The Rivals - American Conservatory Theater

RIVALS_WOP.qxd
3/9/06
10:06 AM
Page i
A M E R I C A N C O N S E R V AT O R Y T H E AT E R
Carey Perloff, Artistic Director
Heather Kitchen, Executive Director
PRESENTS
The Rivals
by richard brinsley sheridan
directed by lillian groag
geary theater
march 23–april 23, 2006
WORDS ON PLAYS
prepared by
elizabeth brodersen
publications editor
jessica werner
contributing editor
michael paller
resident dramaturg
margot melcon
publications assistant
a.c.t. is supported in part by grants from the
Grants for the Arts/San Francisco Hotel Tax Fund
and the National Endowment for the Arts, which
believes that a great nation deserves great art.
© 2006 AMERICAN CONSERVATORY THEATER, A NONPROFIT ORGANIZATION. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
RIVALS_WOP.qxd
3/9/06
10:06 AM
Page ii
RIVALS_WOP.qxd
3/9/06
10:06 AM
Page iii
table of contents
1.
Characters, Cast, and Synopsis of The Rivals
6.
A Note from the Director
by Lillian Groag
7.
The Rivals: Meet and Greet
14. A Brief Biography of Richard Brinsley Sheridan
15.
Sheridan in America
by Michael Paller
21. On Bath
by Michael Paller
28. The Cult of Sensibility
by Michael Paller
32. Sheridan’s Duels: The Deadly Seriousness behind The Rivals
by Michael Paller
40. The Rivals: Historical Context
41. A Rivals Glossary
49. Questions to Consider
50. For Further Information . . .
RIVALS_WOP.qxd
3/9/06
10:06 AM
Page iv
RIVALS_WOP.qxd
3/9/06
10:06 AM
Page 1
characters, cast, and synopsis of THE RIVALS
The premiere production of The Rivals opened January 17, 1775, at Covent Garden
Theatre in London.
characters and cast
thomas, Sir Anthony’s coachman
fag, Jack’s servant
lydia languish, a provincial lady
lucy, Lydia’s maid
julia melville, Lydia’s friend
and Sir Anthony’s ward
mrs. malaprop, Lydia’s Aunt
sir anthony absolute, a baronet
captain jack absolute, his son
faulkland, Jack’s friend
bob acres, Jack’s friend, a country squire
errand boy
sir lucius o’trigger, an Irish gentleman
david, Bob Acre’s servant
Mark D. Watson
T. Edward Webster
René Augesen
Claire Brownell
Stacy Ross
Jill Tanner
Charles Dean
Anthony Fusco
Gregory Wallace
Dan Hiatt
Ann Farrar
Andy Murray
Jud Williford
the setting
Bath, England, in the late 18th century.
synopsis
ct i. scene one. Two old friends, both servants, happen upon each other on a
street in Bath. Fag, servant to Captain Jack Absolute (who is masquerading as a poor
Ensign Beverley for the sake of a love affair), catches up with Thomas, coachman to Sir
Anthony Absolute, Jack’s father and a wealthy baronet, thereby introducing the characters
and setting up the story to date: Jack is in love with the wealthy young Miss Lydia
Languish, who desperately desires to elope with her impoverished beau, Ensign Beverley.
Lydia is vacationing in Bath with her domineering and bizarrely misspoken aunt, Mrs.
Malaprop.
scene two. Lucy, Lydia’s maid, returns to her mistress’s dressing room in Mrs.
Malaprop’s lodgings from a trip to the local circulating libraries, laden with romantic
A
1
RIVALS_WOP.qxd
3/9/06
10:06 AM
Page 2
novels for her mistress. Lydia wants a love affair as romantic and dramatic as those of the
heroines in the romance stories she devours. Although wealthy in her own right, Lydia
stands to lose her fortune if she marries a man of whom her aunt does not approve before
she comes of age; Lydia is not interested, however, in any man who would be willing to
wait for her money before marrying her – hence Jack Absolute’s impersonation of a fictitious young man (Beverley) with a lesser title and little income.
Lydia reveals to her friend Julia that her aunt has confined her to her rooms after discovering Lydia’s secret passion for Beverley. Julia is in love with Jack’s friend Faulkland, but
Lydia believes Faulkland is too possessive of Julia. Mrs. Malaprop and Sir Anthony Absolute
enter and instruct Lydia to forget Beverley. When she refuses, Mrs. Malaprop sends her to
her room, whereupon the elder pair agree that severity is the best way to treat a child. Sir
Anthony wants his own son (Captain Jack Absolute) to marry Lydia, and he suggests locking Lydia in her room without dinner for a few days to enforce her compliance. Mrs.
Malaprop, her speeches thick with misused, pretentious words, agrees to an initial encounter
between the young people, for she would like to be freed of her niece so she can pursue her
own affair with Sir Lucius O’Trigger. All exit but Lucy, who tallies up the many rewards she
has earned by acting as a go-between and informer for the various sets of lovers.
ct ii. scene one. At Captain Absolute’s lodging, Fag lets Jack (who is dressed as
Ensign Beverley) know that Jack’s
father is in Bath. Faulkland enters, and he
and Jack discuss their love affairs. Jack
accuses Faulkland of being a ‘‘teasing, captious, incorrigible lover’’ for constantly
doubting Julia’s loyalty and love. Bob Acres,
one of Lydia’s spurned suitors, enters and
pitches Faulkland into yet another fit of
jealous despair by relating how Julia has
entertained Bath society with her carefree
singing and dancing—obviously, Faulkland
concludes, she hasn’t missed him a whit,
although they haven’t seen each other for a
while. Acres, a country bumpkin, brags to
Jack and Faulkland that he shall win Lydia
back from Ensign Beverley with his
A
2
Costume rendering for Faulkland by Beaver Bauer
RIVALS_WOP.qxd
3/9/06
10:06 AM
Page 3
improved dress and hairstyle. Fag announces the arrival of Jack’s father, Sir Anthony, who
informs Jack that he intends to give him a sizeable estate, but only if he agrees to accept
an arranged marriage. Jack declines politely, saying that his ‘‘heart is engaged to an angel.’’
Sir Anthony leaves, fuming.
scene two. Lucy delivers a love letter to Sir Lucius O’Trigger. He believes the letter
is from a new lady love, a certain “Delia,” whom he believes to be in fact Lydia. Lucy does
not inform Sir Lucius that the letter’s real author is the much older Mrs. Malaprop. Before
going, Sir Lucius kisses Lucy. Fag arrives, and Sir Lucius leaves, humming. Lucy tells Fag
about Sir Anthony’s choice of a wife for Jack: Lydia Languish. Fag goes off gleefully to
inform his master of the good news.
ct iii. scene one. Now that Jack knows he is being “forced” to marry the girl he
loves, he pretends to repent his disrespectful behavior toward his father, feigns the
obedience of a dutiful son, and wins his father’s shocked approval.
scene two. In Julia’s receiving room, Faulkland confronts Julia with his paranoid
fears and jealousy, and, after several attempts at reassurance, she exits in tears. Too late,
Faulkland recognizes his folly.
scene three. In Mrs. Malaprop’s lodgings, Captain Absolute presents himself to
Lydia’s aunt, who does not guess his dual identity as Ensign Beverley. She shows him
Beverley’s letter to Lydia, and he feigns disgust
at his supposed rival’s rude remarks about the
vigilant old aunt. When Mrs. Malaprop then
spies on Jack’s supposed first meeting with
Lydia, she fails to recognize Lydia’s delight at
seeing her lover in the ‘‘disguise’’ of his true
identity. Lydia infuriates her aunt by continuing
to profess her love for Beverley, in plain hearing
of Jack Absolute, who calmly pretends not to be
jealous of his other self.
scene four. In Acres’s lodgings, Sir
Lucius interrupts Acres capering about in new
clothes, practicing his dance lessons. Sir Lucius
informs Acres that he has lost Lydia to Ensign
Beverley and manages to convince Acres to
challenge Beverley to a duel, to defend his
A
Costume rendering for Bob Acres by Beaver Bauer
3
RIVALS_WOP.qxd
3/9/06
10:06 AM
Page 4
honor and to ‘‘prevent any misunderstanding.’’ Acres does not realize that this Beverley is
none other than his friend Jack Absolute. Sir Lucius helps Acres write a letter challenging
Beverley to fight, but claims to have another duel to attend and so cannot deliver the note
on his friend’s behalf.
ct iv. scene one. Acres’s servant David tries to deflate his master’s enthusiasm for
the fight with a healthy dose of reality, but Acres remains steadfast. Jack Absolute
arrives and offers his support but refuses to act as Acres’s second, which, of course, would
be impossible since he is also Acres’s opponent, Beverley. Jack promises to warn Beverley
that ‘‘Fighting Bob’’ is in a ‘‘devouring rage.’’
scene two. Back at Mrs. Malaprop’s lodgings, Lydia refuses to give any encouragement to Captain Absolute and insists that she will remain true to her beloved Beverley.
Suddenly, Sir Anthony arrives with Jack in tow. Their arrival is a volatile situation, for
Lydia still does not know that Jack is also Beverley. Jack approaches Lydia, who sits in a
huff with her face turned away from him. At first Jack does not speak, and then tries to
modify his voice to an awkward croak, which infuriates his father. Finally, he reveals himself to a shocked Lydia, insisting that the man before her is Beverley. At first, Mrs.
Malaprop and Sir Anthony consider Lydia mad. Lydia sulks in realization that the two
men are one and the same, which means no dramatic elopement or disinheritance; her
romantic bubble has burst. Jack’s bubble has burst, as well, since Mrs. Malaprop realizes
that it was Jack who called her an ‘‘old weather-beaten she dragon.” Sir Anthony marvels
at his son’s roguish ingenuity and sings and dances in delight.
Jack realizes that Lydia, still brooding over the death of her romantic dream, has not
joined in the general celebration. She lashes out at him for deceiving her and begins to sob.
Mrs. Malaprop thinks the couple is ‘‘billing and cooing,’’ and Sir Anthony mistakes Lydia’s
tears as evidence of his son’s impatient blood, a trait, he proudly says, that runs in their
family.
scene three. On the North Parade, Sir Lucius provokes a quarrel with Jack, who is
in a foul mood after Lydia’s rejection. He agrees to duel with Sir Lucius at the same location that Acres plans to duel with Jack that evening. Faulkland arrives as Sir Lucius exits.
A servant delivers a letter from Julia asking Faulkland to meet her right away, and Jack
chastises his friend for failing to understand he’s being given a second chance. Jack is
correct: Faulkland decides to test Julia’s sincerity yet again, using the duel as a ruse.
A
4
A
ct v. scene one. Faulkland confronts Julia in her rooms, claiming that he has to
leave the country to preserve his life. True to her loyal, loving nature, Julia agrees to
RIVALS_WOP.qxd
3/9/06
10:06 AM
Page 5
go with him, without even knowing the nature of the threat. Overwhelmed by her
response, Faulkland forgets to depart, admits the ruse, and enrages Julia for trifling with
her sincerity. She now sees that he will never be capable of confidence in love, so she leaves
him, professing never to love again. Faulkland finally truly understands the error of his
constant doubts, and he sinks in remorse.
Faulkland exits as Lydia and Lucy enter, followed by Julia. Lydia bemoans the death of
her romantic dreams, but Julia responds by telling her sad story and advising Lydia not to
be so foolish as to throw away the true love of a good man. Lydia seems ready to accept
the new, albeit less romantic, terms of her love affair with Absolute. Suddenly, Mrs.
Malaprop, David, and Fag arrive, hoping to stop the duel in time, although Mrs.
Malaprop’s circuitous style of speaking delays their message being understood by the two
young ladies. Eventually, all is clear, and they exit to find the field of battle.
scene two. On the South Parade, Jack bumps into Sir Anthony, the last person he
wants to see when he is on his way to a duel. His nervousness nearly gives him away, but
when his sword falls from under his coat, Jack manages to convince his father that he
intends to scare Lydia with a romantic threat of suicide if she will not accept him. Jack
escapes, just as David arrives. David tells Sir Anthony about the impending duels, and they
depart in haste to try and interrupt the proceedings.
scene three. At King’s-Mead-Fields, Acres and Sir Lucius discuss (with buffoonish
ineptitude) the best shooting distance and stance for effective dueling. Faulkland and Jack
arrive, and Sir Lucius assumes that Faulkland is
Beverley, since he, of course, already knows Jack
as Jack. Jack informs Acres of Beverley’s true
identity; Acres, in great relief, promises to bear
his disappointment (at losing the opportunity to
duel) “like a Christian,” while Sir Lucius and
Jack nearly come to blows before the group of
concerned ladies and parents appear. Lydia
informs Sir Lucius that she is not his “Delia”—
who, to Sir Lucius’s chagrin, is revealed to be
Mrs. Malaprop. The mystery of identities now
revealed, the antagonists put aside their differences and the couples make up—Jack with
Lydia and Faulkland with Julia. All dance.
Costume rendering for Sir Anthony Absolute by Beaver Bauer
5
RIVALS_WOP.qxd
3/9/06
10:06 AM
Page 6
a note from the director
by lillian groag
ll good plays have to do with the conduct of life, and they last because the fundamental problems of existence don’t change.
For some two hundred years now we have prized the English comedies of the century
between the Restoration and the last Georges for a glittering artifice that we have, perhaps
too hastily, called “artificiality,” since our deeply earnest and laconic times have bred an
implicit distrust of florid language. We seem to have similar reservations regarding polysyllabic leaders. It is as if expression that is precise and articulate were inherently suspect—
true emotion and therefore Truth Itself being assumed to reside exclusively with the
inarticulate, and all products of the mind appearing chilly propositions compared to the
effusions of what it pleases us to call The Heart. In fact the heart is a muscle that pumps
blood, and we can now identify specific sections of the brain in which particular “emotions”
originate. Is it because of this basic distrust of words, coupled with the assumption that
people in wigs sporting fans and walking sticks could not possibly have anything to do
with us, that we now traditionally approach these comedies with caution and diminished
expectation?
I contend that The Rivals addresses us regarding the question of how to love as urgently
as it did two centuries ago, and that the conflict between the illusion of Romance and the
warning signs of common sense in the interests of the longevity of the couple is as vivid
now as it was then. Lydia believes that Love conquers all adversity; Faulkland, in the fog
of a severe Tristan Complex, would like his beloved to become himself, thereby obliterating intrinsic human separateness; Mrs. Malaprop hopes Love will restore lost youth; Bob
Acres expects it to give him “style” and courage. And yet, even in the throes of terminal
absurdity, not one of Sheridan’s characters appears petty, mean-hearted, or small.
It is said that at the core of British humor can be found the brilliant Irishmen who
shaped it: Congreve, Farquhar, Sheridan, Beckett, Wilde, Shaw. Who can not hear the
stirrings of Gwendolen, Lady Bracknell, and that “other Jack” in Lydia Languish, Mrs.
Malaprop, and Captain Absolute?
The Rivals, wise as it is delicious, celebrates and announces the wit, incisive thought,
and sharp satire hidden beneath this dazzling tradition. It’s not the flick of the fan—essential as it is to the shape of this world—that elicits laughter and the movement of the heart;
it’s the turn of the spectacular, illuminating word.
A
6
RIVALS_WOP.qxd
3/9/06
10:06 AM
THE RIVALS: meet
Page 7
and greet
Comments made to the actors on the first day of rehearsal at a.c.t., February 21, 2006.
director lillian groag
I think these plays have fallen somehow into disrepute, from Restoration comedy to
Georgian comedy a hundred years later. We tend to think of them as these brittle, artificial linguistic creations. But The Rivals is full of love and heat and, like all good plays,
addresses the conduct of life. How shall we live? And, more specifically in this play, How
shall we love? Like all wonderful writers, Sheridan’s ambiguous at the end. Good playwrights give you no answers.
Lydia, Faulkland, and, to a certain extent, poor Mrs. Malaprop all believe that love conquers all, that love can overcome even poverty and sadness and death. Faulkland would like
to merge, to be one with his beloved Julia—he suffers from the Tristan complex, when you
7
The Circus, Bath (1773), by John Robert Cozens. © Victoria Art Gallery, Bath, and North East Somerset Council / The Bridgeman
Art Library.
RIVALS_WOP.qxd
8
3/9/06
10:06 AM
Page 8
feel as though you breathe and think and feel exactly as your beloved does. Well, of course,
that’s nonsense. Separation is what we’re all condemned to, to exist isolated within our own
skins for our entire lives. And then there are the characters who belong in the late 18th century. They are the children of the Age of Reason, Jack and Julia, who see everything from
a perspective that propels the social world forward. The world clearly could not function
if we all loved like Lydia and Faulkland—you’d go to Walgreen’s for an envelope and find
the assistant slitting her wrists in the aisle because her beloved doesn’t love her and she
can’t love anybody else. Lydia and Faulkland, and Mrs. Malaprop in a different way, are
brought into the fold and taught to love in a way society approves. When that happens,
however, I think there’s a sense that something golden has been lost.
I think I’d prefer to be loved by Faulkland, myself, because he would die if I left him.
Isn’t that wonderful? Now that’s love! Unlike Jack, who says that, if things don’t work out
with Lydia, he would be very sorry, but he knows he would find someone else to love. Like
most of us do. Whereas Faulkland says to him, “You may be able to love again, but I can’t.
This is it.” There is something sad about what’s lost at the end. It shouldn’t be too painful,
but there should be a little regret about the loss of the idealism of two people who love not
wisely but too well. They really do love well. They love the way the movies tell us to love:
passionately and recklessly. But a world populated by Lydias and Faulklands would be
mad. Can you imagine? You go knock on your boss’s door and she’s lying on the floor taking oxygen because her husband was cruel to her that morning. We can’t live like that.
Nevertheless, something wonderful is regretfully given up at the end.
I decided to set the production in Gainsborough’s time [painter Thomas Gainsborough, 1727–88], not only because it is period appropriate, but because it is the beginning of
the Romantic movement. In about 20 to 30 years, you have Byron and Napoleon and
Chateaubriand, these incredible Romantic figures, and ten years after that the Brontës and
Heathcliff and Catherine. And Gainsborough gave us all these incredible paintings of
these women, slightly disheveled, who all look like they’re about to take flight. As though
they were helium borne, just a breath away from taking off.
scenic designer donald eastman
The set is based on a crescent shape, a familiar structure in Georgian architecture—Bath
was largely built in the mid 18th century. We’ve been evolving the look of the set from
something very architectural and detailed and three dimensional, to actually taking advantage of the great scenic artist we have at A.C.T., Demarest Campbell, who can paint anything. It’s all going to be painted like a perfect 18th-century painting. The buildings will
have shadow and pale color. It will be like a three-dimensional watercolor, sitting on a clas-
RIVALS_WOP.qxd
3/9/06
10:06 AM
Page 9
sic stage floor, wooden boards in a classic stage pattern. So there will be this fabulous artificial piece of architecture sitting on a real stage floor. A chandelier hangs above the whole
piece, strangely hovering at the center of this town, of this arc of architecture, which lets
us pay homage to the theater, while also paying homage to the fact that it is artifice. The
Georgian theater stage was basically a wood proscenium with a door on the right and a
door on the left, a chair in the center, and a painted drop, with the actors fighting to be
down center. In a way, we’re paying homage to that, and the chandelier just tops it off.
When you look at the setting, it is a perfect picture of people in the middle of this big oval
of architecture, but the interesting thing is, when you get near it, you realize that the fourstory building in the back is actually just twelve feet tall. So the set design plays with the
idea that it’s just a framework for the play to take place in front of.
The interiors are very actor driven. In contrast to the exterior, which is an homage to
painting and craft and watercolor, the interiors actually have architectural detail. They’re
very monochromatic, and they really are a canvas for the actors. The stage is slightly raked,
9
Scenic backdrop for the set of The Rivals, designed by Donald Eastman
RIVALS_WOP.qxd
3/9/06
10:06 AM
Page 10
a gentle, half-inch rake, but there’s only a seven-inch step at the apron. The challenge in
designing these rooms was trying to figure out the milieu of these people, how everyone
was differentiated from each other, within Bath society. Social distinctions were much less
marked in Bath than in conventional British society, and everyone was just renting a room,
so truly everyone’s room was fabulous. Every time we reveal another room, it will be simply set with just the right amount of furniture and not overdressed. The furniture will be
gold leaf and covered in real color. So we’ll see the red room, or the green room, or the yellow room, without a great amount of detail.
In the final scene we leave town for the duel, and we’re bringing in a big painted backdrop that actually looks like a painting; you can see people in the classic English landscape.
I was in upstate New York last year in Cooperstown, where Lillian and I tend to go every
summer for Glimmerglass Opera, and I found two great things in a box in front of a used
bookstore. One was a picture book of English landscape painting, and the other was a
1920s edition of The Rivals. Don’t ask me why, but somehow between that book and that
script, there’s the set. The interesting thing about the backdrop is that, once we bring it in,
there is no way to get onstage. So for the final scene everyone will be entering from the
house, which means that all of the characters will be coming up into this strange new place.
And this scene will basically be footlights, so it really will all of a sudden have a unique
quality. We really will have left the place we’ve been for the last two hours and will come
to this wonderful new place, only to go back and reveal the big set at the end.
costume designer beaver bauer
10
As Lillian said, we started with the work of the wonderful Mr. Gainsborough. We were
inspired by these ladies who look like baroque pearls sitting in these wonderful paintings.
We adored the women in their pale dresses and the men as darker strokes within the landscape.
I’m also following a thread of the contemporary designer Vivienne Westwood, who very
frequently riffs on British historical costumes, as well as the genius of fashion designer
Charles James, who was quite wonderful. His work is very similar to our set, with pale
rooms and ladies in huge, lovely gowns. And I read this great article about the waters and
the pump-room in Bath; they actually used to get into the baths, as you can see in some of
the caricatures, with their hats on.
We pictured Lydia lying on a divan eating bon bons and reading novels, waiting for
love. Mrs. Malaprop we imagined with lavender in her hair, dressed in a wonderful pale
OPPOSITE Costume rendering for Mrs. Malaprop by Beaver Bauer
RIVALS_WOP.qxd
3/9/06
10:06 AM
Page 11
11
RIVALS_WOP.qxd
3/9/06
10:06 AM
Page 12
12
Mrs. Richard Brinsley Sheridan, c. 1785–86, by Thomas Gainsborough. Mellon Collection, National Gallery of Art,
Washington D.C. / The Bridgeman Art Library.
RIVALS_WOP.qxd
3/9/06
10:06 AM
Page 13
chartreuse green. Gainsborough always had these ladies wrapped in gauzy tulle—what
good it would do, I don’t know, but yards of gauzy tulle—and maybe when they go to the
duel they will have big floppy hats and blowing gauze and parasols. Bob Acres rushes in
with his hair plastered down, oily and dirty, in leather pants, and then transforms into a
slightly Keith Richards aesthetic. Faulkland is very romantic with a beautiful long, loose
wig, dripping with scarves, hopefully velvet. Sir Lucius is fabulous in a tartan waistcoat
with a big red wig. Why not? I think [actor] Andy [Murray] can pull it off.
sound designer jake rodriguez
The great thing about working with Lillian is that she has such a connection with music.
Music in her productions is never incidental or merely transitional, or background, or there
just to paint a period of time; it’s always central to telling the story. We’ll be discovering
the musical vocabulary of this show in the rehearsal process, but I think we’re certain that
music will generally be a part of that connection between the head and the heart, making
sure that the story is grounded to its emotional core. We also talked about a few events in
the show that are not just transitional moments, but are big moments with music, which
will help drive the story. I’m sure we’ll discover a few more, starting with music of the
period, but not necessarily ending there. We may span beyond that. We’ll see where we go,
but I think it will be a fun ride.
13
RIVALS_WOP.qxd
3/9/06
10:06 AM
Page 14
a brief biography of richard brinsley
sheridan
ichard Brinsely Sheridan
(1751–1816) was born in
Dublin. His father was an actor,
theater manager, and teacher of
elocution, his mother a writer of
sentimental novels. He was
educated at Harrow, where he
quickly learned the disadvantages of a nonaristocratic, theatrical, Irish-Protestant family
background. Indeed, this heritage was the fulcrum on which
his life turned, even as it never
ceased hindering him socially
and politically. He married
Elizabeth Linley in 1773 after an
adventurous courtship that
included two duels and an
elopement—material that he
fashioned into his first play, The
Rivals, in 1775. The Duenna folRichard Brinsley Sheridan, by John Hoppner. Hermitage, St. Petersburg, Russia / lowed the same year. In 1776, he
became part owner of the
Novosti / The Bridgeman Art Library.
Drury Lane Theatre, which he
managed until 1809. There he staged The School for Scandal (1777), The Critic, and Pizarro
(both 1779). In 1780, he was elected to Parliament, where he served until 1812, and the theater played an increasingly minor role in his life. As a Whig in an era of Tory political
dominance, Sheridan was never in the majority and never served in the government.
However, his unfailing defense of causes such as the American Revolution and Irish and
Catholic emancipation resulted in a brilliant series of speeches that rarely have been
equaled in English political history.
R
14
RIVALS_WOP.qxd
3/9/06
10:06 AM
Page 15
sheridan in america
by michael paller
oday, some tend to view Richard Brinsley Sheridan’s two major comedies, The Rivals
and The School for Scandal, as trivial affairs with the single purpose of providing audiences with a couple of hours of carefree amusement. In his own day, however, Sheridan was
considered by many to be a dangerous revolutionary. His friend and admirer Lord Byron
was the one called “mad, bad, and dangerous to know,” but to Sheridan’s political opponents the description fit Sheridan even better. In his 32 years as a member of Parliament,
he championed, among other causes, the American and French Revolutions and Irish and
Catholic emancipation. He was a democrat in an institution and country firmly run by
aristocrats, and his background as the son of Protestant/Irish parents, one an actor and one
a novelist, led him to view with a jaundiced eye the privileges and conventions of the elite.
Indeed, on at least one occasion, Sheridan’s actions on behalf of the Catholic cause came
perilously close to landing him in jail on charges of treason.
So it is fitting that the story of the performance of his works in America is accompanied at almost every turn by revolts against authority. It begins long before Sheridan’s birth
with the overthrow of a monarch and features the outrage of a prime minister, the
resourcefulness of London theater managers, the survival instinct of a company of actors
in colonial America, the condemnation of the Continental Congress, the appreciation of a
future president, the artistic ambitions of a Vermont jurist, and the thirst for freedom of a
black slave in Baltimore.
T
theater by any means
In 1642, the Puritan-dominated Parliament overthrew the Stuart king Charles i and, in
their zeal to stamp out all forms of secular entertainment, tore down the country’s theaters
and banned performances of plays. When the monarchy was restored in 1660, the new
king, Charles ii, reestablished theatrical activity and supported with great enthusiasm the
appearance of women on the English stage for the first time in history. (One of them, Nell
Gwyn, retired from the stage in 1669 to become his mistress and bore him two children.)
The Restoration theater was not the wide-open, hurly-burly affair the Elizabethan theater
had been, however. Now it was tightly controlled; only two theaters were given royal
licenses, or patents, to operate in London.
As the years passed, enforcement of the patents became lax. By 1733, there were at least
four unlicensed and illegal theaters operating in London in addition to the two legal ones,
15
RIVALS_WOP.qxd
3/9/06
10:06 AM
Page 16
Interior of the Drury Lane Theatre (1808), by T. Rowlandson and A. C. Pugin.
© Guildhall Library, City of London / The Bridgeman Art Library.
16
the Covent Gardens and the Drury Lane. Worse, from the point of view of the government—which controlled the content of plays by controlling the theaters where they were
produced—these unlicensed theaters were making a good deal of money by making a good
deal of savage fun of the royal family (now headed by George ii and Queen Caroline) and
the prime minister. That prime minister, Robert Walpole, was growing outraged at being
mercilessly satirized in such works as John Gay’s The Beggar’s Opera (1728) and Henry
Fielding’s The Historical Register for the Year 1736 (1737). In response to Fielding’s brutal
satire, Walpole pushed through Parliament what became known as the Licensing Act of
1737. It had two important provisions: any stage work had to be approved by a censor before
it could be performed, and the only place in London where plays could be legally performed was in the district of Westminster—meaning the Covent Garden and Drury Lane
theaters, which were the only playhouses in the district, and the holders of the two royal
patents. All other theaters would be shut down.
RIVALS_WOP.qxd
3/9/06
10:06 AM
Page 17
This did not stop resourceful theater managers, however. Since the law applied to plays
that were produced for “gain, hire, or reward,” operators of illegal theaters charged audiences a fee for a cup of tea or chocolate, or an exhibition of pictures displayed before the
show, and presented their plays for free. Wriggling through loopholes like these, the most
inventive managers contrived to stay open for years. One such was Lewis Hallam, Sr.,
manager of the Wells Theatre. In 1752, the law caught up with him, however, and the Wells
was closed. So Hallam and his family packed their bags and migrated to America. By 1763,
the family, now called The American Company of Comedians, was performing up and
down the Eastern seaboard and, according to historian Kenneth Silverman, practically
monopolizing the theater in the North American colonies.
Their success was not entirely a result of their abilities, which by most accounts were
modest. What they did possess was a remarkable ability to persevere, and for actors in colonial America, this was more valuable than talent. The descendants of the English Puritans
who had outlawed the theater in 1642 were now residing in the American colonies and
were determined to stamp it out here, too. Theater was popular in the South and in New
York, but it found little encouragement elsewhere. In 1682, Pennsylvania passed a law calling for the public condemnation, fine, and imprisonment of anyone presenting plays, bullbaiting, cock-fighting, or other morally suspect practices. By 1750, Boston and other New
England cities had banned theater, and in 1774 the Continental Congress took time out
from the looming crisis with Great Britain to make the prohibition general. The Congress
passed a law stating, in part:
We will, in our several stations, encourage frugality, economy, and industry,
and promote agriculture, arts, and the manufactures of this country, especially
that of wool; and will discountenance and discourage every species of extravagance and dissipation, especially all horse-racing, and all kinds of gaming,
cock-fighting, exhibition of shews, plays, and other expensive diversions and
entertainments.
By now, the American Company had improved its standards and built handsome brick
theaters in New York and Philadelphia, which it was suddenly unable to use. Faced with
its new outlaw status, the American Company decamped to Kingston, Jamaica, where it
produced Sheridan’s The Duenna in 1779, The Rivals in 1780, and The School for Scandal in
1781. These were the first professional productions of Sheridan in the New World.
As a vocal supporter of the American cause, Sheridan might have been amused had he
known that The School for Scandal had already been performed in New York by members
of the redcoat army that occupied the city during the war. Clinton’s Thespians, as they were
17
RIVALS_WOP.qxd
3/9/06
10:06 AM
Page 18
known, produced Scandal in 1778, three years after its premiere at the Drury Lane in
London. They produced it again in 1782, billing it—in a ploy Sheridan might have appreciated—as “never performed here.” The British evacuated New York a year later, but the
Sheridan tradition on the American mainland had just begun.
The American Company returned to North America in 1785, now under the direction
of Lewis Hallam, Jr., and John Henry, who had studied with Sheridan’s father, Thomas,
who was not only an actor but also an acclaimed teacher of elocution. In December 1785,
the American Company produced the first civilian, professional production of The School
for Scandal, in New York.
The troupe returned to Philadelphia during the Constitutional Convention in 1787,
hoping that the large number of sophisticates in town would turn out to see them. Theater
was still illegal in Philadelphia, so the company resorted to some of the same time-tested
tactics that unlicensed theaters in London had used years earlier, announcing a “Concert”
to be held at the “Opera House,” which was actually the Southwark Theatre, which they
had built many years earlier. “Between the parts of the Concert,” the ads in the press
announced, “will be introduced a comic LECTURE in five parts on the PERNICIOUS
VICE OF SCANDAL . . . Written by R. B. Sheridan, esquire.” The five-part “lecture”
was, of course, the five-act School for Scandal.
18
An Audience at Drury Lane Theatre, by Thomas Rowlandson. © Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection, U.S.A. / The
Bridgeman Art Library.
RIVALS_WOP.qxd
3/9/06
10:06 AM
Page 19
a fan in washington
Later that year, they repeated the production in New York for audiences that included, on
more than one occasion, George Washington. Washington had long been a fan of the
American Company, and had attended its performances often when it played Williamsburg
before the war. General Washington’s frequent laugher during The School for Scandal in New
York caused much distress to one of his companions, the more puritanically-minded
Senator William Maclay of Pennsylvania, who was outraged that the future president
could so enjoy “such an indecent representation.”
Royal Tyler, a Vermont lawyer, was also at one of those performances, and within weeks,
he wrote a play called The Contrast. Its plot owed more than a little to The School for
Scandal, and in Act iii, Tyler’s chief comic character, the country bumpkin Jonathan, mistakenly wanders into a New York theater to see a play called The School for Scandalization—
and asks for his money back. Over the years, Tyler would write a handful of other plays
when not presiding, as chief justice, over the Vermont Supreme Court. In time, The
Contrast would become known as the first play written by an American to be performed
by a professional company in the United States.
The American Company also presented Robinson Crusoe or Harlequin Friday, an elaborate spectacle written by Sheridan’s wife, Elizabeth, with some assistance from him. The
company’s 1786 production was, as the advertisement said, “for the entertainment of the
Indian Chiefs of the Oneida nation, now in this city.” The play’s first half followed the
story of Daniel Defoe’s novel; the second told of the adventures of his black servant Friday
and his love, Columbine, concluding with, as Sheridan’s most recent biographer, Fintan
O’Toole tells us, a “Grand Dance of Savages.” There is no record of the Oneida chiefs’
reaction.
Sheridan’s revolutionary sympathies continued to reverberate in America in the 19th
century. Ira Aldridge, an African-American actor who spent most of his career in Europe
playing Shakespeare to great acclaim, chose for his American debut in 1822 the part of
Rolla the Incan leader in Sheridan’s Pizzaro, the story of the tragic clash between the Incas
and Spanish conquerors. Not surprisingly, in Sheridan’s version the Incas are the heroes,
the Spanish invaders the villains.
Fifteen years after Sheridan’s death, another American was moved by Sheridan’s cry for
freedom and democracy. About 1830, Frederick Douglass was a young house slave in
Baltimore when he heard about a writer named Sheridan. With money he’d earned from
shining shoes, Douglass acquired a book of Sheridan’s parliamentary speeches; in his autobiography, Douglass recalled the effect the book had: “I met with one of Sheridan’s mighty
speeches . . . on behalf of Catholic emancipation. These were choice documents to me. I
19
RIVALS_WOP.qxd
3/9/06
10:06 AM
Page 20
read them over and over again with unabated interest. . . . What I got from Sheridan was
a bold denunciation of slavery and a powerful vindication of human rights.”
Not until later in the century would Sheridan’s revolutionary politics gradually be separated from his writing for the theater. So it’s well to keep in mind while watching The
Rivals that, for all its humor, it is a story about a revolution in thinking, about steering
one’s own course. Jack Absolute will go his own way in romance, following neither the conventional matchmaking ways of his father’s and Mrs. Malaprop’s generation, nor the faddish modes in the popular sentimental novels so thoroughly imbibed by Lydia. Julia, too,
will do her best to free Faulkland from the outlandish course he slavishly believes lovers
must run before they can prove themselves worthy of love. Mrs. Malaprop believes that,
above all, a young woman “should be mistress of orthodoxy.” She seems to mean “orthography,” the study of correct spelling, but her mistake is telling. It is her misfortune, alas, to
miss the joke—and the revolution that’s happening right under her nose.
20
RIVALS_WOP.qxd
3/9/06
10:06 AM
Page 21
on bath
by michael paller
he city of Bath, which the poet Swinburne called “Britain’s Florence,” is located in
southwest England in Somerset County about 100 miles, or 180 kilometers, from
London. It is set in a bowl surrounded, like Rome, by seven hills. Because of its convenient proximity to London and its location on the Avon River, in the 18th century it became
a major social center, if never a very large town. In Sheridan’s day, the population numbered about 30,000.
The area was first settled, probably around 500 b.c.e., by Celts, who considered it a
sacred place of healing, thanks to the experiences of a prince named Bladud. He was exiled
from court about 500 b.c.e. by his father, King Hudibras, because he suffered from a skin
disease, which may have been leprosy. Bladud became a wandering herder of sheep that
somehow also acquired his disease. One day, the story goes, the sheep meandered into a
valley that never froze, and wallowed in the strangely warm mud. When they emerged,
Bladud noticed that their skin lesions had healed. He immediately treated himself to a
similar wallow, and he, too, was cured. Returning to court, he was embraced (perhaps not
physically) by his father and readmitted to society. From that time on, the warm springs
bubbling up from below the earth in the Somerset valley became known as a place of heal-
T
21
Public Bathing at Bath, or Stewing Alive, by Isaac Robert Cruikshank (published by Sherwood & Co., 1825). Private Collection /
The Stapleton Collection / The Bridgeman Art Library.
RIVALS_WOP.qxd
3/9/06
10:06 AM
Page 22
ing, sacred to the Celts. They dedicated the place to the goddess Sul, guardian to the gateway of the underworld.
In the 19th century, an English physician validated Bladud’s legend, writing:
In a case recently sent to me, where there were few patches large as a crown
piece over the whole body free from Psoriasis, the patient rapidly improved
after a fortnight’s bathing and left with nearly a clean skin. This case was
doubly interesting, as the baths of many continental spas had been tried in vain.
Bath historian Diana Winsor writes that even though modern physicians are more
skeptical of the water’s healing powers, it does contain 30 minerals and elements, including calcium, magnesium, lead, potassium, iron, lithium, and sulphur. She also notes that
the water is slightly radioactive and contains so much lime that it is three times harder than
normal water. This hasn’t stopped braver souls from drinking a glass or two a day as part
of their cure.
The Romans, who arrived in Britain in 43 c.e., established a town at Bath some time
before they departed in 410. They named the town Aquae Sulis, in honor of the Celtic goddess, whom they adopted as one of their own. They built markets, a major temple called
22
Well-known Characters in the Pump Room, Bath, Taking a Sip with King Bladud, by Isaac Robert Cruikshank (published by
Sherwood & Co., 1825). Private Collection / The Stapleton Collection / The Bridgeman Art Library.
RIVALS_WOP.qxd
3/9/06
10:06 AM
Page 23
Sulis-Minerva (adding their own goddess to the title), three baths, and, according to some
scholars, a theater.
After the Romans abandoned the country, Britain fell into several hundred years of
anarchy and war—between Celt and Saxon, Saxon and Norseman, Christian and pagan—
before peace broke out in 973. That year, the Saxon king Edgar was crowned in an abbey
called St. Peter’s in the town known as Acemanceaster (“sick man’s city”), or Hat Batha.
Hat Batha’s fortunes waxed and waned over the succeeding centuries; at one point in
the Middle Ages it was entirely owned by a physician, John de Villelua, who became
bishop of Bath. The new abbey he built there became a favorite getaway for Henry ii of
The Lion in Winter fame, who introduced to England the concepts of common law, the jury
system, and local government before murdering Thomas À Becket in 1170.
The next king, Richard the Lionheart, granted Bath a charter in 1189 that allowed the
town to operate a marketplace and fairs. In those days, Benedictine monks ran the baths
solely for the healing of the sick.
By 1660, things had changed little. Writer and traveler John Leland described the three
baths of Bath this way:
This Bath is much frequented of people diseased with Lepre, Pokkes, Scabbes,
and great Aches. . . . The colour of the water is as it were a depe blew sea water,
and reeketh like a seething pot continually, having sumwhat a sulphurous and
sumwhat a pleasant flavour.
In 1700, Bath was still the small, dull town it had been for centuries, but that was about
to change. Traditionally, London was deserted in the summer, and its new, increasingly
wealthy middle class wanted a place to spend its money and time. Sheridan’s contemporary, Oliver Goldsmith, wrote, “They wanted someplace where they might have each
other’s company, and win each other’s money, as they had done during the winter in town.”
In 1702, Queen Anne tried Bath, and then tried it again in 1703. Her attendance suddenly
made it the place to go. “We may now say it is the resort of the sound as well as the sick,”
wrote Daniel Defoe, “and a place that helps the indolent and the gay to commit the worst
of murders—to kill time.” So popular did Bath become that its population grew from
about 2,000 when Queen Anne first visited to about 30,000 70 years later, when Sheridan
lived there and fought the second of two duels over Elizabeth Linley.
the era of beau nash, sheridan, and THE RIVALS
It has been said that two things transformed Bath from a seedy town into the destination
location it became: the hot mineral springs that pumped out 250,000 gallons of water a day
23
RIVALS_WOP.qxd
24
3/9/06
10:06 AM
Page 24
at a consistent 120 degrees (Fahrenheit), and the accomplishments of Richard “Beau”
Nash. Bath’s reputation as a spot not only to get well, but also to indulge in all the vices
that might lead to illness was established during Nash’s reign over the town from 1707 until
his death in 1761. This is the Bath of The Rivals. Nash arrived in town in 1705, broke. He
had few talents other than gambling, and it was the gambling that brought him to Bath.
He won about ₃1,000 and decided to stay. He wangled the job as assistant to the master of
ceremonies, and when the holder of that job was killed in a duel over a card game, Nash
ascended to the office itself and changed Bath forever.
The master of ceremonies was in charge of Bath’s social life (balls, card parties, gambling, concerts) and since life in Bath consisted of the waters, these diversions, and little
else, Nash was virtually king of Bath—a title he bestowed upon himself. He devised and
enforced a set of social rules by which visitors to Bath largely abided. He outlawed the
wearing of swords, to which Sir Lucius attests, because they tore women’s skirts and
increased the chance of violence and duels, which were illegal. He frowned upon private
parties (difficult in any case because most accommodations were too small for gatherings
of more than a few people), and encouraged public ones by persuading the local corporation to repair, maintain, and light the streets; by building the Assembly Rooms, which
became the main venue for dancing, concerts, and gambling; and by licensing the sedan
chairmen who were used to carrying customers in their chairs around town for extortionate prices. He hired a good orchestra from London to perform at concerts and play for
dances that usually began at 6 p.m. and ended by 11, at which time all public activity
ceased. He banned swearing in public places and, perhaps most interestingly (it would
have been of special interest to Sheridan), he introduced the concept of integration of the
classes to Bath. He became so successful in leveling classes, the bbc Bath Web site tell us,
“that people could be found creating friendships across the classes that could not be
dreamt of in London.” Everyone—aristocrat, merchant, apprentice, woman, and man—
had to obey the rules. Sheridan biographer Fintan O’Toole writes, “The new rich, anxious
to display their wealth, mingled with the new poor hoping to rescue their fortunes by an
advantageous match,” which Sir Lucius is certainly hoping to do with Lydia.
Now, everyone was coming to Bath. Tobias Smollett in his 1771 novel Humphrey Clinker,
describes the social scene:
. . . clerks and factors from the East Indies, loaded with the spoil of plundered
provinces, planters, negro-drivers, and hucksters from our American plantations, enriched they know not how; agents, commissaries, who have fattened,
in two successive wars, on the blood of the nation; ursurers, brokers, and job-
RIVALS_WOP.qxd
3/9/06
10:06 AM
Page 25
The South Parade, Bath (1775), by Thomas Malton, Jr. © Victoria Art Gallery, Bath, and North East Somerset Council / The
Bridgeman Art Library.
bers of every kind; men of low birth and no breeding . . . suddenly translated
into a state of affluence, unknown to former ages.
They all came and mingled. By the time Sheridan arrived in Bath in 1770 (his father, an
actor, started an elocution school there), the town was at least as much a place to socialize
as it was to recover from socializing. O’Toole writes:
Bath was kind of petrified irony, a beautiful and elegant town that owed its fortune to disease and the fear of death. . . . [But] this had become a mere excuse
for idle pleasures. Daniel Defoe called Bath “the resort of the sound rather than
the sick” and [writer, publisher, bon-vivant] Horace Walpole remarked that
people “went there well and returned home cured.” For those who came to preserve rather than to regain health, the vague reminder of illness merely confirmed their own vitality.
A typical day in Nash’s and Sheridan’s Bath might start with a light breakfast or a visit
to the Pump Room. This was a large gathering place located in a building erected above
25
RIVALS_WOP.qxd
26
3/9/06
10:06 AM
Page 26
the old Roman baths. The focal point was a pump from which, for a small fee, you could
“take the waters.” To Sophie Carey, a young woman whose diary describes daily activities
at Bath in 1720, the water tasted “unaccountably horrid,” no doubt because of its sulphur
content. This might be followed by a trip to the baths, where you would immerse yourself
in the 120-degree water for perhaps an hour or so. From there, you were likely to be
swathed in towels or a robe and carried back to your lodging in a sedan chair. Once arrived,
you’d be put to bed, still wrapped up, to sweat for an hour or so.
In the afternoon, you might walk on the North or South Parade, visit a coffee house to
socialize or read the papers, or court, or even arrange an illegal duel. Across the street from
the baths and Pump Room was another major attraction, Bath Abbey, begun by John de
Villelua for Henry ii in the 12th century.
In the evening there would be dances and card parties, and, under Nash, all activities
would cease at 11 p.m. The major venue for evening social gatherings was the Assembly
Rooms, which were finished in 1771. Under Nash’s supervision, this is where orchestral
concerts, vocal recitals, and dances were held. If you were from a family with social ambitions, this would be another regular stop.
In this period, Bath owes its architectural distinction to two architects, John Wood, Sr.
and his son, John Wood, Jr. They built the great Palladian residences called the Circus and
the Royal Crescent and the Assembly Rooms and designed the North and South Parades,
the main avenues on which the characters of The Rivals stroll. Their classical architecture
and broad main avenues gave Bath its appearance of sophistication and civilization. The
North and South Parades were, in the words of DianaWinsor, “plain, sunlit terraces of pale
amber stone . . . broad paved walks lifted on vaults above the marshy riverbank.”
The Circus was Britain’s first circular street, begun by Wood in 1751. Wood built it based
on measurements he took at Stonehenge, and the two have roughly the same diameter. It
is, Winsor says, “a Roman amphitheatre translated into domestic architecture.” Built in
three segments, it consists of 33 houses each three stories high, decorated with Doric, Ionic,
and Corinthian columns. It was built around a large open space of cobbles and trees with
a well in the center that served the residents of the houses.
The younger Wood oversaw the building of the Royal Crescent, built between 1767 and
1775. It comprises 30 houses built, as the name suggests, in a long arc. It was from number
11 that Sheridan eloped with Elizabeth Linley in 1772. Both the Circus and Royal Crescent
were among the best addresses in Bath.
RIVALS_WOP.qxd
3/9/06
10:06 AM
Page 27
27
Engraving for Act III of The Maid of Bath, a play by Samuel Foote (1720-77) ridiculing the suitors of Elizabeth Linley (later
Mrs. R.B. Sheridan). ©City of Westminster Archive Centre, London, UK/The Bridgeman Art Library.
RIVALS_WOP.qxd
3/9/06
10:06 AM
Page 28
the cult of sensibility
by michael paller
he first time we see Lydia Languish, she’s asking her maid, Lucy, for several novels.
Some of the titles are real; others are fictional. Most are examples of the “novel of
sensibility” or “sentimental novels.”
In his Dictionary of 1755, Samuel Johnson defined sense as “the faculty or powers by
which external objects are perceived.” On the other hand, he defined sensibility as “the
quickness of sensation or perception.” Originally, this meaning of sensibility could be taken
as a synonym for empathy, the ability to understand the emotions of others, to respond to
the needs of those around us. By the time Lydia is deep into her novels—that is, around
1775—sense and sensibility were understood to be opposites: sense referred to one’s perception of the physical world outside of one; sensibility had to do with the ability to finely
perceive and appreciate one’s own emotions and responses ( Jane Austen’s 1811 novel of that
name argues for a perception of right and wrong behavior that balances feeling and rational
judgment).
The idea was summed up in the title of a novel of sensibility published in 1771, and
probably well known to Lydia (perhaps Faulkland, too), The Man of Feeling, by Henry
Mackenzie. What identified the main character was not his worldly achievement, his talents, or his appearance, but his ability to feel. He feels, therefore he is. He exemplified the
belief, fostered by the French writer and philosopher Rousseau, that moral development
was stimulated by experiencing powerful sympathies.
In the Introduction to a recent Penguin Classics edition of Austen’s Sense and Sensibility,
Ros Ballaster writes:
T
28
In [The Man of Feeling], sensibility inverts to become an individualistic and
self-gratifying corruption of the valued social response and collective responsibility that sentiment must engender. Perception of external objects becomes a
wholly aesthetic indulgence. “Heroes” and “heroines” of sensibility prefer their
cottages ruined, their fields suffocated by dead leaves, their landscapes free of
human life, so that they can focus on the complexities and rhythms of their
own experience of perception.
It can be, in other words, an excuse for self-indulgence, for celebrating one’s
own sensitivities at the expense of seeing the real sufferings of others.
RIVALS_WOP.qxd
3/9/06
10:06 AM
Page 29
Obviously, neither Lydia nor Faulkland is corrupt, but, as young people often are, they
are overly susceptible to what they read, and novels of sensibility like The Man of Feeling
were all the rage.
where did the trend come from?
The rise of sensibility and sentimentalism is part and parcel of the rise of the middle class,
which began to assert itself in England at the end of the 17th century, when the very bourgeois William and Mary took the throne in the Glorious Revolution. Writers and thinkers
such as Rousseau began emphasizing the free, natural expression of emotions, repudiating
the aristocracy’s cooler, restrained code of behavior. Rousseau also introduced the notion
that the free, authentic expression of the creative spirit was more important than adhering
to an exterior, arbitrary set of formal rules and procedures (in this and in other respects, he
predicted the emergence, at the end of the 18th century, of Romanticism).
This emphasis on natural feeling and emotion expressed itself across a wide range of
thought and activities. The wild, natural-appearing English garden began to replace the
more formal, symmetrical ones laid out on French lines (as at Versailles). The “graveyard
school” of English poetry celebrated the poet’s exquisite sensibility in the face of death and
decay, exemplified by Thomas Gray’s “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard” (1747–50).
Here are the last 12 lines:
Here rests his head upon the lap of earth
A youth to fortune and to fame unknown.
Fair Science frowned not on his humble birth,
And Melancholy marked him for her own.
Large was his bounty, and his soul sincere,
Heaven did a recompense as largely send:
He gave to Misery all he had, a tear,
He gained from Heaven (’twas all he wished) a friend.
No farther seek his merits to disclose,
Or draw his frailties from their dread abode,
(There, they alike in trembling hope repose)
The bosom of his Father and his God.
29
RIVALS_WOP.qxd
3/9/06
10:06 AM
Page 30
what lydia reads
Some of the books that Lydia has in her lodgings in Act i, scene two, are real, some are
fictional. The ones we know are real:
The Delicate Distress (1769) and The Gordian Knot (1770), by Richard Griffith.
The first is one of two sequels to a very successful epistolary novel (that is, written in the form of letters sent by the characters) of sensibility that Griffth wrote
with his wife, Elizabeth, called A Series of Genuine Letters between Henry and
Frances. The second is a similar novel of sensibility.
The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle (1751) and The Expedition of Humphrey
Clinker (1771), by Tobias Smollett. Both are picaresque novels, and definitely not
novels of sensibility. Indeed, they are rather savage satires on the politics, culture,
and mores of the day. Lydia might have them because Mrs. Malaprop would
surely disapprove of them as reading matter unfit for young women. The Oxford
Companion to English Literature describes Peregrine Pickle as “long, ferocious, and
often savagely libelous.” In 1752, Smollett published an essay called “An Essay on
the External Use of Water,” an attack on Bath and the people who went there.
And, as quoted earlier, Smollett also took a swipe at Bath in Humphrey Clinker.
The Memoirs of a Lady of Quality, Written by Herself is a title Sheridan borrowed from chapter 81 of Peregrine Pickle. The chapter was notorious for being
the mostly true account of the love life of Viscountess Frances Anne Vane, a
friend of Smollett (he wrote it with her permission). The writer Horace
Walpole referred to her as “that living academy of love-life.”
30
A Sentimental Journey through France and Italy (referred to by Lucy as The
Sentimental Journey), by Laurence Sterne. Written in 1767, he called this nonfiction travel book “sentimental” because the point of his journey was not to see
the sights but to make meaningful contact with people. On the continent, he
became known as “the high priest of sentimentalism.”
The Whole Duty of Man, which Lucy uses to press lace, probably was written by
Richard Allestree, a chaplain to Charles ii, in 1658. In it, man’s duty to God and
his fellow men are analyzed in detail. A good book to leave in view in case Mrs.
Malaprop should enter.
The other books—The Reward of Constancy, The Fatal Connexion, The Mistakes of the
Heart, The Delicate Distress, The Memoirs of Lady Woodford—seem to be fictional.
RIVALS_WOP.qxd
3/9/06
10:06 AM
Page 31
It seems likely that Lydia also would have read two of the most famous novels of sensibility of the day, Samuel Richardson’s Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded (1739) and Clarissa, or
The History of a Young Lady (1747). Pamela is about a young girl of 15 who wants to preserve
her virtue while holding on to the man she loves. Pamela is a servant who, on the death of
her mistress, becomes the target of the amorous advances of the late mistress’s son, Mr. B.
(as he is called). When Mr. B.’s first, mild attempts at seduction fail, he abducts Pamela.
Nonetheless, she successfully preserves her virtue, and halfway through the book, Mr. B.
proposes marriage. The second half of the novel concerns the couple’s efforts to win
support from his family for this unorthodox marriage. The idea of being abducted, and
then making a match of which her fiancé’s family disapproves, might well appeal to Lydia’s
sensibility-susceptible imagination.
In Clarissa, the young heroine, Clarissa Harlowe, discovers that her family is arranging
a marriage that would be loveless for her, but economically beneficial for them. Instead, she
runs away with the handsome Lovelace. Here’s a quick summary of the seven-volume
novel from the Encyclopedia Britannica1:
Outside the orbit of the Harlowes stands Lovelace, nephew of Lord M. and a
romantic who held the code of the Harlowes in contempt. In her desperate
straits, Clarissa appraises too highly the qualities that set Lovelace beyond the
world of her family, and, when he offers protection, she runs off with him. She
is physically attracted by if not actually in love with Lovelace and is responsive
to the wider horizons of his world, but she is to discover that he wants her only
on his own terms. In Lovelace’s letters to his friend Belford, Richardson shows
that what is driving him to conquest and finally to rape is really her superiority.
In the correspondence of Clarissa and her friend Anna Howe, Richardson
shows the distance that separates her from her confidante, who thinks her
quixotic in not accepting a marriage; but marriage as a way out would have been
a sacrifice to that same consciousness of human dignity that had led her to defy
her family. As the novel comes to its long-drawn-out close, she is removed from
the world of both the Harlowes and the Lovelaces and dies, a child of heaven.
Again, the heroine’s plight—her refusal to submit to her parents’ will, her insistence on
going her own way and preserving her sense of her own dignity, and especially her sentimental death—would no doubt fire Lydia’s imagination.
1Encyclopedia Britannica Premium Service, “Richardson, Samuel” (by William Merrit Sale, Jr.), http://www.britannica.com/eb/
article-9063574. Accessed February 15, 2006.
31
RIVALS_WOP.qxd
3/9/06
10:06 AM
Page 32
sheridan’s duels: the deadly seriousness
behind THE RIVALS
by michael paller
he duels that are almost fought in The Rivals are difficult to categorize according to
the traditional rules, since no one is truly insulted or injured beforehand—but then
that is part of Sheridan’s satiric point. He had fought two duels himself over Elizabeth
Linley, whom he had recently married, with results that were both absurd and just short of
tragic. Although he had felt compelled to defend his honor at the time, when he came to
write The Rivals three years later, it seems that Sheridan decided to think again about the
entire notion of defending one’s honor by assaulting another person’s body. Here’s what
happened.
Before she eloped with Sheridan in late 1771 (as Lydia fervently hopes to do with
Absolute), Elizabeth had been pursued by a married man, Captain Thomas Mathews.
After the elopement, Mathews published a statement in The Bath Chronicle claiming that
Sheridan had insulted his character in a letter Sheridan had written to Elizabeth’s father
justifying the elopement (which caused a sensation in gossip-hungry Bath). When
Sheridan and Elizabeth returned from France, where they’d been married, Sheridan heard
about or saw the article, followed Mathews to London, and demanded satisfaction for the
statement Mathews made in the newspaper. They met at a London tavern and fought by
candlelight. Sheridan biographer Fintan O’Toole describes the confrontation:
T
32
After a few passes, Sheridan got the point of his sword against Mathews’s
chest, and had caught Mathews’s wrist with his free hand. With his adversary
at his mercy he demanded that he should sign an apology to be published in
the Bath Chronicle. Mathews’s second, Captain Knight, took Sheridan’s arm,
crying, “Don’t kill him.” Mathews called out, “I beg my life,” two or three times.
When Sheridan backed off, however, Mathews refused to sign the apology, and
claimed that Knight’s intervention had saved Sheridan rather than himself.
Sheridan, in anger, demanded that Mathews either give him his sword or set
to it again.
When Mathews released his sword, Sheridan broke it in two and flung the
hilt into a corner of the room, a breach of the etiquette of dueling which,
Mathews claimed, released him from his obligation to apologize. When he was
offered another sword to continue the fight, however, Mathews refused it and,
RIVALS_WOP.qxd
3/9/06
10:06 AM
Page 33
The Explanation (George Tierney dueling Prime Minister William Pitt), by James Gillray (published by Hannah Humphrey, 1798).
© Courtesy of the Warden and Scholars of New College, Oxford / Bridgeman Art Library.
“with much altercation and much ill grace,” wrote out an apology dictated by
Sheridan and signed it.
The apology was published in Bath and this should have ended the affair. But Mathews
then began telling his own version of the duel, saying that he apologized only as a favor to
Sheridan and not because he’d been forced to do so at the point of a sword. He denied begging for his life and said that Sheridan had broken his sword after Mathews had surrendered it. Sheridan, nothing if not hot-blooded, was outraged that Mathews was spreading
this version of events, since they had agreed that Sheridan would not humiliate Mathews
by letting it be known that he’d broken his sword as long as Mathews did not misrepresent what had happened between them. In retaliation, Sheridan told his own, apparently
more truthful, version of events, which made Mathews look very bad, indeed. In his turn,
Mathews wrote out his own version and insisted that Sheridan sign it. Sheridan refused,
and challenged Mathews to a second duel.
33
RIVALS_WOP.qxd
3/9/06
10:06 AM
Page 34
The rematch took place four miles outside of Bath in a place called Kingsdown.
Reportedly, Sheridan was quite drunk. Here is O’Toole’s account of the second duel, which
quickly descended into almost fatal absurdity:
Mathews wanted to use pistols, but Sheridan insisted on swords [in dueling
etiquette, the challenged party chose the weapons]. He rushed at Mathews and
tried to grab his sword, as he had done in the London fight. But Mathews
stabbed at him, and may have wounded him slightly on the upper body.
Sheridan then either stumbled or was tripped by Mathews and fell over, dragging Mathews with him. In the wild melee, both their swords were broken.
Mathews got on top of Sheridan and stabbed him several times in the neck and
face with the hilt of his sword, which still had about six inches of jagged-edged
blade on it. Sheridan, for his part, gave Mathews a slight wound in the stomach with what was left of his own sword.
. . . Both men were screaming “horrid curses” so loudly that their seconds
. . . had difficulty hearing each other. [Sheridan’s second] added to the cacophony by calling out, “Oh, he is killed, he is killed!” Before the seconds could do
anything, however, Mathews managed to get hold of the much sharper point
of his sword and to stab Sheridan in the stomach with it. Seeing this [the seconds] asked Sheridan to beg for his life. Sheridan refused to do so, crying out,
“No, by God, I won’t.” Mathews may have stabbed him again in the neck before
the seconds intervened to disarm them both. Mathews rushed off in [his]
chaise for London, apparently believing that he had “done for” Sheridan.
Sheridan was carried to a nearby house and then to an inn where he was treated for his
wounds.
34
the duel of honor
Why did Sheridan feel compelled to fight these duels—especially the second one? The
answers rest with the idea of the duel of honor and the resurgence of dueling in the last
third of the 18th century, even though it had been illegal in England for almost two hundred years.
Although we now find the idea of physical combat to defend one’s honor according to
a very strict code of roles an abhorrent notion, it can also be considered a tremendous
improvement over what had been the situation in Europe before dueling became common:
bloody, murderous assaults on individuals, often in the form of ambushes, with little if any
distinction between them and attempted murder.
RIVALS_WOP.qxd
3/9/06
10:06 AM
Page 35
All over Europe, between the 16th and 19th centuries, handbooks were published
setting forth the strict rules under which personal combats could be carried out between
people who were considered to be honorable—and it was only the “honorable” class (that
is, the aristocracy) that engaged in duels.
The kinds of “crimes” over which duels of honor were generally fought concerned
affronts to women (or, in the case of the seduction of a wife or daughter, affronts to the
men whose “property” the women were), and accusations of lying and other sorts of dishonorable behavior, such as cowardice.
As the historian Robert Baldick relates, once an injured party decided that spilling
blood was the only way to right a heinous wrong against him, “the offended party had to
grapple with sending a challenge, choosing seconds, and selecting weapons before facing
up to the actual duel.” One way to do this would be to consult the various dueling manuals that were easily available. One of the most popular was the Irish code duello “adopted at
the Clonmel Summer Assizes, 1777, for the government of duelists, by the gentlemen of
Tipperary, Galway, Mayo, Sligo, and Roscommon, and prescribed for general adoption
throughout Ireland.” Although the manual itself didn’t come into existence until two years
after The Rivals was written, most of its tenets would have been well known to Sheridan
(although it seems that Sir Lucius is ignorant of many of them).
an intricate code
A gentleman was expected to abide by an intricate code. Some highlights of the 26 provisions:
Although an apology for a lie or insult, offered under the prescribed circumstances, might render a duel unnecessary, no apology could be given for a
physical blow dealt to an honorable man. If, however, the offender submitted
to a voluntary caning, a duel might then be avoided.
Offences having to do with a woman’s reputation were considered slightly less
serious than a physical blow or calling a man a liar, thus a “slighter apology”
could avoid a duel.
In a duel involving pistols, no firing in the air was permitted; this was considered child’s play and dishonorable.
Challenges should never be delivered at night (seemingly because the assumption was that such a challenge was the product of rashness brought on by
drinking).
35
RIVALS_WOP.qxd
3/9/06
10:06 AM
Page 36
Any “wound sufficient to agitate the nerves and necessarily make the hand
shake must end the business for that day.”
36
the procedure
the challenge. Once a person felt that he was seriously affronted and decided to offer
a challenge, the first thing he did was write the challenge. Most authorities agreed that it
should be written with coolness and politeness, without strong language or additional
provocation. The genteel challenger would simply convey the cause of the offence, why the
challenger considers it a matter of honor to bring the challenge, and a request that the
offender name a time and place.
the second. Then, the challenger must choose his second: the person who usually
delivered the message and would act as his associate throughout the ordeal—and, if appropriate, help to avoid useless bloodshed. One expert wrote of this mediating role, “There is
not one cause in fifty where discreet seconds might not settle the difference and reconcile
the parties before they came into the field.” Most authorities agreed that seconds “should
be men of experience and moral courage, justice and urbanity,” while two experts said that
infidels and Irishmen should be barred from serving as seconds. The former were ineligible, according to a French authority, because “it is not proper that an unbeliever should
witness the shedding of Christian blood, which would delight him,” and the latter because
“nine out of ten Irishmen have such an innate love of fighting that they cannot bring an
affair to an amicable adjustment.”
the choice of weapons. In England, the man who was challenged was allowed the
choice of weapons. This could give him considerable advantage if he chose one with which
he was particularly skillful or with which his opponent was untrained or inept. Swords
were traditionally the weapon of gentlemen. If, however, the challenger responded honestly
that he was no swordsman (a damaging admission to make), then the challenged party
would usually not be allowed to decline the alternate choice of weapon the challenger
offered.
before the duel. On the morning of the event, a combatant was advised to “drink his
coffee, and take a biscuit with it, directly he rises; then, in washing his face, attend to
bathing his eyes well with cold water.” Then, if married, he should quietly leave the house
without disturbing his wife or children and set out for the dueling ground not in his own
carriage, in which he might be recognized by magistrates, but in an anonymous one for
hire. If he were to feel any qualms on the way, one expert suggests that he stop “and take
RIVALS_WOP.qxd
3/9/06
10:06 AM
Page 37
a little soda-water, flavoured with a small wine-glass of brandy, which I can strongly recommend as a most grateful stimulant and corrective.”
on the field of honor. Once arrived at the location, the duelists were urged to stroll
about puffing a cigar and otherwise remaining calm while the seconds marked off the
agreed-upon distance between the adversaries if they were using weapons other than
swords. The author of one manual suggested that the duelist then take the opportunity “to
cast his eye closely upon his adversary, and mark if there is any nervous tremulation in his
movement,” while being careful himself to remain “as firm and stiff as a statue.”
Next, the combatants would assume their positions and be given their weapons, and the
other players would go to their places: “The seconds should retire about eight yards from
the line of fire, equidistant from the antagonists; the two surgeons [if any are in attendance] and any friend should be about two yards behind them, and the servants in a line
rather further back.” The author of this particular manual, according to Baldick, admitted
that he didn’t see “any particular advantage arising from this mode of placing the parties,”
but admitted that “it looks better than to see a number of persons straggling around the
principals, not infrequently at the risk of their own lives—with hair-triggers in close
proximity.”
Dueling could have its unexpected dangers as well, especially when the weapons were
pistols. In the late 18th and into the 19th century, pistols were notoriously inaccurate and
unsafe. A pistol that was loaded incorrectly, with too much powder, was more likely to blow
up in the duelist’s hand and injure or kill him than it was to harm his opponent.
In The Rivals, Sir Lucius assures Bob that the preferred stance to take while firing was
to let Beverley “see the broad-side of your full front . . . now a ball or two may pass clean
through your body and never do any harm at all.” Standing with his profile facing Beverley,
as Acres wishes to do, only exposes him to more danger, Sir Lucius assures him: for if the
bullet “misses a vital part of your right side, ’twill be very hard if it doesn’t succeed on the
left!”
But this is contrary to all the best advice, which was, as Acres desired, to give the opponent the smallest possible target by showing him only your profile. (On the other hand,
Charles Fox, the portly leader of the Whig party who was usually Sheridan’s supporter in
the latter’s early years in Parliament, is said to have taken Sir Lucius’s advice in one duel
because, he said, “I am as thick one way as the other.”)
duels in britain in sheridan’s time and why he fought the second one
Britain was slower than continental Europe to adopt the duel of honor; the first known
recorded instance was in 1609. That incident involved a nephew of James i, so it was
37
RIVALS_WOP.qxd
38
3/9/06
10:06 AM
Page 38
probably no coincidence that the king condemned dueling in 1613, and his attorneygeneral, Francis Bacon, was equally determined to stamp it out. But suppressing the practice was difficult, as the duelists could easily meet before magistrates had any wind of what
was happening. Sometimes, in order to avoid arrest, the duelists would go abroad to fight.
Dueling declined during the civil war under the Puritan protectorate, although Oliver
Cromwell still found it necessary to pass a law against it. When the cavaliers returned with
the restoration of the monarchy in 1660, they brought dueling back from France with
them.
With the arrival on the throne of William and Marry in 1688, the middle class began to
grow as a significant political, cultural, and economic presence. Among the cultural results
was a paradox: the middle class
distrusted the aristocracy’s
habits and behavior, but there
was a resurgence in the popularity of dueling. Why?
Although the middle class
was in the ascendant, Britain
was still very much run by and
for the aristocracy. While not
every member of the House of
Commons was an aristocrat
with a long family lineage,
there wasn’t a single leader
there who wasn’t. In the 1770s,
in Britain, the notion of honor
was still very much defined on
aristocratic terms, and for an
ambitious young man of the
middle class eager to rise in the
political world, it was this definition that held meaning.
Sheridan was exactly such a
man. He had enormous political ambitions, but he was the
son of an actor, and an
Irishman to boot. In other
RIVALS_WOP.qxd
3/9/06
10:06 AM
Page 39
words, he was no gentleman as the term was still understood. He wanted desperately to be
treated as one, though, and as O’Toole points out, in these increasingly middle-class days
when middle-class and aristocratic values sat uneasily side by side, it could be difficult to
know who a gentleman was. How to be recognized as a gentleman, as defined in aristocratic terms, in an increasingly middle-class world? Sheridan had been trained in fencing
and riding by a family friend in London and in speech by his father, and so possessed skills
that previously belonged only to the aristocracy. He was, as O’Toole, writes, “living proof
that gentility was no longer an obvious and unquestionable quality. Like all uncertain
things, it needed to be tested.” One way to test your quality as a gentleman, when you felt
your honor impugned, as Sheridan did when Mathews began telling false and derogatory
versions of their first duel, was to challenge him to another. O’Toole:
For a few decades at the end of the 18th and the beginning of the 19th centuries,
before middle-class values [fully] gained ascendancy, the acid test of gentility
was that gentlemen had the right to kill each other, and in doing so, stand outside any social contract binding on the common man. In a world where politics was still the property of gentlemen, the dangerous ritual of the duel of
honor was a rite of passage into the world of public affairs.
It was to this dangerous ritual (and the fact that Sheridan survived two instances of
them) that we owe much of the inspiration of The Rivals.
39
OPPOSITE The Duel between Charles de Lameth and de Castries (1790), a contemporary engraving. From The Duel: A History of
Dueling, by Robert Baldick.
RIVALS_WOP.qxd
3/9/06
10:06 AM
Page 40
THE RIVALS: historical
context
1558–1603 The reign of Elizabeth i, probably the most splendid age in the history of
English literature. Such writers as Sir Philip Sidney, Edmund Spenser, Roger Ascham,
Richard Hooker, Christopher Marlowe, and William Shakespeare flourish.
1603–1649 The rule of the Stuart kings James i and Charles i. In 1642, Charles i closes all
theaters.
1649–1659 The Commonwealth. Oliver Cromwell ousts the king, abolishes the monarchy,
creates a Rump Parliament, and enforces Puritan rule as Lord Protector of the Realm, with
the assistance of a heavily armed standing military.
1660–1688 The Restoration era begins as Charles ii is restored to the throne; theaters
reopen and the era becomes noted for licentiousness, frivolity, and French mores.
Comedies of manners—like those by William Congreve (The Way of the World), George
Farqhuar (The Beaux’ Stratagem), Aphra Behn (The Rover), William Wycherley (The
Country Wife), and John Dryden (All for Love)—rule London stages.
1689 The coronation of William and Mary marks the beginning of a shift in societal
attitudes as the middle class rises and Puritan ideals resurface.
1714 The Georgian era begins in Britain; culture and literature continue to back away from
the bawdiness of the Restoration era, preferring sentimentality and virtue over satire and vice.
1737 The Licensing Act re-establishes censorship of all plays on the British stage.
1751 Richard Brinsley Sheridan is born in Dublin.
1775 The Rivals is performed in London’s Covent Garden Theatre.
40
1776 Sheridan becomes a partner in the management of London’s Drury Lane Theatre.
1780 Sheridan is elected to Parliament.
1812 Sheridan loses his seat in Parliament and succumbs to debt and destitution.
1816 Richard Brinsley Sheridan is buried in Westminster Abbey’s Poets Corner. Lord
Byron commemorates him with his “Monody on the Death of the Right Honourable R.
B. Sheridan.”
Drawn from the study guide for the Huntington Theatre Company’s 2004 production of The Rivals. Dramaturgy notes by Ilana M.
Brownstein.
RIVALS_WOP.qxd
3/9/06
10:06 AM
Page 41
a RIVALS glossary
“sure, sir anthony absolute, madam julia, harry, mrs. kate, and the
postilion, be all come.”
A postilion is one who rides as a guide on the near horse of one of the pairs attached to a
coach or post chaise (a closed, four-wheeled, horse-drawn carriage, once used to transport
mail and passengers), especially without a coachman.
“hark’ee, thomas, my master is in love with a lady of a very
singular taste: a lady who likes him better as a half-pay ensign
than if she knew he was son and heir to sir anthony absolute, a
baronet of three thousand a year!”
A half-pay ensign is a junior military officer who draws only half of his salary, because he
is not on active service. Young Absolute’s manservant, Fag, points out that his master’s
love, Lydia Languish, prefers to think of him as a poor man, and would likely not love him
if she knew he was wealthy. That is why young Absolute, in fact a captain, disguises himself as a lower-ranking soldier.
“rich! zounds! thomas, she could pay the national debt as easily as
i could my washer-woman! she has a lapdog that eats out of gold,
she feeds her parrot with small pearls, and all her threadpapers are made of banknotes!”
Thread-papers are small pieces of soft paper, like tissue paper, used for rolling up skeins of
thread. To use banknotes for this implies that Lydia has money enough to spare her cash
on such indulgent uses.
“bravo, faith! i warrant she has a set of thousands, at least—but
does she draw kindly with the captain? / as fond as pigeons.”
To draw kindly is an analogy of a horse and mare pulling together in the shafts of a coach,
working together rather than against one another. To describe the lovers as fond as pigeons
is likening them to turtle doves.
“pretty well, thomas, pretty well. ’tis a good pleasurable spa; in
the morning we go to the pump-room (though neither my master
nor i drink the waters); after breakfast we saunter on the
41
RIVALS_WOP.qxd
3/9/06
10:06 AM
Page 42
parades, or play a game at billiards; at night we dance; but damn
the place—not a fiddle nor a card game allowed after eleven!”
The pump-room of Bath was a large gathering place located in a building erected above
the old Roman baths. The focal point was a pump from which, for a small fee, you could
“take the waters,” i.e., a fountain where you could drink the supposedly therapeutic local
spring waters. The pump-room became a place for the upper classes to socialize. The water
was said to taste “unaccountably horrid,” no doubt because of its sulphur content.
“zooks! ’tis the captain.”
An abbreviation of the popular exclamation “Gadzooks,” which comes from “God’s
hooks,” meaning the nails on the cross.
“indeed, ma’am, i traversed half the town in search of it! i don’t
believe there’s a circulating library in bath i ha’n’t been at.”
A circulating library was a bookseller’s collection lent out on payment of a fee. Rather than
purchasing a book, ladies would rent the latest romantic novels to read during their idle
hours at Bath.
“very well—give me the sal volatile. / is it in a blue cover, ma’am?
/ my smelling-bottle, you simpleton!”
Sal volatile (from the Latin sal, salt, and volatilis, flying) is a solution of ammonium
carbonate in alcohol or ammonia water used to ward off faintness or headaches. Its crystallized form is known as smelling salts.
42
“she has absolutely fallen in love with a tall irish baronet she
met one night since we have been here, at lady macshuffle’s rout.”
A rout is a large evening party or reception.
“no, upon my word. she really carries on a kind of correspondence
with him, under a feigned name though, till she chooses to be
known to him; it is a delia or a celia, i assure you.”
Delia and Celia were names much used in love poetry of the 16th century and thus fashionable in courtship.
“throw RODERICK RANDOM into the closet—put THE INNOCENT ADULTERY
into THE WHOLE DUT Y OF MAN —thrust LORD AIMWORTH under the sofa—
RIVALS_WOP.qxd
3/9/06
10:06 AM
Page 43
cram ovid behind the bolster—there—put THE MAN OF FEELING into
your pocket—so, so—now, lay mrs. chapone in sight, and leave
FORDYCE’S SERMONS open on the table. . . . fling me LORD CHESTERTON ’S
LET TERS . now for ’em.”
Lydia, in an attempt to appear upright, is instructing Lucy to hide away her more frivolous reading materials, while leaving pious books out to be observed by Mrs. Malaprop.
The Adventures of Roderick Random (1748) was the first novel of Scottish writer Tobias
Smollet, one of the most popular 18th-century British novelists. The book was an immediate bestseller, peopled with larger-than-life characters with such names as Potion,
Crampley, and Weazel.
French playwright and novelist Paul Scarron, author of the novel The Innocent Adultery,
is largely responsible for making the burlesque one of the characteristic literary forms of
the mid-17th century. The History of Lord Aimworth and Hon. Charles Hartford, esq., was an
epistolary novel of the era.
The classical Roman poet Ovid wrote his notorious manual of seduction and intrigue,
The Art of Love (Ars Amatoria), around 1 b.c.e. In this celebrated poem, Ovid guides men
in the quest for love among the demimonde (i.e., among women on the fringes of
respectable society who are supported by wealthy lovers); although he disclaimed any
intention of teaching adultery, Ovid’s guidance could arguably be applied to the seduction
of married women. Mrs. Malaprop obviously would not consider this work appropriate
reading material for her niece.
The Man of Feeling, a well-known novel of sensibility, is a collection of sentimental character sketches by Henry Mackenzie (1771).
Mrs. Chapone’s Letters on the Improvement of the Mind (1773), highly regarded in its day
as a guide to proper behavior in good society, attacked the Letters of Lord Chesterfield to His
Son as teaching immoral conduct. The controversial correspondences between Lord
Chesterfield and his son Philip, dating from 1737, were praised as a complete manual of
education, yet despised by Samuel Johnson for teaching “the morals of a whore and the
manners of a dancing-master.”
Sermons for Young Women (1766), often called Fordyce’s Sermons, is a two-volume compendium of sermons compiled by Dr. James Fordyce, a Scottish clergyman, which were
originally delivered by himself and others. The sermons encourage female subjugation to
male preferences and emphasize a feminine mannerliness of speech, action, and appearance over substantive development of ideas. Half a century later, Jane Austen mocked
Fordyce in her novel Pride and Prejudice (1814), when Mr. Collins, a buffoonish clergyman,
selects the Sermons as an appropriate title for reading aloud to his young female cousins.
43
RIVALS_WOP.qxd
3/9/06
10:06 AM
Page 44
Fordyce was also one of Mary Wollstonecraft’s principal targets in her revolutionary feminist tract The Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792).
“you thought, miss!—i don't know any business you have to think
at all—thought does not become a young woman; the point we
would request of you is, that you will promise to forget this
fellow—to illiterate him, i say, quite from your memory.”
This is the first entrance and first “malapropism” of Richard Brinsley Sheridan’s most
famous character. Some say the model for Mrs. Malaprop may have been Henry Fielding’s
Mrs. Slipslop, who appeared in Joseph Andrews in 1742. In chapter six of that novel Mrs.
Slipslop invites the young hero to a glass of wine, preparatory to making clear, as far as she
is able, her intentions:
44
“Sure nothing can be a more simple contract in a woman, than to place her
affections on a boy. If I had ever thought it would have been my fate, I should
have wished to die a thousand deaths rather than live to see that day. If we like
a man, the lightest hint sophisticates. Whereas a boy proposes upon us to break
through all the regulations of modesty, before we can make any oppression
upon him.” Joseph, who did not understand a word she said, answered, “Yes,
Madam.” “Yes, Madam!” replied Mrs. Slipslop with some warmth, “Do you
intend to result my passion? Is it not enough, ungrateful as you are, to make no
return to all the favours I have done you: but you must treat me with ironing?
Barbarous monster! how have I deserved that my passion should be resulted
and treated with ironing?” “Madam,” answered Joseph, “I don’t understand your
hard words: but I am certain you have no occasion to call me ungrateful: for so
far from intending you any wrong, I have always loved you as well as if you had
been my own mother.” “How, Sirrah!” says Mrs. Slipslop in a rage: “your own
mother? Do you assinuate that I am old enough to be your mother? I don't
know what a stripling may think: but I believe a man would refer me to any
green-sickness silly girl whatsomdever.” (http://www.salon.com/books/today/
2003/01/17/jan17/print.html)
“item, from mrs. malaprop, for betraying the young people to
her—when i found matters were likely to be discovered—two
guineas, and a black paduasoy. item, from mr. acres, for carrying
divers letters—which i never delivered—two guineas, and a pair
RIVALS_WOP.qxd
3/9/06
10:06 AM
Page 45
of buckles. item, from sir lucius o’trigger, three crowns, two
gold pocket-pieces, and a silver snuff-box!
Lucy is tallying her payments earned for errands and messages carried between the furtive
lovers and conspirators of the upper classes, including a paduasoy (from the Old French poutde-soie), a garment made of corded silk, and pocket-pieces, coins carried as lucky charms.
“’sdeath! you rascal!”
An abbreviated form of “God’s Death,” referring to the crucifixion of Christ.
“i’ve traveled like a comet, with a tail of dust all the way as long
as the mall.”
A mall is a public walkway or promenade. The original was Pall Mall alley, the fashionable
walk in London just north of St. James’ Park. It derived its name from the game pall-mall,
played on the grounds in the front of the palace, in which a ball is struck with a mallet to
drive it through an iron ring.
“that she has indeed—then she is so accomplished—so sweet a
voice—so expert at her harpsichord—such a mistress of flat and
sharp, squallante, rumblante, and quiverante!”
Flats and sharps are musical terms for raising a note a half step up or down. Squallante,
rumblante, and quiverante are burlesque musical terms, perhaps connected with the
courante, a Baroque dance of Italian origin.
“now i recollect one of them—‘my heart’s my own, my will is free.’”
“My Heart’s My Own” is a song from British composer Thomas Arne’s Love in a Village
(1762), which included original music by Arne as well as popular songs of the time that were
well known to patrons of the London pleasure gardens. Famous for setting the poem “Rule,
Britannia” to music and for composing music for major revivals of Shakespeare’s plays, Arne
was the leading English lyric composer of the mid 17th century and for a time resident composer of the Drury Lane Theatre (later co-owned by Richard Brinsley Sheridan).
“country-dances! jigs and reels! am i to blame now? a minuet i
could have forgiven—i should not have minded that . . . but
country-dances!”
The minuet was a dignified dance performed in small steps, the cotillion was livelier, and
country-dances were downright boisterous.
45
RIVALS_WOP.qxd
3/9/06
10:06 AM
Page 46
“’zounds!”
An oath derived from the phrase “God’s wounds,” referring to injuries inflicted on Christ
during his crucifixion.
“her one eye shall roll like the bull’s in cox’s museum.”
The celebrated London jeweller and metalworker James Cox exhibited waxworks, curiosities, and clockwork automata in his “museum” in Spring Gardens in London. One of his
most famous works was a life-size swan automaton, exhibited in 1772.
“so! sir anthony trims my master: he is afraid to reply to his
father—then vents his spleen on poor fag!
Fag means that Sir Anthony has scolded his son, Captain Jack, who then turns his own
frustration and anger onto his servant. Oh, the unfairness of being among the lower
classes.
“so—i shall have another rival to add to my mistress’s list—
captain absolute. however, i shall not enter his name till my
purse has received notice in form.”
Lucy, an industrious and clever servant, withholds her services of information and communication until she has received payment. Her purse, she says, must receive payment
before she tells her mistress of yet another suitor who is vying for her hand.
“he looks plaguy gruff.”
To be plaguy is to have troubled nerves or a state of mind, usually from repeated worries.
46
“why, sirrah, you’re an anchorite! a vile, insensible stock!”
An anchorite is one who has withdrawn from the world for religious reasons, a hermit. To
call someone a stock indicates that they are as smart as a block of wood.
“and be linked instead to some antique virago, whose gnawing
passions and long-hoarded spleen will make me curse my folly
half the day and all the night.”
From the Latin virago for “a man-like woman, a female warrior, a heroine” (in turn from
the Latin vir, man), a virago is a woman regarded as loud, scolding, ill-tempered, quarrelsome, or overbearing, or a woman of extraordinary stature, strength, and courage.
RIVALS_WOP.qxd
3/9/06
10:06 AM
Page 47
“i have a scheme to see you shortly with the old harridan’s
consent, and even to make her a go-between in our interview.
—was ever such assurance!”
A harridan is a vicious woman, from the French haridelle, a gaunt woman, nag, or old
horse.
“i am impatient to know how the little hussy deports herself.”
A hussy is a brazen, impudent, or immoral girl. The term comes from the Middle English
houswif, housewife.
“but these outlandish heathen allemandes and cotillions are
quite beyond me! i shall never prosper at ’em, that ’s sure—mine
are true-born english legs—they don’t understand that curst
french lingo!”
An allemande is a German dance, and a cotillion is a French dance, both popular at the
time.
“in king’s-mead-fields”
Duels had recently been outlawed in Bath when The Rivals was written in 1775. Military
men were prohibited from dueling in England. Though outlawed because they were so
numerous, duels were not entirely stopped by the law. When men quarreled to the point
where they felt their dispute could only be settled by a duel, they would meet surreptitiously, usually early in the morning in less populated places like woods or parks such as
King’s-Mead-Field. Sheridan himself was involved in two duels (the first in London, the
second in Bath) connected to his tempestuous relationship with Elizabeth Linley, with
whom he eloped and married.
“out, you poltroon! you ha’n’t the valour of a grasshopper.”
A poltroon is an ignoble and cowardly person. The word is derived from the French
poltron, from the Old Italian poltrone, for coward or idler, and perhaps augmentative of
poltro, an unbroken colt (from the Latin pullus, young animal), or from poltro, for bed or
lazy. The reference is that cowards stay in bed feigning illness.
47
RIVALS_WOP.qxd
3/9/06
10:06 AM
Page 48
“oh! she’s as mad as bedlam! or has this fellow been playing us a
rogue’s trick!”
Bedlam is the nickname of Bethlem Royal Hospital of London, the world’s oldest psychiatric hospital. It was founded in 1247 as a priory for members of the order of the Star of
Bethlem. It is mentioned as a hospital in 1330, and lunatics are first recorded there in 1403.
King Henry viii gave it to the city of London in 1547 as a hospital for lunatics. During the
18th century people could visit Bedlam for a penny to watch the patients and laugh at their
behavior.
“well, sir, since you are so bent on it, the sooner the better; let
it be this evening—here, by the spring gardens.”
The Spring Gardens were a popular summer rendezvous spot in Bath for public breakfasts,
teas, concerts and fireworks.
“women should never sue for reconciliation: that should always
come from us. they should retain their coldness till wooed to
kindness. and their pardon, like their love, should ‘not unsought
be won.’”
The quote is from Milton’s Paradise Lost: “Her virtue, and the conscience of her worth, /
That would be wooed, and not unsought be won.”
48
“conscious moon—four horses—scotch parson—with such surprise
to mrs. malaprop—and such paragraphs in the newspapers.”
When Lydia mentions a “Scotch parson,” she is referring to the fact that eloping couples
traditionally went to Scotland, where the marriage laws were much more liberal than those
in England. In 18th-century England, the names of couples intending to be married were
required to be read aloud by the priest of the parish, to give anyone a fair chance to object
to the marriage. This “reading of the banns” could be contravened by a special license from
the archbishop of Canterbury.
the south parade
The South Parade was a fashionable neighborhood of Bath, designed by John Wood, the
Elder (1704–54). His grand design for the South Parade, Queen’s Square, the North Parade,
and the Circus, was on a palatial scale to suggest Classicism.
RIVALS_WOP.qxd
3/9/06
10:06 AM
Page 49
questions to consider
1. Why do you think the play is called The Rivals? Which characters are in competition
with each other? What is the message of the play?
2. What are the themes of the play, and what do you think Sheridan is saying about them?
Do you agree with him? Consider: love, honor, fighting (dueling), the struggle between
youth and age, class relationships, education (especially for women), language, posing, and
pretending.
3. With which character do you identify most in the play (if any)? Do any of the characters remind you of people you know or have known?
4. What roles do Mrs. Malaprop and Bob Acres play in this comedy? How do their language difficulties reflection the issues that cause conflict between the lovers?
5. How are class and gender relationships different today? If this play were set in the 21st
century instead of the 18th, how do you think it would be different? Would the characters
make the same decisions?
6. What do you think of Sheridan’s dialogue? What does the language used by each character tell you about them?
7. What do the costumes tell you about each character? Consider: social rank, class, sex,
personality, job, etc. How is each of these elements conveyed?
8. If you were Lydia, and found out that Beverley is really Captain Absolute, how would
you respond? What do you think of the way Faulkland treats Julia? How would you
respond if you were Julia? How are the relationships between these characters similar to
romantic relationships today? How are they different?
9. Who deceives whom in The Rivals, and why? Could the characters be more honest?
What would happen if they were more open with each other?
10. How is each of the relationships resolved in the end? Is the ending happy for all of the
characters? What do you think might happen next for each of them?
11. Why do you think The Rivals is still popular more than 200 years after it was written?
49
RIVALS_WOP.qxd
3/9/06
10:06 AM
Page 50
for further information . . .
on richard brinsley sheridan and
THE RIVALS
Adams, Joseph Quincey, Jr. “The Text of Sheridan’s The Rivals.” Modern Language Notes
25, no. 6 ( June 1910): 171–73.
Auburn, Mark. “The Pleasure of Sheridan’s The Rivals: A Critical Study in the Light of
Stage History.” Modern Philology 72 (1975): 256–71.
______. Sheridan’s Comedies: Their Contexts and Achievements. Lincoln, London: University
of Nebraska Press, 1977.
Donoghue, Frank. “Avoiding the ‘Cooler Tribunal of the Study’: Richard Brinsley
Sheridan’s Writer’s Block and Late Eighteenth-Century Print Culture.” English Literary
History 68 (2001): 831–56.
Durant, Jack D. Richard Brinsley Sheridan. Boston: Twayne, 1975.
Enotes.com. The Rivals. http://www.enotes.com/rivals/19647.
Hogan, Charles Beecher. The London Stage Part V: 1776–1800. Carbondale, il: Southern
Illinois University Press, 1970.
Huntington Theatre Company. The Rivals Study Guide. http://www.huntingtontheatre.org/
season/rivals/rivals_dramaturgy.pdf.
Kelly, Linda. Richard Brinsley Sheridan: A Life. London: Sinclair-Stevenson, 1997.
Lincoln Center Theater. Study Guide for Teachers: The Rivals. http://www.lct.org/
rivalsstudyguide.pdf.
Loftis, John. Sheridan and the Drama of Georgian England. Oxford, uk: Blackwell, 1976.
50
Maccubbin, Robert Purks. “Enacting the Tyranny of Social Forms in Sheridan’s The
Rivals.” 1650–1850 2 (1996): 3–24.
Malek, James S. “Julia As a Comic Character in The Rivals.” Studies in the Humanities 7
(1978): 10–12.
Morwood, James and David Crane, eds. Sheridan Studies. Cambridge, New York:
Cambridge University Press, 1995.
O’Toole, Fintan. A Traitor’s Kiss: The Life of Richard Brinsley Sheridan. London: Granta
Books, 1997.
RIVALS_WOP.qxd
3/9/06
10:06 AM
Page 51
Shakespeare Theatre Company. The Plays: Explore Productions: The Rivals.
http://www.shakespearetheatre.org/plays/details.aspx?id=1&source=l.
Sheridan, Richard Brinsley. The Dramatic Works of Richard Brinsley Sheridan. 2 vols. Edited
by Cecil Price. Oxford: Clarendon, 1973.
______. The Letters of Richard Brinsley Sheridan. 3 vols. Edited by Cecil Price. Oxford:
Clarendon, 1966.
______. The Plays and Poems of Richard Brinsley Sheridan. 3 vols. Edited by R. Crompton
Rhodes. Oxford: Blackwell, 1928.
______. The Rivals. http://www.bibliomania.com/0⁄6⁄284⁄2000/frameset.html.
______. The Rivals. Mineola, ny: Dover Publications, 1998.
______. The Speeches of the Right Honourable Richard Brinsley Sheridan. With a Sketch of his
Life. Edited by a Constitutional Friend. 3 vols. London: h. g. Bohn, 1842.
Sheridaniana; or, Anecdotes of the life of Richard Brinsley Sheridan; his table-talk, and bon mots.
London: H. Colburn, 1826.
Taylor, David Francis. Richard Brinsley Sheridan 1751–1816. http://www.rbsheridan.com.
period and place
Anderson, Misty G. Female Playwrights and Eighteenth-Century Comedy: Negotiating
Marriage on the London Stage. New York: Palgrave, 2002.
Austen, Jane. Persuasion. London: Penguin Classics, 2003.
______. Sense and Sensibility. London: Penguin Classics, 2003.
Baldick, Robert. The Duel: A History of Duelling. New York: Clarkson N. Potter, 1965.
Bath. http://www.cityofbath.co.uk/index.html.
bbc. “Local Legends: Beau Nash’s Bath.” Legacies: uk History Local to You/Somerset.
www.bbc.co.uk/legacies/myths_legends/england/somerset/article_2.shtml.
Crathorne, James. The Royal Crescent Book of Bath. London: Collins & Brown Ltd., 1998.
Griffith, Elizabeth. The Delicate Distress (1769). Edited by Cynthia Booth Ricciardi and
Susan Staves. Eighteenth-Century Novels by Women, vol. 3. Lexington: University Press
of Kentucky, 1997.
51
RIVALS_WOP.qxd
3/9/06
10:06 AM
Page 52
Haggerty, George E. Unnatural Affections: Women and Fiction in the Later 18th Century.
Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1998.
Holland, Barbara. Gentlemen’s Blood: A History of Dueling from Swords at Dawn to Pistols at
Dusk. New York: Bloomsbury, 2003.
Kiernan, v. g. The Duel in European History: Honour and the Reign of Aristocracy. Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1988.
MacDonald, Peter. Bath 2000: Two Thousand Years in the Life of a World Heritage City.
Bristol, uk: Petmac Publications, 1999.
McCutcheon, Marc. Everyday Life in the 1800s: A Guide for Writers, Students & Historians,
Cincinnati: Writer’s Digest Books, 2001.
Porter, Roy. English Society in the Eighteenth Century. London, New York: Penguin Books,
1990.
Richardson, Samuel. Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded. Oxford University Press, 2001.
Stone, George Winchester, Jr., ed. The Stage and the Page: London’s ‘‘Whole Show’’ in the
Eighteenth-Century Theatre. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1981.
Timescapes: Land & History. Georgian Bath. http://www.time-scapes.co.uk/Bath/
georgianbath.html.
Vickery, Amanda. The Gentleman’s Daughter: Women’s Lives in Georgian England. New
Haven, ct: Yale University Press, 1999.
Winsor, Diana. The Dream of Bath. Bath: Trade & Travel Publications, 1980.
Wollstonecraft, Mary. Thoughts on the Education of Daughters: With Reflections on Female
Conduct, in the More Important Duties of Life. Classic Books, 2000.
52
malapropisms
Charlton, James & Mary Kornblum. Bred Any Good Books Lately? A Collection of Puns,
Shaggy Dogs, Spoonerisms, Foghoots and Malappropriate Stories. Laurel, 1994.
Rosten, Leo. Carnival of Wit: From Aristotle to Woody Allen. Plume, 1996.
http://www.manbottle.com/humor/Malaprops.htm.
http://www.fun-with-words.com/mala_malapropisms.html.
http://www.public-speaking.org/public-speaking-malaprops-article.htm