SOURCE: “‘Future Retrospection’: Rereading Sheridan's Reviewers,” in Sheridan Studies, edited by James Morwood and David Crane, Cambridge University Press, 1995, pp. 47-57.

In the following essay, Taylor examines early critical reaction to Sheridan's satirical drama The Rivals.

The withdrawal of The Rivals after a disastrous opening performance at Covent Garden on 17 January 1775 is a well-established part of theatrical lore: a combination of sloppy acting and miscasting doomed the initial staging, and eleven days and some quick rewriting and recasting later, the play was successfully remounted, and it held the stage for fifteen nights. Since then it has become a mainstay of theatrical repertories, one of a handful of works representing the sprawling and diverse field of eighteenth-century theatre.

The responses of London newspaper critics to the first production suggest another possible reason for the initial failure of The Rivals: Sheridan had written a self-consciously novel play, one that set...