The City Bride (1696)

The City Bride (1696) - Or, The Merry Cuckold

The City Bride, by Joseph Harris, is of special interest as the only adaptation from the canon of John Webster to have come upon the stage in the Restoration. Nahum Tates Injurd Love: or, The Cruel Husband is an adaptation of The White Devil, but it was never acted and was not printed until 1707. The City Bride is taken from A Cure for a Cuckold, in which William Rowley and perhaps Thomas Heywood collaborated with Webster. F. L. Lucas, Websters most recent and most scholarly editor, remarks that A Cure for a Cuckold is one of the better specimens of Post-Elizabethan romantic comedy. In particular, the character of the bride, Annabel (Arabella in Harriss adaptation), has a universal appeal. The City Bride, a very close copy of its original, retains its virtues, and has some additional virtues of its own. Not much is known of its author, Joseph Harris. Genest first notices him as playing Bourcher, the companion of a French pirate, in A Common-Wealth of Women. Thomas Durfeys alteration of The Sea Voyage from the Beaumont and Fletcher folio, which was produced about September 1685. His subsequent roles were of a similar calibre, but if he never rose to be a star he seems to have become a valued supporting player, for in 1692 he was chosen to join the royal comedians in ordinary. He did not at first side with Thomas Betterton in his quarrel with the patentees of the theatre in 1694-5, but he withdrew with him to Lincolns Inn Fields. Genest notices him for the last time as playing Sir Richard Vernon in Bettertons adaptation of 1 Henry IV, which was produced about April 1700. [ii] During his career on the stage Harris found time to compose a tragi-comedy, The Mistakes, or, The False Report (1691), produced in December 1690; The City Bride, produced in 1696; and a comedy and a masque, Loves a Lottery, and a Woman the Prize. With a New Masque, calld Love and Riches Reconcild (1699), produced about March 1698/9. The Mistakes is clearly apprentice work, for Harris acknowledges in a preface the considerable help of William Mountfort, who took the part of the villain, Ricardo. Mountfort, who had already written three plays himself, cut one of the scenes intended for the fifth act and inserted one of his own composition (probably the last) which not only clarified the plot but also elevated the character of the part he was to play. The company seems to have done its best by the budding dramatist, for Dryden wrote the prologue, a rather unusual one in prose and verse, and Tate supplied the epilogue. Harris professed himself satisfied with the plays reception, but owned that it was Mountforts acting which really carried it off. ......Buy Now (To Read More)

Product details

Ebook Number: 22974
Author: Harris, Joseph
Release Date: Oct 12, 2007
Format: eBook
Language: English