The Relapse

Sequel: The Relapse Vanbrugh's witty sequel The Relapse, Or, Virtue in Danger, questions the justice of women's position in marriage at this time. He sends new sexual temptations in the way of not only the reformed husband but also the patient wife, and allows them to react in more credible and less predictable ways than in their original context, lending the flat characters from Love's Last Shift a dimension that at least some critics are willing to consider psychological.In a trickster subplot, Vanbrugh provides the more traditional Restoration attraction of an overly well-dressed and exquisite fop, Lord Foppington.Critics of Restoration comedy are unanimous in declaring Lord Foppington "the greatest of all Restoration fops", by virtue of being not merely laughably affected, but also "brutal, evil, and smart„The Relapse, however, came very close to not being performed at all. The United Company had lost all its senior performers, and had great difficulty in finding and keeping actors of sufficient skills for the large cast required by The Relapse. Members of that cast had to be kept from defecting to the rival actors' cooperative, had to be "seduced" (as the legal term was) back when they did defect, and had to be blandished into attending rehearsals which dragged out into ten months and brought the company to the threshold of bankruptcy."They have no company at all", reported a contemporary letter on the November 19, 1696 "and unless a new play comes out on Saturday revives their reputation, they must break".That new play, The Relapse, did turn out a tremendous success that saved the company.

Drama in the early 19th century