The Rivals
- Dates
- Dec 16, 2004 – Jan 23, 2005
- Performances
- 45
About
The Rivals is a five-act comedy of manners by Richard Brinsley Sheridan. first performed at the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden, London, on 17 January 1775. It was his first play. The plot concerns a young couple, Jack Absolute and Lydia Languish, and the complications of their courtship. They are finally united despite the unhelpful interventions of Jack's father, Sir Anthony, and Lydia's aunt, Mrs Malaprop, as well as two further suitors of Lydia's – a bellicose Irishman and an English country bumpkin. A sub-plot depicts another young couple – Julia Melville and her fiancé, Jack's friend, Faulkland – whose romance is disrupted by Faulkland's obsessive jealousy, but has a similarly happy ending. The best-known character in the play is Mrs Malaprop, known for her ludicrous confusion of simila...