The Beaux' Stratagem

by George Farquhar

seen at the National Theatre (Olivier) on 3 June 2015

The play, directed by Simon Godwin, features Samuel Barnett as Aimwell, Geoffrey Streatfeild as Archer, Pippa Bennett-Warner as Dorinda, Susannah Fielding as Mrs Sullen, and Pearce Quigley as Scrub, with music by Michael Bruce and the set designed by Lizzie Clachan.

Two out-of-pocket London swells propose to gull wealthy Lichfield heiresses through marriage (or else, if that fails, they will try Chester, Nottingham and even Norwich; otherwise they will enlist and die). But what could have been a cynical or heartless confrontation between town and country values becomes something more complex and even radical in Farquhar's hands. Aimwell falls genuinely in love with Dorinda, thus turning callow opportunism into romantic comedy, while Archer finds himself matched (if not over-matched) by Mrs Sullen - young and attractive indeed, but already disastrously married. Their comic resolution is only made possible by a fantastical agreement to a divorce between Mr and Mrs Sullen, a project that would have been all but impossible in 1707 when the play was written. Mrs Sullen, who could have been merely a disillusioned and scheming flirt, proves to be a woman of spirit not totally daunted by her domestic misery.

The cast manage the contrasts between surface comedy or farce and the undercurrents of social criticism well, but occasionally the high-spirited surface is too much disturbed by the seriousness underneath. Mrs Sullen's direct appeal to the women in the audience received answering encouragement, which threatens to break the theatrical spell in an unhelpful way; what we take for granted now was an impossible dream then. However, Susannah Fielding is excellent in the role, showing all the frustrated energy and basic decency occasionally driven to demeaning cruelty arising from her position. Pippa Bennett-Warner made an attractive foil as her sister-in-law Dorinda, finding it easy to transfer sisterly loyalty from her sottish brother to his far more scintillating wife. In the meantime Samuel Barnett and Geoffrey Streatfeild made a charming pair of would-be rakes coming to their senses, while Pearce Quigley gave a masterclass in how to be funny by being lugubrious as the servant Scrub.

The set, which doubles as inn and country house by the ingenious use of sliding panels, covered a good deal of the Olivier's space and allowed for an inventive use of stairways and levels for various entrances and exits - but it is perhaps odd that the theatre's extensive possibilities for revolves and scenic transformations were not taken up. The sightlines were obviously good from my seat (to the left of centre facing the stage) but I am not sure whether those on the right were so well served. In general the sheer distances between actors - especially if they were on different levels - engendered broad brush comic effects rather than intimacy. Where the action required space - for example, in the ludicrous fight scene between the heroes and the highwaymen - the setting was fully vindicated - but some of the tete-a-tete exchanges suffered.

The action was interspersed with some very effective songs, but the artificiality of the situation was emphasised by the sudden appearance of musicians on the stair landings to accompany particular numbers. They clearly cannot have been guests at the inn, nor were they members of the household - yet there they were. It was perhaps another indication of the hybrid nature of the piece - lying at the very end of what could be identified as Restoration comedy (forty years after the Restoration itself) and at the beginning of a more probing tradition of social comedy which has still not exhausted itself.