She Stoops to Conquer
by Tony Britten
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Ian Redford, Mark Dexter, Polly Hemingway, Roy Marsden, Simon ButterissDirector: Tony Britten
Brand: Acorn
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown); Spanish (Subtitled); English (Original Language)
Format: Color, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.66:1
Running Time: 145 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2009-02-10
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: Acorn Media
Movie Reviews of She Stoops to Conquer
Movie Review: Stunningly faithful to the original Goldsmith farce
Summary: 5 Stars
Oliver Goldsmith is remembered for three works in three different genres: his beautifully bucolic narrative poem The Deserted Village, his early manifestation of the English novel The Vicar of Wakefield and this 1773 comic farce She Stoops to Conquer. It is interesting to note that Goldsmith's play, Sheridan's The School for Scandal and The Rivals and John Gay's The Beggar's Opera are the only 18th century/early 19th century English dramatic works to have consistently remained in the repertory. Considering the vast number of Elizabethan and Restoration dramas to have graced the stage with some regularity, the pitifully short supply of 18th century works is glaring to the theater aficionado and requires some explanation.
The English Augustan age produced three poets in Dryden, Pope and Swift who successfully filled the dull and repetitive regularity of the heroic couplet with observations of genius and a fierce timeless wit. They overcame stylistic limitations by remaining utterly sui generis. English stage works of the era were similarly structurally hobbled by the contemporary theatrical precept known as The Sentimental Style. During Greece's comparable Augustan Age it produced Menander (Ca. 341-290 B.C.), a writer of romantic comedies filled with ordinary folk doing ordinary things. Menander's plays merit serious consideration as the precursors of the sit-com. His sentimental works encapsulated a complacent age by entertaining a complacent, non-adventurous audience. 18th century England seems to have had a similarly mild-mannered theater audience to whom the strictly formulaic sentimental romantic comedy manifested all of their meager artistic aspirations. Comparisons to Hollywood as it is presently configured are unavoidable.
These 18th century sentimental works are so slight and dramatically anaemic that they cannot withstand a temporal translation to a later age. In short they are dreadful. Only the aforementioned four plays, written as they were in defiance of the prevailing aesthetic winds, have the necessary juice to have withstood the ravages of fickle tastes and unforgiving time. Goldsmith used She Stoops to Conquer as a thinly veiled cudgel to bludgeon the Sentimental Style, which he abhorred, and in the process produced a work whose comedic edginess and thrilling satiric bite is the antithesis of nominal 18th century theater. It positively shines by comparison and is certainly more closely aligned with modern tastes. It is an excellent play.
This 5 part production remains faithful to the original, revelling in Goldsmith's love of the English language, an affection that the finest Irish writers seem to possess in abundance. Because this production wallows in Goldsmith's brilliant use of the language it can open up the stage set and substitute a large 18th century house and never feel dwarfed by the change. The acting is splendid with Susannah Fielding as Kate making an especially ravishing heroine. Holly Gilbert as Constance is equally lovely. Ian Redford as Mr. Hardcastle and Polly Hemingway as his wife Dorothy make superb comic foils for Mark Dexter as Charles Marlow and Joseph Thompson as George Hastings. There are very few anachronisms to be found in this production, so faithful does it remain to the original. Beautifully directed and filmed, I suspect that Goldsmith himself would hail this production. If English drama occupies even a small place in your heart, you owe yourself the sheer joy of watching this rarely produced comic masterpiece. It is that good! Most strongly recommended.
Mike Birman
Summary of She Stoops to Conquer
Oliver Goldsmith?s classic comedy of errors
Boisterous and brimming with energy, Oliver Goldsmith?s funniest and most famous play finds new life in this scrupulously faithful screen adaptation. The plot centers on Kate--a well-bred, whip-smart lass who passes herself off as a barmaid to win the heart of her stuffy suitor. Full of mistaken identities and multiple deceptions, the play pokes fun at the various masks we all wear in social situations and proves as relevant now as it did when it debuted in 1773. Along the way, Goldsmith?s conniving characters learn much about the nature of true love.
Filmed entirely at a 17th-century English manor house, this production escapes the confines of the stage and enlivens Goldsmith?s witty text in every scene. The stellar cast includes Mark Dexter (The Bill, From Hell), Roy Marsden (Devices and Desires), acclaimed newcomer Susannah Fielding, and veteran stage actors Polly Hemingway and Ian Redford.
DVD SPECIAL FEATURE INCLUDES A Gooseberry Fool: Oliver Goldsmith Stoops to Conquer, a lively 50-minute documentary on the writer?s life, work, and humor.
Americans who aren?t familiar with Irish dramatist Oliver Goldsmith?s work may do well to begin with the hourlong extra on this DVD, "A Gooseberry Fool: Oliver Goldsmith Stoops to Conquer," as it contextualizes his humor and summarizes what was happening in the 18th century theater world. However, diving straight in, one will get plenty of the jokes and enjoy the ironic twists that this comedy of errors from 1773 is packed with. She Stoops to Conquer adapts well to a filmed series broken into five hour-long episodes, and may even be more exciting off-stage, in outdoor and countryside settings. The story weaves together tales of three couples who fall in and out of love, who quibble and make up, and who are confounded by the opposite sex to varying degrees. Mr. Hardcastle (Ian Redford) and his wife, Dorothy (Polly Hemingway), are the elder characters reflecting on changing times. While Hardcastle clings to tradition, his wife supports modernization, and welcomes the increasing numbers of visitors from London who come through their small town. One of these visitors, the intelligent but shy Charles Marlow (Mark Dexter), comes in pursuit of the Hardcastle?s daughter, Kate (Susannah Fielding). From the moment Marlow and his suave friend, George Hastings (Joseph Thompson), arrive in town, their bumbling efforts to win Kate and her girlfriend, Constance (Holly Gilbert), become the main thrust of the plot. Episode two, for example, focuses on George and Charles? mistaking Liberty Hall, the Hardcastle residence, for an inn, thanks to Kate?s spoiled, troublemaking brother, Tony Lumpkin (Miles Rupp). The ways in which they insult Mr. Hardcastle are hilarious. By episodes four and five, though, Kate is having all the fun, tricking Marlow into thinking she is a barmaid. Part tease and part sincere effort to test their compatibility, Kate?s antics confound the couple?s parents, as well as their friends, to humorous effect. In viewing She Stoops to Conquer, one wonders if Kate isn?t slightly nodding to William Shakespeare?s shrew by the same name. In the biopic, the narrator claims that Goldsmith did aim for "boisterous" humor, as backlash against what he called "bland, sentimental" comedy. Perhaps this playwright?s way of allowing bawdier moments to exist without "refinement" is what has helped this story survive into contemporary times, with great success..--Trinie Dalton
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