A Trip To Scarborough

by Richard Brinsley Sheridan

A Trip to Scarborough is a play written by Richard Brinsley Sheridan, a famous playwright of the 18th century. The play is a comedy that revolves around the character of Sir Anthony Absolute, a wealthy man who is in love with a young woman named Lydia Languish. However, Lydia is more interested in the idea of romance than in Sir Anthony himself, and she prefers to read romantic novels and dream of eloping with a poor but dashing hero.The action of the play takes place in Scarborough, a seaside resort town in England, where Sir Anthony and Lydia travel with their respective entourages. There, they encounter a number of colorful characters, including a group of actors who are performing a play in the town, and a young man named Captain Absolute, who is secretly in love with Lydia and is actually Sir Anthony's son in disguise.As the plot unfolds, the characters engage in a series of misunderstandings, deceptions, and romantic entanglements, leading to a final resolution in which true love triumphs and the various conflicts are resolved. Along the way, the play satirizes the conventions of romantic literature and the social mores of the time, while also providing a lively and entertaining comedy that remains popular to this day.Y. Fashion. Thou say'st true; for there's that fop now has not, by nature, wherewithal to move a cook and by the time these fellows have done with him, egad he shall melt down a Countess--but now for my reception.This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the old original and may contain some imperfections such as library marks and notations. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions, that are true to their original work.

Genres: Plays

200 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 1777

About the author

Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1751-1816) was an Irish-born playwright and poet and long-term owner of the London Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. For thirty-two years he was also a Whig Member of the British House of Commons for Stafford (1780–1806), Westminster (1806–1807) and Ilchester (1807–1812). Such was the esteem he was held in by his contemporaries when he died that he was buried at Poets' Corner in Westminster Abbey. He is known for his plays such as The Rivals, The School for Scandal and A Trip to Scarborough.

Reviews

[Matthew · Rating 3 out of 5]

A Trip to Scarborough is barely a Sheridan play at all. It is in fact a re-working of The Relapse, a bawdy comedy by John Vanbrugh. However Sheridan has removed the morally questionable material. As a result, the final play is much tamer, even by Sheridan’s standards. It is far less adventurous than The Rivals, Sheridan’s earlier play, for example.

Still if A Trip to Scarborough is hardly bawdy at all, it does preserve some of Sheridan’s trademark cynicism. The characters are not as unscrupulous as they might be, but they are still motivated by greed, want, lust and revenge. Love hardly features in the play at all, whether filial or marital. Where it does appear, it is not requited by equal fidelity from the other party.

The protagonist of the play is Tom Fashion, but he is more of an anti-hero. He arrives in Scarborough too poor to pay the poor postilion who has supported him. Fashion hopes to pump his brother Lord Foppington for money, but the selfish and grasping older sibling fully intends to hold onto his money.

Fashion can only lament the unfairness of being a younger brother, and receiving nothing. He states quite openly that he would be happy if someone killed Lord Foppington. This sentiment is echoed in Foppington, who makes it clear that he was only too pleased when his uncle died and left him the inheritance, even though this uncle was kind to him.

There is only one lingering scruple in Fashion. When his friend Colonel Townley suggests that Fashion take Lord Foppington’s place in wooing a rich heiress, Fashion is reluctant to deceitfully steal a march on his brother. This is much to the dismay of his servant Lory, whose only motive is to get his master a fortune so that Fashion can pay him.

After Foppington refuses to help Fashion, all bets are off. Fashion proceeds to turn up at the home of Sir Tunbelly Clumsey, where he poses as Foppington, and proceeds to court Sir Tunbelly’s fiery daughter, Hoyden. The plot rests on the absurd contrivance that Sir Tunbelly has agreed to allow Foppington to court his daughter without having met him.

As for Hoyden being deceived, do not worry about her too much. She is not in love with Fashion, but is simply ready to marry anyone rather than be locked away in her home by a protective father. I imagine she will not be an easy wife for Fashion either, judging by her name, and her impetuous nature.

There are possible serious themes in here about the unfairness of male primogeniture and the treatment of unmarried women, but I would not advise taking them too seriously, as I doubt that Sheridan does. They are mere plot devices.

A sub-plot involves Foppington and Townley both trying to seduce Amanda Loveless behind her husband’s back, but Amanda chooses to be faithful to her husband. Even in a bawdy comedy, we cannot hold with female unchastity in the play’s leading female character.

Alas, Amanda’s husband is not made of the same fine material. He lusts after Berinthia, a woman he saw at the theatre, who just happens to come to the house. After he deceives Amanda about his interest, Amanda agrees to let Berinthia stay in the house. To complicate matters Berinthia is in love with Townley, and decides to encourage Loveless’s attention to avenge herself on Amanda for captivating Townley, albeit unintentionally.

However Sheridan keeps matters light. We do not have to worry about the penniless Fashion lying to his future wife and betraying his brother, and we do not have to worry about the seduction of Loveless by Berinthia. Any serious moral issues are quickly sidestepped.

This is not necessarily a bad thing. The Restoration comedies have a certain vulgar energy to them, but their sexual amorality also serves to coarsen them. It is not necessary to abandon all sexual scruples to write a play about sexual matters, as Shakespeare made clear.

Still Shakespeare mostly eschewed writing about sex. There are bawdy jokes in Romeo and Juliet and Much Ado About Nothing, but the plays are not about sexual intercourse. The Merry Wives of Windsor is about sex, but the humour lies in the aversion of the wives to their suitor. Measure for Measure comes closest to being a comedy about sexual matters, but Shakespeare settles instead for a more complex study of the dangers of legislating against pre- and extra-marital sex.

Sheridan has no such themes in mind, and really this is merely a sex comedy. This makes Sheridan’s censoring of Vanbrugh’s original play less well-suited to the material, though it does remove some of Vanbrugh’s excesses.

This is not really Sheridan’s fault. He lived in age that had moved away from the sexual freedom of the Restoration and was heading towards the prudery of Victorianism. Sheridan made the change that were necessary as sops to the morality of his age.

In a way though, this is one of the features that makes A Trip to Scarborough so fascinating. The play may have its flaws, but it is an interesting barometer of changes in what was considered publicly acceptable in Sheridan’s age.