SOURCE: Gravitt, G. Jack. “The Modernity of The Rehearsal: Buckingham's Theatre of the Absurd.” College Literature 9, no. 1 (winter 1982): 30-8.

In the following essay, Gravitt suggests that The Rehearsal still appeals to modern readers because of its similarity to twentieth-century Theatre of the Absurd.

It is hardly a matter for dispute that George Villiers, second Duke of Buckingham, and his collaborators used The Rehearsal to satirize the great heroic dramatist John Dryden, and the genre of heroic drama itself.¹ In recent demonstrations of the play's satiric intent and devices, Peter Lewis tells us, “The Rehearsal is the archetype of most later Restoration and Augustan dramatic burlesques”; and Robert F. Willson, Jr., concurs, calling it a “witty and delightful act of ridicule.” George McFadden has added much new and useful information as to the political satire implicit in The Rehearsal, but it is Sheridan Baker who deals with what makes...