Basset-Table

In the glittering world of Restoration London, love is a transaction and honor is measured in pounds sterling. Sir Richard Plainman has handpicked the wealthy Captain Firebrand as husband for his daughter Valeria, but the young woman has other ideas, she's fallen for the penniless Ensign Lovely. Around this central mismatch spins a web of romantic and financial entanglements: Lord Worthy adores Lady Reveller, who despises gamblers, while his friend Sir James Courtly cannot stop wagering his fortune away. The basset table at the center of this comedy is more than a card game, it's a mirror held up to a society where fortunes rise and fall with the turn of a card, and where marriage is too often a business deal in disguise. Susanna Centlivre, one of the few female playwrights to succeed in the male-dominated Restoration theater, fires witty salvo after witty salvo at the pretensions of the English upper classes. The play crackles with verbal dexterity and social satire that remains remarkably fresh three centuries later. For readers who relish the comedies of Congreve and Wycherley, this is a chance to discover a too-often overlooked female voice in the canon.