She Stoops to Conquer by Oliver Goldsmith, Directed by Annemarie T. Saunders

She Stoops to Conquer is a play that parodies extremes. At one end, a love of material elegance, sophistication, and excess; at the other, the appreciation of the simple albeit plain or even base country life. In the end, a balance between the two must be found for the characters to achieve happiness. The idea of battling extremes is particularly resonant in Washington D.C.’s political and social culture today. In recent years, radicalism in political parties has brought government to a screeching halt. Gentrification continues to push the middle class and poor further out of the city limits and rearrange the social and cultural geographies of the capital.

Director AnnMarie T. Saunders, renowned Washington D.C. theatre scholar, sets this production in the city of Washington in the early 1820s, a time of equally polarizing cultural influences.  A British Restoration comedy, She Stoops to Conquer was extremely popular with American  audiences in the early 19th Century likely because of its resonance with local contemporary culture. The divide between intellectual elitism and the “common man” was epitomized in the Andrew Jackson’s election to the Presidency in 1828. Drawing historical parallels between our productions and our contemporary place and time, Pallas’s production of She Stoops to Conquer promises to be both hilarious and thought-provoking!

May 22, 2014 – 7:30pm
May 23, 2014 – 7:30pm
May 24, 2014 – 2pm & 7:30pm
May 25, 2014 – 2pm & 7:30pm