, wonderful mysteries that can only be solved by the individual actors inhabiting them.

I don't mean to suggest, however, that the actors will be completely on their own in this task. Characters do not create themselves and a great deal of the initial rehearsals will be devoted to group character work. I will have the actors experiment with different types of movement and ways of speaking. Initial rehearsal will also rely heavily on character improvisation. Nothing allows you to inhabit a character more completely than having to writes its script.

The majority of rehearsal time, however, will be devoted to putting this very complicated play on its feet. After a certain point, character work becomes masturbatory and unhelpful. I'm actually partial to repetition. Running through a scene repeatedly both gives the actors chances to experiment within the text and also drives the text into their brains.

No process works for everyone, however. As an actor I've sometimes been subjected to techniques that I found very unhelpful. Most frustrating of all, however, is not a faulty technique, but a director's inability to adapt. The processes I've found most rewarding have been ones of constant dialogue and communication. Through this communication, I hope to tailor my directing style to individual actors' needs.

THE DESIGN

I will begin by saying two things about my feel for design on this show. Firstly, I want the design elements to be dark and sinister and indicate the decay of the world of the play. The second, I am extremely enchanted by design based on improvisation, that is to say, the use of found object or using existing things in unusual and unexpected ways. This type of design is emblematic of the entire production, giving something old and a new and unexpected life.

That said, I would like to emphasize that my approach is to foster the spirit of collaboration. I want to give my designers great freedom and what they produce should be works of their own individual genius. I'm very excited to see what they can come up with.

The costumes:

The philosophy I would like to see for the costumes is opulence and excess through an economy of means. I dream that the costumes will of course have a gesture to the period, but also be timeless and very weird. I imagine a group of mental patients, who, asked to create their version of the 17th century, used materials around them in strange an unexpected ways. I would love to see hoopskirts made of old socks, for instance. These decisions, however, belong to the costume designers. I am thrilled to death that both Annie and Cassie agreed to sign on to this project. I have always been most impressed with their creations in the past and their resourcefulness with limited means.

In general, the costumes will convey the sense of rot and decay that permeates the entire production. Tattered and dirty fabric to illustrated tattered and dirty souls, for instance. Likewise the makeup will be very important. Characters will have a white and powdered appearances that both parodies the cosmetic ideals of the period (that ubiquitous lead-based-white paint) but should also convey sickliness. We are dealing, after all, with syphilis cases, every last one of them.

Margery, however, will be free of these grotesque conceits. She is the audience's window into the world of the play. She is, like us, a new arrival in this world. She represents a purity that is otherwise unknown there. She is also this world's only hope for redemption.

I'm very excited about the set designer of this show. Emily is an extremely talented visual artist who's work is really attention getting. Although this is Emily's first time designing a set I am confident that any lack of experience will not be a liability, both because she is extremely capable and resourceful, but because of the expert guidance of Ben Clarendon, who has agreed to mentor her.

Because I approached Emily so close to the deadline for these proposals, I thought it would be unfair to even ask her to try and throw together a fully drafted ground plan. She and I have met and discussed an aesthetic program for the set and, in lieu of the ground plan, we are focusing on giving you a sense of our design scheme as well as information about how we are actually going to get it build it.

The set for this show is actually very simple structurally and there are very few set pieces needed (just a table and chairs). It will be a proscenium type set, consisting of three walls, each with a door (essential to the comings and goings of Restoration comedy). As I have said, Emily is a very skilled visual artist and we have discussed using Trompe L'oeil painting and other illusionistic techniques for the bulk of the set decoration. We see this is a real chance for Emily to let her imagination go wild and, as I said, I'm very excited to have her working on this.

One requirement I have I do have is that the back wall consists of scrims. First of all, the scrims will provide vibrant color washes to an otherwise monochromatic set. Secondly, a great deal of the dramatic action will hinge on the ability to see hidden things. The scrims fulfill a voyeuristic drive in the audience. Much of the story telling in Restoration plays depends on what is not seen, those illicit acts that occur behind closed doors and out of sight. Contemporary viewers, however, are spoilt by the all seeing eye of reality television and derive more pleasure from an omnipresent visuality. The scrims will fulfill that voyeurism. What was once hidden is now gloriously revealed. This transparency will facilitate comedy (we are able to SEE Horner's romantic and physical entanglements) as well as creating suspense. Through light and shadow, I'm planning a visual representation of a rumor spreading. Several scenes in the country wife involve people peeking around doorways or listening in at doors. A looming shadow will give these eavesdropping scenes a sinister quality which lends itself to the dark mood of the farce.

Le Moment pour La Show

It is difficult for me to pick a single scene since so many exist so vividly in my mind. But everyone probably says that. Perhaps the most important moment is the last moment of the show. By virtue of its placement at the end it will inevitably be the moment people take away with them.

I have always been extremely bothered by the end of this show as it is written. In Wycherley's ending there is no closure or any real resolution, there is only a horrible stasis. We are returned to the beginning of the show: Horner will continue to be a lying-gigolo, the wives will continue to cheat on their husbands, and worst of all, Margery is forced to return to her extremely violent and abusive husband, the man who has already tried to kill her. What bothers me so much is not this horrifying ending, but the text's lack of recognition that it is horrible. Wycherley paints the scene as a very happy one, everything has turned out for the best and everyone goes home happy.

My production will highlight the tragedy, brutality and, most of all, the irony of this ending. The show ends with all the characters conveniently on stage and the spontaneous decision for a group song and dance number. The dance will exist in my production (probably in lieu of a final bow) but will be given a tragic irony by Margery. As the players sing and dance, Margery, realizing her desperate situation, does not join in the revelry. Rather, she goes from person to person imploring them for help, looking for someone to rescue her from her husband. While she does so, Pinchwife follows closely on her heels with murderous rage. The other players, the terrible selfish people that they are, will ignore Margery and even find her an annoyance. With no recourse left to her, Pinchwife grabs her and takes her off stage. As she struggles against him, the happy, piping music continues and the other characters are unaware of any but themselves.

Once the Pinchwifes are offstage, the music stops abruptly and a loud, shrill noise sounds (a Sweeney-Todd type whistle? a scream? Perhaps both). The lighting shifts to violent red, and through the scrim we see a scene that in my imagination is quite terrifying. It's a shadow play in which we are forced to witness Pinchwife's violent murder of his wife.

There is an upside, however, a small glimmer of hope to this tragedy. The characters on stage, who have stopped their dancing, are also an audience to the shadow scene and they regard it with horror. After it is over, there is moment of guilt and recognition on their faces, an acknowledgement of their moral and spiritual decay. The lights slowly fade into a blackout on the character's realization of their own culpability. Perhaps through Margery's tragedy, there is the hope for change.

WHY: WHY ME, WHY YOU, WHY HERE?

Theater has been a very important part of my life at Brown. At times it feels like the only part, the sole beneficiary of my time and enthusiasm. In addition to acting in many shows here, I stage managed week in the space last semester and have done run crew for the last two commencement shows. While my directing experience is not as extensive (productions at my summer camp, and a TA23 scene) it is nonetheless something I am confident I can do, and do well. I've had the privilege of working with a great number of directors and I've keenly observed which techniques work and which ones don't.

My greatest credential for directing, however, is the great passion I have for this show. From the first time I read this play (in TA124, incidentally) sophomore year, I knew it was the show I wanted to direct. Reading it for the first time, it created such vivid imagery in my mind that I knew I had to make it tangible and real enough for others to see. Revealed in this play, I saw all the darkest aspects of humanity and was perturbed that others who read it did not see it as the festering sore that it is. This curious play, a nightmare wantonly parading as a comedy of errors, has haunted me ever since then. My desire to not only to direct it, but to direct it in a new way, has only grown stronger since then.

Why PW, you ask? What a fine question. For one thing, if not at PW, I will never be able to put up this production. After I graduate this year, it will probably be the end of my theatrical career. I will never again have access to the means and incredible talent pool that exists at Brown. Aside from these practical concerns, however, the simple truth is this production cannot happen anywhere else. The production that I'm planning, an anti canonical, anti-historicist production, can only exist if it is produced by young people. There are no grown-ups allowed here. Production Workshop is the place for Iconoclasm.

The bigger question, however, is why put on this show at all. The answer is quite simple: I want to prove that a very old show can still shock and entertain. A more complicated question, however, would by why put on the show in this way. My purpose in casting the past in such a grotesque light is not to make our own time appear better in contrast. Rather, my hope is that the audience can see the issues brought up in the fictional and historical world of the play and be forced to find parallels to our real and present world. I sincerely hope, for example, that the terrible misogyny of this play will not only bother people but force them to acknowledge the misogyny in our own time. The troubling questions of the country wife--the physical and emotional consequences of sex, the apparent opposition between love and marriage, the very validity of institutionalized marriage--these have yet to be answered in our own time. And unlike syphilis, the diseases of the human soul in The Country Wife--cruelty, jealousy, violence and malign manipulation--have yet to find successful cures.

Also, I hope this play can serve as a cautionary tale. I examine my own life at Brown University and am shocked at my own dissipation and lack of character. I live in a plush place where my meals are all prepared for me and I don't even have to clean my own bathroom. Think about that: other people are paid to clean up my filth, something I just can't be bothered with. Furthermore, my parents pay exorbitant amounts of money for me to eat crap, consume illicit and polluting substances and complain about the workload. Certainly, I am not alone in this lifestyle. The experience of most Brown students resembles mine. Like the world of The Country Wife, ours is a world of inordinate privilege and a lack of responsibility. The characters in the play are not inherently awful people, they merely suffer from having two much free time and too little responsibility. Their problem is that there is nothing restricting them from exploring every excess. The nightmare world of The Country Wife is not just something that happened in the stinky past in another country. It is our own world and it is disgusting.