Of course, the problem with seeing the performances in the NT Live presentation is that it is a televised version of a staging on the huge Olivier Theatre-the performers have to act and orate “big” in such a cavernous space, so the impression of over-the-top effusiveness probably comes from the camera being pushed too close to cast members having to play to the rafters. Still, this is a boisterous staging that provides plenty of enjoyment-if only as an opportunity to see that such a heralded play still has legs. In terms of self-consciousness, the performers’ winks at the audience about the omnipresent silliness is generally endearing (nothing like knowing the cast is having a good time), but when Lloyd has Lumpkin all but dry hump a woman in an effort to fool his mother the modernized jokiness turns sour, at least for me. His figures should not be behavioral joke machines. Thompson’s attempts to sound like the gentry-the character strangles her vowels to near-death-are highly amusing, but it defeats Goldsmith’s determination to view his characters with humanity. Hardcastle (Sophie Thompson) is transformed into a monster of myopia. In an effort to make the material connect with audiences today, Lloyd has decided to ratchet up the script’s potential for farce, which for my taste cuts down on the play’s celebrated use of sentiment: the romance between Kate (Katherine Kelly) and Marlow (John Heffernan) comes off as thin to the vanishing point, while Mrs. Photo: Johan Persson.Īll of the script’s high-spirited hijinks are beautifully costumed and played out with vim and vigor on the lovely set of designer Mark Thompson. Goldsmith was Irish he saw the play-acting mechanics of English society but lacks the urge of his fellow countryman George Bernard Shaw to gum up the facile facades.ĭelusions of Upward Mobility - Sophie Thompson as Mrs Hardcastle in “She Stoops to Conquer.” at the National Theatre. For Marlow, Kate will continue to “act” the barmaid in the bedroom and a lady in the rest of the house. Kate plays downmarket in order to catch her man, with the implication that middle class sensibility comes down to a fusion of sexual naughtiness and surface respectability. It turns out that Marlow has a peculiar affliction when it comes to women-he is intimidated to the point of paralysis by “proper” ladies of his own class, but he is an aggressive companion to females on a lower social rung. Daughter Kate decides to accept Marlow’s vision of her as an “available” barmaid once she learns that he has come to court her. Through this device, Goldsmith rings comic variations on the wages of snootiness high and low-the inescapably provincial Mrs Hardcastle dreams absurd dreams of upward social mobility while her wastrel son, Tony Lumpkin, impatiently awaits coming of age so he can receive his inheritance and happily drink his life away with the tavern riffraff. Politeness and dunderheaded reserve defeats elemental sanity. Hardcastle, the increasingly irritated “landlord,” with the disdain reserved for the manager of a Motel Six that is not up to snuff. Two London bachelors, Hastings and Marlow, are tricked into believing a country house is an inn, treating Mr. The evening’s mayhem could be cleared up with one honest conversation. The set-up of Goldsmith’s plot invites jabs at antique conceptions of class, snobbery, and sexual stereotypes, but the dramatist is content to steep his characters in embarrassment and misunderstandings-he protects them (and the audience) from any genuine revelations or shocks. Not that you don’t miss the steely fizz of the Restoration romps. Goldsmith’s good friend, the critic Samuel Johnson, opined that he knew of “no comedy for many years that has so much exhilarated an audience, that has answered so much the great end of comedy-making an audience merry.” It is heartening to report that-driven by the lively (at times to the point of overkill) direction of Jamie Lloyd and the skills of an energetic cast-the National Theater production proves that after two centuries the play can still dole out plenty of comic delight. Historically, the play, which was a hit when it premiered in 1773, serves as a link between the Restoration’s sardonic celebrations of desire and the sentimental laughs of today’s sitcoms. One reason I wanted to take in the National Theatre production of She Stoops to Conquer, Or, The Mistakes of a Night, broadcast via NT Live, is that after three decades of theater-going I’ve never had a chance to see Oliver Goldsmith’s classic, eighteenth-century comedy. Katherine Kelly (Kate Hardcastle) and Steve Pemberton (Hardcastle) in the National Theatre’s “She Stoops to Conquer.” Photo: Johan Persson.
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