THEATRE REVIEWS

43. Dick Sheridan (1894)

Dick Sheridan
by Robert Buchanan.
London: Comedy Theatre. 3 February to 30 March, 1894.
Bath: Theatre Royal. 20 August, 1894. First provincial performance.

Daniel Frohman, the manager of New York’s Lyceum theatre, originally commissioned Buchanan to write a play about Richard Brinsley Sheridan, but then rejected it in favour of another play on the same subject by Paul M. Potter. Frohman’s explanation is given in the article from The New York Times below. Buchanan’s version of events was published in The Era, prompting replies from Paul M. Potter and Daniel Frohman.

New-York Daily Tribune (6 September, 1893 - p.6)

E. H. SOTHERN AS SHERIDAN.

     At the Lyceum Theatre last night E. H. Sothern presented a new play before the best audience that has yet assembled in New-York this season. It was called “Sheridan, or the Maid of Bath,” and was written by Paul M. Potter. Mr. Sothern is an actor of great and deserved popularity. He continues, as each year passes and as he shows himself in each new part, to exhibit versatility, care, study, feeling and charm. His impersonations are always looked forward to with interest, and have thus far been received with favor. He presents Richard Brinsley Sheridan as an energetic and ambitious young man, fired by a youthful love, impulsive, hot-headed and quick-tempered, but also generous, tender and self-sacrificing. Such a personality is bound to be agreeable to an audience, whether the name given to it be Sheridan or John Doe. Investing a character of this quality with circumstances calling its attributes into vigorous play, Mr. Sothern makes it picturesque and fascinating. The faults as well as the virtues of his Sheridan are lovable, and so he adds another to his list of enjoyable dramatic creations.
     The lesser personages of the play are for the most part historical people whose lives in reality came in contact more or less with that of Sheridan, but by no means, in many cases, in the ways in which they are here represented. The most interesting one, of course, is Miss Betty Linley, a part agreeably played by Miss Grace Kimball. The costume of the time is becoming to her, and her gown and her powdered hair made her a most attractive picture, to which a worthy and engaging companion was furnished by Miss Marion Giroux as Miss Dorothy Neville. Charles Harbury was rather ponderously violent and sportive as David Garrick, and R. Buckstone was elastic and unrestful as Michael Kelly. A most finished and agreeable impersonation of Dr. Thomas Linley was given by C. P. Flockton. He was composed, correct and dignified. Morton Selten, as Captain Matthews, the villain of the play, exhibited his usual grace of bearing and propriety of action. Mrs. Kate Pattison-Selten appeared as Lady Erskine, and a small part was prettily played by Miss Rebecca Warren.
     The play is worked to satisfactory climaxes at the ends of the acts, but for the rest it has something too much of talk and preparation, rather noisy at time, and a lack of action in the best sense and development of character. The attempt is made to introduce the originals of some of the characters which Sheridan used in his plays. The plan sounds promising, b ut one of the results of it, which should not have been hard to foresee, is that persons whom the public has been used to observe saying and doing brilliant and incomparable things, are here found saying and doing comparatively commonplace ones. David Garrick is shown implicated in a love affair, sadly inconsistent with another drama which has for some time enjoyed a degree of popularity. A note in the programme admits that his connection with the plot is not historical, but even with this apology, the spectacle is unpleasant.
     The setting of the stage is sumptuous and in faultless taste. The picture of Dr. Linley’s library is a most excellent stage arrangement, and that of the manager’s room at the Covent Garden Theatre deserves scarcely less commendation. The costumes are rich and beautiful, and every detail of stage management is attended to with the thoroughness which invariably marks productions at this theatre.

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The Graphic (23 September, 1893 - Issue 1243)

     The American dramatist who determined to make the author of The Rivals and The School for Scandal the hero of a play has stolen a march upon Mr. Robert Buchanan, who is known to have done the same. The American piece has already been brought out by Mr. Sothern at the Lyceum Theatre, New York. It is a comedy in four acts, entitled Sheridan, or The Maid of Bath. The Maid of Bath is, of course, Miss Linley, afterwards Mrs. Sheridan. The piece depicts the courtship of these twain at Bath, and has a scene in the famous Pump-Room. It also introduces us to Covent Garden Theatre on the momentous night of the production of The Rivals. Mr. Sothern plays Sheridan, Miss Grace Kemball, Miss Linley. The piece seems to have been received with favour.

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The Stage (5 October, 1893 - p.11)

     Mr. H. B. Irving, the eldest son of the Lyceum chief, will return to the stage to play the rôle of Richard Brinsley Sheridan in the new play by Robert Buchanan, which is to follow on at the Comedy when Sowing the Wind shall have exhausted its drawing powers. It will be remembered that some time ago it was said that Mr. H. B. Irving had determined to relinquish the stage in favour of the law. Whether this return to the old love may be looked upon as permanent remains to be seen.

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The Stage (18 January, 1894 - p.11)

     Dick Sheridan or Sheridan, the new piece by Robert Buchanan, is now being rehearsed at the Comedy, where it will, when wanted, follow Sowing the wind. Last week I mentioned Mr. H. B. Irving and Miss Winifred Emery as having the two parts Sheridan and Miss Linley respectively. Now I learn that Mr. Brandon Thomas, Mr. Cyril Maude, Mr. Lewis Waller, Mr. Sydney Brough, Mr. Edmund Maurice, Miss Lena Ashwell, and Miss Pattie Browne will also appear in the cast. In the meantime the present programme at the Comedy is attracting good business, and an extra spurt has been given to the matinées in consequence of the interest displayed in the performances by the Baroness Burdett-Coutts, who has secured a private box and a number of seats in the dress circle for every afternoon during the season, so that she may give her youthful friends an opportunity of witnessing The Piper of Hamelin and Sandford and Merton.

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The Times (5 February, 1894 - p.7)

COMEDY THEATRE.

     The fundamental incidents of Mr. Robert Buchanan’s new play are simple enough. In the polished and cynical society of Bath in the last century a young singer, familiarly known as “Betty,” wins all hearts. Among her more active admirers are Lord Dazzleton, a battered old beau; Captain Matthews, an army man of shady antecedents; and Dick, a penniless youth who dreams of winning fame and fortune by dramatic authorship. It is Dick whom the fair Betty prefers, and to escape the tyranny of a harsh father, who favours Lord Dazzleton’s suit, she elopes with her lover to France. By-and-by the runaways return husband and wife, but, pending the advent of the fame and fortune dreamt of, Dick settles down alone to work in his garret in London, leaving his young wife free to pursue her musical career. Eventually a play of Dick’s is accepted at Covent Garden. The great David Garrick reads the manuscript and thinks well of it; so does Lord Dazzleton; and both come to congratulate the unknown author in his attic. For the moment the old fop changes his mind on finding in the new dramatist who is said to combine the genius of Congreve and Farquhar a successful rival of his own, but he yields subsequently to Betty’s entreaty and becomes the young man’s most influential patron. Less generous is Captain Matthews, Dick’s other rival. He organizes a cabal against the new play without the knowledge of the author or his friends, who are eagerly counting upon a success. Thanks to these dark machinations the fond hopes of Dick and his beloved Betty, who visits him in secret, are temporarily dashed to the ground. Captain Matthews’s scheme proves only too successful. The news is brought that the play has failed on its first performance. In his dejection Dick renounces authorship altogether, and fights a duel in his garret with Matthews, who has come to taunt him with his misfortune, and who is disarmed and humiliated for his pains. The young man’s success with his rapier is only a preliminary to that gained by his pen. On the second night, we learn, the new comedy goes like wildfire, and the curtain falls upon the happy reunion of Dick and his bride. Considering how commonplace is this story as a story, how much inferior in dramatic grip to the avowed efforts of imagination of which Mr. Robert Buchanan has shown himself capable, it seems scarcely worth while to label its chief characters Miss Linley and Richard Brinsley Sheridan and to put it forward as an account of the first production of The Rivals. This, however, Mr. Robert Buchanan has done in Dick Sheridan. Not that he professes to be biographical! He expressly declares that his “new and original comedy” has “no pretensions to historical accuracy in matters of detail,” and, in truth, the production of the first work of any dramatist, say, of Mr. Buchanan himself, might be trusted to furnish incidents as moving as those here set forth. Nevertheless, biographical or not, he has tied himself down to a certain prosaic order of events which cannot be regarded as altogether effective from the stage point of view.
     In every well-made play there is a question of some kind placed before the house—an issue upon which the interest of the spectator hangs. What is the issue in the present case? The union of the oppressed lovers? Hardly so, for they are secretly married before the curtain rises on the second act. The event in which the spectator is expected to interest himself is mainly the fate of a piece called The Rivals, written by a young man named Sheridan. No doubt the issue of a story may be immaterial, provided the author gives a life-like representation of character, couched in more or less brilliant dialogue. But in this case Mr. Buchanan has the air of having sacrificed everything to his story, after the manner of the writer of melodrama. At faithful characterization certainly little or no attempt is made. With ordinary names substituted for those of Sheridan and Miss Linley, the play would proceed exactly as before; while in the matter of dialogue there is an almost studied avoidance of literary sparkle. Mr. Buchanan, in fact, has a strange fondness for juggling with names which have nothing behind them. Mr. H. B. Irving, who, it was announced some time ago, had given up the stage for law, but who would seem to have since changed his mind, is possessed of physical qualities which fairly well consort with one’s notions of Sheridan as a young man; but the title part, for which he has been cast, affords him no opportunity of depicting the character from the intellectual side. It is true Dick is discovered writing a scene of The School for Scandal, which he afterwards throws into the fire, whence it is rescued by a faithful Irish man-servant; true also that he is hailed by his intimates as the great wit of the age. But assuredly he furnishes in his own person no indication of surpassing genius. The author has not even created him in his own image, since wittier, if not wiser, things than are set down for this literary prodigy have constantly proceeded from Mr. Buchanan’s pen. Another example of Mr. Buchanan’s use of an illustrious name as a mere husk, so to speak, is the introduction of “David Garrick” in a scene where any ordinary walking gentleman would do sufficiently well, and where, indeed, an actor named Mr. Will Dennis acquits himself very creditably, the great man having only a few commonplaces to say, though, to do him justice, he looks greatness unutterable.
     To what extent this trafficking in names may help the author’s dramatic scheme it is difficult to judge. Some influence it may indeed exercise in his favour, since there will probably be little disposition on the part of the public to condemn the undramatic turn of a story which is understood to be trammelled by historical fact. The one obvious remark invited by the play is that, as an exposition of Sheridan the wit, the dramatist, the man of the world, it is valueless. It is really a love story of no particular merit, placed in a period which Mr. Buchanan’s literary instinct enables him to handle somewhat more deftly than the journeyman dramatist. The opening scene of the play, the Assembly-rooms at Bath, with its coming and going of fops and coquettes, is perhaps the happiest in a literary sense, as it is certainly the most picturesque. Here we make acquaintance, not only with Sheridan and Miss Linley, but with characteristic types of the period—a heartless, backbiting, slanderous, polished, overdressed set, of whom Mr. Cyril Maude as a grotesque old beau, Mr. Lewis Waller as the sinister captain, Mr. Sydney Brough as a man about town, Miss Vane and Miss Lena Ashwell as ladies of quality, are the more conspicuous members. The faithful Irish servant O’Leary, a “scholar and a jintleman,” is played with rare tact and feeling by Mr. Brandon Thomas. In Miss Winifred Emery Miss Linley finds a graceful and sympathetic representative. To Mr. H. B. Irving’s Sheridan reference has already been made. It is a performance which is pleasing at least to the eye, though necessarily marred by occasional crudities of style due to the actor’s inexperience. There only remains to add that the piece was rapturously—perhaps a little too rapturously—applauded by a large section of the house.

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The New York Times (5 February, 1894)

THE STORY OF “DICK SHERIDAN.”
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A Play Rejected By An American Manager Produced in London.

     There is an interesting story connected with the production at the Comedy Theatre, London, Saturday night, of Buchanan’s comedy, “Dick Sheridan.” It is not often, if indeed it has ever happened before, that a play rejected by an American manager, has been presented to a London audience; but this is the case with “Dick Sheridan.” The play, which was thought too poor for New-York, has at last made its appearance in the metropolis of the world, and Mr. Buchanan’s wounded pride is probably measurably solaced, although the verdict of the audience was that the plot and character were “hackneyed.”
     The real author of “Dick Sheridan,” the English play, and of “Sheridan,” Paul M. Potter’s American comedy, so far as originating the idea and suggesting the story is concerned, is Daniel Frohman, Manager of the Lyceum Theatre of this city. When E. H. Sothern had made a success of “Lord Chumley,” Mr. Frohman, who is his manager, prudently began to look about him for a new play to take the place of “Chumley,” when it had run its course.
     It occurred to Mr. Frohman, who was in London, that Sothern’s personality fitted him to personate Richard Brinsley Sheridan, and that the romance of Elizabeth Linley, the beautiful “Maid of Bath,” furnished an excellent foundation for a comedy. The manager consulted Robert Buchanan. After a few conferences, during which Mr. Frohman expressed his ideas very fully as to what the play should be, Buchanan agreed to write it, and have it ready for production at a specified time. A contract was drawn up, a retaining fee paid—for English playwrights of prominence always exact a retaining fee before beginning work—and Mr. Frohman returned ton New-York easy in his mind regarding the success of “Chumley.”
     Promptly on schedule time Mr. Buchanan’s play, “Dick Sheridan,” was received by Mr. Frohman, but when he had read the piece he decided at once that it would not do for Sothern. It was nothing like the play he had arranged in his own mind, and he was not willing to risk its production. He wrote to Buchanan, explaining in detail what he regarded as the faults of “Dick Sheridan,” and suggested the rewriting of certain scenes on new lines, the excision of certain others, and the addition of some wholly new material.
     The English playwright was apparently affronted because an American manager had assumed to criticise his work, and he refused to make the changes. Mr. Frohman then returned the manuscript to Buchanan as “rejected,” preferring to lose the money advanced on the work rather than to risk the reputation of Sothern and himself by its production at the Lyceum.
     Paul M. Potter was then commissioned to write “Sheridan,” on the lines laid down by Mr. Frohman, and one of Mr. Sothern’s most artistic characterizations was the result. Buchanan, when he heard of this, made the charge that his manuscript had been used in the preparation of the new play, and accused Mr. Frohman of stealing from his work. A caustic letter from the American manager followed, in which he denied the charges, and practically invited Mr. Buchanan to take his grievance into court.
     As a matter of fact, with the exception that the romance of the “Maid of Bath” is the foundation of both plays, there is no similarity between them, and that foundation was furnished by Mr. Frohman himself. Certainly there is nothing “hackneyed” in the plot or character of “Sheridan,” and the fact that this is the verdict of London on “Dick Sheridan” would seem to vindicate the judgment of Mr. Frohman in rejecting Mr. Buchanan’s play.

[Daniel Frohman]

From The Theatrical ‘World’ of 1894 by William Archer (London: Walter Scott, Ltd., 1895 - p. 47-53)

“DICK SHERIDAN.”
                                                                                                                      7 February.

WHEN a fond mother, adopting Mr Pinero’s excellent idea, articles her son to me for instruction in the noble craft of dramatic criticism (premium, &c., on application), one of the first great truths I shall instil into him is that the critic, as such, has nothing to do with a play’s chances of success. His business is to appreciate it as a work of art, not to take upon himself the function of Old Probabilities, and predict how the “popular wind,” as Dick Sheridan calls it, is likely to blow. Only the other night, I was discussing The Charlatan with an able and influential critic. “I did not like it,” he said, “because I don’t think the public is interested in the two subjects it deals with—theosophy and hypnotism. The public cares for nothing but a love story.” I am sure my colleague will forgive me if I protest against this “because,” and the undue humility of the attitude it implies. Why should he pause to consider what “the public” likes? It is his business to lead, not to follow, the public. If the author has succeeded in interesting him (if only for the moment) in theosophy and hypnotism, let him tell the public so, and bid them go and be interested likewise. The drama must inevitably sink lower and lower if the critics and the public keep on thus underbidding each other, as it were—each claiming less and less at the (real or supposed) dictation of the other. But—I should say to my ingenuous apprentice—even the best of rules has its exceptions. Plays there be with regard to which no mortal man need ask himself any question except “Will this please the public?” Mr Buchanan’s Dick Sheridan produced amid much applause at the Comedy Theatre on Saturday night, is one of these plays. There is absolutely nothing in it that calls for critical thought or discussion. From the point of view of literature, of literary history, of theatrical technique, it simply does not exist. A few ready-made puppets from eighteenth-century comedy (one or two of them bewildering us a little by their obtrusive unlikeness to the very well-known historical personages whose names they have assumed) go through a childishly simple action, every step of which we all foresee from the first, and talk certain lengths of dialogue which is neither well nor ill written, neither brilliant nor flagrantly inane, but has the air of a sort of expert, fluent improvisation, founded on reminiscences of all the plays of the standard English repertory. If you find this sort of thing amusing, you spend a pleasant evening, and there is no more to be said. The great majority of the audience seemed to spend a very pleasant evening on Saturday, and Mr Comyns Carr congratulated them on their good taste. I, too, congratulate them, for they were happier than I. It will interest me greatly to watch the fortunes of Dick Sheridan. The runs which Mr Buchanan’s eighteenth-century plays used to achieve at the Vaudeville were always marvellous to me; but the Vaudeville (in those days) was worked under peculiar and inexpensive conditions. If Dick Sheridan becomes really popular at the theatre where that powerfully-written and moving play Sowing the Wind ran only a little over a hundred nights, I shall admit in this instance (what, as a rule, I strenuously deny)—a total discrepancy between my taste and that of the great public. We often differ as to what is beautiful and interesting, very seldom as to what is tedious.
     It has always seemed to me that Mr H. B. Irving has a career before him as a romantic actor, an actor of cape-and-sword parts. He may develop higher qualities later; in the meantime, he has picturesqueness and a certain distinction. His humour, on the other hand, is almost a negative quantity, though, like his father, he can sometimes make us laugh by the mere unbending of his normal gravity and stateliness. It would be unfair to hold him responsible for his total unlikeness to Richard Brinsley Sheridan, as he lives for us in a thousand traits of history and legend. Perhaps he could not, at best, have come very near the sanguine, mercurial Irishman; there is more of the Spanish hidalgo in his composition; but certainly Mr Buchanan gave him no opportunity for any attempt at genuine character-acting. It was not Mr Irving but Mr Buchanan that made Sheridan the unconscionably dull dog who on Saturday night moped and prosed through four interminable acts. There are doubtless debatable points in Sheridan’s character, but three things are abundantly clear: that he had wit, that he was of a happy-go-lucky devil-may-care temperament, and that he had kissed the Blarney Stone, or, as the Irish guide-books put it, was possessed of “the gift of persuasive eloquence.” All these characteristics Mr Buchanan has sedulously suppressed. True, it has been said that Sheridan, like other noted wits, made up his impromptus beforehand; but in this case he has come abroad quite unprovided, not only with well-coined epigram, but even with the small change of humour and whim. He “jocks wi’ deeficulty,” if ever man did. Questioned as to The Rivals, he remarks, “I can say of it, as the lady said of her complexion, ‘It is my own’”; and David Garrick actually has the complaisance to laugh! His repartee never rises above the unpretending level of “You’re another.” “You’re an impudent beggar,” says Lord Dazzleton; “And you, sir, are an impudent lord,” is the crushing retort. “You shall rot in the Fleet,” says Captain Matthews; “And you shall sulk [or skulk—I did not quite catch the word] outside it,” rejoins the author of “the best comedy, the best farce, the best prologue, and the best oration in the English language.” Sheridan, indeed, is the one leading character in the play who never has a scintillation of wit. Miss Linley makes one or two neat rejoinders to Lady Miller; there is a certain humour in some of O’Leary’s lines; and one or two of the others now and then turn a phrase not inaptly. The only approach to wit that I can remember in the part of “the illustrious author of The School for Scandal,” is a saying to the effect that "”What everybody says is what nobody should believe,” and even that I fancy he spoils with some superfluous words. And if his wit is ignored, what shall we say of his powers of blarney? This magnificent representative of the great race of Borrowers, this man who, more than any other of his time, could be trusted not only to soothe an irate creditor, but to squeeze a further loan out of him, is represented as clumsily infuriating a Hebrew money-lender in sheer wantonness of insolence! The scene, as Mr Buchanan owns, is “lifted” from Love for Love; but Congreve keeps it within the limits of comedy, by making Valentine civil throughout to Trapland, and only Scandal openly impertinent. Congreve, in his turn, borrowed from the passage between Don Juan and Monsieur Dimanche in Le Festin de Pierre. Molière’s scene is exquisite, Congreve’s is coarsely effective, Mr Buchanan’s, as even the first-night audience felt, is senseless and grotesque. And here, precisely in the wrong place, is the one point where we have any glimpse of the recklessness of Sheridan’s character. For the rest he is stolid, sedate, saturnine, diffident, dolorous, with much more of Chatterton than of Sheridan in him. What could Mr Irving do with such a part? It seemed to me that, barring a little natural nervousness, he played very well the character Mr Buchanan had set down for him. Perhaps the chronic corrugation between his eyebrows added a touch of unnecessary gloom; but that was a result, no doubt, of the nervousness aforesaid.
     Miss Winifred Emery made a charming Elizabeth Linley, but there was really nothing for her to take hold of in the namby-pamby personage. Mr Cyril Maude, as Lord Dazzleton, added another to that long list of “Stap-my-vitals” characters of which he must surely be getting very tired. Mr Brandon Thomas as O’Leary was amusing, but rather too deliberate; and Miss Pattie Browne, as Mrs Lappet, made excellent use of her fine eyes. Mr Lewis Waller was good as the lurid Captain Matthews; and other parts were well played by Mr Sydney Brough, Mr Edmund Maurice, Mr Will Dennis, Miss Vane, and Miss Lena Ashwell.

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The Stage (8 February, 1894 - p.12)

THE COMEDY.

     On Saturday evening, February 3, 1894, was produced a comedy, in four acts, by Robert Buchanan, entitled:—

Dick Sheridan.

Richard Brinsley Sheridan     Mr. H. B. Irving
Dr. Jonathan O’Leary   ...     Mr. Brandon Thomas
Lord Dazzleton     ...     ...     Mr. Cyril Maude
Capt. Matthews    ...     ...     Mr. Lewis Waller
Sir Harry Chase    ...     ...     Mr. Sydney Brough
Mr. Linley             ...     ...     Mr. Edmund Maurice
David Garrick       ...     ...     Mr. Will Dennis
Mr. Wade             ...     ...     Mr. F. M. Paget
Capt. Knight         ...     ...     Mr. Crawley
Sir James Loder    ...     ...     Mr. H. J. Carvill
Mr. Abednego      ...     ...     Mr. John Byron
Servant                 ...     ...     Mr. Bertram
Mr. Linley’s Servant     ...     Mr. Anning
Lady Miller           ...     ...     Miss Vane
Lady Pamela Stirrup      ...     Miss Lena Ashwell
Lady Shuttleworth ...     ...     Miss Radclyffe
Hon. Mrs. Elliott    ...     ...     Miss Constance Brietzcke
Miss Copeland      ...     ...     Miss Ettie Williams
Miss Beamish        ...     ...     Miss A. O’Brien
Mrs. Lappet          ...     ...     Miss Pattie Browne
Miss Elizabeth Linley     ...     Miss Winifred Emery

     Popular seems to have been the guiding principle of Mr. Buchanan in writing Dick Sheridan, and Regardless of cost the motto of management in giving substance to his ideas. How far Mr. Buchanan’s apparently deliberate mediocrities, richly stuffed and brilliantly ornamented as they thus are, will win the eye and prevail on the heart of playgoers at large—to the head, par parenthése, they offer very little indeed—time alone can tell. On the first night the piece was certainly received with great cordiality, and the audience was not to be despised in its verdict, for it numbered not only many veteran figures in the stalls, but also an overflowing pit and gallery of the vigilant democracy of the playgoing world. Dick Sheridan is written on a formula in certain respects new, for Mr. Buchanan has applied to old comedy some of the easy methods of composition that suffice, say, in melodrama. Old comedy has hitherto remained more or less undisturbed as one of the few English classical forms of dramatic art; whereas Mr. Buchanan, making a central figure of perhaps the greatest master of that form, yet gives us a piece in which wit of dialogue and finesse of manners are quite subordinated to incident and situation for incident’s and situation’s sake. He fails therefore it seems to us, not only to do justice to the form of old comedy—for which, as a form, he would probably declare he had no regard—but also to place his chief figure, and an historic figure, in the right atmosphere. And instead of trying to vitalise Sheridan somewhat as he was, Mr. Buchanan seems to have been content to popularise him in the likeness of a conventional hero, doing some of the things Sheridan is recorded to have done. Hence, nominally of old comedy, and professedly of the famous author of The School for Scandal, Mr. Buchanan’s play legitimately belongs to neither one nor the other. Intrinsically, it has merits, though they are not of a kind one most associates with a man of Mr. Buchanan’s poetic gift and intellectual calibre. The attractions of Dick Sheridan are those of craft, and that the craft of the playwright rather than the dramatist. The plot is developed plainly and simply, if with considerable dependence on the long arm of coincidence, and the equally nimble leg of expediency; the characters—leaving any historic accuracy out of the question—are drawn with varied effectiveness, not standing at trifles; and the chief situations and crises are well worked up. There are, in short, for the most part considerable spirit and moving interest in the piece; and these always welcome characteristics, in alliance with the grace and glow of the superb illustrations that Mr. Comyns Carr has provided will do much in catching the popular vote, to which Mr. Buchanan has evidently made very large concessions.
     Mr. Buchanan has adhered largely to the essential facts of the well-known Sheridan-Linley love episode, of course amplifying them as he goes on. The action opens brightly in the Assembly Rooms at Bath, just as Elizabeth Linley is about to sing to the gay throng who have arrived to talk scandal, and flirt, and intrigue after the manner of the hollow fashionable life of the eighteenth century. Young Sheridan is violently in love with the beautiful young singer. He is not the only man she has impassioned, for the elderly beau Lord Dazzleton wants to wed her, while the unscrupulous Captain Matthews—already married—designs to compromise her, and so oblige her to become his mistress. He thinks he sees his opportunity when her father arbitrarily insists that she shall accept the condescending overtures of Lord Dazzleton. In her desperation she would turn to Sheridan, but the Captain, in conjunction with Lady Miller—who is jealous of the girl in this connection—successfully blackens the young man’s character as that of a libertine, who has even boasted of terms of familiarity with Miss Linley. He persuades Elizabeth Linley to let him escort her to France, there to join a relative who will protect her. He is foiled in this plan, however, by a certain necessitous Irish tutor of Sheridan’s, Dr. Jonathan O’Leary—who is so reduced as to act as sheriff’s officer—acquainting Miss Linley with the fact of the Captain’s marriage. The flight, however, takes place, the rehabilitated Sheridan carrying the lady off in the waiting post-chaise, under the eyes of the Captain, whom O’Leary has arrested for debt. Thus is Matthews hoist with his own petard, as Sheridan jubilantly exclaims; but the business has not much savour of heroism about it. Abroad, Sheridan is supposed to have married Elizabeth Linley secretly, and then allowed her father to claim her. The second act shows Dick in London lodgings, attended by his faithful O’Leary, in a way not unreminiscent of Tom Jones and Partridge in Sophia—there being, indeed, some general likeness between the present and that far finer work. Partly through gambling, Sheridan is heavily in debt, as a long drawn out visit from a caricatured money-lender sufficiently illustrates. His only hope lies in the production of his play, The Rivals, about which Garrick is made to visit him at his lodgings. Garrick brings with him Lord Dazzleton, who holds a high opinion of the play, but who as soon as he discovers that the author and his rival in the affections of Miss Linley at Bath are identical, withdraws his patronage. He lends himself to a plot against the production, just as Matthews—when the piece is accepted, notwithstanding Dazzleton’s opposition—conspires to ruin the performance by making one of the actors drunk on the first night. Moreover, Matthews (whose wife has since died, leaving him free, as he imagines, to marry Elizabeth Linley) has bought up Sheridan’s debts, in order to throw his rival into prison. This latter fact the Captain puts squarely to Sheridan, threatening him with arrest unless he relinquishes all pretensions to Miss Linley’s hand. Sheridan bids Matthews, as he bade Dazzleton, do his worst. The play fails, and Sheridan goes in despair to Mr. Linley’s house, where he entreats Elizabeth—whom he left at the altar in France—to forget him and the ceremony they went through. She will not do so, and when Sheridan is ordered with indignity from the house, she declares him to be her husband. Sheridan, however, goes back to his lodgings alone. The second performance of The Rivals is given, Sheridan recklessly awaiting the result, and burning his other MSS. the while. It will be better than he imagines, for one reason because Elizabeth has—in one of the best scenes of the play—changed the enmity of the influential Lord Dazzleton into a most energetic support; and, for a second reason, because there is no incapable performer. Matthews, finding the old lord in his new humour has paid Sheridan’s debts, comes to the lodgings in a last effort to exact terms. Sheridan challenges him, and compels him to fight then and there, twice disarming him, and finally making him acknowledge his calumnies and beg his life. The Captain is in this attitude when various of the characters, including Elizabeth and Lord Dazzleton, crowd in with news of the ultimate complete success of The Rivals.
     The play is, under qualification with regard to its Dick Sheridan, very fortunate in its casting; and, in the matter of mounting, it is illustrated and graced in a way that no one piece in a hundred enjoys, even in these days of scenic and accessorial beauty. The first and third acts, with their scenery by Mr. Walter Hann, their costumes by “Karl” and the accomplished Mrs. Comyns Carr, and their really masterly general arrangement —the first especially—by Mr. Edward Hastings, the stage-manager, have in their way probably never been excelled. The Bath assembly at its height is sumptuously—superlatively delightful, with its elegant ladies, its gallant men, its colours, lights, music-strains, and rhythms of stately dance. It is an entertainment in itself. The Boudoir scene is also exquisite. Of the acting, as we have said, one reservation must be made to well-deserved praise all round. It is—inevitably so, and, with no discredit to so new an actor as Mr. H. B. Irving—in the case of the Dick Sheridan. This is a weak character, which, therefore, calls all the heavily on a player of the youth of Mr. Irving. Mr. Irving succeeds much better than could be expected in all the circumstances, but it would be as false as unkind to say that he does justice either to such part as there is, or to what we believe to be his latent gifts. The admirable intention of his playing is discernible throughout, but the ability to carry it out—the executive facility that comes in acting absolutely by no other way than experience—is wanting. The promise is excellent, but the young actor suffers not less than the play by a premature attempt to fulfil it. For this reason the captain Matthews of Mr. Lewis Waller obtains an undue advantage of the Sheridan. Mr. Waller’s is a matured performance, strong in its restraint, with a glamour from its distinction. Equally fine in another direction is the Lord Dazzleton of Mr. Cyril Maude. It is a little over-elaborate in its senile affectations in the earlier passages, but in the later acts is a really notable portraiture, in the peculiar art of which Mr. Maude seems fast becoming incomparable. Mr. Brandon Thomas as the Irish doctor is one long flow of geniality and bubbling good nature. His O’Leary is a great refreshment to the audience. Some lesser parts are very ably assumed, particularly the Master of the Ceremonies at Bath, a character in which Mr. F. M. Paget plays with a suavity and elegance of great value to the opening act; and also the David Garrick of Mr. Will Dennis, an admirable treatment of an obviously exacting part, however episodical. Mr. Dennis deserves a special word of congratulation on a little success so hard to win. Another clever study, rather too strongly outlined it may be, is Mr. Abednego, at the hands of Mr. John Byron. Mr. Edmund Maurice acts soundly as Mr. Linley, and Mr. Sydney Brough pleasantly as Sir Harry Chase, while Messrs. Crawley (Capt. Knight), H. J. Carvill (Sir James Loder), Bertram and Anning fill in minor parts satisfactorily. Miss Winifred Emery’s opportunities as Miss Linley are not great. Miss Emery seems rather hard and wanting in the impulsive warmth of a girl in love at the beginning of the piece, but in the third act she is at her best, playing with tenderness and charm. Miss Vane as Lady Miller supplies another of her beautifully-finished pictures of seductive womanhood, such as Sophia and Joseph’s Sweetheart owed so much to. Miss Vane plays this class of part in old comedy à merveille. Miss Lena Ashwell is very pleasing indeed as Lady Pamela Stirrup, investing the character with the most winning freshness; and Miss Pattie Browne as Mrs. Lappet, the maid, acts with really wonderful deftness and effect in a part that has not much in it. The cast is completes by Misses Ettie Williams, Radclyffe, Constance Bretzcke, and A. O’Brian in merely ornamental characters. The music, under Mr. A. J. Caldicott, is very well chosen and well rendered.
     Applause on the final fall of the curtain brought actors, author, and in the end the gratified Mr. Comyns Carr to the front. Mr. Carr, yielding to cries for a speech, said:—
     Ladies and Gentlemen,—Without inflicting on you anything in the shape of a speech, which is always a detestible thing, even to the person who has to make it, I am glad to be able to acknowledge the cordial welcome which you have given to Mr. Buchanan’s spirited play. On my own behalf, and on behalf of Miss Winifred Emery and the other members of my company, I wish to express my gratitude for the enthusiasm with which you have greeted our efforts to entertain you. This has been to me an occasion of special gratification, seeing that in the performance you have so generously welcomed has been associated the son of my old and dear friend Henry Irving. If I may venture on a prediction, even in the presence of so many gentlemen who are experts in such matters—I was once an expert myself, but am so no longer—I will hazard the prophecy that the greatest tragedian of our stage and time will find no unworthy successor in his son.

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The Graphic (10 February, 1894 - Issue 1263)

“Dick Sheridan”

BY W. MOY THOMAS

     MR. ROBERT BUCHANAN’S attempt to construct a comedy on the basis of the story of the elopement of Richard Brinsley Sheridan and Miss Linley, the “maid of Bath,” with all its familiar concomitants—the post-chaise, the hurried wedding in France, and the furious duel with Captain Matthews, the sinister and vindictive rival, at the tavern in Covent Garden, has been crowned with the rapturous approval of a first-night audience at the COMEDY Theatre. Nevertheless, Dick Sheridan has undoubtedly awakened in many quarters a feeling of disappointment; nor is the circumstance very difficult to explain. Dramatists who are courageous enough to select for their heroes historical personages are somewhat in the position of those professors of spiritualism who claim to have the power of putting us in communication with the illustrious dead. It is easy to evoke “raps,” but not always so easy to rap out something that will fulfil the auditor’s expectations. With the dramatist the difficulty is even greater, and it is one that threatens rather to increase than diminish, for with the popularisation of that marvellous triumph of science and art, the Phonograph, there must come a time when people will have become familiar even with the voices of the great folk of the past; and, unlike blind Isaac of old, will require something more than a goatskin glove to lead them to confound a Jacob with his brother Esau. Thanks to the arts of the dressing-room, faces may generally be made up with some regard to historical portraiture; but it is a harder matter to make a historical hero conform in other respects to preconceived notions. Sheridan is known to us all as a wit and a gay and dashing fellow. Witty and gay, therefore, he must be, or somebody will exclaim “That Sheridan? forsooth!” It is all very illogical, no doubt. As a fact, great wits are not in private uniformly witty, nor are gay dogs always gay. It is more than probable that at the period of Mr. Buchanan’s play, young Mr. Sheridan’s ambition to emulate the wit of Congreve was confined to his manuscripts, and that in the ordinary way he talked very much as other young men talk who are desperately in love and cruelly persecuted by fortune. Miss Linley, the popular songstress and famous beauty, was staunch and true, but there was plenty of reason forher lover’s anxieties. He was penniless, and the lady had a mercenary old father who, while he strove might and main to compel her to marry the doting millionaire, Mr. Long, actually stipulated for a thousand pounds for himself on the pretext that his daughter, being “apprenticed” to him, her marriage would involve the loss of her services. Even after the hasty wedding, and no less hasty separation, the prospects of the young couple were certainly dark enough to excuse Mr. Sheridan if he failed to realise our ideal of the brilliant author of The School for Scandal. A more substantial objection is that this biographical episode in its essentials is, like many other so-called “romances of real life,” a very commonplace affair after all, a mere story of Colombina, Arlecchino, and Panteleone dressed in the fine clothes of the belles and beaux of the Bath Assembly Rooms under the benignant reign of the great Nash’s successor, Mr. Wade.
     What is really remarkable in Mr. Buchanan’s play is the way in which the author has contrived to make an intrinsically commonplace story entertaining. No doubt he was not under any obligation to take Miss Linley and her lover for his hero and heroine, but having done so, it is fair to say that he has used his materials with considerable skill. He has brought before us the gay picturesqueness of those times and, not without warrant or excuse, has introduced some new characters which are thoroughly acceptable and always amusing. A capital sketch is that of Dr. Jonathan O’Leary, the Irish scholar in reduced circumstances, who attaches himself to his old pupil Dick, and serves him with such unfailing fidelity and fertility of resource. The part is played by Mr. Brandon Thomas with a feeling for character, a humorous relish, and a ripe moderation which form a delightful combination. Approaching more closely to the confines of caricature, but still genuinely humorous both in conception and execution, is the Lord Dazzleton of Mr. Cyril Maude, who takes the place of Mr. Long in the legend; and eminently pleasing is the bright and sprightly soubrette, Mrs. Lappett, who finds quite an ideal representative in Miss Pattie Browne. A host of other minor characters serve to help on the action or diversify the scene. There are Mr. Sidney Brough’s Sir Harry Chase, Mr. Maurice’s Linley, Mr. Will Dennis’s David Garrick, Mr. Paget’s Wade, Miss Vane’s Lady Miller, Miss Lena Ashwell’s Lady Pamela—all pleasant sketches. The serious interest of the play, however, centres in Miss Linley, who, in the person of Miss Winifred Emery, clothed in lovely costumes of the time, involuntarily recalls to mind Burke’s famous exclamation regarding Marie Antoinette, and brings to the part all her womanly charm and emotional power. For the somewhat settled earnestness of Mr. H. B. Irving’s Sheridan I have already incidentally put in a plea. If the dramatist is justified in depicting his hero as no mere utterer of epigrams, but a “star-crossed lover” at war with fate, Mr. Irving cannot be blamed for playing the part in this vein. The fault of the performance, which certainly does not lack spirit or force, is a tendency to monotone which will doubtless soon correct itself.There remains only to be mentioned Mr. Lewis Waller, who, in the part of the designing roué, Captain Matthews, looks very handsome in his Georgian military uniform, and plays throughout with a grave and saturnine air which is decidedly impressive; but why, in the duel scene, when he has abjectly begged for his life, does he utter the words, “Is that enough?” with a sort of canine growl and bark? The play is put upon the stage very carefully—the scene of the Assembly Rooms at Bath, where the company in their brilliant costumes and uniforms dance to gavottes and minuets by Lully, Rameau, and Boccherini, being particularly noticeable.

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The Penny Illustrated Paper (10 February, 1894 - p.90)

MUSIC AND THE DRAMA.
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“Dick Sheridan,” at the Comedy.

IT was an exceedingly happy thought of Mr. Robert Buchanan to write a comedy of which the hero should be the brilliant and witty author of “The Rivals” and “The School for Scandal”; and right lucky was this singularly versatile and talented Victorian man-of-letters to induce so remarkably tasteful a manager as Mr. J. Comyns Carr to produce this charming play so vividly that the belles and beaux of the past century live again for the enjoyment of playgoers of to-day. That “Dick Sheridan” was highly appreciated by the audience that filled the Comedy Theatre last Saturday night was placed beyond a doubt by the enthusiastic reception accorded to the clever company and to the piece. Opening at the Bath Assembly Rooms at the period when it was the custom for the fashionable world to gather there for flirtation and pleasure, the new comedy starts well with the assiduous courting of the beautiful Miss Linley by the foppish old beau, Lord Dazzleton, by the cold-blooded roué, Captain Matthews, and by her favoured lover, young Richard Brinsley Sheridan, who saves her from the persecution of his rivals by eloping with his sweetheart to France. The minuet and gavotte of olden times (deftly arranged by Mr. John D’Auban), and all the formal and artificial gallantry of the period, when men wore silken coats and hose and periwigs, and ladies powdered their hair and looked none the less lovely for it, are faithfully recalled; and it is but just to compliment “Karl” and Mrs. Comyns Carr on the accuracy with which they designed the elegant costumes. The ladies will be enchanted with “Dick Sheridan,” by reason of the superb beauty of these costumes, made by Messrs. L. and H. Nathan and Mrs. Nettleship; and because of the adroit way in which the course of true love, running adversely at first for the constant couple, leads to a happy ending at last, when Dick Sheridan has worsted his most determined enemy, Captain Matthews, in a duel, and won renown as a dramatist. From this rapid summary it will be gleaned that “Dick Sheridan” is full of interest. But the play must be seen to appreciate the wealth of characterisation with which it is embellished. As the sweetly captivating Elizabeth Linley, Miss Winifred Emery, is perfect in her simplicity, in her fidelity to her true love, in her winsome presence. And a very manly and sympathetic Dick Sheridan did I find Mr. Irving’s son, Mr. H. B. Irving, who will, when the first-night’s nervousness has worn off, no doubt infuse that vivacity and gaiety into his acting that the part needs. One of the most attractive characters is the good-natured Irish friend and follower of Dick, Dr. Jonathan O’Leary, very genially played by Mr. Brandon Thomas. The kindhearted old fop of Mr. Cyril Maude is another good study by this sterling young actor of the artificial beau of George the Third’s reign. The inflexible scheming of Captain Matthews suits the style of Mr. Lewis Waller to a nicety. Notable bits of good character-delineation are also supplied by Miss Vane as “The Queen of Bath,” by Miss Pattie Browne as Mrs. Lappet, by Miss Lena Ashwell as Lady Pamela Stirrup, by Mr. Will Dennis as David Garrick (a capital make-up), and by Mr. Sydney Brough, Mr. Edmund Maurice, Mr. F. M. Paget, and Mr. John Byron. The musical accompaniments and entr’acte selections of Mr. A. J. Caldicott’s orchestra, and the scenery by Mr. Walter Hann, were worthy the piece, the close of which was the signal for hearty calls for all concerned in its successful production.

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New-York Daily Tribune (11 February, 1894 - p.2)

     Mr. Robert Buchanan has achieved a very considerable feat. He has contrived to present Richard Brinsley Sheridan to an English audience as dull, solemn, priggish and vulgar. The play called “Dick Sheridan,” which Mr. Comyns Carr has produced at the Comedy Theatre, is an even less successful dramatic effort than “The Charlatan” at the Haymarket, by the same author. It is, I believe, the same which Mr. Frohman wisely declined to bring out in New-York, preferring to pay a large forfeit to the writer. Mr. Carr has done what could be done for this melancholy piece, but his managerial skill is of little avail. The chief point of interest on the first night was the appearance of Mr. Henry Irving’s eldest son as Sheridan. The part gives him little chance, and he has, of course, little experience. But in his manner, appearance and evident intelligence there is abundant promise for the future.
                                                                                                                                        G. W. S.

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Punch (17 February, 1894 - p.81)

SHERIDAN BU-CANONISED!

     WHAT fatal dementia seized upon BOB BUCHANAN that he should have written a play on Dick Sheridan? Had he been as familiar with his subject as he has been with the christian name of his unfortunate hero he might possibly have taken more time and more thought, if either would have assisted him, before giving (for a consideration) this “new and original comedy” to a mighty censorious world. However, ’tis done, and there’s an end on ’t, or soon will be, but in the meantime let me congratulate the principal actors in this series of scenes from the life of Dick Sheridan, arranged by BOB BUCHANAN, not on the parts they play, but the way in which they play them.
     Physical resemblance between RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN, as known to us by his portraits, and Mr. H. B. IRVING there is none; but, physically and mentally, he is as like BOB BUCHANAN as Mr. BOB BUCHANAN has allowed him to be. What an unconscionable dull dog, though as bit of a “rantin’ roarin’ boy,” too, on occasion, in this Bu-canonised Dick Sheridan! Like the saturnine CHARLES THE SECOND of merry memory, this Dick Sheridan often says a foolish thing (and a very prosaic one too) and never does a wise one. However, young Mr. IRVING, considering that after all he is little more than a beginner, plays this part (such as it is, and thank BUCHANAN for it) so well that we may look forward to his successful appearance as Joseph Surface and then as Hamlet. Il ira loin.

     The eccentric part of Dr. Jonathan O’Leary, a kind of Dr. O’Toole, the Irish tutor, with a dash of that very old-fashioned pedagogue Dr. Pangloss, is made the most of by Mr. BRANDON THOMAS, who indeed adds to the natural gifts of the individual by throwing in here and there just so much flavour of Scotch accent as suggests the observant and retentive traveller. With sprightly Miss PATTIE BROWNE as Mrs. Lappet the lady’s maid (a name fashioned on the good old farce principle of styling a tailor Mr. Button, a butcher Mr. Chops, and so forth, a plan adapted to the meanest capacity of theatre-going intelligence), Dr. O’Leary Thomas is responsible for the conventional low comic relief, a kind of forlorn hope in such cases, essential to most pieces, and more especially to Adelphi Dramas, to which class of entertainment this play, with its turgid sentiment, its scowling villain, its aforesaid low comedy “relief” of servant and maid, its stern parent, its secret marriage, its heroine in distress, and its duel in the room by candlelight, evidently aspired to belong.
     Had BOB taken more thought over DICK, he might perhaps, with the aid of a collaborator such as was the late Mr. HENRY PETTITT, and by eliminating Sheridan, and introducing a railway accident or a battle-scene, have realised by it a considerable fortune at the Adelphi; and then he could have retired and amused himself, if nobody else, by writing comedies for nowhere in particular on the model of this Dick Sheridan.
     Mr. CYRIL MAUDE is always marvellous in his making up, and this latest travestie of his as Lord Dazzleton (another farce-name! So good!) is quite equal to anything he has previously done. The part is as admirably played as the picture is painted by this artist from the sketch given him by BOB, the author.
     With excellent effect does Mr. LEWIS WALLER represent the Adelphi-Drama-villain, Captain Matthews, who is not at all the Captain MATTHEWS of SHERIDAN’S true story; but as “R. B.” (not “RICHARD BRINSLEY” without the SHERIDAN, but “ROBERT BUCHANAN”) explains in a foot-note to the bill, “this Comedy has no pretensions to historical accuracy in matters of detail,” we must be satisfied with the goods the gods provide, and no more question details of this historical unhistorical pastoral-comico-tragical comedy, than we would inquire too curiously into the excellence of the raw property materials for Dr. O’Leary’s Irish stew.
     Mr. SYDNEY BROUGH has a character closely resembling that “horsey” one of the Tom-and-Jerry period in Sowing the Wind, then played by Mr. EDMUND MAURICE, who, now, as representing the “stern pairent who has but one daughter an unkimmon fine young gal,” is much “exercised” in spirit, and has to observe, in the course of other sapient remarks, that “he has some difficulty in making up his mind,” which, by the way, can be nothing to the difficulty he must have experienced in making up his face, for “a more complete change of front” (as the old lady said who didn’t wear her own hair, and had to alter from brown to grey) it is rare to see, even in these days of ultra-perfection in the art of “making up.”
     Then there is Mr. JOHN BYRON, who very carefully plays Abednego, in a tediously witless scene (quite representative of “R. B.” without the “SHERIDAN”), and Mr. WILL DENNIS, who does his utmost to realise, to himself at least, even if others remain unconvinced, that he is a living representative of DAVID GARRICK, and, for the matter of that, so he is, for does he not represent David Garrick “as he is wrote” by Mr. ROBERT BUCHANAN, whose work, by his own admission, “has no pretensions to historical accuracy in matters of detail”?
     It is by Miss WINIFRED EMERY, as Miss Elizabeth Linley, or rather as herself playing the heroine, whether the name be Linley or any other, that the piece has to stand, even if it stand totteringly. She is strong enough to support the poor thing; and she may impart to it some of her own vitality. But what is there for her to do? Where is there scope for the actress to act? There is much vapouring, and much appealing, as it were, to the SHERIDAN tradition in order to enlist the sympathies of the public for Mr. BUCHANAN’S namby-pamby heroine? It seems to me a thankless part, which only the auctoritas of the actress can make occasionally interesting. Is there in it one really strong and telling situation dependent on the heroine alone?
     By the way, one word with Mr. WALTER HANN, whose scenery is admirable, and with Mr. HASTINGS the Stage Manager. Are Sheridan’s lodgings next door to Mr. Linley’s house? Why do I ask? Because when the curtains of the window in Miss Linley’s boudoir (Act III.) are not quite closed, the same view is distinctly visible as is seen from the window (Act II.) of Sheridan’s lodgings in London. Mr. WALTER HANN will go for a change to Hastings.
     Mr. ROBERT BUCHANAN did exceptionally well with Tom Jones and Joseph (why didn’t he call him “JOE”?) Andrews at the Vaudeville. But that was “once upon a time,” and, however well he succeeded with Tom and Joe, BOB has shown that, to use the slang of a year or so ago, now happily almost out of date, he is not “up to Dick.”
                                                                                                                        THE B IN BOX.

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The Theatre (1 March, 1894)

“DICK SHERIDAN.”

A new and original Comedy in four acts, by ROBERT BUCHANAN.
First produced at the Comedy Theatre, on Saturday evening, 3rd February, 1894.

     One may question it as history and deny it as “old comedy;” but there is no disputing that in “Dick Sheridan” Mr. Buchanan has conceived and Mr. Carr has artistically presented a whole gallery of very pretty, lively, entertaining pictures. The first few of the series plunge us into the vortex of the fashion and folly and frivolity of Bath. At the Assembly Rooms, gallants old and young, bewigged, beruffled, and berapiered, elegantly lounge and lazily quiz, flirt, and simper, and lightly tread the gavotte and the minuet. They form a page from Austin Dobson, translated into flesh and blood. And if the ladies be not in truth his “Ladies of St. James’s,” with the crowd they would pass very well for modish members of that more select assemblage.
     These pictures of the first act supply new illustrations of the old story, that the course of true love never did run smooth. Suitors three are there for the hand of the lovely Miss Linley, and Sheridan the spendthrift being the man of her choice, his suit alone is frowned on by her portly parent, a gentleman of overhanging eyebrows and Dr. Johnsonian frame. But frown as he may Miss Linley will have none of his choice, the antique fop Lord Dazzleton, nor of the dashing Captain Matthews. Title and purse cannot lend charm to the withered and wizened old peer, nor can the handsome face and passionate fervour of his younger rival blind her to the Captain’s sinister look. But since the father remains obdurate, it behoves the daughter to be compliant, and the treacherous Captain, having provided a chaise in anticipation of his being chosen as her escort to France, in her flight from her father and her home, Sheridan and she take it and elope.
     Then come pictures of the youthful author’s struggles for a hearing and for bread. His marriage with Miss Linley is unknown. She has returned to her father’s house, and awaits her husband’s success before publishing the truth. And Sheridan in his garret, devotedly tended by an old Irish tutor, starves and despairs. Till one day, Garrick, the great David Garrick, walks in with the news that “The Rivals” is a work of genius, and that he will do his utmost to get it produced at Drury Lane. Garrick, however, is a clumsy muddler as well as a very unauthoritative and unexpectedly gauche and nervous person. To enjoy a pointless little joke of his own, he has brought with him Sheridan’s worsted rival, Dazzleton, whose influence at the Lane is paramount, and who no sooner learns the identity of the author than he vows undying vengeance for the trick at Bath. But if Drury Lane won’t have the comedy Covent Garden will, and the prettiest picture of all is of Miss Linley in her boudoir on the night of its production, waiting for news of success.
     Her heart and mind are in the play-house. To her faithful little maid she can talk only of that and of him. Distractedly she paces between the moonlit window and the ruddy glowing hearth, her lovely face pallid with excitement, her slender form quivering in an agony of suspense. It must, it must be a triumph, for has she not, with a wife’s eloquence and a woman’s tears, won over the all-powerful enemy, Lord Dazzleton himself, and has he not, with a richly-gloved hand upon his battered but kindly old heart, vowed that Dick Sheridan shall be proclaimed the genius that he is? Yes, it must be a triumph. Her love transports her to the scene, and she sees and hears it all. The flashes of wit; the answering ripples of laughter, swelling to roars of delight; the resounding cheers; that great jubilant shout which stamps a play with success; the pale face of her hero smiling his gratitude before rushing to clasp his darling Betty to his heart, and tell their glad secret to the world. She sees it all, and her heart is aflame with pride and love, and—the door opens, and on the threshold, dimly seen in the deep shadow, stands her hero, humbled and broken. No need to tell the story. Failure is written upon every feature. Captain Matthews has won. To his malignity the first-night fiasco is due, and the lover’s last hope has gone. But out of evil sometimes cometh good. The Captain presses his persecution too far. Bringing Mr. Linley into his child’s room to reveal her in her lover’s arms, he draws out the crushing confession that the two shameless ones are man and wife, and the villain’s trump card is taken.
     What remains? Only the unquestioned triumph of “The Rivals” on its second performance, and the famous duel. Mr. Buchanan would be no playwright were he to neglect such a chance as history affords him of a thrilling fight between Sheridan and the Captain, and the fight we duly enjoy. It is not fought with the tigerish ferocity described by the historians. The rapiers do not snap as in “The Corsican Brothers,” and we are denied the thrill of a combat between men jabbing at one another with splinters of steel, in the beast-like spirit of Mr. Kipling’s barbarians, Torpenhow and Dick. Mr. Buchanan has tempered the fight to his shorn hero. But enough remains for pictorial purposes, and this picture of the ill-lit garret, and the white-faced men in flickering candle-light, exchanging deadly thrusts with glittering steel, is of a kind to rank high in popular esteem.
     The worst and best are said of the play in saying that it is full of pictures. Characters, of course, are but lightly touched in. There is no detail, no profundity, anywhere. Lord Dazzleton, the showiest of the set, is really two gentlemen at once—separated by a gulf. For two acts and a bit he is all fop and heartlessness, for the rest all sentiment. But Mr. Cyril Maude makes a noble jump when the chasm is reached, and with the cleverest work he has ever done lands safely on the other side. Clever, very clever, all the way through, for just one moment, a moment of sincerity, regret, and humiliation, he is a great artist. Mr. Buchanan’s Sheridan is a woeful disappointment. Either he pictures him—in his own immortal phrase—“a dull young man of saturnine proclivities”—or he is misrepresented by the actor. Sheridan was all spirit and joke and fire—the life of the rout and of the tavern. He loved a song and a glass. And was, I suggest, just such a sparkish fellow as Mr. Charles Wyndham could have shown us a dozen years ago—could show us perhaps to-day. Whereas this Dick of the Comedy is moony, morbid, almost morose. He is dull and depressing, save when outwitting an Old Jew of less philanthropic principle than Mr. Hare’s. But if the conception be faulty, there is real promise in the execution. Mr. H. B. Irving, though prone to an excess of romantic fervour, plays with genuine feeling, and in his comedy scene is curiously suggestive of his father in method and in charm.
     Miss Emery’s delicate hand finds a perfect medium in Miss Linley. Full of exquisite feeling, all that she does, says, and looks—and particularly looks, for a lovelier vision the stage never beheld—is quite enchanting, and exercises all the old and irresistible fascination of Rosamund Athelstane. Nor is the tale told yet. Mr. Brandon Thomas as an eighteenth-century Jaikes, a self-appointed body-servant with just a smattering of the classics—“O’Learyus sum, non Garrickus,” is his salutation of the great little Davy—is of inestimable value in lightening dull scenes; while the pretty impulsive girlishness of Miss Lena Ashwell, Mr. Sydney Brough’s manliness and nice conduct of a ’kerchief, hat, and sword, in a part all too slight and seldom seen, a meaning study of a knowing lady’s maid by Miss Pattie Browne—Miss Lottie Venne’s legitimate successor, and a very grim and powerful performance, finely restrained and marked by tragic passion, by Mr. Lewis Waller, the ideal Captain Matthews, are notable features of a production in which one can hardly place a finger on a weak spot. In “Dick Sheridan,” the author of “The Charlatan” has not done his best, but what is lacking in his work is more than made amends for by Mr. Carr, who has set upon the stage a dozen Orchardsons and a score of Marcus Stones, any one of which amply repays such as care for exquisite colouring and grace, and the quaint charm and dainty elegance of an artificial age.

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‘Dick Sheridan’ was also given the spoof treatment in the March, 1894 issue of The Theatre. This ‘Condensed’ version is available below:

Condensed Dramas - Dick Sheridan

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The Stage (23 August, 1894 - p.5)

     BATH—ROYAL (Lessee, Mr. William Lewis; Acting-Manager, Mr. W. D. Hawtree.)—On Monday, Mr. Robert Buchanan’s Dick Sheridan made its début in the provinces, appropriately enough opening at Bath, where the first scene is laid. The details of the Sheridan-Linley love episode were followed with the greatest interest. This became more and more pronounced as the play wore on, ensuring the performers a hearty round of applause at the close. Mr. George H. Harker makes a manly Sheridan, and is especially good with Miss Dora de Winton as Elizabeth Linley, when he comes to announce to her the failure of his play. Miss de Winton acts in a natural and unconstrained manner, making the utmost of her somewhat trying part. As O’Leary Mr. Wm. Bonney is capital, He seems cut out for the part, and his droll acting greatly contributes to the success of the piece. Mr. Henry Furnival thoroughly looks Lord Dazzleton. The exaggerated importance of the old coxcomb is simulated to a laughable degree, and his bewildered sensations when his condescending addresses are rejected by Miss Linley, Mr. Furnival seems to have realised to a nicety. Mr. Ernest Owttrim as Capt. Matthews came in for a few hisses now and then on Monday, and doubtless he would have had the satisfaction of a few more were it not that he seems hardly cut out to play the villain. His features seem scarcely reconcilable with the hardened rascality of the Captain. He has, however, studied the part well, and his acting leaves little to be desired. The ladies of fashion, Lady Miller (called “the Queen of Bath”), Lady Pamela Stirrup and Lady Shuttleworth, are respectively undertaken with credit by Miss Louise Russell, Miss Eleanor May, and Miss Jeannie Dempster. Mr. Charles Dudley gives a clever study of Abednego, the money lender, and Miss Annie Montelli certainly scores as Miss Linley’s maid. She sings a very taking old-fashioned air, which finds great favour with the audience. Mr. Leonard Robson as Sir Henry Chase, Mr. Louis Karpe as Mr. Linley, and Mr. J. Cooke Beresford as David Garrick all contribute to the success of the piece. A special word should be said for Mr. J. B. Cooke as the suave Master of Ceremonies at the Assembly Rooms. There is no incapable performer, and the minor parts are satisfactorily undertaken by Mr. Alfred Gray, Mr. John Walker, Mr. Gordon Doone, Miss Gertrude Lawrence, and Miss Ethel Garside. It should be mentioned that the handsome scene representing the Assembly Rooms was specially painted by Mr. W. D. Hobbs.

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