[NEohioPAL] Review of "Mrs. Warren's Profession" at the Shaw Festival

[Bob Abelman via NEohioPAL]

Shaw Festival’s ‘Mrs Warren’s Profession’ still provocative 



Bob Abelman

Cleveland Jewish News, The News Herald, The Morning Journal

Member, International Association of Theatre Critics



“Mrs Warren’s Profession,” under Eda Holmes’ direction, is superb in so many ways that a few demand discussion.



Bernard Shaw’s play centers on the relationship between Mrs. Kitty Warren (Nicole Underhay) and her 22-year-old daughter Vivie (Jennifer Dzialoszynski), who just completed a degree at Cambridge and is transitioning to a career as an actuary in London.  



Vivie learns over the course of the play that her mysteriously single and long estranged mother is a former prostitute and current brothel owner.  When confronted, Kitty boldly defends her career choice in light of the limited employment opportunities available to poor women in Victorian Britain.  Prostitution, she argues in one of Shaw’s most commanding monologues, is not a moral issue; it’s an economic one.  Vivie calls her mother “stronger than all England.”  



But when she learns that her mother continues to work in this profession, driven by the social standing her wealth provides, Shaw – through Vivie – offers biting commentary on the hypocritical state of the Union Jack. 



Though Shaw completed the writing of this play in 1893, it was banned by censors and rejected by at least 12 theatres, two music halls, three hotels and two picture-galleries because of its focus on – and sanctification of – the oldest profession.  



That is, until 1902, when a private performance was presented at a small London theater club exempt from The Lord Chamberlain’s Examiner of Plays. 



For more of this review, go to www.clevelandjewishnews.com/columnists/. 
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