SHE STOOPS TO CONQUER
SHE STOOPS TO CONQUER
There is no better way to battle fifth week blues than a garden play, especially when set against the picturesque New College cloisters as the sun goes down behind you. Neither is the mood too taxing, the genre being a light-hearted pastiche of Restoration comedy that revels in its own melodrama.
First produced in 1773, She Stoops to Conquer, produced and directed by Katy Jones and Hugh Trimble respectively, is perfectly in-chime with what was later to become Austen’s world of scheming, deception, and (oh, dare we utter it?) sex. Oliver Goldsmith’s dialogue explores “the difference between jest and earnest” through the pentup pretentiousness of the Hardcastle household, plagued by the problems of match-making with a twist • mothers.
Lucy White bears the hair-raising smile of a calculative cricket-mum admirably, perfectly enervating as she beams at the brashness of her unmannered son, Tony Lumpkin. The two maids in search of love, played by Daisy Fox and Georgia Hicks, make their conniving flow with the ease of genuine girls’ gabble (if there be such a thing); Miss Neville (Hicks) exemplary in her coquetry. At times her lover Mr.
Hastings (Jack Woods) threatened to become flat in his delivery, but he eventually eased into his cringingly obsequious applications for the favour of Mrs Hardcastle. A special mention must go to the rambunctious old Mr Hardcastle; Ali Stark brings the foppishly affected “talking of Generalship” and “love of old fashioned trumpery” to life as he cavorts in the recognisable guise of the scene.
Thus the meta-theatricality of the play is given due emphasis, the audience made painfully aware of its superficiality and the scathing satire it thereby enounces. Hugh Trimble has kept the set to a minimum, allowing the ridiculousness of the characters to become the sole focus; with 1930s Gatsby costumes to match.
The cast manage to capture the unique appeal of Goldsmith’s play with their performances, effortlessly fusing the ‘larger-than-life’ Dickensian caricatures with the wit and fluidity of vibrant comedy demands. Look forward to sitting back, Pimms in hand, and being conquered.
19th May 2005