|
|
Article: Loves labour's won. (Royal Shakespeare Company's integrity)
- Article from:
- The Economist (US)
- Article date:
- May 25, 1996
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1996 Economist Newspaper Ltd. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
|
STRATFORD-UPON-AVON
THINKING to me is the greatest fatigue in the world." "No man worth having is true to his wife, or can be true to his wife, or ever was, or ever will be so." "When once a woman has given you her heart, you can never get rid of the rest of her body." Audiences fall about at these and other lines at a bawdy performance by the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) of John Vanbrugh's "The Relapse", which was first staged in 1696. Yet the same sort of audiences are bemused not just by the humour but by much of the content of plays that William Shakespeare wrote 100 or so years earlier, especially his comedies.
Shakespeare's fondness for verse, less ...