In a culture of soaring divorce rates and cynical views on love, the themes of "The Beaux' Stratagem" are more than applicable to modern audiences. The playwright, George Farquhar, certainly empathized with the unhappily married. His own wife snared him by claiming independent wealth - a wealth she did not actually have.
Despite the theme of marital rancor, the play is a hilarious social satire. "Stratagem" begins with the miserably married Squire Sullen (Ian Bedford) bemoaning the fact that "no one dies of marriage. They suffer." However, like all great British comedies, the final scene overcomes all pessimism when the three shortest engagements in English history end in a triad of marriages.
The play's relevance to the modern audience is one of the most surprising elements since it was written in 1707. "Stratagem" transcends generations by continually providing entertainment and shrewdly accurate societal observations almost three centuries after its creation. Though mildly sexual (breathless kisses from married women are scandalous, even by today's standards), the humor tends toward innuendo rather than the inappropriate.
The play begins with two young gentlemen of fortune who have spent all their fortunes. Jack Archer (Christopher Innvar) and Tom Aimwell (Christian Conn) are in search of a wife, any wife, as long as she is rich. Within minutes of their arrival, Archer, dressed as Aimwell's footman, learns of a local woman with "the greatest fortune" in the country - Lady Bountiful's only daughter, Dorinda (Julia Coffey).
Aimwell sets off to pursue Dorinda; Archer dallies with the tavern maid; and Cherry (Colleen Delany) and a group of highway robbers plot to break into Lady Bountiful's house and make off with her silver and money. Meanwhile, Dorinda's sister-in-law, Kate Sullen (Veanne Cox), the Squire's wife, promptly falls desperately in love with Archer.
While she locks lips with another man onstage, Kate's husband, who "says little, thinks less... does nothing at all," is constantly inebriated, a state he never entirely leaves.
In the meantime the highway robbers plan the theft and Aimwell gains entrance into Dorinda's rapturous presence by faking illness. Until, of course, the two men are found out.
Anyone who's ever had a bad date will enjoy "Stratagem." In five acts, the play manages to make fun of everyone in the audience and a good number of absent people and nations. With jokes about lawyers, Swiss retreat strategy and the French, this play holds no punches.
However, people who have seen the giant rodents on campus, gone adventuring in the great outdoors or studied biology should feel particularly amused during the performance. The play knocks imperfect "science" by parodying the scientific pursuits of the slightly deranged widow, Lady Bountiful (Nancy Robinette), who adores amputation and milks raccoons for use in medicinal remedies.
This play is truly the perfect blend of clever humor, gender bashing and thought-provoking moral dilemma. In toying with romantic pairings, mocking love at first sight and displaying the fickleness of both men and women, Farquhar introduces the novel concept that everyone is a whore if given the appropriate opportunity.
