The Rivals
Written by Richard Brinsley Sheridan
Directed by Peter Hall
At the Theatre Royal Haymarket, London
A review by M. D. Ball of the performance on Jan. 28, 2011
Whether consciously or not, Sheridan was a student of psychology, with a talent for abstracting human foibles into caricatures that draw laughter not only because they're humorous in and of themselves, but also because we recognize them. Each character in this play embodies some discrete behavioral attribute that we can identify by a single term. Although the plot is a bit convoluted, it's there to amuse the audience and to give each impersonation a context for displaying his or her peculiarity. Captain Jack Absolute has his eye on the lovely Lydia Languish, a girl who reads novels. To stimulate her interest, he presents himself in the guise of one "Ensign Beverley", who in the end is challenged to a duel by two other rivals for Lydia's affection. In the meantime, Lydia's friend Julia tries to win the heart of Faulkland, a friend of Jack's, while Lydia's aunt, Mrs. Malaprop, tries to arrange a marriage with Jack, who happens to be the son of Mrs. Malaprop's snobby -- and slightly crazy -- baronet friend, Sir Anthony Absolute. Needless to say, close listening is required.
Although Penelope Keith as Mrs. Malaprop and Peter Bowles as Sir Anthony Absolute are the celebrated actors in this production -- a celebration richly deserved -- it was Tony Gardner as Faulkland who delivered the best performance of the evening and who most distilled his own character's essence, which, in his case, comprised jealousy and insecurity. His mastery of embarrassed surprise betrayed the adolescence in Faulkland's spirit, showing the latter, in effect, to be an overgrown child. Despite the collection of world-class talent on that stage, no one's characterization resounded with more sincerity than did Gardner's Faulkland. It was as though he entertained each thought afresh. His character's every reaction -- every sudden realization, every moment of temporary panic, every jolt of disappointment, every flutter of hope, every instance of confusion -- registered genuine. And to achieve that genuineness, Gardner not only used his penchant for spontaneity but he also capitalized on the pressure of British understatement on the fountain of emotions within this juvenile lovesick man.
By contrast, the worst acting of the evening blundered forth from Tam Williams in the role of Captain Jack. He was downright amateurish. His constant anticipation of his next line caused him to accelerate into the end of the current one, damaging his performance with the taint of rushed recitation. Furthermore, he behaved nervously on stage, trying too hard to act, and moving around as though he didn't know what to do. He showed no respect for nuance and no understanding of the value of hesitation. Whereas he did capture Jack's energy, to his credit, his performance testified to the simple truth that enthusiasm doesn't substitute for competence. Williams failed to convince me of anything in Jack's psyche except flippancy and mischievousness; his purported love for Lydia was never credible.
Peter Bowles, however, used Williams' weakness to create a few of the funniest moments in the play. All in all, Bowles' deft management of Sir Anthony's benevolent hostility and menacing temper almost made the cracked patriarch seem innocuous. Bowles' dominance on stage put fire in the two relationships of father/son and of strong actor/weak actor. In their interplay, Bowles always pulled Williams along by controlling the scene and giving his younger colleague a chance to define Jack and to act less like a thespian automaton. In effect, we were watching a mentor in action, even though his apprentice kept fumbling. But all this in-line coaching harmonized beautifully with Bowles' rendering of Sir Anthony as an obdurate, imperious, binary man of leisure of the late 18th century, a rendering that a more captious observer might argue was a bit exaggerated. To my mind, however, backing away from the mockery would do an injustice to Sheridan's purpose. Besides, the argument that Sir Anthony was too much of a caricature dismisses the existence, and the importance, of stereotype, hyperbole, and colorfulness in the behavior of real people.
Along that line comes Mrs. Malaprop. We all know that a real person wouldn't misuse the word "pineapple", but in the course of emotional dialogue, a real person might confuse less common polysyllables with similar ones, even if they're not quite sesquipedalian. So, for the sake of Sheridan's pasquinade, we forgive Mrs. Malaprop's inflated stupidity and we accept her for the representation of absurd pretentiousness that she is. Is there a more convincing abstraction of gilded emptiness than this woman? But Keith's interpretation of Malaprop was just a bit more interesting. Hers walked the line between a woman who believes herself to be more than she really is, and a woman who is a victim of her own oppressive culture. Accordingly, while framing Malaprop's gross simplicity and asphyxiated intellect, Keith allowed the woman's warmth and vulnerability to make some brief appearances -- in other words, she showed us some refreshing humanness. And when such an appearance involved Sir Anthony and his callous bluster, I found myself secretly cheering for Keith's obtuse but sympathetic "old she-dragon".
Despite her name, Lydia Languish didn't despond at all. On the contrary, Robyn Addison stressed the cheerfully ornery in this character, though her Languish would have made more sense with a higher proportion of anxiety. Unfortunately, Addison's diction was sharp enough to cut glass and machine-like enough to sound counterfeit, the result of which was a performance burdened by process rather than one energized by badinage. Annabel Scholey's Julia, thankfully, compensated for Addison's Languish by being more tender and more forthright. True to Julia's function as a symbol of honesty, Scholey made it easy to respect this respectable young woman, the only character in the play who doesn't provoke either pity, disdain, or indifference. This Julia was, as she should be, sensitive but confident, the perfect complement to Faulkland's feigned disinterest layered over seething jealousy. Furthermore, the baroque exchanges between the two made for solid satire of those exhausted melodramas about love that had been so popular at the time.
I'm sure that 21st-century pettiness is the same as its 18th-century counterpart. Likewise for all other elements of human personality, because evolution hasn't had enough time to select against any of them in the 236 years since this play's premier. Although there's less thrust-and-parry today, and although modern audiences do have to decode the dialogue for its social and political meaning, what lies under this silly story is the timelessness of every character. Were that not so, I doubt that I'd have heard so much laughter.