| She
Stoops to Conquer / A Laughing Matter
RESOURCES
(A full workpack on She Stoops to Conquer, A Laughing Matter and eighteenth century theatre is available online from the National Theatre website, click here. The A Laughing Matter playtext contains plenty of resouce material too, and available from our shop for just £2.50).
She
Stoops to Conquer and A Laughing Matter is the
third pair of plays that Max Stafford-Clark has directed
that set out to investigate the nature of theatricality.
They follow Our Country's Good & The Recruiting Officer
(1989) and The Libertine & The Man of Mode (1994).
Johnson, Garrick,
Boswell and Goldsmith were acutely aware of their own standing
in the world. It was a generation attentive to PR. Much of
our pre-rehearsal research has delved into their world and
here are some of the things they wrote or said about the
theatre and about each other.
Garrick on Goldsmith
Here lies Nolly Goldsmith, for shortness called Noll,
Who wrote like an angel, but talked like poor Poll.
Garrick on Theatre
Here lies Nolly Goldsmith, for shortness called Noll,
Who wrote like an angel, but talked like poor Poll.
(Apprentice - prologue)
Prologues
like compliments are loss of time;
'Tis penning bows and making legs in rhyme
(Prologue to Crisp's Tragedy of Virginia)
Johnson on Goldsmith
He left nothing of authorship untouched, and touched nothing
which he did not adorn.
Johnson on Garrick
His death eclipsed the gayety of nations, and impoverished
the public stock of harmless pleasure...
Johnson on Theatre
The drama's laws, the drama's patrons give.
For we that live to please, must please to live.
(Prologue written for Mr Garrick on opening Drury Lane Theatre)
Goldsmith on Garrick
Our Garrick's a salad, for in him we see
Oil, vinegar, sugar, and saltness agree...
Goldsmith on Garrick
On the stage he was natural, simple, affecting;
'Twas only that when he was off he was acting...
Goldsmith on Garrick
(extract from the poem Retaliation)
…..Here lies David Garrick, describe me who can,
An abridgment of all that was pleasant in man;
As an actor, confessed without rival to shine,
As a wit, if not first, in the very first line:
Yet, with talents like these, and an excellent heart,
The man had his failings, a dupe to his art;
Like an ill-judging beauty, his colours he spread,
And beplastered, with rouge, his own natural red.
On the stage he was natural, simple, affecting;
'Twas only that when he was off he was acting:
With no reason on earth to go out of his way,
He turned and he varied full ten times a-day;
Though secure of our hearts, yet confoundedly sick,
If they were not his own by finessing and trick;
He cast off his friends, as a huntsman his pack,
For he knew when he pleased he could whistle them back.
Of praise a mere glutton, he swallowed what came,
And the puff of a dunce, he mistook it for fame;
'Till his relish grown callous, almost to disease,
Who peppered the highest, was surest to please.
But let us be candid, and speak out our mind,
If dunces applauded, he paid them in kind….
Goldsmith
“Is the credit of our own age nothing? Must our own times
pass away unnoticed by posterity?”
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