A Risqué Romp in Any Century - ‘Sir Patient Fancy’ Features the All-Female Queen’s Company
Andy WebsterMarch 24, 2014: The Queen’s Company, the all-female downtown ensemble led by Rebecca Patterson, taps its inner swashbuckler (and farceur) with Sir Patient Fancy, a work by one of the rare female professional playwrights of the 17th century, Aphra Behn (1640-89). Little is known about Behn except that she was a spy for King Charles II at one point, and that her plays often possess a ribald flair. This one, presented at Wild Project in the East Village, certainly does. Sir Patient Fancy concerns three noblemen: Leander Fancy (Amy Driesler) seeks Lucretia Knowell (Antoinette Robinson); Lodwick Knowell (Sarah Hankins) courts Isabella Fancy (Sarah Joyce); and Charles Wittmore (Elisabeth Preston) is having an affair with the married Lady Fancy (Tiffany Abercrombie). But Lodwick’s mother, Lady Knowell (Julia Campanelli), appears to covet Leander, and Lucretia has been pledged by her mother, Lady Fancy, to the simpleton Sir Credulous Easy (Virginia Baeta). And then there is the troublesome presence of Lady Fancy’s husband, Sir Patient Fancy (Natalie Lebert), an imperious, blustery hypochondriac.
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