She Stoops to Conquer
By Oliver Goldsmith
Rain or Shine
Walford Mill, Wimborne Minster, Dorset
Adapted and Directed by Jonathan Legg
Produced by Jayne Lloyd
Costumes by Jane Lloyd
Thursday 29 July 2021
CAST:
They do it with a cast of seven.
Anthony Taylor- Tony Lumpkin
Pippa Meekings – Kate Hardcastle / Tree
Anthony Young – Mr Hardcastle / Woman in inn
KIm Baker – Mrs Hardcastle / Woman in inn
Emily Morozow – Miss Constance Neville / Violin / Man in inn
Rob Keeves – Marlow
James Burke – Hastings / Marlowe’s father
Yea! My first live theatre in eighteen months! It’s an old favourite too. It sits with Private Lives as a play I’ve seen at least half a dozen times, but have seen only once since I started this blog in 2010 … and the Rain or Shine Company, performing The Importance of Being Earnest at the same venue was one of the first reviewed. I’m still quoting their use of a much younger Lady Bracknell … it’s in the text. She married young and above her and knew nothing. If ever I did it again, I’d do the same.
Walford Mill is a Crafts Centre. Rain or Shine specialize in bringing live theatre to the places other companies do not reach, though in fact Wimborne Minster is well served by the Tivoli Theatre for live music, films and occasional plays,
Rain or Shine is the name, and that’s what they do. We only got a few minutes of rain, but the forecast was for solid rain for the last hour, so people were well-covered from the interval. No masks, but social distancing was easy in the large courtyard … you bring your own chairs, and people sat in groups well apart.
This is a play where I’m not going to do the plot. You should know it. One of the play’s greatest virtues is the interaction is rapid. Dialogue is in short chunks. No one pontificates at length. It’s suitable for open air comedy theatre.
We used to do extracts: Hastings and Marlow arriving and thinking Mr Hardcastle the innkeeper was one, then the most famed scene where Marlow thinks Kate Hardcastle is the bar maid … and she is ‘stooping to conquer’ his shyness with women of social standing, as she knows he is lascivious with servants.
Pippa Meekings did Kate as the barmaid particularly well – she was Gwendolen when we saw The Importance of Being Earnest. As her cameo as “the tree” in the outdoor sene she got the loudest applause of the evening.
The play lends itself to breaking the fourth wall and having fun with the audience, because it has all those scenes of walking forward in character and addressing the audience. Several of them did it. Anthony Taylor as Tony Lumpkin framed the play and was relaxed in asides to the audience. So was Anthony Young as Mr Hardcastle who did some excellent filler lines and asides,
They also played with scene changes and the obvious restrictions of a small stage outdoors with only seven actors … there were several jokes about covering costume changes. All good. No spoilers.
You can only play it large in the open air, and with the odd motor-bike crossing the bridge nearby (and the inexplicable decision by Walford Mill to clean the toilet block during act one), you have to use volume. Social distancing also means we took up a much larger area of the Mill courtyard than we would have done in the past, when we’d have sat in rows closer to the stage. It means it’s harder than the encircled Shakespeare’s Globe to project in the open air and they all managed well.
Playing it “large” brings the play an 18th century feel to me. I’ve seen it costumed in other eras, and virtually always with elaborate and expensive sets.
They do the Globe / RSC dance ending … and manage very well with just violin and handclaps.
One minor fault – they really need to replace Hastings’ wig with a better one that fits. They all work incredibly hard. As the rain started it set me wondering about costumes? Do they have two sets (I would think so) or is it out to find a launderette in the morning to dry them? A major theatre over-using its rain machine (as so many do) would have to have two sets for a matinee day.
I felt that social distancing made it much harder work for the cast, and it wasn’t just the needed voice projection. We were bundled up in rainwear with hoods on, and spaced out.
If you’ve ever addressed audiences in rows versus seated in groups at tables, you’ll know what I mean. At one educational conference the seats had been arranged like that around tables in groups by a previous presenter, and I simply said, “I don’t do cabaret even without chicken in a basket” and put them back in rows myself with my publisher’s rep. You just can’t grasp an audience around tables in the same way. To me, and I am very glad we all followed COVID restrictions and distanced, the comedy lost the ripple effect of laughter, which normally spreads out. The actors were not getting the feedback they deserved for their energy, effort and genuine comedy. I laughed out loud at many points. As with their previous production, I felt they found several interesting new laughs in the script.
Then again, maybe it’s Wimborne. We once filmed outside the Minster, and as our very experienced ex-ITV director said, he’d never been anywhere where so many members of the public came up and asked officiously if we had permission to film there / block the street etc. (We did). Then the next day we were at Corfe Castle and even more people came up and demanded whether we had permission (We did. We paid a lot).
PROGRAMME
Just £2. All the content you need. Details on all the cast members. Excellent value compared to the normal much thicker programme which turns out to be 90% adverts.
OTHER VERSIONS ON THIS BLOG
She Stoops to Conquer, Bath Theatre Royal, 2015
RAIN OR SHINE ON THIS BLOG
Peter Viney's Blog 