“The premise just seemed too far-fetched,” Matthews explains. Goldsmith, an Irishman who lived and worked in London, wrote She Stoops to Conquer in 1771 but at first had trouble getting it produced.
“It’s farcical and sweet and terribly funny - truly one of the era’s great comedies.” “But everything is done in fun, the pranks are never cruel, and you really do care about the characters. “Everybody is involved in a mistake or a practical joke, everybody is playing some kind of role,” Matthews points out. Relaxed and at ease, Marlow is soon smitten and asks the “barmaid” to elope. Kate, deciding to test the young man’s wits, plays along and pretends to be a poor relation of the Hardcastles’. Incapacitated by shyness, he is unable to look her in the face.īut Marlow later mistakes Kate, now dressed in plainer garb, for a lowly barmaid, at which point his confidence returns.
Yet Marlow has another, and far graver, problem - he’s desperately intimidated by upper-class women, and his initial meeting with the glamorous Kate (arranged thanks to another practical joke) is a stumbling disaster. “But Marlow, thinking that Hardcastle is just an innkeeper, appears incredibly rude, putting his feet on the furniture and ignoring the old man’s war stories.” Matthews, senior lecturer in the PAD, who directs the cast of 17. Hardcastle is expecting Marlow, who after all has come to woo his daughter,” notes Jeffery S. Lumpkin, recognizing the pair, decides to play a practical joke and directs them to a nearby “inn” - in fact, the home of the wealthy Mr. Arriving in town, Marlow and his friend, George Hastings, stop at the local Tavern, where they encounter Kate’s mischievous stepbrother, Tony Lumpkin. She Stoops to Conquer centers on Charles Marlow, an upstanding yet deeply reserved young gentleman traveling to meet a potential bride, Kate Hardcastle. Tickets are $15 - $9 for students, senior citizens and Washington University faculty and staff - and are available through the Edison Theatre Box Office, (314) 935-6543, and all MetroTix outlets.įor more information, call (314) 935-6543. Hotchner Studio Theatre is located in the Mallinckrodt Student Center, 6445 Forsyth Blvd. Justin Joseph and Noga Landau as Charles Marlowe and Kate Hardcastle in Oliver Goldsmith’s classic comedy-of-errors *She Stoops to Conquer.* Performances continue the following weekend at 8 p.m. Later this month, Washington University’s Performing Arts Department (PAD) in Arts & Sciences will present a new production of this prototypical “situation comedy” in the A.E. Class, courtship and dysfunctional families all collide in She Stoops to Conquer, the classic 18th century comedy-of-errors by Irish author Oliver Goldsmith.
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