The Beaux' Stratagem is a comedy by George Farquhar, first produced at the Haymarket Theatre, London, in March 1707. Archer and Aimwell, two young gentlemen who have fallen on hard times, plan to travel through small towns, entrap young heiresses, steal their money and move on. In the first town, Lichfield, they set their sights on Dorinda. Aimwell falls truly in love, and comedy ensues. Foigard, actually an Irish priest called MacShane, is a sombre version of the stage-Irish stereotype.
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Characters
- Archer, a beau, posing as servant to Aimwell
- Aimwell, another beau
- Count Bellair, a French count
- Boniface, a Landlord
- Cherry, his daughter
- Lady Bountiful, country women, specialises in herbal medicine
- Dorinda, her daughter
- A countrywoman
- Squire Sullen, a country block-head
- Scrub, his servant
- Mrs (Kate) Sullen, his unhappy wife
- Gypsy, her servant
- Foigard, a priest and chaplain to the French officers
- Gibbet, a highwayman
- Hounslow, his associate
- Bagshot, another associate
- Sir Charles Freeman, brother to Mrs. Sullen
Plot
Aimwell and Archer are two fashionable beaux, on the lookout for an heiress to marry so they can repair their fortunes. To help their scheme, Archer poses as Aimwell's servant when they arrive in the city of Lichfield. Aimwell insinuates himself into friendship with the beautiful Dorinda, daughter of Lady Bountiful. Meanwhile, Archer strikes up an extremely worldly friendship with Kate, Dorinda's sister-in-law. She's unhappily married to Sullen, a parody of a country squire, mad for hunting and eating and (especially) drinking.
Obstacles to a happy ending include the fact that Kate's husband who despises her; that the innkeeper's saucy daughter, Cherry, has fallen in love with Archer; that Lady Bountiful mistakenly believes herself to be a great healer of the sick, and she is extremely over-protective of Dorinda's virtue; and a band of brigands plans to rob Lady Bountiful that very night.
Analysis
Aimwell and Dorinda become engaged to be married at the end of the play, in accordance with the rules of the genre, where young lovers always get married in the end. However, Farquhar uses Kate Sullen to criticise this facile outcome. She, originally rich in her own right, is trapped in a loveless marriage to a man she despises, who keeps her from the town-based society she adores. The legal system does not allow divorce based on incompatibility, and any divorce in thse times left women disgraced and penniless. The dark side to the play produced by this theme threatens to overwhelm the rest of it, and Farquhar has to resort to a deus ex machina character and an arbitrary adjustment to English law to get out of the hole he has dug for himself. Noticeably, even when Kate's separation from her husband seems an accomplished fact, the possibility of marriage never seems to cross either her or Archer's mind.
The Beaux' Stratagem is one of the last Restoration comedies, before the genre was replaced by a new style of more mannered comedy. In a few years, The Beaux' Strategem would have been considered somewhat immoral, notably Farquhar's cynicism about the charms of matrimony.
Adaptations
The Beaux' Stratagem has been adapted by Thornton Wilder and Ken Ludwig. Wilder had begun the adaptation in 1939 and never finished it; in the summer of 2004, Wilder's estate asked Ludwig to complete the adaptation. The resulting play had its world première production in November 2006 at The Shakespeare Theatre Company of Washington, D.C., directed by Michael Kahn.
Notable Productions
Royal National Theatre 1989: Stephen Dillane (spelt Dillon on the poster) as Archer; Marc Sinden and Brenda Blethyn as Squire and Mrs Sullen.
External links
- The Beaux' Stratagem at Bibliomania.com
- Project Gutenberg's text of The Beaux' Stratagem.
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