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Writing for CurtainUp
The Metaphors of Richard Brinsley Sheridan
By Elyse Sommer
This feature was inspired by the Pearl Theater's revival of Richard Brinsley Sheridan's most popular play, The School For Scandal, reviewed for CurtainUp by David Lipfert
Whether poetic or colloquial, simple or complex, a metaphor compares two unlike objects or ideas and illuminates the similarities between them. It accomplishes in a word or phrase what could otherwise be expressed only in many words, if at all. Aristotle declared "an eye for resemblance" to be "a sign of genius."
When Dorrie Weiss and I cast our net for the best past and present examples of metaphors for the Metaphors Dictionary , William Shakespeare, not surprisingly, headed the list of playwrights worthy of Aristotle's concept of a "master of metaphor" as someone with a natural "eye for resemblance. Richard Brinsley Sheridan, while not as prolific as the Bard in his use of imagery, nevertheless won our admiration, especially for his inventive use of names to encapsulate a character. Just look at the cast of characters in The School For Scandal
Sir Joseph Surface
Lady Teazle
Careless
Lady Sneerwell
Mrs. Candour
Snake
And, of course, that most delicious of satrically named characters, Sir Benjamin Backbite . While the term backbiting originated in the twelfth century, it was probably Sheridan's Sir Benjamin who helped to popularize its use ever since the play's instant success.
Besides actually using names like Snake, Sheridan also used the image of vipers to characterize gossips throughout the play; as an example, Sir Peter Teazle in Act 5, scene 2, declares: "Fiends! Vipers! Furies! Oh, that their own venom would choke them!"
The original presentation of The School For Scandal included a rhymed Prologue by David Garrick, (from whom he took over as manager of the Drury Lane Theater), in which Merrick followed Sheridan's example. . . 'Lord!' cries my Lady Wormwood who loves to tattle,
And puts much salt and pepper in her prattle,
Just risen at noon, all night at cards when threshing
Strong tea and scandal!--'Bless me how refreshing!
Though certainly a master of amusing and descriptive character naming, Sheridan was not alone in this practice. Dion Bouccicault, who followed in his comedic footsteps, was represented with a play filled with double entrendre names towards the end of last year's Roundabout season (London Assurance --see link below). Sheridan's famous Mrs. Malaprop (in The Rivals is a descendant of a character named Mrs. Slipslop in Joseph Fielding's novel Joseph Andrews.
Of course if Sheridan had relied on these amusing character capturing names to build his reputation, it's unlikely that The School For Scandal's popularity would have endured so long. The names serve as underpinnings for fully realized characters. Joseph Surface, while indeed all surface is in the final analysis as much sentimental knave as smooth hypocrite -- in short, hardly the villain he might appear to be. Further transcending the amusing metaphoric name-calling aside, Sheridan also studs his dialogue with vivid imagery One of my favorites is the Act 5, scene 2 image of a page of poetry likened to a meadow (by Sir Benjamin Backbite):" I think you will like them [poems] when you shall see them on a beautiful quarto page, where a neat rivulet of text shall meander through a meadow of margin." Another nature image (such images were also favored by Shakespeare) is Joseph Surface's disapproving comment to Lady Sneer " To smile at the jest which plants a thorn in another's breast is to become a principal in the mischief" (Act 1, scene 1) To which, true to her name, the lady retorts: "Psha! there's no possibility of being witty without a little ill-nature: the malice of a good thing is the barb that makes it stick"
Sheridan is also adept at spearing his characters with their own metaphoric declarations. Listen to Joseph Surface in Act 5, scene 1 feigning charity while showing himself unwilling to pay its cost : "The silver ore of pure charity is an expensive article in the catalogue of a man's good qualities, whereas the sentimental French plate I use instead of it, makes just as good a show and pays no tax." Or hear Lady Sneer, who has the sharpest serpent's tooth of all, protests her wound in Act 1, scene 1: "Wounded myself ... by the envenomed tongue of slander, I confess that I have since known no pleasure equal to the reducing others to the level of my own injured reputation."
Too bad there are not more masters of metaphors working in the theater today.
