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Wycherley mentioned to Alexander Pope that he wrote The gentleman dancing-master when he was twenty-one years old, in the year 1661-2 and the play was first staged in 1671. Genest states, "The gentleman dancing-master was the third new play acted at this theatre (the Duke's Company theatre in Dorset Gardens)." He also observed that the play "was not much liked, and was acted only six times." It was published in 1673 without a dedication or the names of the actors.
The plot is borrowed from the comedy El Maestro de Danzar by the Spanish poet Calderon. Here is a brief outline of the play.
The heroine, Leonor, is enjoying a stolen interview with her lover, Don Enrique, in an apartment of her father's house in Valencia. Leonor's maid, Ines, keeps watch outside the room while playing a guitar and singing. She later enters, saying that the guitar is so out of tune that it will attract suspicion. As Don Enrique prepares to tune it, the father, Don Diego, appears. Leonor explains that, as dancing is out of fashion at the Court but all the mode in Valencia, she had engaged a master, who had just taken up the guitar which her maid had brought him. Satisfied with this explanation, Don Diego seats himself and wishes the lesson to continue. However, Don Enrique owns, in an "aside" to his mistress, that he understands little or nothing of dancing. The lady tells her father that he must wait until she has taken a few lessons. Don Diego insists, however, and Don Enrique takes the guitar again, and, under pretence of tuning it, snaps a string. In later scenes, when the lovers are interrupted, they use similar methods to divert Don Diego's suspicions.
A sample extract of The gentle dancing-master is available on this website.
The full text can also be read online or downloaded free of charge. It is in XHTML format, like this page. Please note the file size is 209kb and it may take some time to open-up if you choose to read it online. Downloading for reading later may be the preferred option and this can be typically achieved by calling up an option box. If you have a mouse and it is configured for left click to select, right clicking the link may give you this option. Link to the full text of The gentle dancing-master.
Page created 22 November 2002 and last
updated 29 January 2003
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