William Wycherley: The Gentleman Dancing-Master (1672)

Hippolita, Mrs Caution and Monsieur

[Image source: https://theatricalia.com/play/cwm/the-gentleman-dancing-master/production/s37 . From a 1961 production of The Gentleman Dancing-Master at the Pembroke Theatre, Croydon, directed by James Gillhouley. Hippolita was played by Hazel Penwarden, Mrs Caution by Athene Seyler, and Monsieur by Ronald Falk.]

William Wycherley was in Madrid on embassy duty from February 1664 to March 1665, and it was surely here that he saw or read the Calderón plays that underlie the first two of his own plays. (Both Calderón plays were included in the Tercera parte de comedias, published in August 1664.)

Love in a Wood based its "high" plot (the one about Christina and Valentine) on Mañanas de abril y mayo.

The Gentleman Dancing-Master, Wycherley's second play, takes the basic situation from Calderón's El maestro de danzar, written in the early1650s: a girl, surprised with her lover by her father, passes him off as her dancing-master. Calderón, maybe intending a tribute, adopted the title and the situation from a comedy by Lope de Vega, written back in 1594. That's how far back Mr Gerrard's breaking of the strings goes; though the actual instrument changed from vihuela (Lope) to guitarra (Calderón) to fiddle (Wycherley). 

In some small ways Wycherley's treatment unconsciously restored lopesca elements such as coarser comedy and eroticism. However the author that most often comes to mind when reading The Gentleman Dancing-Master is Molière -- but the Molière of the skits and entertainments rather than the masterpieces. 

The Gentleman Dancing-Master is largely farcical in nature, delighting in a sequence of extended routines. It was evidently designed to showcase the comedy talents of James Nokes (Monsieur) and Edward Angel (Don Diego), but there's plenty of opportunities for the other actors too; think of the maid Prue's attempts to stir an insensible Monsieur (Act IV), or Flirt's punitively comprehensive mistress-contract (Act V). 

Calderón's play is entertaining but is not very hilarious,  a rather high-toned romantic drama in which violence threatens but honour is finally preserved, jealousy dispelled and love triumphant. Though it's titled El maestro de danzar, the dancing-master situation only occupies part of Act II.

Wycherley picks on this small part of Calderón's play and magnifies it into a screwball comedy, an extended caper on the edge of detection.

Among his more important transformations: Calderón's Enrique and Leonor are devoted and secretly engaged lovers. Wycherley's Hippolita and Gerrard, on the other hand, have literally just met. Hippolita has just 24 hours to find a way of not marrying her idiotic cousin "Monsieur", who's so obsessed with French manners and dress that he even speaks in a fake French accent. She thinks the best way is to get married to someone else, but she doesn't know anyone else, so she dangles a carrot to lure the unknown Mr Gerrard to the house. There is instant mutual attraction, but they don't know anything about each other and aren't fully committed. At this juncture having to improvise being dancing-master and pupil is no easy matter, and one of Wycherley's most blissful ideas is to make Gerrard particularly bad at it. He's handsome, gentlemanly, ready enough for swordplay or breaking windows, but he cannot dance, sing or play, and is not even much good at lying; Hippolita has to do all the work. It's a thoroughly feeble performance, but happily he's up against two of the world's worst interrogators. 

Don Diego. None but thee, ladron! and thou diest for't. [Fight.

Mrs. Caution. Oh! oh! oh!—help! help! help!

Hippolita. O—what, will you kill my poor dancing-master? [Kneels.
Don Diego. A dancing-master! he's a fencing-master rather, I think. But is he your dancing-master? umph—
Gerrard. So much wit and innocency were never together before. [Aside.
Don Diego. Is he a dancing-master? [Pausing.
Mrs. Caution. Is he a dancing-master? He does not look like a dancing-master.
Hippolita. Pish!—you don't know a dancing-master: you have not seen one these threescore years, I warrant.
Mrs. Caution. No matter: but he does not look like a dancing-master.

Don Diego. Nay, nay, dancing-masters look like gentlemen enough, sister: but he's no dancing-master, by drawing a sword so briskly. Those tripping outsides of gentlemen are like gentlemen enough in everything but in drawing a sword; and since he is a gentleman, he shall die by mine. [They fight again.
Hippolita. Oh! hold! hold!

Mrs. Caution. Hold! hold!—Pray, brother, let's talk with him a little first; I warrant you I shall trap him; and if he confesses, you may kill him; but those that confess, they say, ought to be hanged—Let's see—
Gerrard. Poor Hippolita! I wish I had not had this occasion of admiring thy wit; I have increased my love, whilst I have lost my hopes; the common fate of poor lovers. [Aside.
Mrs. Caution. Come, you are guilty, by that hanging down of your head. Speak: are you a dancing-master? Speak, speak; a dancing-master?
Gerrard. Yes, forsooth, I am a dancing-master; ay, ay—
Don Diego. How does it appear?
Hippolita. Why, there is his fiddle, there
upon the table, father.
Mrs. Caution. No, busybody, but it is not:—that is my nephew's fiddle.
Hippolita. Why, he lent it to my cousin: I tell you it is his.
Mrs. Caution. Nay, it may be, indeed; he might lend it to him for aught I know.
Don Diego. Ay, ay: but ask him, sister, if he be a dancing-master, where.

Mrs. Caution. Pray, brother, let me alone with him, I know what to ask him, sure.
Don Diego. What, will you be wiser than I? nay, then stand away. Come, if you are a dancing-master, where's your school? Donde? donde?
Mrs. Caution. Why, he'll say, may be, he has ne'er a one.
Don Diego. Who asked you, nimble chaps? So you have put an excuse in his head.

Gerrard. Indeed, sir, 'tis no excuse: I have no school.
Mrs. Caution. Well; but who sent you? how came you hither?
Gerrard. There I am puzzled indeed. [Aside.

Mrs. Caution. How came you hither, I say? how—
Gerrard. Why, how, how should I come hither?
Don Diego. Ay, how should he come hither? Upon his legs.
Mrs. Caution. So, so! now you have put an excuse in his head too, that you have, so you have; but stay—
Don Diego. Nay, with your favour, mistress, I'll ask him now.
Mrs. Caution. Y'facks, but you shan't! I'll ask him, and ask you no favour, that I will.
Don Diego. Y'fackins, but you shan't ask him! if you go there too, look you, you prattle-box you, I'll ask him.
Mrs. Caution. I will ask him, I say!—come!
Don Diego. Where?
Mrs. Caution. What!
Don Diego. Mine's a shrewd question.
Mrs. Caution. Mine's as shrewd as yours.
Don Diego. Nay, then, we shall have it.—Come, answer me; where's your lodging? come, come, sir.
Mrs. Caution. A shrewd question, indeed! at the Surgeons'-arms, I warrant you; for 'tis spring-time, you know.
Don Diego. Must you make lies for him?
Mrs. Caution. But come, sir; what's your name?—answer me to that; come.
Don Diego. His name! why, 'tis an easy matter to tell you a false name, I hope.
Mrs. Caution. So! must you teach him to cheat us?
Don Diego. Why did you say my questions were not shrewd questions, then?
Mrs. Caution. And why would you not let me ask him the question, then? ....

(From Act II Scene 2.)

Full online text of The Gentleman Dancing-Master (in W.C. Ward's 1888 edition of Wycherley's plays):

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/55426/55426-h/55426-h.htm .

Hippolita and Prue

[Image source: https://www.michelevazquez.com/directors-gallery-1/the-gentleman-dancing-master . From a 2005 production of The Gentleman Dancing-Master by the Pearl Theatre Company, New York, directed by Gus Kaikkonnen. Hippolita was played by Marsha Stephanie Blake, Prue by Michele Vazquez.]

The father in both plays is called Don Diego, but it makes a great deal of difference that Calderón's Don Diego is presented as a fairly typical Spanish father of the time, unemphatically protective of his daughter's honour, whereas Wycherley's "Don Diego" isn't Spanish at all, but just an Englishman who's nuts about all things Spanish and goes to ridiculous lengths to behave like a Spaniard; his extreme haughtiness, readiness to take offence and virtual imprisonment of his daughter are all poses. 

Both plays end with their Don Diegos resigning themselves (without very much struggle) to their daughters' choices. In Calderón it's because the young man is serious nobility; in Wycherley it's because it's too late, the couple already got married. Wycherley's Don Diego tries to pretend that he knew what was going on the whole time. It's a lie, but it expresses a deeper truth. In this play where not only the actors but all the main characters know they are performing, we find ourselves basking in a world that's detached from real consequences. We always suspected (didn't we?) that Don Diego and even Mrs Caution were at some level quite amenable to this so-called dancing-master. The more ramshackle Hippolita's contrivance appears, the more it seems to be hanging by a thread, the more we feel assured that everything is going to work out just fine.

Don Diego and Prue

[Image source: https://www.michelevazquez.com/directors-gallery-1/the-gentleman-dancing-master . From a 2005 production by the Pearl Theatre Company, New York, directed by Gus Kaikkonnen. Don Diego was played by Dan Daily, Prue by Michele Vazquez.]

Hippolita and Monsieur 

[Image source: http://www.guskaikkonen.com/more-direction2.html . From a 2005 production by the Pearl Theatre Company, New York, directed by Gus Kaikkonnen. Hippolita was played by Marsha Stephanie Blake, Monsieur by Sean McNall.]

Hippolita

[Image source: https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O86954/catherine-feller-as-hippolita-in-caricature-sommerlad-gilbert/ . A caricature by Gilbert Sommerlad showing Catherine Feller as Hippolita in a 1963 Oxford New Theatre production.]

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Sir Malcolm Arnold's The Dancing Master (Op. 34) is a one-act opera based on Wycherley's play, composed in 1951-1952. The libretto was by Joe Mendoza. It was intended for television but was rejected as being too racy. There was a concert performance in 1962, a semi-staged performance in 2012, and fully-staged performances in 2015 and 2021. 

Here's the thrilling Berlioz-like introduction, in a performance by the BBC Concert Orchestra conducted by John Andrews:

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Useful on the Spanish background:

Nora Rodríguez Loro, "Calderón and Wycherley’s Dancing-Masters", in English and American Studies in Spain: New Developments and Trends (Universidad de Alcalá, 2015), pp. 136-143 [PDF].

Daniel Fernández Rodríguez, "Tradición y reescritura : 'El maestro de danzar', de Lope a Calderón", Dicenda : Cuaderno de filología hispánica vol 36 (2018), pp 191-207. [PDF]

As yet there's no adequate online text of Calderón's El maestro de danzar. You can read a scanned version, with difficulty, here:

https://www.cervantesvirtual.com/obra/comedia-famosa-el-maestro-de-danzar-3/

Lope de Vega's El maestro de danzar (scanned version):

https://www.cervantesvirtual.com/obra/el-maestro-de-danzar/

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Another post, on Wycherley's Love in a Wood:

https://michaelpeverett.blogspot.com/2024/05/william-wycherley-love-in-wood-1671.html