The Rivals – Richard Brinsley Sheridan

The most highly regarded English playwright of the 18th century and my personal favorite, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, was born in Dublin on October 31, 1751, and died in London on July 7, 1816. He grew up in a family with theatrical connections and received his formal education at Harrow. In 1772 he eloped to the Continent with Elizabeth Linley, a singer, and married her the following year. What a scandal! His first play, The Rivals (1775), a comedy mixing action and romantic sentimentality, was followed by St. Patrick’s Day, a two-act farce, and The Duenna, a comic opera, both of which appeared later in 1775, were milestones in British high comedy.

The Rivals is a play about the mischievous, unexpected, and ubiquitous power of love. Lydia Languish, a young heiress obsessed with romantic novels, is infatuated with a poor soldier named Ensign Beverley. Unbeknownst to her, Beverley is really Captain Jack Absolute who, in order to court her, has assumed this identity to indulge Lydia’s illusions about romantic love. Lydia’s aunt, Mrs. Malaprop, shocked at Lydia’s involvement with a common soldier, has arranged with Sir Anthony Absolute, Jack’s father, for Lydia to marry Jack. Unfortunately, when Jack reveals his true identity, Lydia defiantly clings to her romantic notions and refuses to accept him. Simultaneously, a close friend of Jack’s named Faulkland has fallen in love with Sir Anthony’s ward, Julia. Julia is constant in her love, but Faulkland is driven by irrational doubts to submit her love to a ridiculous test. When this test destroys Julia’s faith in him, she breaks off their engagement. In the meantime, Lydia’s rejected suitors, Bob Acres and Lucius O’Trigger, each threaten to fight duels on her behalf: Acres with his non-existent rival Beverley, and O’Trigger with Jack. Ironically, the young Captain finds himself facing the prospect of dying for a lady who has rejected him. Everything comes to a head on the dueling field. There, Lydia, alarmed by the prospect of Jack’s death, halts the fight and admits her love for him. Julia, ever patient and loyal, forgives Faulkland his “ill-directed imagination.” (Joel G. Fink).

The two plots that form the structure of the play mirror each other and thereby amplify this thematic idea. In other words, Sheridan skillfully tells two stories at once. Where and when these two stories meet creates humor. In general, each plot has the following structure: a potential suitor fabricates a false ideal of the nature of love (in one plot it is Lydia, in the other, Faulkland). This false ideal grows like a cancer until it threatens to destroy the love relationship by means of a betrayal of trust in one case (Faulkland) and the actual threat of death in the other (Lydia). Of course, the reader is never worried! As one critic explains:

At this critical point, however, each deluded person suddenly realizes how this false ideal has endangered the genuine love of his or her beloved, and the consequent shock and fear initiates a new self-awareness. This self-awareness leads to a new insight into the true nature of love and thence to confession, forgiveness, and reconciliation between the two suitors. The point of the action of both plots is that true love rests on a foundation of genuine respect between the sexes, and on the healing power of honest communication between lovers.

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