May 20. 1969
The N.C. Essay
Page 2
North Girolina Ployers Sharp in Goldsmith
By CHARLES COOKE
Last night, nearing the end of
an impressive two-week run here, the
first American College Theater Festi
val presented, at Ford's Theater, 0-
liver Goldsmith's deathless comedy,
"She Stoops to Conquer", or "The Mis
takes of a Night," in a brilliantly
successful production by the School
of Drama of the North Carolina School
of the Arts.
Two more performances will be
given today, at 2 and at 7:30 p.m.
The audience that filled Ford's
had not the slightest difficulty in
making the primary adjustment--sus-
pension of disbelief--necessary to
enjoyment of the venerable but some
times clumsy dramatic form known as
the C o m e d y of Mistaken Identity.
(Even though, in this case, not only
are people misidentified all over the
place, but a rambling old English
family residence is mistaken for an
inn--a gorgeously impossible error,
on which the play's entire action is
based!)
Clumsiness was conspiculously
absent from this performance, owing
in part, o f course, to Goldsmith's
smooth, twinkly and expertly con-s
structed script--and in part to su
perbly creative performances by most
of the cast, rising to a level of
raucous, marvelous character-building
by David Wood as Mr. Hardcastle,
Cynthia Darlow as his wife and Gary
Beach as Tony Lumpkin.
English comedy these last sever
al centuries, has been taken for a
not-so-comic roller-coaster ride.
Shakespearean comedy was follow
ed in 1642 by the Puritan Blackout
(All Actors in Stage Plays, Inter
ludes, or other Common Plays to be
Punished as Rogues".) Then, in an
unsurprising blacklash to repression
came the gamy Restoration Comedies
of Wycherley and Congreve and then
came the strangest period of all:
the era of Sentimental Comedy, some
times called "Weeping Comedy" or,
snobbishly Frenchified, "Comedie
Larmoyante." That was when to laugh
in a theater--even to smile--as at
Colley Cibber's "Love's Last Shift"
or Steele's "The Conscious Lovers"--
was considered ungenteel.
NORTH
CAROLINA
SCHOOL
OF
THE
ARTS
NCSA
The N. C. ESSAY
STAFF
Editor Tony Senter
Co-editor Lyrtn Bernhardt
Feature Writers. . .Kathy Fitzgerald
Robert Lingelbaoh
Dance Editor .... Sandra Williams
Political Dennis Williamson
Typists Pat Yancey
Carol Johnson
Business Manager. . . . Tess Morton
Layout and Design . . . . Tom Cavano
Advertising Folly Crocker
Art David Wood
Loma Frady
Advisor Anthony Fragola
It was in another backlash reac
tion that Oliver Goldsmith wrote his
masterpiece, "She Stoops to Conquer,"
which could well be called (although
I never heard anybody but myself so
describe it) a "Laughing Comedy,"
i.e., a comedy written for the nobly
innocent purpose of making audiences
titter, chuckle, giggle, guffaw, in a
word laugh, and in two words enjoy
themselves.
Dr. Goldsmith triumphed so jol-
lily--at the play's first performance
Af SMETS
*'• nmmuBtr
Ye PuBlic house
We Serve
Monday
Nite
Is
(Also Pizza)
AMATEUR NITE
And
TRY
YOUR
THING
We need a banjo player and
a pianist for summer
supper hour.
in 1773, according to glowing re
ports, and certainly last night at
Ford's--that I am moved to rejoice
that the gentle soul lived 200 years
before Black Comedy came along to
flood the English-speaking world with
its bitterness.
I was especially struck by the
North Carolinian cast's sharp, confi
dent attack: at the very outset,once
the chandeliers had been lighted; in
the brawling tavern scene that fol
lowed; and in fact at every opening
of every major episode. The players
made you respectfully take notice,
as, to go to music for a comparison,
the masterly bow attack of a Heifetz
or a Ricci does in comparison to that
of run-of-the-mill violinists.
icon't on page 3)
9EAVTIWL
eiRis-
ffmcxep
TO
meiv
61RL6-
AmCTfD
TO
HOMELY
HE to.
IF
TH£VW
rich.
Dial. Pithlikhrnk-llrfll S>ii(U(atc I9G9
W
HAWP50ME
HfM-
PK>a£M
WITH
£S>OALITV
mm to
M
55)(gS-
I
B W
me
To af
emee.
B&VTI-
FO-OR
LomD
seBxe
IT
AFaia