As the discussion leaders on Monday pointed out, the "Prologue" to The Foundling spells out the playwright's sentimental intentions: "to draw the melting Sigh, Or steal the pitying Tear from Beauty's Eye."
You've now heard the entire excerpt from The Foundling presented in class (thanks to the able efforts of Bozyman and gljones2 on Wednesday, and John and UIUC Subject #4722 on Monday).
Two questions:
(1) What, in the two opening scenes from The Foundling, sets up the prospect of "Tears" by the end of the play? What is going to make the attentive and "sensible" reader/viewer cry? You can either speculate (based on how the plot gets set up in these opening scenes), or you can go to the full text of the play (linked in the sidebar) to see how it ends.
(2) How does the comedy in these opening scenes of The Foundling differ from the comedy presented in the opening to She Stoops to Conquer. How do these two plays differ in their strategies for eliciting laughter?
Deadline: Friday (3/13), 10am.
(The picture above is a portrait of David Garrick, painted by Thomas Gainsborough; below is a painting of Garrick playing Richard III, by William Hogarth, who made a number of paintings and engravings with theatrical subjects.)
4 comments:
To be honest, I have a hard time detecting any humor in The Foundling. Each time I read it, I find my mind wandering with some petty distraction. I would probably completely dislike the play if I saw it. I just don't find any entertaining pieces. To me, She Stoops to Conquer is much more entertaining. The beginnings both have a comparable quote that highlights the differences between the two plays. In the Foundling, Belmont states, "She has nothing feminine about her-- she has wit without pertness, beauty without consciousness, pride without intolerance, and desire without wantonness. In short, she has every thing." While in She Stoops to Conquer, the description of a woman by Mr. Hardcastle of his daughter Kate, "Goodness! What a quantity of superfluous silk has thou got about thee, girl! I could never teach the fools of this age, that the indigent world could be cloathed out of the trimmings of the vain." In The Foundling, the men expect the woman to be stupid or lower class, but Mr. Hardcastle knows his daughter is intelligent yet a woman, and a vain, imperfect daughter. Mr. Hardcastle notices the flaws and is a bit light hearted about them, leading to what could be a comedy, rather than in The Foundling the men celebrate the woman as being "perfect" which can't lead to a whole lot of fun.
I'm going to have to agree with Lauren in having a hard time finding the humor in the first of The Foundling as performed by our talented classmates. As I recall, the laughs were scarce, if present at all. What I remember being funny about the second scene that Issac and I read on Wednesday was the fact that we were pretending to be women and I was doing my best to make it sound silly.
She Stoops seems to have a little bit more tangible comedy in its first two scenes, having some jokes about Tony's excessive coughing, etc. It generally seemed to elicit a more enthusiastic response from the audience anyway.
As for the potential tear factor of The Foundling I suppose the way these characters arrange their thoughts about the roles of men and women here as they pertain to the relationship of marriage could pan out nastily, causing some unpleasant conflict between the characters.
Furthermore, David Garrick as Richard III is by far one of the baddest looking dudes I've ever seen in my life, just short of Oscar Wilde in his fur coat. (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9c/Oscar_Wilde_portrait.jpg)
Though perhaps I am biased having played the very same Duke of Gloucester in a conflation of Shakespeare's Henry VI.
It's not easy to say that a course reading is boring where the professor can read it, but I'm with Lauren. The Foundling has that"sentimental" approach that has more to do with moralizing than with actual comedy. "She Stoops to conquer" was funny to me because the characters are so obviously flawed that they torpedo the standards of the "comedy of manners". On the other hand, The Foundling ends with an admonishment towards the "savage man", who "rise, my child, and find thee thus virtuous, in the midst of temptations..." and so on. Is this comedy? Between this and the fusty description that Lauren mentioned, there is a moralistic bent to the salient parts of the script that put a modern audience to sleep, especially if they are looking for "comedy." One can forsee the tragic ending of The Foundling in Belmont's angry tirade about marrying Rosetta, promising to hang himself afterwards. This does not happen, but at the play's end he is vowing to "die" with Colonel Raymond. If we see anythign funny here, it is from the characters trying so hard to be moral, but not quite making it because the world is cruel (and for a whole different reason that SSTQ). Meanwhile "SSTQ" relishes these gaping moral character flaws and plays them up for comic appeal, such as Mr. Hardcastle's tirade about Tony mailing his wig to a chair. These farcical moments are easier to relate to in a flowed real world, and comedy comes from them.
Not to sound like a broken record, but I agree with the previous posts, that the humor in The Foundling is very difficult to detect, even when being read aloud. Much of the language, specifically the syntax could have indicated to a contemporary of the play that there was a humorous. After a few careful readings of the play one can begin to pick out witty or underhanded remarks made by the character that constitutes a darker sarcastic type of humor. For example, as was pointed out in class many times, Belmonte states, “the way to her heart is by indifference, or abuse” and while as a modern English class we sit and attempt to analyze this line for deeper meaning, as noted a contemporary audience would have quickly recognized the humor. Moreover, Belmonte goes on to describe this woman, as a fickle creature with little regard for men; “ and her good-humor is kept alive by the success of her plots”. This type of under the table, sarcastic wit of description is not found in “She stoops to conquer”, the comedy of this play is far more obvious and slapstick. Mr. and Mrs. Hardcastle are very stereotypical middleclass adults whose bickering is overtly funny. Furthermore their son Tony is a self centered snob whose actions and comments are as well very overtly humorous. It would seem that the characters of this play are almost stock characters made for a very obvious comedy, with no intent to appeal to the reader’s emotions and make them cry, like The Foundling.
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