DIVINE coMedy
The Rivals
Smock Alley
Until September 2
The young Richard Brinsley Sheridan recognised the usefulness of turning embarrassing or unpleasant situations into a joke. In 1774, aged just 23, he had fallen in love with a young woman, eloped with her, married her in secret, fought two duels over it – both with the same man – and had become a scandalous source of gossip in London.
He responded by writing it all down as a delirious comedy of manners, adding recognisable touches from the lives of his own family and satirising the quirks of high society.
But this first draft of The Rivals was overlong and the production was taken off after one night.
Sheridan immediately got to work shortening it, re-launching it and soon it was a major theatrical hit.
And now it’s back again on the Smock Alley stage for the first time in more than 200 years.
It’s a play that needs great pace and brilliant comic timing, sustained over two and a half hours.
This production has a good shot at combining all that.
It doesn’t always succeed but it has a great comic combination in Deirdre Monaghan as Mrs Malaprop, the woman proud of her use of language, while mangling it whenever she speaks, and Seamus Moran as Sir Anthony Absolute, a dominating father with a lascivious eye for a pretty girl, who professes that he’s very easily led when he has his own way.
Lydia Languish is a wealthy young woman, influenced by romantic novels, who wants to be loved for herself alone and wishes to forsake her fortune for the sake of true love.
This love is provided by Sir Anthony’s son, Captain Jack (Tom Moran), pretending to be lowly ensign Beverly, so that Lydia will think he’s poor.
Naturally, Jack having two identities adds to the confusion. Ashleigh Dorrell grasps the ridiculous side of Lydia, playing it with a mixture of naivete, frustration and deadly seriousness.
In contrast, the fair and unneurotic Julia (Eavan Gaffney) is loved by the paranoid Faulkland who thinks anything Julia does is proof that she doesn’t love him any more.
And on the sidelines is the gauche Bob Acres (Finbarr Doyle), hoping to make a mark in society.
It’s a pity a separate actor wasn’t on hand to play the Irishman Sir Lucius O’Trigger. Colm O’Brien doubles as Faulkland and Sir Lucius but his slightly strained accent as O’Trigger seemed to inhibit him from getting the full comic effect from the role.
The comedy can’t be played as farce but a slight hint of melodrama in the serious moments would make them seem less realistically intense.
There are very nice cameos from Aislinn O’Byrne doubling as a couple of servants, and the costumes suggest the 18th century without going into too much detail.