The Prude's Progress: A Comedy in Three Acts
1895
Jerome K. Jerome, the genius behind Three Men in a Boat, turns his satirical eye on Victorian society's sacred cows in this sparkling three-act comedy. Set in a cramped Bloomsbury lodging house, the play introduces Nelly Morris and her brother Ted, a struggling medical student whose dreams are strangled by poverty. When the earnest but rather pompous Adam Cherry arrives with a marriage proposal that would solve all their financial woes, Nelly faces a choice that cuts to the heart of every woman's struggle between security and self-respect. But this being a Jerome K. Jerome production, there's a delicious twist: the wealthy relative who might rescue them is himself leading a scandalous double life, and the prudes turn out to be not who we expect. Wry, affectionate, and razor-sharp about the absurdities of class pretension, the play zings with the same mischievous intelligence that made Jerome famous. It's a comedy of manners where nobody escapes unmocked, least of all those who consider themselves above reproach.
