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Married Life: A Comedy, in Three Acts

Chapter 3: DRAMATIS PERSONÆ.
By John Baldwin Buckstone
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About This Book

A three-act comedy follows several married couples through a series of misunderstandings, jealousies, and domestic quarrels that expose the foibles of conjugal life. Scenes move between private apartments, a drawing room, and a boarding house as characters negotiate gossip, imagined infidelities, and social pretensions; comic reversals and mistaken assumptions escalate tensions before reconciliations and social lessons are reached. The tone balances satire of marital manners with farcical situations and witty exchanges, using stock character types to critique vanity, jealousy, and the performative aspects of polite society.

MARRIED LIFE

Dedication

DRAMATIS PERSONÆ.

ACT I.

SCENE I. An apartment at the house of MR. LYNX

ACT II.

SCENE I. An Apartment in the house of MR. CODDLE

SCENE II.—A room at LYNX’S

SCENE III.—A Drawing Room

ACT III.

SCENE I.—A meanly furnished room

SCENE II.—A Room at a Boarding House

SCENE III.—A Gallery in the Boarding House

Transcriber’s Note

MARRIED LIFE;

 
A COMEDY,
IN THREE ACTS.

BY
JOHN BALDWIN BUCKSTONE.

PERFORMED AT
THE THEATRE ROYAL, HAYMARKET.

LONDON:

WILLIAM STRANGE, PATERNOSTER ROW.

1834.




G. COWIE, PRINTER
13, NEWCASTLE STREET, STRAND.

The Comedy of “MARRIED LIFE” is entirely original—if the being unassisted by either anecdote, tale, ballad, biography, or any other resource constitutes entire originality.—Yet, as some of the couples, especially MR. and MRS. CODDLE, and MR. and MRS. DOVE, have been “sketched from the life,” the important question of originality is still open to much disquisition.

TO WILLIAM FARREN, ESQ.

MY DEAR SIR,
      Allow me to dedicate this Comedy to you, as some little token of my very great admiration of your talents. It is a very common cant to allow of no existing excellence, and refer only to the past for instances of genius! In Dramatic matters, this cant has been particularly cherished; but, with reference to yourself, it may be presumed that were a playgoer of Cibber’s time now in existence, he would be puzzled, with all his fond recollections, to name few, if any, by-gone artistes who could have borne away one feather from your well-filled cap of fame. And truly the actor of the UNCLES FOOZLE and JOHN—of the Lawyers GROTIUS and FLAM—of the wily STEWARD—of the cold and crafty Diplomatist, COUNT BERTRAND—of the physically cold SAMUEL CODDLE—the excellent and kind-hearted MICHEL PERRIN—of the warlike CHARLES THE TWELFTH—of SIR PETER and OGLEBY—and fifty other triumphant assumptions, must possess a feathered coronet of no ordinary dimensions. With a hundred thanks for your great attention to every humble effort of mine, in which you have been concerned, and for the anxiety that you have always shewn for my success, permit me to wish you many years of health and strength, that the stage may long be enabled to name you with pride and pleasure as one of its greatest ornaments.

Yours very truly,

JOHN BALDWIN BUCKSTONE.

August 25, 1834.

DRAMATIS PERSONÆ.

Mr. Samuel Coddle    Mr. W. FARREN.
Mrs. Samuel Coddle    Mrs. GLOVER.
Mr. Lionel Lynx    Mr. VINING.
Mrs. Lionel Lynx    Mrs. FAUCIT.
Mr. Henry Dove    Mr. BUCKSTONE.
Mrs. Henry Dove    Mrs. W. CLIFFORD.
Mr. Frederick Younghusband    Mr. BRINDAL.
Mrs. Frederick Younghusband    Mrs. HUMBY.
Mr. George Dismal    Mr. STRICKLAND.
Mrs. George Dismal    Mrs. TAYLEURE.

This comedy was first produced on the 20th of August, 1834.