The Peter Hall Company production
MRS WARREN'S PROFESSION
U.K. tour 2003
REVIEWS
Richmond and Twickenham Times Friday 4th July 2003
RICHMOND THEATRE
The hypocrisy of capitalism
THE good news goes out - Twiggy is back in town!
That well-loved icon of the 60s is playing the title part in George Bernard Shaw's classic Mrs Warren's Profession.
The main preoccupation in the piece is actually Mrs Warren's daughter Vivie -wonderfully well played by Hannah Yelland. Thanks to her mother's perspicacity this young lady has been furnished with the traditional silver spoon - she has had a marvellous education both at school at university, she has lived in some grand places and always had enough money to be able to buy whatever clothes take her fancy.
The source of all this money is something of a mystery - but it seems that Mrs W has been so preoccupied with its accumulation that she has spent very little time with Vivie in her growing-up years. Perhaps as a result of this, the young woman has some decidedly odd tastes -for instance we are told she likes nothing better than sitting back in an armchair with a cigar, a glass of whisky and a 'decent detective story.
Of course there is some romance in the air - there is a choice indeed. Young Frank Gardner (Ryan Kiggell) is obviously very loving; Sir George Crofts (Jeremy Clyde) clearly fancies his chances with her - and the enigmatic Mr Praed (Benedick Blythe) hovers on the fringes of interest.
Twiggy looks every inch the contemporary fashion plate in fine gowns and handsome hats - and indeed the whole thing is awfully good to look at.
The opening scene is in a country garden where Vivie is caught reading a book lounging on a pile of cushions under a tree.. The lawn is neat and geometric; a corner of pristine white fence suggests much more and the background shows wonderfully rolling countryside - all very green, all very English.
This is an Englishness of a very particular sort. One character avers "On my word as a gentleman", Sir George wears beige spats; a fellow is described as a cad and there is talk of cant - a word not often used these days although the concept is pretty rife.
There is only one other character in the play - the Rev Samuel Gardner (Mike Burnside), father to Frank and indeed some of the lovely witty wordplay between these two provides a deal of the humour.
We soon realise that Mrs Warren is what might be termed a 'lady of ill repute - but interestingly, as Twiggy pointed out when I spoke to her last week, the words 'prostitution' 'and brothel' are never spoken - I listened out particularly hard for them.
In this play Shaw is not preaching - rather he is arguing, and arguing most persuasively about the hypocrisy of capitalism and of members of the establishment. It is neatly done.
Helen Taylor
BBC Wiltshire June 10th 2003
www.bbc.co.uk/wiltshire
Mrs Warrens Profession at the Theatre Royal
Bernard Shaw's play 'Mrs Warren's Profession' comes to Bath in a production starring Twiggy Lawson and directed by Sir Peter Hall and runs from Monday 16th June to Saturday 21st June.
Mrs Warren (Twiggy) is a charming, wise bordello Madam, contrarily contained in a decidedly vulgar but ever so respectable Victorian veneer.
Her toughness is the product of harsh experience - the kind from which she wishes to protect her only child.
Where Mrs Warren began from the lowest rung on the social ladder, fighting for every inch of respectability gained, her daughter will benefit from a carefully prepared head start. Or so she supposes until the two characters clash their wills and create an almighty bang destined to separate them forever.
Although her mother was born into poverty, Vivie Warren has enjoyed a comfortable upbringing, a Cambridge education and a generous monthly allowance. Ambitious, intelligent and independent, how will she react when she discovers the awful truth that her privileges have been financed by the proceeds of a chain of brothels across Europe.
Written in 1893, but banned until 1925, Bernard Shaw's provocative comedy was considered to be too controversial for the English stage and at its first American staging in 1905, the entire cast was arrested.
Full of witty dialogue and strong characters, the play's theme of the struggle for a decent standard of living versus the choice of morally unacceptable roads to that goal, gives it a resonance which continues to echo in the newspapers of today.
Twiggy Lawson became internationally known in the sixties as the world's first supermodel and went on to become a successful actress in stage, film and television, winning two Golden Globe Awards in Ken Russell's 'The Boyfriend', a Tony Award nomination for 'Me and Me Only' and high praise as Eliza Doolittle in 'Pygmalion' on television.
In this excellent sparky production, Peter Hall lends his consderable experience to bring out the charms and nuances contained within Shaw's script, without diluting its power to disturb.
Jeremy Clyde plays the lecherous George Crofts, and Mike Burnside the pretentious Reverend Sam Gardner, through whom the double standards of Victorian society are exposed.
The action is stylishly punctuated by the hopeless but clever fop Frank, played by Ryan Kiggell, and the elegant adult-boy Praed, played by Benedick Blythe.
'Mrs Warren's Profession' runs at Bath Theatre Royal from Monday 16th June to Saturday 21st June. Tickets are priced between £15.50 and £20.50 an can be obtained in advance by contacting the box office on 01225 448844.
The Birmingham Post Thursday June 5th 2003
Shavian hypocrisy and half truths
Mrs Warren's Profession
Malvern Festival Theatre
What a master Shaw is at exposing social hypocrisy and the half truths which cloak human deception. In an absorbing evening, Twiggy Lawson as Mrs Warren is superb as she takes on a male-dominated society, puffed up by its absurd polemics and wins.
Ms Lawson, once a 60's fashion icon and still astonishingly pretty, uses a harsh slightly cockney approach for her character which catches something of the unstoppable raffishness such a woman would have used when confronted with any kind of opposition, male or otherwise.
Shaw's dialogue carries perfectly the final abrasive sequence between Mrs Warren and her priggish daughter Vivie (a fine performance from Hannah Yelland). Vivie is ignorant of the source of her mother's income - tainted money which has provided the girl with a middle class education.
Vivie is Shaw's aggressive "new woman" who sees prostitution as an economic exploitation of underprivileged women, few of whom will ever attain Mrs Warren's quasi-respectability.
Jeremy Clyde is convincing as Mrs Warren's business partner Sir George Crofts. At one point he notes to Vivie that income from prostitution can take several forms. "You wouldn't cut the Archbishop of Canterbury because the Ecclesiastical Commissioners have a few publicans and sinners among their tenants!"
James Robert Carson re-directs Peter Hall's original production but unfortunately keeps the clumsy intervals which impede the play's dynamic.
Running time: 2hrs 20mins
Until Saturday.
Richard Edmonds
The Oxford Times Friday, May 9, 2003
M. B. DRENNAN finds Shaw's Mrs Warren's Profession 'dated and provincial' at the Oxford Playhouse
RIGHTEOUS RANTING
Poor girl turns prostitute. Spots business opportunity, makes profit. Hides it from daughter, who's brought up as prim madam and who ultimately gets bee in her spoilt bonnet with mom. Guilt, conflict. Got it? Because it takes Shaw rather too long to get to this.
This early work is not among his finest, although it does bear Shavian hallmarks: strong women; criticism of wealth; Shakespearean ambiguity; an incompatibility of idealism and humanity. In its politics it is a precursor to Brecht, without the clarity of technique; more obviously it leads to Priestley's An Inspector Calls, but its interest in the drama of personality muddies the waters. There is merit in the struggle of both women - the mother who has loosely bought her daughter's opportunities, the daughter who seeks a world of freed women - but they are too far apart. In common is their strength, their superiority to the wasteful men; they are the same woman, after all: businesslike, purposeful, not wanting of character. The problem is that, in the end, they're intolerable to observe: futile and studiedly agonising, like watching someone eat hay.
Twiggy Lawson's Mrs Warren is adaptable, slipping between accents and worlds with ease, constantly catching you off guard. She lives in a world of beautifully honest denial, a kind of Nietzschean plague-quarter grandeur in her every motion. Hannah Yelland as Vivie is focused, persistent, unreadable. Shaw wants us to admire the daughter, but makes her intensely dislikeable, 'her motives inexplicable, her hurtfulness plain. She rejects her "abominable" mother's sacrifice and compromise on the moral principle that she succeeds indecently. Her ranting smacks of the righteous, wilfully blind moral inflexibility of the worst tabloid editorials. So your mother runs whorehouses? Get over it. It's a business. Yet this girl will destroy everyone around her as she blazes to an imagined purity of self-reliance: she will, at the end, be totally alone. You're almost glad, your cheeks burn that much at her. John Gunter's set is clever too, trapping the characters, inward-facing, hemmed on to lawns which look as smooth and as limited as billiard tables - capturing the quintessential Victorian Englishness of these lives: apparently graceful and subtle, but actually strategically wicked, each stroke played with measured violence to achieve supremacy.
But the early Shaw lacks Wildean wit and the range of ideas is excessive: it all gets a bit pamphleteering. Sexual hypocrisy, feminism, anti-capitalist dogma, social critique - too many targets. You must question director Peter Hall, not Shaw: that plays like this have no impact any more is proof of their gains. Censorship and legally-sanctioned hypocrisy have abated; sexual equality is nearer. Sorry, am I boring you? Indeed. Being an admirable historical roadsign does not save this from being ploddingly provincial and dated. Despite the quality of the production, the idea never quite gets off the billiard table.
Oxford Mail Thursday 8th May 2003
www.thisisoxfordshire.co.uk
Mrs Warren's Profession
Oxford Playhouse
Twiggy branches out in fresh role
ONE of the earliest of George Bernard Shaw's plays, Mrs Warren's Profession - completed in 1894 - was not publicly performed for another 31 years.
Why so? Because the 'profession' under consideration was the oldest one, so-called, and such a subject was not deemed suitable for mention on stage, as in polite society.
That prostitution thrived - was utterly accepted yet unacceptable - was itself one of the major themes of Shaw's gripping play. Ever keen to expose hypocrisy, he found here a glaring example of it.
This week's enjoyable production, directed by Sir Peter Hall, at the Oxford Playhouse comes hotfoot from the West End. There have been changes of cast - chiefly Twiggy Lawson's substitution for Brenda Blethyn in the title role and Hannah Yelland taking over from award-winning Rebecca Hall as Mrs W's bluestocking daughter, Vivie.
The latter performs with great distinction, perfectly conveying the horror of a young woman who discovers that her Cambridge education has been funded by the proceeds of prostitution in a chain of brothels run by her mater.
On top of this she must fight off the amorous advances of Sir George Crofts (Jeremy Clyde), the middle-aged roue who is her mother's partner-in-crime, while coming to terms with the possibility that her chirpy young boyfriend Frank.(Ryan Kiggel) might be her half-brother. That's because earlier in life Mrs Warren had a fling with Frank's father, the Rev Samuel Gardner (Mike Burnside) - now the snooty (and boozy) incumbent of the parish where Vivie has her summer home.
But what of Twiggy? Having branched out, as it were, from modelling into theatre (via a number of roles in musicals), she can hardly be said to possess all the attributes of a classical actress. Her voice, for instance, lacks much in the way of variety - veering between the nasal and the irritatingly shrill.
As might be imagined, she is at her best when - the true nature of her employment having been revealed to Vivie - she drops the pretence of being the grande dame and allows her Cockney roots to show.
But she remains eminently watchable throughout the drama, clearly showing the charm of a character able to win the admiration of such an all-round good egg as the architect Mr Praed (Benedict Blythe) - perhaps the only really pleasant character in the whole piece.
The action proceeds at a cracking pace under Sir Peter's steady hand, but only a director of his eminence, I think, would dare to leave an audience sitting for so long between scene changes.
The play continues until Saturday.
CHRIS GRAY
BBC Oxford May 2003
www.bbc.co.uk/oxford
Mrs Warren's Profession
May 6 - 10
Oxford Playhouse
By Mark Young
Under the watchful gaze of Sir Peter Hall, Sixties fashion icon Twiggy made her Oxford debut to the delight of a full house at the Playhouse.
Shaw wrote Mrs Warren's Profession in 1893, but it remained banned until 1925. One has to ask why Sir Peter has chosen to dust the cobwebs of this dated play.
It remains a realistic attempt at tackling what was then the taboo subject of prostitution, but Sir Peter focuses more on the theme of a mother-and-daughter relationship.
The wit of this play is strangled by Shaw's laborious attempts to lecture us on morality, prejudice and the evils that surround wealth. The influence of Ibsen is clear but the humour of Wilde is absent.
The choice of Twiggy Lawson in the title role is perfect casting.
She draws inspiration from the cockney sparrow found in Lisa Doolitle and alternates it with a touch of Mrs Bridges of Upstairs Downstairs fame.
Twiggy's voice was a little shrill in the first half but by the second she was fully in control of the part, dominating the audience like a music hall duchess.
Here we have an icon who dominated a questionable profession, playing the role of one who also makes her money by means still not acceptable to all.
Despite being well supported by Hannah Yelland, who plays her daughter, and Benedick Blythe interpreting Mr Praed, this play is difficult for contemporary audiences to understand because the marginal are not connected to the whole picture in a consequential way.
This is certainly a run worth catching, to appreciate the importance of this challenge to censorship as Queen Victoria's reign came to an end.
Theatrelanduk May 2003
www.theatrelanduk.com
"Mrs Warren's Profession" at the Playhouse, Oxford, May 2003
Reviewed by Caroline Simon
The dates of Bernard Shaw's 'Mrs Warren's Profession' say it all: Written 1893, banned until 1925. It tells the story of Mrs Warren, a woman driven to prostitution in the past because of financial difficulties. Her daughter, Vivie Warren, has been sent to various boarding schools for her education and upbringing, emerging with a degree from Cambridge University, and, unbeknown to her, has been using her mother's money from her 'profession' to do so. This leads to a rift since Vivie believes herself to now be socially above Mrs Warren. The ending is somewhat sad - the separation between mother and daughter seems complete.
This piece portrays some wonderful acting by Twiggy Lawson and Hannah Yelland as Mrs Warren and Vivie respectively. The audience comes to know the characters well and sympathise with each. Although there are some fairly long scene changes, these are justified by the magnificence of the sets.
A production well worth seeing. In Shaw's own words, "I took a profession which Society officially repudiates as a metaphor for the way in which that larger society is really conducted".
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