At this point in the play (act 3 scene 1) we are introduced to the characters Alithea; pinchwife's sister, and Mrs Pinchwife; pinchwife's wife. In the last scene that Pinchwife appeared in (act 1 scene 1) the audience have learned that he is a jealous person so they immediately expect this to become all the more apparent in this scene. In historical context, back in the 1600's being made a cuckold was every husbands biggest fear, and in the character of Pinchwife this is highlighted. Also in the theatre of the 1600's there would have been a back row where you would sit if you didn't want to be seen, Pinchwife make he and his wife sit here on purpose because he doesn't want any of the young fop of the city to see his beautiful wife; he's an overprotective and jealous man. During this scene Mrs Pinchwife asks her husband to take her to the theatre so she can see the sights of the city because she has never seen them before (she's a country wife), to which Pinchwife reacts very negatively as his sister has filled his wife's head with ideals and dreams of city life; exactly what he wanted to keep Mrs Pinchwife away from. My interpretation of the character of Mrs Pinchwife is that she's a very naive person who has missed out on an exciting early life due to her husbands jealousy, but I could see her easily becoming manipulated by the likes of Horner because of how unexposed she has been to city life, she's too innocent and vulnerable.

The character of Mrs Pinchwife in this scene would be a challenge to play due to her continual change in voice, meaning that her tone, accent, pitch, pace, pause, and projection would be alternating and fluctuating throughout the scene. Her very first line "[...] whilst I must stay at home like a poor, lonely, sullen bird in a cage" is one where she is complaining and almost whining to Alithea, so for the actor I would expect them to put stress on the vowel sounds in this line because this is typical of a child who is moaning in disgust, much like Mrs Pinchwife. The pitch of her voice should be high and the pace should be quick, she is having a rant after all. A change in her pace and pitch would be during the line "Psh! What d'ye tell me of the country for?" At this point her accent would be strong due to the language she is using "d'ye" the actor would show accent by emphasising the harsh consonant phonetics, such as "for" the "r" sound would be dragged out and made to sound almost comedic. I would expect this to happen because this is stereotypical of someone's accent if they are from the country, plus this play revolves around stereotypes so this would be an opportunity to further project to the audience this theme. Projection is another element to Mrs pinchwife's voice that needs to be explored because of how her mood continues to change from highs to lows, this is evident during the line "why, O Lord! Did the gentlemen come hither to see me indee?" At this point the character is becoming excited at the prospect of being looked at by the fop in the city, so the volume of her voice would become increased because she is unable to contain her emotions at this prospect, she is still very juvenile in her ways.

Physical characterisation has to come into consideration when identifying challenges for the actor playing Mrs Pinchwife, for she is an energetic character who would be expected to have a brash move set to her character. The actor should have an upright posture because Mrs Pinchwife is a young girl who should be full of life and be bouncy and flamboyant in her movement. Her body language should be open and comforting, because she is a country bumpkin and would be welcoming to anyone who stepped through her door. Her facial expressions should reflect surprise at every word said by any other character, for example her eyes should be wide open and should have a permanent smile on her face (apart from when she's sulking!) this is because as a character she hasn't been exposed to anything but her village life, so anyone or anything who is senior or more experienced than she is someone to be admired, this should be seen in her facial expressions. Her movement on the stage should as stated before be energetic, but once Pinchwife enters the scene she should become fore reserved because she is trying to impress her upper class husband.

Relationships established in the scene should be shown in the actors interpretation of Mrs Pinchwife because the character looks up to almost every single other individual in the play. Her relationship with Alithea is shown through how she doesn't just see her as a sister in law, Mrs Pinchwife frequently just calls Alithea "sister" this shows a bond that is close so the actor should try and show this by getting closer to Alithea when delivering lines directed to her, however they could also lower their posture to show that they are of a lesser status than Alithea, because his will project a feeling of respect. Her relationship with Pinchwife however is one where her excitable attributes come out to play, for example during the scene she bounds up to Pinchwife in childish glee, she really does love and adore Pinchwife. However as the scene continues Mrs Pinchwife acts more like Pinchwife's misbehaving daughter rather than his wife, because she throws tantrums and strops when she doesn't get her own way. Her opinion of London change during the scene because at first she thinks it is a terrible place (as seen in earlier scenes) because her husband has managed to belittle her thoughts so she believes London to be a place of bad things and horrible people whereas now she has listened to Alitheas tales of London and is enthralled at the idea of London let alone being able to comprehend that it is indeed a real thing "I will go abroad, that's once!".

To conclude, there are many challenges for an actor to face whilst playing Mrs Pinchwife such as voice and movement, and conveying relationships and intentions. But the largest challenge of all is trying to put across to the audience that Mrs Pinchwife is in fact a significant character through the scene, not just a comedic role which pokes fun at people from the country. What makes her significant is that she shows Pinchwife's reasoning for being jealous, and that her lust for London has been contained by her husband, she is a character that represents being trapped, and for an actor to display this they must include all of the techniques I have described to effectively carry off this complex character.