Play which was banned for 30 years still relevant
Mrs Warren’s Profession Theatre Royal Bath
CLEVER casting! Real life mother and daughter Caroline and Rose Quentin star in this new production of Mrs Warren’s Profession that opened at the Theatre Royal Bath prior to a UK tour.
It’s clever because George Bernard Shaw’s infamous play about “the oldest profession” focuses in part on a mother-daughter relationship with all the emotion, expectations and disappointments that follow. The two women are electric together, particularly in their ultimate clash.
GBS wrote the play in 1894 when it caused great scandal and was banned from the stage for 30 years. Today, almost 130 years later, its satirical pop at snobbery, at hypocrisy, at lower earnings for women, remains strikingly – shockingly! – relevant.
Mrs Warren (Caroline Quentin) has dragged herself up from poverty using her good looks in that age-old way that women use to charm men, and is now the wealthy manager of several highend brothels in Europe.
Her daughter Vivie (Rose Quentin), an ultra-bright Cambridge-educated mathematician, has been brought up by nannies, all paid for by Mrs W’s earnings.
The play opens at Vivie’s idyllic country cottage where Mrs W arrives amid a retinue of former lovers and admirers.
Designer David Woodhead has created a doll’s house set for the first act with a tiny cottage against a bucolic background of blue skies, cloud and church. It’s twee, and initially funny, possibly a metaphor for a house of ill repute in an English country garden, but the pace of the play is slowed up as the characters squeeze into the cottage or duck under a too-low lychgate.
Until this meeting mother and daughter are virtual strangers and Vivie knows nothing of Mrs W’s profession – but then questions of truths, half truths and Vivie’s paternity slip out.
The split between them comes in the superb second act, not with the revelation of her mother’s past; Vivie gets that Mrs W’s chosen profession is a better business model than working in a factory for less than a living wage.
She takes issue with the fact that, despite her wealth, her mother is now a madam, still selling girls to men and even planning to marry Vivie off to a rich business partner.
The exchange between them is excoriating, riveting, with moving performances from both Quentins, although the second half undoubtedly belongs to Vivie. Rose Quentin excels as the feisty modern gal determined to make her own way, not bound by societal mores and certainly not beholden to any man.
Caroline Quentin is touching as Mrs W, her accent gradually reverting to her south London roots as she recalls her past, unable to understand or bridge the gap between herself and her daughter.
There is also strong support from the men – Simon Shepherd as the smooth but ultimately caddish Sir George Crofts, Matthew Cottle as the humorously naughty Reverend Gardner, and Stephen Rahman-Hughes as the artist Praed. Peter Losasso is especially amusing as the puppyish Frank Gardner who is lovesick for Vivie.
Directed by Anthony Banks, this production is stylish, pacey and entertaining.
■ appears at the Theatre Royal Bath until Saturday November 19. Call the box office on 01225 448844 or go online at www.theatreroyal.org.uk
Jackie Chappell