Love in a Wood (RSC)

Note: This review dates from April 2001 and the production’s original run in Stratford-upon-Avon.

William Wycherley‘s first play, Love in a Wood is set in the reign
of Charles II, in the London of Samuel Pepys. The “Wood” in question is St
James’s Park which after dark becomes a busy cruising ground for casual and
anonymous sexual encounters. Sex is there in abundance, as is the greed for
money, but “love” is in very short supply.

The plot is intricate and, at times in the first act, you need to
concentrate to remember who exactly is being unfaithful to whom, with whom.
But, in the second act, all this complexity resolves itself and everything
falls perfectly into place – rather like a PG Wodehouse plot. Four couples
start and finish the play together, but lie, cheat, test and betray each
other in the interim. A hypocritical Puritan is sexually compromised and
blackmailed and the course of true love runs anything but smoothly.

After his unhappy time at the National Theatre, director Tim Supple is
back to his top form at Stratford. He tells this funny, sexy, amoral,
cynical story with verve and conviction, managing to avoid the artificial and exaggerated foppery of much Restoration comedy and show us real people
burning with desire for sex and money. Louis Hilyer could easily have
fallen into the trap of making Sir Simon Addlepot a camp fool, but
his energy and earnestness are just what the play needs.

This production is a credit to ensemble acting. The play has no star role –
the ten leading parts are evenly matched – and the cast has no star
performer. You need to mention either ten names or none. The acting is
uniformly good – although someone with a little more sexual charisma than
Robert Bowman as Ranger might have given the action an even more dangerous
edge.

Dramatically situated somewhere between Shakespeare and Sheridan – or, to be
more precise, between Thomas Dekker and Oliver Goldsmith – this play catches
the mood and style of the period well. Readers of Pepys’ Diary will
recognise the Restoration London portrayed – fast, racy, promiscuous,
avaricious, hypocritical (remarkably like London today). In modern terms, it
combines the realism and angst of EastEnders with the zany humour of
a Carry On film, while being far more bawdy than either.

Inexplicably, Love in a Wood has been hardly ever produced. Although
written in 1671, this is to all intents and purposes a new play. Often when
plays like this are rediscovered, you wish they had been left in decent
obscurity – but not so in this case. It’s a gem, a delight and a vindication
of the RSC’s policy of exploring the neglected classics rather than just
safely sticking to the well-worn mainstream repertoire. Directors of the
National Theatre please note!

Robert Hole

Love in a Wood opened at The Swan Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon, 19 April 2001 (previews from 12 April) and continues there in repertory until
12 October 2001.