The first recorded response to The Forc'd Marriage was by John Downes, the prompter for the Duke's Theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields in London where the first performance took place in December 1670. Downes wrote that the play was “a good play and lasted six days” (quoted in the theatrical history note in Montague Summers's edition of the play). Six nights was a respectable run in those days, since the audience pool was relatively small and a large number of plays had to be produced. However, another contemporary comment was not so favorable. In The Rehearsal (1671), a satirical work on the drama ascribed to George Villiers, the second Duke of Buckingham, Villiers mocks The Forc'd Marriage as well as Behn's second play, The Amorous Prince (1671). In particular, Villiers pokes fun at the scenes in which Philander serenades Erminia and the later scene in which a fake funeral...