Repetition figures strongly in the writing, as does gentle rhyme, which tickles the ear at various moments. The play is marked by fast-paced, articulate, poetic, and rhythmic text, delivered by a cast in perfect tune with the style. But Greenspan’s triple-threat approach to playmaking also recalls the work of Charles Ludlam, whose Irma Vep is referenced prominently here. It has stronger parallels to its acknowledged forerunner: The Guardsman, by Ferenc Molnar, Hungary’s foremost playwright and an influence on such major figures as Pirandello. The play actually has little to do with She Stoops to Conquer, the delightful old farce by Oliver Goldsmith, which first appeared in London in 1773. But at its sometimes “Noises Off”-like best, the play pulses along to the singular rhythm of a milieu where “Antony and Cleopatra” jokes come as naturally as a budding performer practicing her screams from “King John.She Stoops to Comedy is a delightful new farce written and directed by David Greenspan, in which he also stars. at the Old Vic), which took a spry and witty look at the early days of that then-nascent profession, the actress, during the Restoration. “A Laughing Matter” isn’t as accomplished as an earlier de Angelis play on the same theme, “Playhouse Creatures” (premiered by the now-defunct Peter Hall Co. And the less charismatic members of the “She Stoops” company display equally low wattage here, starting with Stephen Beresford in a trio of parts crying out for Peter Gallagher and a charmless array of turns from Christopher Staines. I could have done without “Laughing Matter’s” curtain call romp, an apparent holdover of Stafford-Clark’s guest forays into Restoration-era jollity for the RSC.
(Conversely, it doesn’t help the cause of the same troupe’s production of “She Stoops” to see the onstage audience as obviously dulled by proceedings as are those of us out there in the dark.) That adage has evidently informed - and why not? - Stafford-Clark’s staging of the show, which plays out on a richly appointed Julian McGowan set (Hogarth’s portrait of Garrick as Richard III takes pride of place) that makes room either side for boxes of actual theatergoers, whose expressions of delight spread through the house. After all, as actor Ian Redford puts it, swiftly moving among three roles, “We that live to please must please to live.” (This from the very era that saw Garrick’s famously rewritten “King Lear,” the mad monarch given an upbeat fate.) An advocate of “emotion, not cynicism,” Garrick inhabits a world where both sometimes must surrender to expediency. One is acutely aware of this fact for much of the first act, as Goldsmith quickly fades into the background, ceding the spotlight to that showman Garrick, spearheader of his own theatrical renaissance. The contemporary play’s brio often comes at the expense of coherence, focus and even taste, as if a play very much preoccupied by the debate over pandering to a public were perfectly happy to do exactly that. These many years later, so it is again: While no one would confer the status of a classic upon de Angelis’ script, as performed by the same company as “She Stoops,” it is certainly more fun. In 1988, Stafford-Clark opened a new play, Timberlake Wertenbaker’s “Our Country’s Good,” at his then-home at the Royal Court, where the modern play ran in conjunction with a period comedy, Farquhar’s “The Recruiting Officer.” And guess what? Wertenbaker’s play eclipsed its 1706 forbear and has since asserted itself as a modern classic. Colman’s Drury Lane rival actor-manager David Garrick (the indefatigable Jason Watkins) isn’t much more helpful, at least in contemporary playwright April de Angelis’ reimagining of events in her boisterous if messy new play, “A Laughing Matter.” Garrick has passed on “She Stoops” altogether, persuaded by his wife that Goldsmith’s play is “low.” (Sexual blackmail plays its part in Garrick’s decision, too.) Could it be that “She Stoops” isn’t any good? Not terribly likely, stammers its author: “I have examined all possibilities, and that is the least probable.”ĭe Angelis has a high old time examining the historical possibilities in a play that has reached the National alongside a repertory staging (a surprisingly dull one) of “She Stoops.” Both shows are co-productions with the Out of Joint touring company, whose a.d., Max Stafford-Clark, has done directorial duties on each.Īnd in a play jointly concerned to some extent with the workings of both history and the theater, “A Laughing Matter” repeats a recent theatrical feat.
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