Jennifer Mawhinney and Melissa Oei. Photo by David Cooper.
She Stoops...SHE CONQUERS!!!
by David C. Jones
@iamdavidcjones
@iamdavidcjones
It was tough going off the top of She Stoops to Conquer. Written in 1773 the language is archaic and it did not help that at the beginning, stepping around David Roberts 2-D set, was a chorus of servants (played with goofy charm by John Voth, Christine Quintana, Sebastian Kroon, Paul Kloegman and Christina Well Campbell) singing “wha wha blah wha wah wha plah twist”. Couldn’t understand it but it was a pretty harmony. Then when the actors came out we are still trying to wrap our ears around the language. As with many older plays much of Act One is all about setting up the premise and it is not until the later acts that the plot and conflict really start gearing up.
Well-to-do Mr. Hardcastle (played with world-weary bluster by Norman Browning) and his wife the social climbing Mrs. Hardcastle (the hysterically certifiable Leslie Jones in a welcome return to the stage) are trying to marry off their kids. Lay-about drinker and “awkward booby” Tony (Chris Cochrane) is ordered to marry his cousin Constance Neville (Melissa Oei) - mainly so Mom can keep Constance’s jewels - and daughter Kate (Jennifer Mawhinney) is to meet with Charles Marlow in hopes they will hit it off. The problem with both plans is: Constance and Chris both are interested in other people and Mr. Marlow gets all tongue-tied around high society women feeling more comfortable flirting with lower classes. One of the many merry mix-ups and deceptions in the classic Laughing Comedy is that Kate will pretend to be a maid to put Marlow at ease. She will stoop to conquer.
