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She Stoops to Conquer − Rehearsal Insights

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She Stoops to Conquer − Rehearsal Insights She Stoops to Conquer − Rehearsal Insights Contents About..................................................................................1 What kind of comedy is She Stoops?.............................2 A play of opposites...........................................................5 Interview with Jamie Lloyd.............................................8 1 She Stoops to Conquer − Rehearsal Insights About This pack supports the National Theatre’s production of She Stoops to Conquer, directed by Jamie Lloyd, which opened on 1st February 2012 at the National’s Olivier Theatre in London. These insights were prepared during rehearsals by staff director Sam Yates. They introduce the process of creating, rehearsing and staging this play. 1 She Stoops to Conquer − Rehearsal Insights What kind of comedy is She Stoops? What kind of comedy is She Stoops? The play is not... Restoration Comedy While many believe She Stoops to Conquer to be a Restoration comedy, it was in fact written later. The Restoration generally regarded as being between the years 1660 and 1710. She Stoops was originally performed in 1773. Restoration plays are often centred around mean characters stabbing one another in the back and attacking one another with brilliant one-liners. Goldsmith wanted to write a comedy which was warm hearted and without the hard edge of plays such as Congreve’s The Way of the World or Wycherley’s The Country Wife. Sentimental Comedy This was a style of comedy that achieved some popularity with respectable middle-class audiences in the 18th century. By ‘sentimental’ here we mean the original use of the word meaning ‘indulgence in superficial emotion’, not what we have come to know it to mean (‘giving in to polite emotion, the enjoyment of being moved’). In contrast with the aristocratic cynicism of English Restoration comedy, sentimental comedy showed virtue rewarded by domestic bliss; its plots, usually involving unbelievably good middle-class couples, emphasized pathos rather than humour. Pioneered by Richard Steele in The Funeral (1701) and more fully in The Conscious Lovers (1722), it flourished in mid- century with the French comédie larmoyante (‘tearful comedy’) and in such plays as Hugh Kelly's False Delicacy (1768). It was boring, in Goldsmith’s opinion, and not very funny. The pious moralizing of this tradition, which survived into 19th-century melodrama, was strongly opposed by Sheridan and Goldsmith in the 1770s, who attempted a partial return to the comedy of manners (a comedy satirising the attitudes and behaviour of a particular social group, often of fashionable society). 2 She Stoops to Conquer − Rehearsal Insights What kind of comedy is She Stoops? The play is... Goldsmith’s main argument when writing She Stoops is that comedy at the time had become divorced from everyday life. In writing of the play, Goldsmith was himself stooping to conquer, describing that in the play’s setting there were “No high-life scenes, no sentiment, the creature still Stoops among the low to copy nature”. Horace Walpole called She Stoops “the lowest of all farces” where the drift tends to “no moral, no edification of any kind”. “Exactly”, Goldsmith might have replied. Although the play is difficult to categorise, it has elements of the following types of comedy: Event Comedy / Situation Comedy Goldsmith felt he was writing a comedy in the old style, which was light- hearted and has light intentions. In this sense, we are watching numerous ‘situations’ or ‘mistakes’ being established (Marlow and Hastings arrive at Mr Hardcastle’s House believing it to be an inn; Marlow being described as modest in front of high- class women, and impudent among lower-class women; Kate pretending to be a barmaid in order to learn about Marlow etc) and then receiving the comedic ‘payoff’ as we witness these events unfolding and the baffled misunderstandings between characters. Class Comedy / Comedy of Manners It wasn’t common in the 18th century to write about the servant and working classes. Most comedies only involved characters of the aristocracy or upper classes. In She Stoops Goldsmith satirises wealthy, fashionable society through Marlow and Hastings. These two Londoners are wealthy, educated, fashionable and privileged. When they arrive at the ‘inn’ (actually Mr Hardcastle’s house), they ridicule and persecute the ‘Innkeeper’ (actually Mr Hardcastle). They balk at the suggestion that an innkeeper could have any intellect, Marlow exclaiming “This is the first time I ever heard of an innkeeper’s philosophy’’. Similarly, Marlow is unable to speak with upper-class, well-bred women without becoming a modest, nervous wreck, but when it comes to lower class women, he is 3 She Stoops to Conquer − Rehearsal Insights What kind of comedy is She Stoops? confident, cocksure and commanding. When Kate pretends to be a barmaid, Marlow stalks her around the house, trying to kiss her, ‘hauling (her) about like a milkmaid” as he feels his class allows him full rights to this ‘lower class’ woman. On the same note, the play satirises both town and country-dwellers, and their different prejudices. This is seen in the scene between Hastings and Mrs Hardcastle, where Mrs Hardcastle who is “in love with the town” and “can only enjoy London at second hand”, is desperately trying to impress her glamorous London visitor. Hastings, unbeknown to Mrs Hardcastle, finds amusement in Mrs Hardcastle’s misunderstandings, poorly dressed wig, tasteless dress and her age. Romantic Comedy / Comedy of Errors Like Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, She Stoops has two love stories at its heart, Marlow and Kate and Hastings and Constance. Comedy emerges from the interactions between the lovers, and ultimately the feel-good factor is a result of their plights. Similarly the mistakes made are suggestive of a comedy of errors, where comedy results from mistakes and misunderstandings. One can also see similarities between Tony Lumpkin and Puck in A Midsummer Night’s Dream; both mischief makers, both well-liked by the audience, both one step ahead of all the other characters on stage. 4 SOnehe StoopsMan, Two to CGuvnorsomedy − − Rehearsal Rehearsal Insights Insights ACommedia play of opposit dell'Artees A play of opposites She Stoops to Conquer is a play of opposites: Town and country, wealthy and working classes, old and young, rich and poor, modesty (shyness) and impudence (cockiness or arrogance). In the same way, the words that the characters say are loaded with antithesis. Antithesis is the juxtaposition of contrasting ideas in balanced phrases or clauses. Take this example, when Mrs Hardcastle is trying to persuade Tony not to go to the pub that evening: MRS HARDCASTLE Pray, my dear, disappoint them for one night at least. TONY As for disappointing them, I should not so much mind; but I can’t abide to disappoint myself. Tony’s response is balanced and has a rhythm to it. Another example is when Constance is describing Marlow to Kate: MISS NEVILLE He’s a very singular character, I assure you. Among women of reputation and virtue, he is the modestest man alive; but his acquaintance give him a very different character among creatures of another stamp: you understand me. Marlow’s ‘modesty’ around ‘women of reputation and virtue’ is juxtaposed or ‘balanced’ with his ‘very different character’ around ‘creatures of another stamp’ (ie, prostitutes or lower-class women). 5 SheOne StoopsMan, Two to CGuvnorsomedy − − Rehearsal Rehearsal Insights Insights BackgroundA play of opposites Listening exercise of reherasals One of the principal ways that Goldsmith uses antithesis is to make characters almost always pick up on the phrase or word of the character speaking before them. Look at the section below. You will see where one character picks up a word or idea from the other character and then responds. It can be helpful to stress these words in order to emphasise the antithesis in the dialogue This exercise can be carried out on nearly any scene of the play. Take a section of the play and go through it to highlight the antithesis. Below is an example to get you started. Act 1 Scene 1 A Chamber in an old fashioned house Enter Mr Hardcastle and Mrs Hardcastle MRS HARDCASTLE I vow, Mr Hardcastle, you’re very particular. Is there a creature in the whole country, but ourselves, that does not take a trip to town now and then, to rub off the rust a little? There’s the two Miss Hoggs, and our neighbour, Mrs Grigsby, go to take a month’s polishing every winter. HARDCASTLE Ay, and bring back vanity and affectation to last them the whole year. I wonder why London cannot keep its own fools at home? In my time, the follies of the town crept slowly among us, but now they travel faster than a stage-coach. Its fopperies come down, not only as inside passengers, but in the very basket. MRS HARDCASTLE Ay, your times were fine times, indeed; you have been telling us of them for many a long year. Here we live in an old rambling mansion, that looks for all the world like an inn, but that we never see company. Our 6 SheOne StoopsMan, Two to CGuvnorsomedy − − Rehearsal Rehearsal Insights Insights BackgroundA play of opposites best visitors are old Mrs Oddfish, the curate’s wife, and little Cripplegate, the lame dancing-master: and all our entertainment your old stories of Prince Eugene and the Duke of Marlborough. I hate such old-fashioned trumpery. HARDCASTLE And I love it. I love everything that’s old: times, old manners, old books, old wine; and I believe, Dorothy, (taking her hand) you’ll own I have been pretty fond of an old wife. MRS HARDCASTLE Lord, Mr Hardcastle, you’re for ever at your ‘Dorothys’ and your ‘old wives’. You may be a Darby but I’ll be no Joan, I promise you.
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