The School for Scandal Edith Evans, Cecil Parker, Harry Andrews and Cast CLASSIC DRAMA
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Richard Brinsley Sheridan The School for Scandal Edith Evans, Cecil Parker, Harry Andrews and cast CLASSIC DRAMA NA287512D 1 Act I Scene I 7:04 2 Maria, my dear, how do you do? 5:09 3 Oh dear, she changes colour very much! 5:26 4 Act I Scene II 4:56 5 Act II Scene I 5:39 6 Act II Scene II 9:06 7 Act II Scene III 4:21 8 Act III Scene I 6:03 9 I should be glad to be convinced my suspicions… 6:46 10 Act III Scene II 2:43 11 Act III Scene III 9:58 12 Act IV Scene I 6:33 13 Act IV Scene III 7:07 14 Ay, ever improving himself. 5:00 15 Well, sir? 5:06 16 Gentlemen, I beg pardon – I must wait on you downstairs… 5:28 17 Act V Scene I 6:09 18 Act V Scene II 6:31 19 I heard high words: what has ruffled you, sir? 4:05 20 Act V Scene III 4:56 21 As for that prodigal, his brother… 6:58 Total time: 2:05:18 2 Cast list Sir Peter Teazle Cecil Parker Sir Oliver Surface Baliol Holloway Joseph Surface Harry Andrews Charles Surface Alec Clunes Lady Teazle Claire Bloom Lady Sneerwell Dame Edith Evans Mrs. Candour Athene Seyler Crabtree and Moses George Howe Sir Benjamin Backbite, William Squire Sir Harry Bumper and Careless Maria Anne Leon Rowley and William Peter Williams Trip Peter Halliday Snake Michael Gough 3 Richard Brinsley Sheridan The School for Scandal Richard Brinsley Sheridan, the author of and when his great investment, Drury Lane The School for Scandal, was a frustrated Theatre, was destroyed in a disastrous fire, politician, a poor businessman and a he was observed quietly seated outside reluctant though brilliant playwright. a coffee house on the Piazza in Covent He was a good orator, once speaking Garden, taking some refreshment. Upon for four and a half hours in the House of being asked why he was sitting there Commons, attacking the corruption of whilst his fortune went up in flames, he the governor of India, Warren Hastings. In replied: ‘A man may surely be allowed to the packed chamber ladies swooned, and take a glass of wine by his own fireside?’ Sheridan himself collapsed, continuing his Given Sheridan’s colourful personality, argument for a further four exhausting it is unsurprising that The School for hours three days later. Scandal sparkles with wit. Every character His indolence, however, was legendary; possesses it and lives by it. It epitomises The School for Scandal was in rehearsal their characters and reputations, both of before Sheridan had finished writing it, which are favourite subjects for attack apparently having to be forcibly locked in in the vicious, back-biting world of the a room until it was completed. On the last late eighteenth century. Scandal and page of the manuscript Sheridan scribbled: gossip abound, cheats and fraudsters are ‘Finished at last, Thank God!’ to which exposed, and no one is safe. the theatre’s prompter Hopkins added: Perhaps the play contains something ‘Amen!’ of the anarchic spirit of the American Sheridan was a naturally witty man, Revolution of 1776, which occurred one 4 year before it was produced – it definitely Any flaws in the plot, which is slight, prefigures the French Revolution twelve or in the characterisation, exist because years later, when Europe’s values were for Sheridan, witty dialogue always turned upside down, and servants like took precedence. In the margin of the Trip were as witty as their masters. But manuscript, Sheridan listed his witticisms, although one might expect a political and fitted them into the play where slant in a play written by a politician, he thought appropriate, sometimes Sheridan makes his point instead with irrespective of their suitability for the a glittering social comedy of manners. characters speaking them. The play would Though set in the age of sentiment, the be unmitigatingly cruel and vicious were it play’s spirit is that of Restoration comedy. not for its first-rate humour, which has kept Sheridan uses a range of stock characters it on the stage for more than 230 years. that are well-known from the Restoration The actual gibes of the scandalmongers playwrights Wycherley and Congreve: are weak enough (usually based on a the old husband with the young spirited woman’s vanity), but the audience takes wife; the young rake; and the benevolent pleasure in their audacity. The ripostes of relative. The ‘virtuous’ character of Joseph Sir Peter and Lady Teazle, however, are Surface, however, owes his incarnation brilliantly conceived. They are a couple to Molière’s hypocrite Tartuffe. But it is equally matched in wit, and once again we Sheridan’s sheer comic inventiveness that are reminded of Congreve, and the banter raises The School for Scandal above mere of Mirabelle and Millamant in The Way of pastiche, the comic climax occurring when the World. the screen in Joseph’s apartment is thrown The conflict in The School for Scandal down, revealing to Sir Peter his young wife is between maintaining a virtuous hiding behind it. It is a brilliant example of reputation, and the enjoyment of a more the play’s theme: truth exposed beneath relaxed and natural lifestyle; an expression illusion. of a burgeoning idea that was to become 5 an ideal in the Romantic era. Joseph The boys’ rich uncle Sir Oliver Surface Surface hypocritically uses the former makes a secret trial of his nephews, and, to disguise the latter, thus showing that deciding on Charles’s basic honesty, he reputation is not to be trusted. Sheridan helps him financially. Joseph is exposed knew this to his cost. His own reputation by a penitent Lady Teazle, who is finally suffered from threats of bankruptcy, gossip reconciled with her husband. about his frequent bouts of drunkenness, and political infidelity (he was always THE RECORDING considered too sympathetic towards the Thomas Moore, Sheridan’s friend and problems of his native Ireland). biographer, wrote of The School for Scandal: ‘[It is] from beginning to end a SYNOPSIS continued sparkling of polish and point.’ This comedy of manners has as its This classic recording proves the truth general theme the absurd behaviour of of Moore’s words, starring one of the scandalmongers. Lady Sneerwell opens the twentieth century’s greatest exponents play by complaining of how she has been of the art of eighteenth-century comedy, wounded by slander, while she is in fact Dame Edith Evans. plotting with Joseph Surface to discredit There is high sense of style here: an his brother Charles in order to stop him archness of delivery and a richness of marrying Maria, an heiress and ward of Sir characterisation that we just do not hear Peter Teazle. Joseph is an arch hypocrite or see in today’s theatre. Every actor and is paying court to Lady Teazle, who, is consistent. The production from the originally a simple country girl, is now a 1950s has terrific pace, with crisp diction, leading scandalmonger. His true intention in a tradition of playing period comedy is to use her to get to Sir Peter’s ward Maria that challenged the slow, over-elaborate, himself. Maria, however, loves Charles – a grandiose style of nineteenth-century wastrel, but honest. theatre. It was William Poel (1852–1934) 6 who first rebelled against the lush and contemporary playwrights including sentimental versions of Shakespeare that George Bernard Shaw, Enid Bagnold, were being staged in the nineteenth Christopher Fry and Noel Coward. She century, and who demanded a return was a renowned Millamant in The Way to bare boards and poetry. Poel’s ideas of the World (1924), Rosalind in As are now common currency amongst You Like It (1926 and 1936), and the Shakespeare directors. Nurse in Romeo and Juliet (1932, 1934, His radical ideas began to be adopted 1935 and 1961) – but the role she will for classics other than Shakespeare. He always be remembered for in the public’s favoured a unified acting ensemble, and imagination is Lady Bracknell in The encouraged the actors to keep the story Importance of being Earnest, which was flowing with a swift pace of performance. captured on film in 1952. This called for imaginative actors of the She was created a Dame Commander calibre of Edith Evans, who Poel first of the British Empire (DBE) in 1946. saw in an amateur performance, and who he signed up for his production of ATHENE SEYLER (1889–1990) Troilus and Cressida in 1912. Poel was An accomplished stage actress who made Dame Edith’s mentor, and we can hear her debut in 1909. She wrote a book in her putting his theories to good use in 1944 called The Craft of Comedy, still this recording. invaluable to students today, and in this recording we hear her putting that EDITH EVANS: (1888–1976) craft into delightful action. She is best Her distinguished career, which spanned remembered today for her cameos in films sixty years, and during which she played such as Nicholas Nickleby and The Inn of over 150 different roles, included the Sixth Happiness. She died in 1990 numerous works by Shakespeare, aged 101. Congreve, Ibsen, Wycherley, Wilde, and 7 CECIL PARKER (1897–1971) 1933, and after army service appeared Mainly remembered as a film actor, whose at the Old Vic, playing in the classics, husky voice and pompous characters whilst also developing his film career. He dominated so many British films from the played a wide range of film roles, but was 30s to the 60s.