100-plus-year-old ‘Mrs. Warren’s Profession’ still smart and timely.
“What’s a woman worth?” asks Mrs. Warren, a Victorianera capitalist, to her well-to-do daughter in George Bernard Shaw’s 1902 play “Mrs. Warren’s Profession.” Warren, played by the vociferous, charismatic Celeste Roberts in Classical Theatre Company’s excellent if safe revival (through Oct. 22), is making a case for being a prostitute.
It’s a compelling argument. And it has remained compelling because listening to any smart argument for trading sex for money means finding out what you think about money and about sex.
Shaw published the play to an audience that was not ready for it. The play was banned and actors were arrested. Shaw pushed societal buttons by suggesting that women had so few economic opportunities that prostitution was the sole lucrative gig for them. Victorian England, at the time, was still caught between the conflicting moral legacies of both Puritanism and libertinism. Sex, in many cases, was shameful, yet it was also everywhere — on the streets, in the brothels and in the twisted minds of desperate men.
But so too does the modern audience straddle a sexual dual personality. America is both the hypersexualized domain of Kim Kardashian and Puritan country of Vice President Mike Pence, a place where sex is everywhere yet still a taboo. Vivie, Mrs. Warren’s daughter, is as modern and feminist as her mother, yet she is anti-prostitution. The Warrens, in short, are a nice illustration of the play’s duality — in this case, both are strong, independent women who happen to disagree about what strong, independent women should do to earn money.
Vivie’s argument isn’t about the morality of sex, though. She argues that inheriting her mother’s brothel money would be to become, in essence, a capitalist princess who lacks the very agency that Mrs. Warren craved when she entered the trade. It’s a clash of ideals fueled by the cutting, unapologetic diction of Shanae’a Rae Moore, who plays Vivie with a typical British affect but also an unusual charm and energy. Moore and Roberts are a good match for each other’s rhythmic verbal sparring.
The fervor takes a while to reach its height. The production begins with a slower energy, partly because Shaw’s male characters crowd out the crux of play. There’s a suitor, a former brothel client, a shady businessman — in other words, dumb men with simple desires for sex and money from the Warrens. At its finest, though, “Mrs. Warren’s Profession” is a two-woman battle of wits, not yet-another portrait of rich young men and women playing the marriage game.
The lethargy, for me, also stemmed from optics — this, alas, is a 100-plus-year-old play written by a dead white man featuring an all-white cast wearing big old aristocratic hats and speaking in the kind of accent that screams “theatre”: sharply enunciated, vaguely
British/Mid-Atlantic. If that you’re into that type of entertainment, then fantastic. One could do much worse than a still-funny, still-smart societal comedy by Shaw.
If you’re more into, say, “Game of Thrones,” “Mrs. Warren’s Profession” still isn’t easily scoffed at. The play finds ways to rise from the grave, asking many of the same questions about women and power that shows like “Mad Men,” “The Handmaid’s Tale” and “The Deuce” tackle. Mrs. Warren is Olenna Tyrell made manifest. The madam’s monologues have the same capitalist feminism of Beyoncé’s “Lemonade.”
If, after the 2016 election, you have thoughts on what kinds of jobs women should or shouldn’t be able to have — be it president or prostitute — then Shaw’s play is for you. In other words, there’s enough universality to chew on for everyone. The fancy hats are a bonus.