I believe that Desert Rose Theatre often reaches beyond its grasp, which I consider a worthwhile endeavor. I mean, seriously, Oliver Goldsmith’s She Stoops to Conquer? It’s the kind of title I get excited about with fond memories of the musty book assigned for my British Drama class and the musty professor who taught it, but look at me. It’s this academic kinship I share with DRT’s Artistic and Production Director Katherine Stewart that has me looking forward to seeing her next classic conquest. She handles this Restoration comedy with an absolute belief in its ability to entertain a modern audience that forces it to be true even when it may prove too wordy to some.

She Stoops to Conquer may have a love of loquaciousness, but it also has a funny plot involving misinformation and snobbery. Dick Hardcastle (Garry Myers) and his conniving wife Dorothy (Tami Bailly) are trying to make a match for daughter Kate (Christina Rae Stewart) and cousin/ward Constance (Faith Willman). Kate has been promised to Young Marlow (Scott Brooks), son to Sir Charles Marlow (Jeff Hunt), a friend of Mr. Hardcastle’s. However, Young Marlow has an odd affliction. He cannot speak to women of his own social class without stuttering and stammering. However, he is a smooth playboy with young ladies from the lower classes. Dorothy has designs on Constance’s dowry remaining in the family, so she is trying to make a match with Tony Lumpkin (Joshua Scott Hunt), a drunken mischief maker. However, Constance is in love with George Hastings (John J. Caswell, Jr.), Young Marlow’s friend. When Tony runs into Marlow and Hastings on their way to meet the women, he plays a joke on them by sending them to the house but telling them it’s an inn. With this mistaken impression, Marlow woos Kate twice, once thinking her the woman he’s been stuck with, and once when he mistakes her for a barmaid. Hilarity ensues.

K. Stewart doesn’t have a lot of space to work with, so her staging sometimes suffers, but there are moments of inspiration that keep surprising the eye, such as her various seduction scenes. The pacing on the (unintended) opening night (Thursday had been a rain out, and if you’ve been to the theatre, you’ll know what I mean) suffered from a dress rehearsal feel with longish pauses and missed cues.

Still the work of the main couple (C. Stewart and Brooks) and trio (Willman, Caswell, and Hunt) is superb. C. Stewart and Brooks have three of the most hilarious scenes in the show, and their connection (or lack of, as was the intended case of their first meeting) is very cute and a joy to watch. Brooks is absolutely natural with this stylized dialogue and though C. Stewart leans toward sing-songy, she carries off Kate’s character arc strongly. Willman is perfectly cast as the flighty Constance, and the battles between her and Hunt are fun to watch. She also connects well with Caswell, who runs through his many emotions with success.

Bailly and Myers are a tad weaker than the others, tentatively offering their lines and entrances, but they do rise to the occasion as the stakes are raised. Hunt doesn’t get a lot to do, and he doesn’t do much with it, while the throwaway supporting roles are thrown away by the mugging of Clifford “Sunny” Reid and the odd palsied shakes displayed by Lee Ann Jensen in one of her two characters.

Stewart and DRT’s determination is hampered only by its razor-thin budgets and not-quite consistent ensembles. However, this little-company-that-could should continue to strive, because it is a learning process that is proving to help those who remain in the repertory under Stewart’s tutelage to expand their abilities. I can only imagine the results that a healthy-sized grant and a little more polish could do for them.