Social-Status Reflexes

By T.E. Kalem

Comedy is social. It is never private. A man laughing to, for and by himself invariably excites suspicion. He must be a nut, people feel.

Comedy is replete with nuances of class and caste, and the pitfalls and pratfalls of making social errors. Nowhere is this truer than in English comedy, or more enjoyably so than in Oliver Goldsmith's She Stoops to Conquer. This 18th century classic, now being performed at off-Broadway's Roundabout Theater, revolves entirely around conditioned social-status reflexes.

Two traveling young gallants, Marlowe (Robert G. Murch) and Hastings (Tom V.V. Tammi), are told that the home of Mr. Hardcastle (Fred Stuthman) is an inn. What follows is a consistently funny set of etiquette violations. Marlowe mistakes Miss Hardcastle (Nancy Reardon) for a barmaid, the sort of woman with whom he is as raffishly familiar as he is shyly reserved with "ladies." Hardcastle is appalled at the monstrous liberties his guests take; they roar for drink and alternately interrupt and ignore him.

While never pointing the finger of morality, Goldsmith means us to know how differently a man behaves toward those he considers his equals and those he considers his inferiors. Goldsmith notes the disparity between man commanding his pleasures and man attempting to please, and the divergence, in the case of sex, between seeing a woman as a wench and contemplating her for a wife. The entire cast, especially Jane Connell as Mrs. Hardcastle, vivifies these differences with zest, style and high good humor. With revivals like this, who needs new plays? T.E. Kalem

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