THE COUNTRY WIFE By William Wycherley
WELCOME
DANIEL EVANS AND RACHEL TACKLEY PHOTOGRAPH BY TOBIAS KEY
Welcome to The Country Wife. We are delighted to present this new production of one of the quintessential plays of the Restoration era. Written over 300 years ago, the play has provoked audiences since it was first staged, and for many years was banned from both performance and print. Now we introduce it to a new generation, with very different notions about relationships between men and women. It’s a huge pleasure to welcome Jonathan Munby back to Chichester to direct. His previous work for us includes the highly acclaimed King Lear (Festival 2017) with Ian McKellen, which transfers to the Noël Coward Theatre in London from July and will be broadcast by NT Live in cinemas across the UK and internationally in September.
Jonathan’s distinguished cast includes Susannah Fielding, who makes her Chichester debut as Margery Pinchwife; her theatre work includes The Beaux’ Stratagem (National Theatre) and Portia in The Merchant of Venice (RSC). Lex Shrapnel plays Horner; his previous work includes Romeo at Chichester in 2002 and Hotspur in Henry IV for the RSC (Evening Standard Most Promising Newcomer Award nomination). There are more hugely contrasting plays to come in the Minerva season including two world premieres, which also look at relationships between men and women in very different historic periods and circumstances; The Meeting by Charlotte Jones, and The Watsons by Laura Wade. We hope you will join us for those too.
Artistic Director Daniel Evans
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Executive Director Rachel Tackley
COMING SOON
Matt Lucas Caroline Quentin Clive Rowe Alex Young
ME AND MY GIRL Book & Lyrics by L Arthur Rose and Douglas Furber Book revised by Stephen Fry with contributions by Mike Ockrent Music by Noel Gay
2 July – 25 August #MeAndMyGirl
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COMING SOON
Lydia Leonard Gerald Kyd Jean St Clair
THE MEETING A new play by Charlotte Jones This powerful new play from Charlotte Jones is a spellbinding exploration of the timeless challenges of bringing the truth to light.
WORLD PREMIERE 13 July – 11 August #TheMeeting
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FESTIVE-ALL Every spring, Chichester Festival Theatre is plunged into a welter of activity as booking opens for the much-anticipated Festival season. But alongside the glossy brochures, star names and brand new productions, work of a different kind – but just as important – is in progress. ‘We are constantly thinking about how we can involve and reach people who may not find it easy to watch – still less take part in – a performance in the traditional way,’ says Louise Rigglesford, the Theatre’s Community Partnerships Manager. ‘Perhaps you know someone who used to come to the Theatre but, due to advancing years or disability, they don’t feel up to coming on their own anymore. Maybe they don’t have a partner or theatre-going friend and don’t fancy having nobody to talk to in the interval. On the other hand, someone may never
have been before and feel a bit nervous about what to expect.’ That’s where the CFT Buddies scheme comes in. Launched last year, this free companion service is for anyone who doesn’t feel physically able or comfortable attending a performance alone. It may benefit elderly or socially isolated people, those with learning difficulties or who are on the autistic spectrum, and anyone with physical disabilities or eyesight and hearing difficulties. The Buddy is not a replacement for a carer but is there to offer assistance and companionship for semi-independent people. Members of CFT’s Access List receive a 40% discount on tickets, and the Buddy’s ticket is free. Among other new initiatives, in March FestivAll celebrated the performing arts
activities of local young people with additional needs. Two performances of their own original material were given by Theatre Inc, who are based at Chichester College; Stopgap Dance Company from Farnham Maltings; Delta 7, a band from Eastbourne; and CFT’s own CFYT Friday Late group, who showed off their gift for physical comedy with a piece inspired by a silent movie set in a train station. They also presented a piece exploring what they’d like to change about the world and what inspires and encourages them. ‘FestivAll was a chance for people with disabilities or additional needs to perform in front of a welcoming audience in a professional venue. We hope it will prove to be a transformative experience for the performers,’ Louise says.
Alongside the performances, a host of free workshops and creative activities were on offer. ‘These were primarily aimed at people with additional needs – whether a learning or physical disability; someone on the autistic spectrum or with access requirements such as a wheelchair or a walker,’ Louise explains. ‘But we didn’t want it to be exclusive; anyone was welcome to come along.’ Louise hopes that FestivAll will have inspired audiences to get involved with creative activities of their own or simply to have appreciated the skill and talent on show. ‘It was an opportunity for us to emphasise the fact that the Theatre’s doors are open to everyone; it was a real celebration of people you may see less frequently on stage. We are now planning similar initiatives for the future.’
CFT BUDDIES SCHEME To find out more about CFT Buddies, visit cft.org.uk/CFTbuddies. If you would like to request a Buddy, call the Box Office on 01243 781312 or email access@cft.org.uk for more details. The scheme is sponsored by Rathbone Investment Management.
TH E CAFÉ & THE FOYLE TERRACE The Café in the Festival Theatre is open daily from 10am serving freshly made sandwiches, soup, cakes and pastries. Enjoy our barista coffee or choose from a range of hot and cold drinks including wines and beers. The Café is light and airy and offers al fresco seating and free Wi-Fi. The Bar and The Foyle Terrace in the Festival Theatre are open 90 minutes before the show and both serve a selection of locally produced spirits, beers, lagers and wine by the glass or the bottle. The Foyle Terrace also serves pizzas, quiches, jacket potatoes and salads before the show.
The Brasserie in the Minerva Theatre is open for pre-show dining in new stylish and elegant surroundings. The restaurant serves a contemporary British menu using local and seasonal ingredients as well as an excellent choice of wines. Open 12.30pm - 2.30pm on matinee days and from 5.30pm for evening performances.
Enjoy either a main meal or one of our lighter food options before or after the show in the Minerva Bar & Grill upstairs, which offers a more relaxed atmosphere. Open 90 minutes before matinee performances, from 5pm for evening performances, during the interval and post-show.
RESERVATIONS
To reserve a table in the Brasserie or Minerva Bar & Grill visit cft.org.uk/dining for online reservations. Alternatively please call 01243 782219 or email dining@cft.org.uk
THE COUNTRY WIFE By William Wycherley
WILLIAM WYCHERLEY IMAGE COURTESY OF ALAMY
A RESTORATION COMEDY COURT AND COMEDY
Written in 1675, fifteen years after King Charles II came to the throne, The Country Wife illustrates the years of wild recklessness that followed the ‘restoration’ of the monarchy. It features, and was written for, elite bad boys who spent their money ‘upon daily new purchases of pleasure’ and their time making sexual conquests. The ‘Restoration’, a title given to the return of the king to the English throne in 1660, and to the years of license that followed it, was the backlash to what had happened over the past twenty years. From 1642 to 1651 there had been a vicious civil war in England during which the king, Charles I, had been beheaded. Then, from 1649, the country had entered what later came to be called the ‘interregnum’ – the period between kings – and become a commonwealth. It had been ruled over by the austere Oliver Cromwell, a Puritan who had banned plays, maypole dancing, even Christmas. When the commonwealth had fallen in 1659 and royalists finally ‘restored’ the son of the king, Charles II, to the throne in 1660, they brought about a ‘restoration’ of pleasure. As many English aristocrats and much of the gentry had spent the interregnum on the continent (as had Charles II himself), they returned to their native land and inherited wealth with years’ worth of missed fun to make up for. Their notions of a good time, however, had been shaped by the ideas and habits they had acquired abroad: wearing gorgeous clothes; putting women on stage in plays (only men and boys had performed in England before the interregnum); and practising ‘libertinism’ – which technically meant ‘freethinking’, but swiftly morphed into doing what one pleased sexually. PORTRAIT OF KING CHARLES II BY GODFREY KNELLER, 1685 IMAGE COURTESY OF ALAMY
Modelling the aristocracy’s general excess was Charles II himself. His favourite courtiers were outrageous dissolutes like John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester, who deflowered virgins in order, he said, to teach them bedroom tricks for their later royal encounters. Rochester’s famously lewd poems about sex thrilled – and then, when they became too personal, enraged – the monarch. Others amongst Charles II’s entourage were George Etheridge and William Congreve, minor rakes and major playwrights, and William Wycherley, also a rake and a playwright, and author of The Country Wife. So The Country Wife, which the eighteenth century critic Thomas Davies declared ‘a more