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Reviews

This progression of reviews is intended to capture the trend of critical opinion of Mr. Wycherley's The Country Wife from sixteen seventy five to the mid seventeen hundreds.

The first recorded review of The Country Wife. Its brevity indicates that the play was very young and unproven in the critic's mind.

By 1701 The Country Wife had proven itself as a crowd pleaser and perennial favorite. Almost every review up this period is highly complementary of Wycherley and his work. Note the high praise that the playwright receives. Also of interest is the turn of phrase "care is taken to have each part preformed to the best advantage." The wording implies that the The Country Wife has begun taking negative criticism, yet it seems that the playhouse intends to perform the "most Ingenious Mr Wycherly['s]" work the way he wrote it.

Written in 1715, this review marks the return of The Country Wife to the British stage after a six year hiatus. Gone are the praising words for Wycherley, replaced with the playhouse's distinct desire to indicate the production's "Revis'd" nature. From this point on, the trend in reviews seem to be wary of granting too much praise to the play. Though many more performances are recorded, they are remembered by restrained reviews.