at the Old Vic), which took a spry and witty look at the early days of that then-nascent profession, the actress, during the Restoration. “A Laughing Matter” isn’t as accomplished as an earlier de Angelis play on the same theme, “Playhouse Creatures” (premiered by the now-defunct Peter Hall Co. And the less charismatic members of the “She Stoops” company display equally low wattage here, starting with Stephen Beresford in a trio of parts crying out for Peter Gallagher and a charmless array of turns from Christopher Staines. I could have done without “Laughing Matter’s” curtain call romp, an apparent holdover of Stafford-Clark’s guest forays into Restoration-era jollity for the RSC. (Conversely, it doesn’t help the cause of the same troupe’s production of “She Stoops” to see the onstage audience as obviously dulled by proceedings as are those of us out there in the dark.)
#She stoops to conquer 2003 series
An improbable series of deceptions and misunderstandings about characters’ identities propels the plot of She Stoops to Conquer, and at the. That adage has evidently informed - and why not? - Stafford-Clark’s staging of the show, which plays out on a richly appointed Julian McGowan set (Hogarth’s portrait of Garrick as Richard III takes pride of place) that makes room either side for boxes of actual theatergoers, whose expressions of delight spread through the house. LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in She Stoops to Conquer, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work. After all, as actor Ian Redford puts it, swiftly moving among three roles, “We that live to please must please to live.” (This from the very era that saw Garrick’s famously rewritten “King Lear,” the mad monarch given an upbeat fate.) An advocate of “emotion, not cynicism,” Garrick inhabits a world where both sometimes must surrender to expediency. One is acutely aware of this fact for much of the first act, as Goldsmith quickly fades into the background, ceding the spotlight to that showman Garrick, spearheader of his own theatrical renaissance. The contemporary play’s brio often comes at the expense of coherence, focus and even taste, as if a play very much preoccupied by the debate over pandering to a public were perfectly happy to do exactly that. These many years later, so it is again: While no one would confer the status of a classic upon de Angelis’ script, as performed by the same company as “She Stoops,” it is certainly more fun. In 1988, Stafford-Clark opened a new play, Timberlake Wertenbaker’s “Our Country’s Good,” at his then-home at the Royal Court, where the modern play ran in conjunction with a period comedy, Farquhar’s “The Recruiting Officer.” And guess what? Wertenbaker’s play eclipsed its 1706 forbear and has since asserted itself as a modern classic. Digitized image of the microfilm version produced in Woodbridge, CT by Research Publications, 1982-2002 (later known as Primary Source Microfilm, an imprint of the Gale Group).Colman’s Drury Lane rival actor-manager David Garrick (the indefatigable Jason Watkins) isn’t much more helpful, at least in contemporary playwright April de Angelis’ reimagining of events in her boisterous if messy new play, “A Laughing Matter.” Garrick has passed on “She Stoops” altogether, persuaded by his wife that Goldsmith’s play is “low.” (Sexual blackmail plays its part in Garrick’s decision, too.) Could it be that “She Stoops” isn’t any good? Not terribly likely, stammers its author: “I have examined all possibilities, and that is the least probable.”ĭe Angelis has a high old time examining the historical possibilities in a play that has reached the National alongside a repertory staging (a surprisingly dull one) of “She Stoops.” Both shows are co-productions with the Out of Joint touring company, whose a.d., Max Stafford-Clark, has done directorial duties on each.Īnd in a play jointly concerned to some extent with the workings of both history and the theater, “A Laughing Matter” repeats a recent theatrical feat. Studies in Bibliography, 11(1958), 132-42Įlectronic data. Todd, 'The first editions of The good natur'd man and She stoops to conquer'. Reproduction of original from the British Library. Variant issue with p.8 numbered and the running title reads: 'She stoops to conquer: or,'. Todd's impression 2 p.8 is not numbered and the running title reads: 'She stoops to conquer:'. Craddock is printed after p.106 (sig.P2).
The preliminary leaves have been reset in part and include a half-title. The second impression, with the pagination corrected. As it is acted at the Theatre-Royal in Covent-Garden.
She stoops to conquer: or, the mistakes of a night. Ebook version of She stoops to conquer: or, the mistakes of a night.
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