Word: horner
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...solution that designer Ed Wittstein settled on was to construct a huge fixed set made up of portions of the required locales. In the rear we see tall diagonal cutouts representing the facades of London houses. To the left we have Horner's lodging, assumed to be on the second story since it is reached by a stairwell opening up through the stage floor. It is a lived-in space, decked out with a fireplace on whose mantle sit an hourglass, an astrolabe and a drinking-mug. There are a chandelier, a terrestrial globe on a stand, a mirror, antlers...
...PREMISE of The Country Wife is Dr. Quack's spreading around London the report that Horner, as a result of unbridled whoring in France, contracted venereal disease and was castrated by the French physician treating him. Thus Horner, horny as ever, can easily cuckold unsuspecting husbands who believe him capable only of platonic friendships. (The device of the phoney impotent comes from the ancient Roman Eunuchus by Terence, who in turn took it from a lost Greek original by Menander...
Philip Kerr, with long-flowing locks and rich red garb, looks the proper--or, rather, improper--libertine. Wycherley made his Horner an allegro con brio role. Kerr plays it allegro all right, but his portrayal needs more brio. Still, he speaks crisply, and handles his walking-stick as though born with...
...Shelley has the advantage of being British herself and of knowing just how to deal with Margery's unrefined diction. How honestly she skips about on learning she has smitten a man at the theatre! What a laugh she elicits on exclaiming, "Oh jeminy!," when first introduced to the Horner she has heard about! How telling her little gasp on finally entering Horner's bedroom...
...absolute maryel in the play's most celebrated scene (again suggested by School for Husbands), in which she is forced by Pinchwife to write an odious letter to Horner from dictation and then manages to substitute another of opposite sentiment. Her pauses, her inflections, and her iterations of the simple expletive "so" are indescribably funny. One notices her sly smile on penning "For Mister Horner," one senses her giddy excitement on being able to write her own letter, one enjoys her unconscious tickling of her nose with the quill, one shares her gleeful success at hiding the dictated letter under...