Reviews 2003
Reviews 2003
✭✭✩✩✩
by Oliver Goldsmith, directed by Albert Schultz
Soulpepper Theatre Company, du Maurier Theatre Centre, Toronto
September 2-27, 2003
Soulpepper's first foray into 18th-century comedy is a tepid affair. Lacklustre performances from most of the cast and superficial direction rob one of the best-loved comedies in the English language of the big-hearted warmth and gentle wisdom it ought to have.
The key to Oliver Goldsmith's She Stoops to Conquer (1773) is its satire of British class distinctions. Two gentlemen, Charles Marlowe (Stuart Hughes) and his friend George Hastings (Jordan Pettle), mistake the Hardcastle's old mansion for a country inn and treat Mr. Hardcastle (Oliver Dennis) as the innkeeper and his wife (Fiona Reid) as the landlady. Charles's peculiarity is to be shy among women of his own class but forward with lower class females. The Hardcastles' daughter Kate (Patricia Fagan) perceives this and, as the title suggests, plays the low class role of a barmaid to win the love of Charles, the man her parents have planned that she marry.
Most of the play's humour derives from one person behaving inappropriately regarding the other's rank. Only Dennis and Reid have the technique to communicate a nuanced awareness of class making their richly comic performances the highlights of the show. Hughes never commands the formality nor Pettle the precise enunciation to suggest either is a high-born gentleman. Fagan's initial distinction of the well-bred Kate from the barmaid Kate fades within minutes.
Director Albert Schultz has decided that every significant point in the dialogue should be accompanied by the ping of a harpsichord. Meant to be cute, this soon grows tiresome and ultimately insults the audience's intelligence. Too often he strays into Stratford's bad habit of creating laughs from the scenery, not the text. At least Astrid Jansen's set is handsome and beautifully lit by Paul Mathiesen. If only a cast on the level of Reid and Dennis could light up the play as well.
©Christopher Hoile
Note: A version of this review appeared in Eye Weekly 2003-09-04.
Photo: Fiona Reid and Oliver Dennis. ©2003 Soulpepper Theatre Company.
2003-09-04
She Stoops to Conquer