NAN I prithee! We shall be shent soundly. [The two cross her. She extends a hand to Ricardo, who goes up to her. MADGE (turning, up left.) Why does that railing man go with us? VIOLA I prithee speak well of him. On my word, he is an honest man! [And as she puts up her lips for him to kiss, to the Milkmaids' astonishment, THE CURTAIN FALLS THE SCHEMING LIEUTENANT A Farce condensed from St. Patrick's Day By RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN Presented in the John Herron Art Institute, Indianapolis, October 30, 1915 THE INTRODUCTION HE need for introduction markedly diminishes as we descend the stream of time to the still living drama of Sheridan. No season passes us without some performances, somewhere, of his Rivals, his School for Scandal, or, latterly, his Critic. Amateur clubs are especially partial to his plays, though they call for elaborate and expensive wigs and costumes, and frequent changes of scene; and before an audience not too eager for novelty and experiment, their comedy is just as effective now as ever. Richard Brinsley Sheridan, born in Dublin in 1751, educated at Harrow and by his orator-father, married young after romantic duels and an elopement, and famed both as a wit upon the stage and as an orator in Parliament, was the best eighteenth-century dramatist writing in English. His first comedy, The Rivals, was produced on January 17, 1775. It failed, from too great length and a grave miscasting of the part of Sir Lucius O'Trigger, and was withdrawn, rewritten, and again brought out on January 27. It then made a sensational hit for which the new actor of Sir Lucius, a Mr. Clinch, was largely credited; and in gratitude Sheridan wrote within forty-eight hours a two-act farce, St. Patrick's Day, or The Scheming Lieutenant, from which our play of the latter title is here condensed - which furnished Clinch with an ideal part for his benefit performance on May 2. |