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202 Chapter 5. SHERIDAN: the School for Scandal Congreve's 202 Chapter 5. SHERIDAN: The School for Scandal Congreve's attempt to fuse the two modes of comedy extant at the time in order to win both audiences over did not succeed in its endeavour. It is only Sheridan who manages to amalgamate successfully the sparkle and fun of brittle wit comedy and the moral attitudes of sentimental comedy in The School for Scandal (1777) three quarters of a century after The Way of the World was first staged. It is significant that Restoration comedies, including Congreve's plays, were revived in the 1770te. Theatre chronicles inform us that they were very successful and that Congreve's fallen reputation went into an upswing after the revival. This was because the plays were skillfully rewritten especially for their Georgian audience. It is important to realize that it is the adapted versions and not the originals that won appreciation and applause. Eric Rump's analysis published in 1995 shows clearly how the harsh "immoral" parts were expunged. In David Garrick's revival of Wycherley's The Country Wife in 1766, for instance, not only are the characters of Margery and Pinchwife sentimentalized but also "morally dubious" characters like Lady Fidget are written out of the script. The famous china scene is omitted completely and the priceless character of Horner (with his unerring perception of the disparity between appearance and reality) is replaced by the shy and modest Belville who pursues the country girl in order to rescue her from the clutches of her surly guardian Moody (Wycherley's Pinchwife).^ Sheridan's "reformed" presentations of Congreve's plays were a hit and when, a few months later, his own The School for Scandal was staged, critics commended Sheridan and suggested a historic continuity between the two playwrights: for example. The Universal Magazine wrote that The School for Scandal 1 Eric Rump, "Sheridan, Congreve and The School for Scandal". Sheridan Studies, ed. James Morwood and David Crane (Cambridge: Cambridge U P, 1995) 65. 203 ... has indeed the beauties of Congreve's comedies, without their faults.''^ Perhaps one of the faults that Sheridan apparently managed to eschew was a cavalier attitude to sincerity and a controversial endorsement of role playing. Whatever may be said about Sheridan's borrowings and his playing to the gallery, it cannot be denied that he had an unerring sense of what would "work" on stage for his particular audience. Mark S. Auburn's detailed critique of the changes made in the earlier sketches used for the school scenes and the Teazle part of the action show beyond doubt how Sheridan skillfully chose to reshape his material for maximum acceptability among his audience.^ Sheridan seems to have managed to eat his cake and have it too, as Bevis puts it, by presenting the scandal scenes (with the members of the school constantly involved in game playing and nurturing role playing as a viable means to success) for the delectation of his audience but also setting them up as satiric targets to be righteously shot down later in the play. Thus he was able to comply with the moral viewpoint of the time. This is similar to the method used by Colley Gibber in plays like The Careless Husband. In fact there is a distinct flavour of what Bevis calls "exemplary comedy"'* to Sheridan's depiction and criticism of society, as will become evident in this chapter. The School for Scandal is a comedy of manners with its typical preoccupation with masks, roles and disguises used in social interaction but it is not amoral in stance as most of Restoration comedy is seen to be. Though the sort of irreverence and role playing seen in Restoration drama is paraded in Sheridan's play too, still the conclusion carefully rejects these as less than ideal. 2 Quoted by Eric Rump, "Sheridan, Congreve and The School for Scandal" 68. 3 Mark S. Auburn, Sheridan's Comedies: Their Contexts and Achievements (Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press, 1977) 105 - 48. '^ Richard W. Bevis, English Drama: Restoration and Eighteenth Century 1660 - 1789 (London: Longman, 1988) 230. 204 Though a great difference in moral attitudes is discernible between Restoration comedy and the subsequent sentimental comedy of Gibber, Shadwell and Steele that precedes Sheridan, yet plot patterns remain similar. In Colley Gibber's The Gareless Husband (1704), for example, Sir Gharles Easy and Lady Betty Modish have made a deep involvement in amorous game playing the pattern of their lives. The play reveals the same preoccupation with games, roles, social poses, fashion, masks and appearances as Restoration comedy. There is even a rather weak attempt at Restoration-like wordplay in the repeated play on "easj^ with its plural implications. The play differs only in the penultimate capitulation of the erring characters and their rather sudden adoption of the sentimental values of sincerity and honesty. That Restoration behaviour models are now to be looked upon askance is made clear by the stellar presence of Lady Easy who is a sentimental model of the ideally virtuous wife. She is entirely chaste and, although aware of her husband's wanderings astray, is both protective of his reputation and unwilling to chide him for his misconduct. Ultimately she is able to communicate her knowledge of his inconstancy in a subtle way (by draping her scarf on his head when she finds him and her maid asleep in two chairs in his bedchamber) by which she both protects his dignity and wins his respect. Lady Easy succeeds in shaming Sir Gharles and thus facilitates his transformation. He, in turn, once reformed himself, manages to persuade the coquettish Lady Betty Modish to give up her games. "She was never two hours together the same woman" (61), complains Lord Morelove when piqued with Lady Betty's role-playing in Act III. Lord Easy encourages her to recognize and accept the sincere suit of Lord Morelove. Lady Betty is comparable to the witty Restoration heroine who Gibber presents as being in need of "reformation" (53) while Lady Easy is the ideal wife - subdued, constant, indefatigably husband-adoring, every male chauvinist's dream. Her advice to Lady 205 Betty in the face of her frivolous concern over a nevi^ scarf - "'tis the beauty of the mind alone that gives us lasting value" (28) - points to Gibber's indication that appearances should count for less than inner reality. Though it is difficult to believe in her patient endurance of her husband's continuous misdemeanours and her steadfast loyalty to him in spite of them, Gibber clearly delivers his judgment against all kinds of "social mischief^, including the playing of games and roles which he perceives as signs of dishonesty. It is interesting to notice, however, that Lady Easy does also play a role in her own unobtrusive manner. She acts the unsuspicious and entirely contented wife and makes it a point to maintain this act before the servants in the household, amongst them her husband's mistress: "But I must veil my jealousy, which 'tis not fit this creature should suppose I am acquainted with" (12). Sir Charles' realization of his wrongdoing speaks of his wife's great success in her choice of strategy and is the very stuff of the great sentimental reversal of the attitudes of the rake hero. However, it exposes the minimal presence of the element of "fun" in the role playing structure of this play and also generally in the framework of sentimental comedy in general. The "pleasure" of the audience is merely a gravely moral one in the successful reformation of the play's reprehensible characters. Kaul's comment on Gibber's Love's Last Shift is equally applicable to The Gareless Husband: "What Gibber did in this play was to write a comedy with many of the usual materials and motivations of the Restoration model, but also with a built-in device for turning the whole story into a virtuous lesson in the end."^ The Conscious Lovers (1722), considered Sir Richard Steele's best play, focuses on the sterling virtue of filial duty. Almost every Bevis, English Drama 155. '^ A.N. Kaul, The Action of English Comedy: Studies in the Encounter of Abstraction and Experience from Shakespeare to Shaw (New Delhi: Oxford U P, 2001) 112. 206 character is a shining example of goodness and an overwhelming concern is displayed regarding the "proper" behaviour of a son to his father (quite opposite to the irreverent flouting of parent figures in Restoration comedy). In fact, there is an over-riding preoccupation with decorum in every sphere, thus implying an importance given to propriety of appearance. The hero. Sir John Bevil Junior, considers it of primary importance that he obey the wishes of his father. Thus he agrees to marry the girl Sir John Senior chooses for him even though he is in love with someone else. The play begins with Sir John engaged in an effort to fathom the curious behaviour of his son at a recent masquerade. Indeed "masks", "masquerade", "appearance" and "reputation"^ are expressions used in the expository exchange between Sir John and his manservant, Humphrey, and these set the tone of the play. Role playing is seen in multiple instances in the play. Bevil plays the part of the ideal (obedient) son even though he has inclinations that run counter to his father's wishes and Lucinda is repeatedly urged by her mother to behave like "a Maid, rigidly Virtuous" (343). At one point Bevil says that "1 put on a Serenity, while my Fellow was present" (352), thus implying that his apparent calm is merely dissembled. Isabella fears that he is one of the "Serpents, who lie in wait for Doves" (330) but Indiana insists that he has no use for "Stratagems", "Artifice" and "Design" (329).
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