Reviewed by James Karas
Bernard
Shaw’s Mrs. Warren’s Profession gets a redoubtable production at
the Garrick Theatre in London, directed by Dominic Cooke. It boasts the star
power of Imelda Staunton as Mrs. Warren and it is a fine reminder what Bernard
Shaw could do at his best.
Mrs.
Warren’s Profession is in fact Shaw’s third play. He wrote it 1893-94 and
published it in 1898 with his first two pieces under the title Plays
Unpleasant. Producers treated it like the plague, and it was produced privately
in 1902 and promptly banned from public performance. Its first production in
the United Sates had the same fate. Its second production in the United States
had a worse fate. It was banned and the cast were arrested and charged with
“offending public decency.”
What
did the play show that offended the delicate sense of decency of late 19th
century Britain and America? Many women at the bottom of the social ladder were
paid so poorly that they had to resort to extreme measures to survive. A second
job was inevitable and at times the only thing left for some women was to sell their
body. The impolite word for that is prostitution.
Photograph: Johan Persson
Mrs.
Warren’s Profession deals with that subject but on such a rarefied level that
one hardly recognizes what it is talking about. We first meet Vivie Warren
(Bessie Carter). She is an attractive, self-assured woman living in an
upper-crust house (we see her in a garden) and enjoying the life of the
well-to-do. Mr. Praed (Sid Sagar) a successful architect and gentleman, comes
by, looking for Mrs. Warren. So does Sir George Crofts (Roger Glenister), a mature
man who is above a gentleman, he is a knight of the realm.
This
is high society, and they are friends of Mrs. Warren. Vivie and we slowly
become acquainted with Mrs. Warren’s profession. She is the managing director
of Private Hotels across Europe. Come again? Well, they are bordellos, or to stoop
to unacceptable language for some, they are brothels or whorehouses. Mrs.
Warren started at the bottom of that profession and has risen to the top. She
did have a child in the process, but we do not know the identity of Vivie’s
father. What the women did and why is fine as long as no one mentions it and
offends public decency.
We
meet the respectable town rector, the Rev. Samuel Garner (Kevin Doyle) and his
useless son Frank (Reuben Joseph). The latter is infatuated with Vivie. The reverend
is a comic figure and played for laughs, but he does have a secret that solves
the infatuation issue and a mystery.
The
crux of the play is Mrs. Warren’s defence of her present position in the
profession (poverty forced her to practice it when young) and Vivie’s reaction
to finding out the source of the money for her lifestyle. Mrs. Warren showed
strength and resilience in her ability to rise to the top and is refusing to
give it up. Vivie displays revulsion and strength in her refusal to continue living
on the avails of her mother’s job.
Sir George, a man of 60, wants to marry the attractive Vivie and give her a good life without her getting mixed up in the reality of what he does. His offer of marriage is based on “I have money, what more do you want” which Vivie rejects out of hand and proceeds to find a way of supporting herself.
Cooke
has made a significant addition to the production: a chorus of ten women
dressed in white underclothes, who appear, to change the stage props and walk
around as samples of the women who work in the bordellos that Mrs. Warren and
Company operate.
Staunton
and Carter give powerful performances as the opposing mother and daughter.
Glenister gives a prime example of the apologist for mistreatment of people and
the father and son Rev. Samuel and Frank Gardner are comic figures with an
extra layer for the reverend who maintained the respectable appearance while
partaking of the pleasure provided by the abused women.
Set
and Costume designer Chloe Lamford has created an atmosphere of wealth and comfort
in sharp contrast to the underlying reality of the play. Brilliant.
______________________________________