The Woman-Hater

Synopsis

Jilted on the verge of marriage, Sir Roderick spurns all contact with all women. The woman who jilted him, wooed with verses by another, became Lady Smatter and is, she feels, at the centre of literary life, peppering her every sentence with misremembered quotations. Sir Roderick has severed relations with his sister Eleonora because she presumed to marry Wilmot, Lady Smatter's brother. That marriage has now foundered over suspected adultery. Years have now passed, children have grown up and heirs need to be found. In this world of antagonism and suspicion is it possible for love to blossom and hat to wither?

Our Review:

2 January 2008

The three outstanding London theatres of 2007 have indubitably been the National, the Royal Court and the Orange Tree. The little Richmond venue under the perennial stewardship of Sam Walters is sometimes a touch cosy and suburban for my taste, and there’s always been an unmistakeable whiff of village hall and WI teatimes about both actors and audiences.

But the programme this year has been instructive, enjoyable and full of stunning and adventurous choices. Obviously, therefore, the theatre is facing an Arts Council cut of almost seventeen per cent in the latest round of scandalous announcements by the faceless, craven bureaucrats in Great Peter Street. Honestly, if and when the weather gets a bit warmer, I’m going to start marching in protest and breaking a few windows.

Who else but the Orange Tree is ever going to show us Fanny Burney’s 1802 play The Woman Hater, a convoluted but fascinating farcical comedy of a buffoonish misog...

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