Mrs Warren's Profession

Synopsis

Miss Vivie Warren is a very independent girl, but then she can afford to be; she has a scholarship at Cambridge and a generous monthly allowance from her mother. She is also a very modern young woman; nothing shocks her. So how will she react when she finds out where the money comes from? Written in 1894 and banned until 1925.

Our Review:

11 October 2002

"Written in 1893, banned until 1925", we are reminded in a projection onto a screen before Peter Hall's new production of George Bernard Shaw's Mrs Warren's Profession, and lest we forget, again between every scene, as if the fact that this play was once suppressed should make it resonate all the more strongly now.

It may be the liveliest fact about the piece, but it's a largely inexplicable one, based on what we actually see in Hall's mostly stultifying production. In fact, played fast, hard and fierce (as it was a few years ago at the Lyric Hammersmith), this can be a highly charged modern morality play about hypocrisy and the challenges to a Cambridge-educated daughter's 'respectability' when she discovers that her posh lifestyle has been funded by her mother's exploits as a prostitute across Europe.

But in a lethargic, deliberate production like this, given a threadbare design by John Gunter, it turns into a dull costume drama in which the stakes s...

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Latest User Review

USER: Whatsonstage.com (141.241.30.254) - 8 January 2003:

An every good production of a still powerful play. Brenda Blethyn was suberb, the OBE she was recently awarded was an insult, it must be Dame Brenda before long. Rebecca Hall was superb, her West End Debut. I'm not sure what Drama training sher has received, but a glittering career surely beckons. The only sour note was Laurance Fox-he was absolutelty awful-and he went to RADA! ...

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