A play in five acts. This edition comes with a Preface, by the author, and two Prologues and an Epilogue. It was Sheridan's first play, staged in 1775.
The main characters are Lydia Languish and Captain Absolute, aka Ensign Beverly. Second in importance are Julia, Lydia's cousin, and Faulkland, Captain Absolute's friend.
Captain Absolute is in love with Lydia. But apparently Lydia has a romantic fantasy of an illict lover and subsequent elopement. Catering to her fantasy, Captain Absolute becomes Ensign Beverly, a young man of little means and wholely unacceptable to her family and with the promise of defiance to Julia's family and an exciting elopement.
Meanwhile, there is Lydia's cousin, Julia, who is engaged to be married to Faulkland. However, Faulkland seems to be unable to accept that Julia truly loves him and is constantly testing her love to see if it is genuine. Which ultimately leads to romantic disaster.
Back to the Captain, disguised as Beverly, who finds his romantic pursuit blows up in his face when Lydia learns he is not a penniless nobody, but a man of wealth and of good family. All her silly dreams of a runaway marriage dissolve and she is left feeling duped and resentful.
Throw in a couple duels, a cowardly country rube and an unreasonably angry Irishman, and a couple of confounded parental types, and you have a screwball comedy that was probably considered hilarious in its day. I watched a stage performance of the play on YouTube and the laughs were few and far between. Mildly amusing at the most.
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