What is the main conflict in The Rivals by Richard Brinsley Sheridan?

The Rivals, a comedy in five acts, established Richard Brinsley Sheridan's reputation in the London theatre in 1775. When the first performance was not well received, Sheridan cut it by an hour, strengthened the idiosyncratic characters, and produced the new version in a highly successful second performance that proved his merit as a great comic playwright. The Rivals is one of a small handful of eighteenth-century plays that continues to be produced to this day. While the plot is complex, the characters are stock comic caricatures of human folly, aptly named.