The Theater: Elegantly Spicy

LOVE FOR LOVE by WILLIAM CONGREVE

Congreve was the alchemist of Restoration comedy, refining grossness into gaiety. He gave bawdry rare class. His rakish characters pursue their seductions, cuckoldries and feverish fornications with the aristocratic aplomb of English gentlemen on a fox hunt. Their talk is nakedly lubricious, yet it shimmers with wit. The absolute lack of any sense of sin gives even the most scandalous scenes in Congreve's plays a pagan air of preadamite innocence.

Love for Love displays all these characteristics, and it is difficult to imagine a more delightful revival...

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