SHE STOOPS TO CONQUER, Touring
Below is Alan Geary's review of the tour of SHE STOOPS TO CONQUER. Rod Dungate's review of the production when opening at Birmingham Rep is still on the site. You'll see the two reviewers have very different views.
Nottingham/Touring
SHE STOOPS TO CONQUER: Goldsmith.
Theatre Royal: Tkts 0115 989 5555 www.royalcentre-nottingham.co.uk.
Runs: 2h 50m: one interval: till 26th Jan.
Performance times: 7.30pm, (matinees 2.00pm Wed and Thur, 2.30pm Sat).
Review: Alan Geary: 22 January 2008.
Farce meets song and dance in an enjoyable production. And it has satisfying depth.
There’s a lot to enjoy in this Birmingham Rep touring production: a range of highly individual characters are well acted, it’s funny, there’s plenty of song and dance and it has satisfying depth.
It’s full of meetings. Besides the meeting of people at Hardcastle’s country seat, green meets red in the costumes: Charles Marlow (Matthew Douglas) and Kate Hardcastle (Dorothea Myer-Bennett, looking stunning) are dressed in green whilst their parallels, Hastings (Matthew Burgess) and Miss Neville (Annie Hemingway, also stunning), are in red. Green and red combine in Tony Lumpkin’s outfit.
Town meets the sticks, but it’s the latter that comes off better. Goldsmith seems to be saying that you should keep to your own milieu.
And, notably in this production, farce meets musical: nine doors are opening and closing, and there’s a nicely composed and choreographed low-life routine in The Three Pigeons. Interestingly, Myer-Bennett gets to sing Kate’s song, apparently the first time it’s been included since the original 1773 production.
Low-life meets high life, but when it comes to Mrs Hardcastle (Liza Goddard in an excellent performance) they collide in one character. Whenever Goddard sits, knees parted, she’s wonderfully un-ladylike and her rural Black Country accent is the best in the play. It’s clear that Colin Baker’s Mr Hardcastle married beneath himself. His up-beat wig says a lot, but good-natured humanity shines out of Baker’s portrayal.
Dorothea Myer-Bennett in the central and best performance is superb as a red-haired Kate - it’s she who’s doing the stooping and conquering. She’s wily and animated but also has emotional depth. Jonathan Broadbent’s Lumpkin is done well but it might be the least satisfactory of the main performances. He’s an un-snobbish mischief-maker right enough, but he’s too diminutive and inappropriately pale, highly-strung and hyperactive - he’s like Mozart in Amadeus.
There’s a new epilogue and prologue written by Bryony Lavery and spoken by an usherette whose romantic plight parallels Kate’s. Logically speaking it’s superfluous but it adds another layer of complexity and interest to the evening. So does the wonky set, which reinforces Mr Hardcastle’s words; alone on the stage during the climax of the confusion, he observes “It’s all turned topsy-turvy.”
Mr Hardcastle: Colin Baker.
Pimple: Lynsey Beauchamp.
Servant/Musician: Elisa Boyd.
Tony Lumpkin: Jonathan Broadbent.
Roger: Thomas Brownlee.
George Hastings: Matthew Burgess.
Thomas/Jeremy/Musician: Aidan Clooke.
Charles Marlow: Matthew Douglas.
Mrs Hardcastle: Liza Goddard.
Constance Neville: Annie Hemingway.
Musician: Leon Hunt.
Diggory: Tom Jude.
Kate Hardcastle: Dorothea Myer-Bennett.
Sir Charles Marlow/Stingo.
Director: Jonathan Munby.
Designer: Mike Britton.
Lighting Designer: Ben Cracknell.
Sound Design: Oliver Fenwick.
Composer/Musical Director: Olly Fox.
Choreographer: Katherine Taylor.
2008-01-24 19:23:22