![]() ![]() Produced by Out of Joint to complement April de Angelis' new play A Laughing Matter (see link below), about Oliver Goldsmith and David Garrick, this is a conventional interpretation of She Stoops to Conquer. Role-play implications are not lost on today's audience in a dramatic move which harks back to Shakespeare, or even Roman comedy, and forward to Pinter. This is not a malicious satire but a good-natured one. It satirises the English with good humour - the country folk who aspire to the style of London, the young women who read novels and wish for romance and adventure and the spoilt young men of good family who fritter their life. She Stoops to Conquer is a wonderful play. ( They retire, she tormenting him, to the back scene.Christopher Staines as Charles Marlow and Monica Dolan as Kate Hardcastle Won't you forgive him, Kate? We'll all forgive you. I see it was all a mistake, and I am rejoiced to find it. By the hand of my body, but you shall not. I never attempted to be impudent yet, that I was not taken down. Mantrap, and old Miss Biddy Buckskin, till three in the morning? Ha! ha! ha! In which of your characters, sir, will you give us leave to address you? As the faltering gentleman, with looks on the ground, that speaks just to be heard, and hates hypocrisy or the loud confident creature, that keeps it up with Mrs. Zounds! there's no bearing this it's worse than death! ( Curtseying.) She that you addressed as the mild, modest, sentimental man of gravity, and the bold, forward, agreeable Rattle of the Ladies' Club. Yes, sir, that very identical tall squinting lady you were pleased to take me for. Brazen can find the art of reconciling contradictions, he may please us both, perhaps. I hope, sir, a conversation begun with a compliment to my good sense, won't end with a sneer at my understanding? With her, a smooth face stands for good sense, and a genteel figure for every virtue. Ay, when a girl finds a fellow's outside to her taste, she then sets about guessing the rest of his furniture. And yet there may be many good qualities under that first appearance. The first appearance has done my business. If we should find him so-But that's impossible. For if you should find him less impudent, and I more presuming-if you find him more respectful, and I more importunate-I don't know-the fellow is well enough for a man-Certainly, we don't meet many such at a horse-race in the country. In one thing then we are agreed-to reject him. And if he be the sullen thing I take him, he shall never have mine. If he be what he has shown himself, I'm determined he shall never have my consent. ![]() Punch, sir! (Aside.) This is the most unaccountable kind of modesty I ever met with. What, my good friend, if you gave us a glass of punch in the mean time it would help us to carry on the siege with vigour. Now, says the Duke of Marlborough to George Brooks, that stood next to him-you must have heard of George Brooks-I'll pawn my dukedom, says he, but I take that garrison without spilling a drop of blood. Which might consist of about five thousand men, well appointed with stores, ammunition, and other implements of war. I say, gentlemen, as I was telling you, be summoned the garrison, which might consist of about five thousand men. I think not: brown and yellow mix but very poorly. He first summoned the garrison, which might consist of about five thousand men. Don't you think the ventre d'or waistcoat will do with the plain brown? Marlow, puts me in mind of the Duke of Marlborough, when we went to besiege Denain. I think to reserve the embroidery to secure a retreat. Yet, George, if we open the campaign too fiercely at first, we may want ammunition before it is over. I love everything that's old: old friends, 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. 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. Here we live in an old rumbling mansion, that looks for all the world like an inn, but that we never see company. Ay, your times were fine times indeed you have been telling us of them for many a long year. Its fopperies come down not only as inside passengers, but in the very basket. 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. Ay, and bring back vanity and affectation to last them the whole year. Grigsby, go to take a month's polishing every winter. 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. ![]()
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