The Provok’d Wife

In swinging London Lady Brute is provoked to infidelity by her husband. Married in haste – he for sex, she for money and status – Lord and Lady Brute are shackled in wedlock, but looking for diversions. He goes off for a drunken night on the town while she and her niece disguise themselves for a secret meeting with their lovers, spied on by a jealous rival …..

First performed in 1697, John Vanbrugh’s bawdy romp through the pleasure gardens of London comes up fresh-as-paint in this sharp new adaptation by Bernie Byrnes.