ABSTRACT
Four of the other five plays we look at here, leaving the fifth, A Fool's Preferment (1688), for the next chapter. The four are Si'r Barnaby Whigg (1681), The Royalist (1682), A Common-Wealth of Women (1685) and The Banditti (1686). It may indicate Durfey's distraction that of them two (The Injured Princess, A Common-Wealth of Women) were remakes of earlier plays and one (The Banditti) was a dramatization of a Spanish prose tale. Only S/r Barnaby Whigg and The Royalist are thoroughgoing Durfey inventions and they are the two most political and, dramatically speaking, the most damaged. The problem is that in these works political controversy cuts across Durfey's comedy of relationships, causing mismatches of tone, inadequate motivation and characterization and gratuitous scenes. His interest in controversy - political or theatrical - draws in momentarily fascinating material which gets in the way of dramatic development.
