Three Weeks After Marriage Explained

Three Weeks After Marriage
Setting:	Country house, just outside London
Date Of Premiere:	30 March 1776
Original Language:	English
Place:	Theatre Royal, Covent Garden, London
Genre:	Comedy

Three Weeks after Marriage is a comedy play by the Irish writer Arthur Murphy.^[1] An afterpiece, it premiered at the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden in London on 30 March 1776. It was a reworking of an earlier play What We Must All Come To which was staged in 1764, which had a poor reception. The cast included William Thomas Lewis as Sir Charles Racket, John Quick as Drugget, Isabella Mattocks as Lady Racket, Ann Pitt as Mrs Drugget and Jane Green as Dimity.^[2] The entire play takes place at a country house about four miles outside London.^[3]

It was met "with great applause" and became a standard work, being played every year for the remainder of the century. Its performances continued well into the nineteenth century. The role of Lady Racket later became a signature for Frances Abington, and was also played by Dorothea Jordan and Harriet Faucit.^[4]

Bibliography

• Emery, John Pike. Arthur Murphy: An Eminent English Dramatist of the Eighteenth Century. University of Pennsylvania Press, 1946.
• Nicoll, Allardyce. A History of English Drama 1660–1900: Volume III. Cambridge University Press, 2009.
• Hogan, C.B (ed.) The London Stage, 1660–1800: Volume V. Southern Illinois University Press, 1968.
• Taylor, George (ed.) Plays by Samuel Foote and Arthur Murphy: The Minor, The Nabob, The Citizen, Three Weeks After Marriage, Know Your Own Mind. CUP Archive, 1984.

Notes and References

1. Nicoll p.290
2. Taylor p.143
3. Emery p.89
4. Emery p.89