Introduction


Richard Brinsley Sheridan

Was Richard Brinsley Sheridan a truly “sentimental” author? Sheridan’s heyday as a playwright (1775–1779) came amid changing sensibilities in both English culture and theater. The bawdy, rambunctious entertainment of the Restoration gave way to far more conservative drama in the eighteenth century. As a result, plays became concerned with morality and earned the title “sentimental comedies” because of the excessive emotion used to achieve moral lessons. Sheridan’s work arrived late in the sentimental period, when plays were shifting toward social satire. Although the bad are punished and the good rewarded in his work, the characters also take sharp jabs at the society in which Sheridan wrote his witty plays.

Essential Facts

  1. Sheridan was practically born into the theater. His father, Thomas, was an actor-manager at the Theatre Royal in Dublin.
  2. Sheridan’s 1775 play The Rivals almost did not become the classic it is regarded as today. Its first performance was disastrous, but when one of the key roles was recast, the play was a success.
  3. Like his father, Sheridan was also interested in the business aspect of theater (and the money that came with it). In addition to his playwriting, Sheridan was a shareholder in the Drury Lane Theatre.
  4. Another of Sheridan’s famous plays, The Critic, was not entirely original. It is based on The Rehearsal, a Restoration-era piece.
  5. Sheridan was highly active in politics. On the heels of his most famous plays, Sheridan served in Parliament for nearly three decades.