The Country Wife

Prologue - The actor playing Mr. Horner delivers a prologue apologizing to the audience for any offence that the play may bring. He relates to the audience saying that poets (or playwrights) often write things that offend spectators, but that the actors will do their best to make them feel comfortable.

Act One - Horner is speaking to a doctor named Quack and asking him if he has successfully spread the rumor that Horner is a eunuch. The Doctor has told every gossip in town this false news, and Horner hopes that this fake ‘knowledge’ that everyone now has of him will make husbands leave him alone with their wives. Horner has the reputation of being a ladies man and flirting with other men’s wives, and he has been in need of a new tactic in order to get close to these women. This was his idea and doctor Quack goes along with it, even though he doesn’t quite understand the point.

A man from town named Sir Jasper Fidget pays Horner a visit with his wife and sister in order to test