SHE STOOPS TO CONQUER
One of my favorite plays is Oliver Goldsmith’s eighteenth century comedy She Stoops to Conquer. When I saw the UVU had their award-winning, critically-acclaimed performance on YouTube, I was so excited and added it to my list of birthday activities.
While Hazel made lasagna for the birthday dinner and Coralie banana custard, we crowded around the kitchen counter to watch on my laptop.
We hardly stopped laughing, for the next two hours.
Goldsmith’s play is already hilarious, but we thought the anachronistic addition of technology added much to the humor. The characters may be wearing hooped skirts and ruffled cravats, but they wield MacBooks, iPods and smart-phones. Facebook updates, blogs, texts and instant messages were a fun way to treat monologues and asides.
Although it may sound like a gimmick, it brilliantly emphasized the play’s relevance to our modern society of online networking. We may be hiding behind a computer screen instead of a Victorian folding screen, but we’re still inventing personalities for ourselves in order to manage relationships.
And... it’s just fun and silly. We screamed for a full minute when Marlowe said, ‘The place promises but a poor reception,’ and wandered around the pub holding up his cellphone. That has definitely become a family line!
• publicity photo for the UVU 2010 production of She Stoops to Conquer •
September 17, 2013