I had to come down to Toyland to use the scanner and now I will head myself back home for a lot of edits! There's a street fair on Broadway between 79th and 86th so I may later wander out for a bit and check it out.
I've been reading Congreve's THE WAY OF THE WORLD, which is funny, but - familiar as I am with 17th and 18th Century comedy dialogue - I'm still a bit lost in this play's machinations and I wish I were a little more familiar with the sexual innuendoes in the text.
Mrs Fainall is married to Mr Fainall, the villain, and the marriage had been arranged when, during her affair with Mirabell, she thought she might be pregnant
Fainall is married unhappily to Mrs Fainall, and in a heavy affair with Mrs Marwood; together he and Marwood are plotting the downfall of Mirabell and his love for Mrs Millamant
Marwood hates Mirabell because he rejected her advances
Mrs Fainall is still on friendly terms with Mirabell and helping him in his attempts to marry Millamant, whose fortune - until she marries - is under control of her old aunt, Lady Wishfort
Millamant and Mrs Fainall are cousins; Millamant is neice to, and Fainall daughter of, Lady Wishfort, who hates Mirabell because he once pretended to love her and got the horny old lady's knickers in a twist
Lady Wishfort is trying to marry her niece Millamant to her idiot nephew Sir Wilfull Witwould so she can control Millamant's fortune
Mirabell and Millamant are in a plot with Foible, Lady Wishfort's maid, and Foible's husband Waitwell, Mirabell's servant, to have Waitwell impersonate Mirabell's wealthy uncle Sir Rowland, who claims to be in love with Lady Wishfort, so they can blackmail her into giving Millamant permission (and the fortune she controls) to marry Mirabell. Fainall and Marwood have learnedof this plot and are determined todestroy Mirabell and Millamant.
That's the essential plot. I am still uncertain, in this play where everyone's having sex with someone else and often using it as a power play or wishing to have sex, exactly what is going on with the two leading characters, Are they or aren't they doing the dread deed? I'm sure it was clear to the original audience, butthere are too many ambiguous word usages, like "friend," which can mean as well a sexual partner, keep, protector. There's great rhythm to the language but there sure are a helluva lot of archaic words!