Some variations useful to him have probably arisen suddenly, or by one step; many botanists, for instance, believe that the fuller's
teazle, with its hooks, which cannot be rivalled by any mechanical contrivance, is only a variety of the wild Dipsacus; and this amount of change may have suddenly arisen in a seedling.
There used to be a
teazle place in the 1960s off Carr Pit Road.
(5) What is known is that by 1835, Jean Davenport was playing the Duke of York in Richard III and Rob Roy in a dramatic interpretation of the popular Sir Walter Scott novel; in the year that followed, her repertoire expanded to include comical male and female roles, from Sir Peter
Teazle in The School for Scandal to the deliciously-named Little Pickle from The Spoiled Child (McLean 143-144; Jordan; Ford and Bickerstaff).
She remembers the influence of Siddons and Jordan; the awkward adolescence common to actresses, in which she was 'suspended between Lady
Teazle and Tom Thumb'(135); and the backstage mishaps and comic negotiations with props and costumes.
Achurch first played Lady
Teazle (to Farren's Sir Peter
Teazle and Conway's Charles Surface) in a revival of R.
Sir Peter
Teazle and his lady, (Susannah Fielding) around whom so much of Sheridan's play revolves are good.
While the gossips are played as the caricature figures they are, Sir Peter
Teazle and Lady Sneerwell introduce touches of pathos that give the comedy depth, and Oliver's machinations have a credibility that other productions could well copy.
"We first won the race in 1787, with a horse called Sir Peter
Teazle," says Lord Derby.
The School for Scandal is understandably described by The Theatre Guide as his finest work, and Lady
Teazle's screen scene as ranking with the Malvolio letter scene in Twelfth Night as among the finest in English comedy.
I focus on this moment for its satiric energy and invention, its accumulation of ridiculous detail, but also because it instantiates the essential pattern of The School for Scandal: in every scene--from the screen scene to the portrait auction, from every exchange between Sir Peter and Lady
Teazle to every scene with Maria and the slanderers--comic dialogue is staged before a range of characters, some of whom find it entertaining and others who find it appalling and immoral.
As a combination of the two, I call you at 40 pounds and retire to hide behind the screen with Lady
Teazle. There you will find me, awaiting with shudders (delicate conventional shudders) the outcome of your interview with Mammon.