July 14, 2008
I find myself in the unusual position of wishing that a Restoration comedy had been played more broadly. Goldsmith's She Stoops to Conquer is one of the plays of confused identity so beloved by 18th century playwrights, but unlike some examples of its genre, its complications work themselves out without becoming dull to the already clued-up audience. The OUDS Summer Tour version, directed by Will Cudmore and ultimately on its way to Edinburgh, takes advantage of the play's briskness. It's a pacy, funny production, and its opulent period costuming is eye-catching. But it occasionally lacks the sort of gusto that such a stylized script requires. The play was not made unbelievable enough to be believable.
Where the production worked, it worked well. Hardcastle was played delightfully by Jonathan Tilley in a manner reminiscent of Tom Baker as Puddleglum. In the scenes in which Marlow and Hastings take him for an innkeeper, one feels unexpected sympathy with the poor old duffer, who seems wounded as much as offended by his ill treatment. The moment in which he comes onstage with the elder Marlow (Will Cudmore), the two of them ensconced in their wigs and chortling breathlessly over some terrible joke, deserved a much bigger laugh than the opening night crowd gave it.
Jonathan Fisher's mouth-breathing Tony Lumpkin got more into the spirit of caricature – hard not to, when one of your lines contains the word 'grumbletonian'. Goldsmith wrote Tony as an overgrown adolescent, and Fisher sinks to the occasion with zest. His petulance, slyness and petty malignancy towards his mother are all too familiar to anyone who has known or been a 13-year-old, and great fun to watch.
The lovers, like all lovers in any comedy ever, are in the difficult position of being inherently less interesting to watch than the clowns. Sometimes the actors seem aware of this, and it keeps them from having as much fun with their parts as they might. Tim Pleydell-Bouverie as Marlow and Robert Hoare Nairne as Hastings could have been twice as foppish and gotten away with it. Chelsea Walker as Kate likewise doesn't throw herself into her vacuous giggling as much as she might, and it becomes easy to see the actor through the character.
However, when she attempts to put on a country accent as part of her barmaid disguise, Walker's reserve vanishes, and she earns a solid laugh. Similarly, Pleydell-Bouverie plays a scene of awkward conversation with a stammering desperation that is hysterical in both senses of the word. More of this exuberance, or this willingness to be ridiculous, would have given the play some of the inner consistency it lacked.
That said, I saw the show on opening night. During the second half, the actors and the audience alike warmed up, and a number of the problems I'd had with the first half disappeared. As the plot unraveled, the scenes of chaos and confusion gained the energy that earlier scenes had sometimes lacked. In particular, the scene in which Tony convinces his mother (Louise Broadbent) that she's lost on the perilous Crackskull Common (in fact her back garden) had an engaging snappiness, and gave Broadbent a chance to exercise her remarkable powers of histrionics.
But one of my favourite moments of the night was accidental: the gurning Diggory (Brian McMahon) wordlessly corpsed Pleydell-Bouverie, and in turn himself. The audience, of course, was delighted. There's something satisfying about accidents like these when they make it clear that actors are enjoying themselves. Of all the things that could go wrong on an opening night, this one bodes well for the cast as a team. I was left with the feeling that a little later in the run, the actors will gain confidence and momentum, and unbend to conquer.
Where the production worked, it worked well. Hardcastle was played delightfully by Jonathan Tilley in a manner reminiscent of Tom Baker as Puddleglum. In the scenes in which Marlow and Hastings take him for an innkeeper, one feels unexpected sympathy with the poor old duffer, who seems wounded as much as offended by his ill treatment. The moment in which he comes onstage with the elder Marlow (Will Cudmore), the two of them ensconced in their wigs and chortling breathlessly over some terrible joke, deserved a much bigger laugh than the opening night crowd gave it.
Jonathan Fisher's mouth-breathing Tony Lumpkin got more into the spirit of caricature – hard not to, when one of your lines contains the word 'grumbletonian'. Goldsmith wrote Tony as an overgrown adolescent, and Fisher sinks to the occasion with zest. His petulance, slyness and petty malignancy towards his mother are all too familiar to anyone who has known or been a 13-year-old, and great fun to watch.
The lovers, like all lovers in any comedy ever, are in the difficult position of being inherently less interesting to watch than the clowns. Sometimes the actors seem aware of this, and it keeps them from having as much fun with their parts as they might. Tim Pleydell-Bouverie as Marlow and Robert Hoare Nairne as Hastings could have been twice as foppish and gotten away with it. Chelsea Walker as Kate likewise doesn't throw herself into her vacuous giggling as much as she might, and it becomes easy to see the actor through the character.
However, when she attempts to put on a country accent as part of her barmaid disguise, Walker's reserve vanishes, and she earns a solid laugh. Similarly, Pleydell-Bouverie plays a scene of awkward conversation with a stammering desperation that is hysterical in both senses of the word. More of this exuberance, or this willingness to be ridiculous, would have given the play some of the inner consistency it lacked.
That said, I saw the show on opening night. During the second half, the actors and the audience alike warmed up, and a number of the problems I'd had with the first half disappeared. As the plot unraveled, the scenes of chaos and confusion gained the energy that earlier scenes had sometimes lacked. In particular, the scene in which Tony convinces his mother (Louise Broadbent) that she's lost on the perilous Crackskull Common (in fact her back garden) had an engaging snappiness, and gave Broadbent a chance to exercise her remarkable powers of histrionics.
But one of my favourite moments of the night was accidental: the gurning Diggory (Brian McMahon) wordlessly corpsed Pleydell-Bouverie, and in turn himself. The audience, of course, was delighted. There's something satisfying about accidents like these when they make it clear that actors are enjoying themselves. Of all the things that could go wrong on an opening night, this one bodes well for the cast as a team. I was left with the feeling that a little later in the run, the actors will gain confidence and momentum, and unbend to conquer.