COMEDY OF MANNERS: SHERIDAN'S THE SCHOOL FOR SCANDAL To understand the nature of the drama in the eighteenth century one must bear in mind that it depended for its existence upon the patronage of the beau monde of London. There were but two or three theaters in the city and members of the fashionable set could not only be sure of finding each other at the performance of a popular play but were also expected to be ready to discuss it when they met at dinner or in the drawing room. The dramatist, ambitious for success, was thus under the compulsion of suiting the tastes and prejudices of a social group in an age when strict conformity to the social code was conspicuously an element in good breeding. This code demanded in its plays the suppression of natural emotions, the limitation of dramatic situations to the experiences of the boudoir and drawing room, and the presentation of characters who were not uncouth or socially unacceptable. A pattern, once adopted, would not be changed radically, so that the dramatist tended to exercise his ingenuity in giving novel versions of more or less stereotyped themes and familiar types of characters. For this reason the comedy of manners in the eighteenth century is frequently referred to as artificial comedy. Richard Brinsley Sheridan had already one success behind him, The Rivals (1775), and some less significant plays and adaptations when he produced The School for Scandal in 1777. He had an aptitude for dramatic construction and a wit that was later to distinguish him as an orator during his career in Parliament. These, with ability to use the old forms in a new way, brought him fame as a playwright. The School for Scandal has as its object the ridiculing of a social vice through satire. The important characters are types well known to the theater goer of that day, each representing some weakness or virtue. Sheridan showed skill, however, in making the incidents of his well developed plot come about as the results of the characters' being what they were. They talk with a brilliancy that is more of the theater than of actual life, perhaps, but in the time of Chesterfield clever conversation was a genuine social ideal. The comedy has value now in picturing entertainingly certain phases of the life of a picturesque period and, in its exposure of the vice of scandal-bearing, has also that touch of universality that is independent of time and place. And bade the gentle inmate of her Prerogative in her, and Nature's fault. 90 Yet gentle Amoret, in mind supreme breast Such too her talents, and her bent of mind, As speak a sprightly heart by thought refined, Distress our fair ones-let them read the papers; Their powerful mixtures such disorders hit; A taste for mirth, by contemplation Crave what you will-there's quantum But yield a theme, thy warmest praises Strong tea and scandal-"Bless me, how wrong; Just to her merit, though thou canst not raise refreshing! Give me the papers, Lisp-how bold and free! (Sips) Thy feeble verse, behold th' acknowledged Last night Lord L. (Sips) was caught SIR PETER TEAZLE SIR OLIVER SURFACE SIR HARRY BUMPER . SNAKE CRABTREE ROWLEY MOSES TRIP LADY TEAZLE LADY SNEERWELL MRS. CANDOUR MARIA. Mr. King. ..Mr. Yates. .Mr. Gawdry. .Mr. Dodd. .Mr. Palmer. Mr. Smith. Mr. Farren. .Mr. Packer. Mr. Parsons. .Mr. Aickin. Mr. Baddeley. .Mr. Lamash. Mrs. Abington. .Miss Sherry. .Miss Pope. .Miss P. Hopkins. Gentlemen, Maid, and Servants SCENE: London ACT I SCENE I: Lady Sneerwell's House (Discovered LADY SNEERWELL at the dressing-table; SNAKE drinking chocolate) Lady Sneer. The paragraphs, you say, Mr. Snake, were all inserted? Snake. They were, madam; and, as I copied them myself in a feigned hand, there can be no suspicion whence they came. Lady Sneer. Did you circulate the report of Lady Brittle's intrigue with Captain Boastall? Snake. That's in as fine a train as your ladyship could wish. In the common course of things, I think it must reach Mrs. Clackitt's ears within fourand-twenty hours; and then, you know, the business is as good as done. Lady Sneer. Why, truly, Mrs. Clackitt has a very pretty talent, and a great deal of industry. Snake. True, madam, and has been tolerably successful in her day. To my knowledge, she has been the cause of six matches being broken off, and three sons disinherited; of four forced elopements, and as many close confinements; nine separate maintenances, and two divorces. Nay, I have more than once traced her causing a tête-à-tête in the Town and Country Magazine,' when the parties, perhaps, had never seen each other's face before in the course of their lives. Lady Sneer. She certainly has talents, but her manner is gross. Snake. 'Tis very true. She generally designs well, has a free tongue and a bold invention; but her coloring is too dark, and her outlines often extravagant. She 1 A series of sketches of fashionable intrigues, ap. pearing monthly. |