Sometimes it’s as simple as finding the right actors for the story. With London Assurance, a comedy of manners that propelled its precocious author, Dion Boucicault, to stardom, director Antoni Cimolino does just that. Filling the Festival Theatre stage with some of the best comedic actors in the Stratford Festival’s company, Cimolino lets Boucicault’s still unblunted wit do the heavy lifting.
Set firmly in its time – a 19th-century England of aristocrats, country manors and wryly amused servants – London Assurance takes great delight in foregrounding the misplaced vanity of its pampered characters. Cimolino make the most of the play’s dramatic irony, building up the ludicrousness of its mistaken identities and sudden professions of love until a raucous climax that includes a sham elopement and an unintended duel. Cimolino also plays up London Assurance’s metatextual elements – Boucicault deliberately drew attention to some of the more fanciful aspects of the plot – to gently poke fun at the theatrical tropes of the time.
Written when Boucicault was only 19 years old, London Assurance follows Sir Harcourt Courtly, an aging dandy, in his pursuit of Grace Harkaway, a much younger woman set to inherit a substantial fortune. Much of the play is set on the grounds of Oak Hall, a country estate owned by Max, Grace’s wealthy uncle. But instead of a quiet weekend courting in the country, Courtly and his betrothed are interrupted by an unexpected crew of holiday-go.