Early Modern England

When doing the production of this particular play, the main goal was to express and understand the social standing of the time. Social views of this particular time period were highly expressed in the world of the theater. When watching this production,you can definitely see the social views of the time stand out. More so with the women. "The School For Scandal," defines the role and standing of women directly with the character Lady Teazle. Being a wife she is commonly, what women would think today, talked down to quite a-bit. This of course is showing the social power of men, and even though Lady Teazle often converses with wit and cleverness, the man always has a mind set of being the dominant part. The scenes between man and wife point out social standing and possibly what the writer wanted the message to be. Richard Sheridan performed social standing through witty dialog.

The expression of personal views was highly looked down upon and was expressed mostly in the world of comedy….. “If you make someone laugh, they are less likely to kill you.” (Nadine)

Comedy was a common way for artists to look into the views of social placement and meldge them into the conversations of the “coffee chats.” The artists wanted to get their thoughts across, so if you look into the relationship between Lady Teazle and Sir Peter Teazle in their scenes together, you will get a surprise in how the women of this time might have spoke toward the husband, or how they wanted to speak.

Early Modern England

The era of the Early Modern England is most important to those in the theater world. This is why we chose this witty theatrical play, “The School For Scandal.” This historical document was written by Richard Sheridan, A well known artist of its time. This was a time of conversation with a hint of sophistication. The human connection through speech was at it's highest peak. Speaking with one another was a way to show your education level as well as social level. As you will see through dialog of characters each scene contains rather strange words such as 'ill-placed,' and 'Oons!' The dialog also tends to transition into other events without a scene change like most plays you see on stage today. this essentially tells us how conversation and language were of most importance.

To truly step into the mindset of the performance of "The School For Scandal," one must understand the people who were attending the theater at this time. People were crazed about their new found love for coffee. They used this new found love as an excuse for exchanging ideas and attending the most important social event, the theater.

At the theater it was swarmed full of very wealthy and advanced citizens. In fact, drinking coffee and conversing with one another was a sport that every one took upon, along with attending the theater.

Now, to get you into the mind set of this time period and make you feel as though you are taking part in a highly sophisticated event, we have provided a very nice, delectable cup of coffee to enjoy while you watch the presentation of this play.