Character guide

Sir Peter Teazle

major

Also known as Sir Peter, Peter, Sir Peter Ay, Sir Peter Sir, Sir Peter Teazle, Sir Peter Egad, Egad, Sir Peter Pshaw, Sir Peter Ah, Sir Peter Allons, Sir Peter Stay, Sir Peter Moral, Sir Peter Sly rogue, Sir Peter Wild, Sir Peter Oons, Sir Peter Grace, Sir Peter Hush, Sir Peter Ha, Sir Peter Hold, Sir Peter Peeping

Sir Peter Teazle is the aging baronet whose late marriage to a young wife has made him a fixture of the very society he distrusts. He rails against Lady Sneerwell's circle as 'coiners of scandal and clippers of reputation,' yet admits he'll 'call in, just to look after my own character,' and confesses he takes 'great satisfaction in quarrelling' with a wife who will never love him. His wounded vanity and divided loyalties make him the fulcrum on which the play's gossip, guardianship, and marital schemes all turn.

Lady Teazle

major

Also known as Lady Teazle Ay, Lady Teazle See, Lady Teazle Authority, Lady Teazle Lud, O Lud, Lady Teazle Nay, Lady Teazle No, Lady Teazle Peeping, Lady Teazle Good Mr., Lady Teazle Hem, Exit Lady Teazle, Lady Teazle's

Lady Teazle has traded rural obscurity for the drawing rooms of Lady Sneerwell, where she abuses her acquaintance 'out of pure good humour' and assumes they do the same to her. She spars daily with Sir Peter, whom she married for position and now delights in plaguing, and she has caught the flattering attention of the smooth Mr. Surface. Her wit and restlessness drive the play's central intrigue, since everyone from her husband to Joseph to Lady Sneerwell has plans for what she should become.

Joseph Surface

major

Also known as Joseph, Joseph Surface Ay, Joseph Surface Ha, Joseph Surface Ah, Joseph Surface That's, Joseph Surface Lady Sneerwell, Joseph Surface Sir, Joseph Surface Maria, Joseph Surface Hush, Joseph Surface Brother, Joseph Surface Madam, Joseph Surface Zounds, Joseph Surface Sir Peter!, Joseph Surface Egad, Joseph Surface Pshaw

Joseph Surface has built a career on being spoken well of: Sir Peter calls him a 'youthful miracle of prudence, good sense, and benevolence,' and Maria's guardian trusts him implicitly. In private he conspires with Lady Sneerwell to slander Charles and win Maria's fortune, and he lectures on virtue only to drop it the moment it costs him anything. His hypocrisy is the engine of the plot, since every reputation he protects is one he intends to spend.

Charles Surface

major

Also known as Charles, Charles Surface Ay, Charles Surface Egad, Charles Surface Pshaw, Charles Surface What, Charles Surface Right, Charles Surface Sir Peter, Charles Surface Careless, Charles Surface Rowley, Charles Surface Stanley, Charles Surface Joseph, Charles Surface Gentlemen, Charles Surface Lady Teazle

Charles Surface is the brother everyone has written off: his debts mount, his house is under execution, and he sells his ancestors' paintings with a bow and a joke. But when old Rowley arrives with the money, Charles immediately orders a hundred pounds sent to the impoverished Mr. Stanley, and he refuses to part with the one portrait he cannot bear to lose. His reckless generosity is the counterweight to Joseph's polished selfishness, and the play's moral test turns on which brother is truly worth an inheritance.

Sir Oliver Surface

major

Also known as Sir Oliver, Oliver, poor Noll, Noll, Sir Oliver Exceeding frank, Sir Oliver Egad, Sir Oliver Truly, Sir Oliver Aside, Sir Oliver Ay, Sir Oliver Mr. Moses, Sir Oliver Charles, Sir Oliver Doctor, Sir Oliver No, Sir Oliver Ha, Sir Oliver Bags, Sir Oliver Odd, Sir Oliver Hey, uncle Oliver, poor uncle Oliver

Sir Oliver Surface has spent years in the East amassing the wealth that keeps his nephews in credit, and he comes home determined to test their characters rather than trust their reputations. Posing as the needy Mr. Stanley, he listens to Joseph's polished excuses and his complaints about 'avarice, the vice of age,' then watches Charles give away money he cannot spare. His disguised visits structure the play's moral reckoning, turning a family reunion into an experiment in who is actually kind.

Lady Sneerwell

major

Also known as Lady Sneerwell Ha, Lady Sneerwell Go, Lady Sneerwell True, Lady Sneerwell Ah, Lady Sneerwell O Lud, Lady Sneerwell Ungrateful Charles, Lady Sneerwell Impossible, Lady Sneerwell Heavens, Lady Sneerwell Pshaw, Lady Sneerwell Though, Lady Sneerwell Sir Peter, Lady Sneerwell Poor Charles, Lady Sneerwell Maria, Sneerwell, Exit Lady Sneerwell

Lady Sneerwell presides over the play's gossip economy, boasting that she can 'do more with a word or look' than others manage with laborious detail, and admitting she takes no pleasure equal to 'reducing others to the level of my own reputation.' Wounded by slander in her youth, she now schemes with the hypocrite Joseph Surface to separate Charles from Maria — not for Joseph's sake, but because she wants Charles herself. Her malice is the play's weather: everyone else merely lives in it.

Crabtree

supporting

Also known as Crabtree That, old Crabtree, Crabtree There, Crabtree Who, Crabtree Sir Peter, Crabtree O Lud, Crabtree Nay, Crabtree Austrian, Mr. Crabtree

Crabtree haunts Lady Sneerwell's circle as the school's most tireless inventor, forever arriving breathless with fresh particulars of Sir Peter's duel or some other catastrophe he has half-heard and wholly embellished. His running battle with Sir Benjamin over who gets to tell the story—'Odds life, nephew, allow others to know something too!'—makes him both comic engine and caution: in this world, a rumor needs no author, only an eager tongue. His inventions feed the very suspicions that drive the play's central misunderstandings.

Sir Benjamin Backbite

supporting

Also known as Sir Benjamin, Benjamin, Backbite, dear Sir Benjamin, Sir Benjamin Gad, Sir Benjamin O Lud, Sir Benjamin Hey, Sir Benjamin Ay, Sir Benjamin Dutch, Sir Benjamin No, Sir Benjamin Mr. Surface

Sir Benjamin moves through Lady Sneerwell's salon as both suitor to Maria and licensed wit, his malice dressed in the polished verse he composes for the company. He and his uncle Crabtree compete to narrate the same rumor, each embellishing where the other left off, so that truth is buried under two versions of the same lie. His pursuit of Maria and his readiness to blacken Charles's name make him a useful instrument for Joseph's schemes, whether or not he understands whose game he is playing.

Mrs. Candour

supporting

Also known as Candour, Mrs. Candour Impossible, Mrs. Candour Well, Mrs. Candour O dear, Mrs. Candour Ha, Mrs. Candour Nay, Mrs. Candour Truly, Mrs. Candour Though, Mrs. Candour Sir Peter, Exit Mrs. Candour

Mrs. Candour arrives at Lady Sneerwell's with protestations of good nature and a fresh crop of stories—Miss Gadabout's elopement, Mrs. Festino's affair—each offered as something she would never repeat if it were not her duty to warn. Maria sees through her instantly: her affected benevolence does 'more mischief than the direct malice of old Crabtree.' She is the play's clearest portrait of scandal as a social performance, and her chatter helps circulate the lies that entangle Sir Peter, Lady Teazle, and the Surface brothers.

Rowley

supporting

Also known as old Rowley, honest Rowley, Rowley Below, Rowley Oh, Rowley Here, Rowley Mr. Surface, Rowley Certainly, Rowley Sir Oliver, Rowley Nay, Rowley Ay, Master Rowley

Rowley serves as Sir Oliver's guide and confidant, arranging the disguises by which the old uncle will test his nephews and gently puncturing Sir Peter's faith in Joseph's benevolence—'Charity begins at home,' he observes, and suspects Joseph's never stirs abroad. He moves between households, carrying messages and managing the plots that will expose hypocrisy and reward sincerity. Without his steady hand and honest tongue, Sir Oliver's scheme to judge his heirs would have no shape at all.

Moses

supporting

Also known as honest Moses, Moses Ay, Moses Mr. Premium, little Moses, Moses None, Master Moses, Enter Moses

Moses is the practical man of the play's financial underworld, coaching Sir Oliver through the mechanics of extortion—forty or fifty percent, or double if the borrower is desperate—with the calm of a man who has seen every kind of ruin. His matter-of-fact instruction in the trade of lending is one of Sheridan's driest jokes, and it sets up the visit to Charles that will reveal the younger Surface's real character. He is a small part, but his scenes give the play its sharpest glimpse of the money that underwrites the world of fashion.

Snake

supporting

Also known as Mr. Snake, Snake True, Snake No, Exit Snake

Snake opens the play at Lady Sneerwell's dressing table, having copied scandalous paragraphs in a feigned hand and set the machinery of slander in motion. He is her confidant and accomplice, listening as she confesses her design to destroy Charles and Maria's attachment out of her own thwarted passion. His readiness to serve any master who pays makes him a walking reminder that in this world reputation is a commodity, and that the scandalmongers' weapons can always be bought back.

Maria

supporting

Also known as Molly Seagrim, Exit Maria, Enter Maria, Maria Lady Teazle

Maria moves through Lady Sneerwell's circle as the one young woman who refuses to trade in other people's reputations, and her composure under Mrs. Candour's prying makes her the play's moral counterweight. She is caught between the Surface brothers' competing suits and the relentless public chatter about her broken engagement to Charles, a pressure she meets with dry, deflating wit rather than tears. Her presence forces the audience to measure every schemer around her against a standard of plain decency, and her choices quietly shape which brother the plot will reward.

Servant

minor

Also known as Servants, Servant Mr. Surface, Servant Mr. Crabtree, Servant Lady Sneerwell, Exit Servant, Reenter Servant, my master, My master

Generic household servants who deliver messages and announce visitors.

Careless

minor

Also known as Careless Ay, Careless Returning, Careless Nay

A friend of Charles Surface, a carefree and witty gentleman who helps with the auction.

Trip

minor

Also known as Mr. Trip

The fashionable and impertinent servant of Joseph Surface.

Mr. Premium

minor

Also known as little Premium, Master Premium

The alias used by Sir Oliver Surface when he visits Charles disguised as a moneylender.

Sir Harry Bumper

minor

Also known as Sir Harry, Harry, Sir Harry Egad, Sir Harry Maria, Exeunt Sir Harry Bumper

A jovial, drinking companion of Charles Surface who sings bawdy songs.

Lady Teazle's Maid

minor

Also known as Deborah

A maid in Lady Teazle's household, briefly mentioned.

Mrs. Evergreen

minor

An elderly society lady mentioned in gossip, still pursuing romantic intrigues.

Miss Piper

minor

Also known as Miss Letitia Piper

A young lady mentioned in the scandalous gossip of the characters.

Mrs. Clackitt

minor

A gossipy woman mentioned as part of the scandal-mongering circle.

Lady Betty Curricle

minor

A fashionable young widow mentioned in the gossip of the play.

Miss Sallow

minor

A plain young lady mentioned in the context of marriage gossip.

Lady Stucco

minor

A society lady mentioned in passing by the gossips.

Miss Simper

minor

A young lady mentioned in the scandalous conversation of the characters.

Ogle

minor

A character mentioned in the gossip about Lady Teazle's conduct.

Sir Tivy Terrier

minor

A gentleman mentioned in the context of a duel or scandal.

Lord Buffalo

minor

A nobleman mentioned in the gossip of the play.

Sir Thomas Splint

minor

Also known as Tom

A gentleman mentioned in passing by the characters.

Sir Richard Raveline

minor

Also known as Richard

A character mentioned in the context of military or social gossip.

Brush

minor

A servant or minor character mentioned in the play.

Sophy

minor

A young woman mentioned in a letter or conversation.

Jenny

minor

A maid or young woman mentioned in the play.

William

minor

A servant or minor character mentioned in the play.

Jonathon

minor

A servant or minor character mentioned in the play.

Nicely

minor

A minor character mentioned in the play.