The Contrast October 29, 2009

The Metropolitan Playhouse presents a revival of 'The Contrast,' by Royall Tyler which, in 1787, was the first play by an American author to be produced in the new United States. The immediate aftermath of the Revolution, 'The Contrast' is a comic staging of the moral and social distinctions between the new American and the corrupt European. Part call to virtue, part cautionary tale, the play is all comic satire. Sentimental Maria Van Rough is betrothed from her childhood to Billy Dimple, who has returned from Europe a foppish lothario. Loathing Billy's affectations, but bound by her duty, Maria's quandary is complicated when she falls in love with the earnest soldier Henry Manly. Tangling and untangling the dilemma on the way to a (mostly) happy resolution are calculating belles Charlotte and Letitia, scheming servant Jessamy, naive rube Jonathan, and the boorish old Van Rough himself.