Theatre Crit - Comedy
‘She Stoops to Conquer’
by
Oliver Goldsmith
‘She Stoops to Conquer’ by Oliver Goldsmith was preformed at the Everyman theatre in Cheltenham by the National Theatre, touring company on the 7th of November 2002.
‘She Stoops to Conquer’ is a comedy of manners set in the 1770’s. Kate Hardcastle stoops to play the part of a barmaid to encourage her suitor. During his stay many tricks are played including the disguise of Mr Hardcastle’s house as an inn. The aims of the play are to show that marriage should be based on love not arrangements, to show that the ordinary things in life are the most important and to show that country folk may have better qualities than townspeople.
In ‘She Stoops to Conquer’ there are many ways in which comedy is created, these include, tricks and deceits, disguises, peculiarities of character, the yokles (servants) and wit.
Many tricks are played in ‘She Stoops to Conquer’ which makes the audience laugh as the audience always knows when a trick is being played. The trick that starts the play off is in the Pub where Tony Lumpkin gives Marlow and Hastings very complicated directions to Mr Hardcastle’s house which he says is an inn. The audience giggles at this because they have already seen the house and know that it is not an inn. When Marlow and Hastings arrive at the ‘inn,’ the audience laughs at the way Mr Hardcastle is treated as a landlord/servant by Marlow and Hastings, they give him their boots and demand to see a menu. During this Mr Hardcastle becomes more and more confused which is also rather funny. The audience knows all the way through the play that Mrs Hardcastle wants Tony and Connie to get married but the audience knows that neither Tony nor Connie love each other and have no intention to marry, but so that Mrs Hardcastle stays happy Tony and Connie trick her into thinking that they really love each other. The audience thinks that the difference between their actions and their words of love is quite funny so laugh again; the fact that Mrs Hardcastle has no idea of the trick also makes the audience laugh even more. Near the end of the play there is a very funny scene in which Tony’s master plan is put into action. Tony told his mother (Mrs Hardcastle) that they were lost on the way home from taking Connie away and Mrs Hardcastle believes him but they are actually in the garden of their house. The set design also makes this scene funny as there is a bull’s head sticking through the bushes, which frightens Mrs Hardcastle; Mrs Hardcastles fear makes the audience laugh because we know what the head is. The audience also laughs when Mr Hardcastle enters the scene the audience laughs because Mrs Hardcastle does not recognise him and throws herself at his feet and begs him to save her. The funniest part of this scene is when Mrs Hardcastle falls into the pond and she ends up soaked. All the tricks in the play make the audience laugh and add to the comedy because the audience always knows the truth. Tony then plays another deceitful trick when he tells Mrs Hardcastle to pretend that the jewels have been taken, which we know they have. We laugh at her panic as she realises this, and find it even more amusing when Tony pretends to be playing along with it. The funniest part of the jewels trick though is the way it backfires; they are passed from one person to another before ending up with Mrs Hardcastle again.
