The Modern Husband, Henry Fielding

My only previous experience with Fielding was Tom Jones and it didn't go all that well; the authorial voice in the novel overwhelmed everything else and for the most part I kept thinking, "this is supposed to be funny," rather than, "this is funny."

Well, this is a stage play - authorial voice can't be a problem. But would it be funny? Frankly, no. I didn't find it funny at all and I think a director would have to be very inventive to drag much visual humour into it. That said, I don't think it's a bad play - it's just that its merits don't include belly laughs, or even chuckles, really.

It's very satirical - primarily of its contemporary audience who are portrayed as going to the theatre, turning up late, to be seen and to gossip and intrigue, with the stage action being a mere distraction. The are further made out to be a bunch of vice-driven gamblers and libertines more interested in the appearance of virtue than any kind of morality at all.

Women are shown to be the main victims of all this, with husbands prostituting wives in order to maintain appearances when in financial difficulty and rich predators corrupting all and sundry through abuse of power, influence and money.

The most interesting character here is not the young newly wed wife who maintains her principles when all around have none but the older wife who has capitulated to her husband's demands that she act as mistress to others in order to raise income when his legal affairs have consumed all their money.

Mrs Modern is no saint, being quite vindictive at times and an inveterate gambler and intriguer, but it is clear that circumstance and her husband have exerted enormous pressure on her and that she was reluctant to start down the round to infamy. She points up the fundamental social problems (the imbalance of power between men and women inside and outside marriage) more clearly than the young virtuous woman she tries to ruin.

I find the satire rather biting and what the play lacks in humour it makes up for in righteous anger. A much simpler, quicker and superior work than Tom Jones.

The Clandestine Marriage, Garrick and Colman

Clandestine marriages were a hot political topic at the time of writing (mid 1700s), with numerous young lovers eloping to Gretna Green in order to get married against parental wishes and avoid arranged marriages that had little motivation beyond the financial and social climbing aims of parents. This play comes down heavily and unsubtly on the side of young love, with every character's portrait singly coloured using a paint roller in order to fit in with the necessary scheme. A bunch of stereotypes, really, the worst of which is the Swiss idiot who exists solely so he can be portrayed as a moron with a silly accent whilst serving as confidente to someone else who is pivotal to the plot. Stereotypes heightened for comedic effect, bumbling around chaotically getting into a huge tangle that gets resolved extremely quickly in the fifth Act with much ado and hullabaloo preceding.

It's saving grace is that it is funny, whilst making its swipe at marriage laws, the crude taste of the nouveau riche merchants and speculators, the snobbery of Old Money and the notion that income is more important than affection when it comes to marriage. It would be even more so in performance, so it's disappointing to learn that the play has received little attention in recent years, though it has been filmed once. This, however, does not apply to the Epilogue which, despite its attempt at meta-humour about Society and Theatre, is just utter garbage.

She Stoops to Conquer, Goldsmith

By far the most famous play in this collection, I'm sure, and with 3 of 4 read, I'm pretty confident it's the best, too. There's much fuss in the Introduction and notes about how Goldsmith rejected the "Sentimental" tone of his contemporary playwrights but it seems much ado about nothing to me: This play is all mischeif, intrigue, misunderstanding, romantic shennanigans and parents who interfere and overbear, winding itself up to total comedic chaos in Act 4 and resolving neatly in Act 5. Hence, just like every other famous play of its era - but up there as one of the best examples. It's obviously situationally funny off the page and no doubt hilarious in performance. Great fun.

Wild Oats, O'Keefe

Veering more in the direction of farce and piling the coindicences higher than the other entries in this volume, Wild Oats nevertheless delivers the laughs, no doubt gaining much in performance.

This collection gives a nice overview of 18th Century comedy and preserves some of the more obscure but still worthwhile examples - but She Stoops to Conquer stands head and shoulders above the rest, deserving of its fame. ( )