Mrs Warren's Profession. A splendid play performed almost pefectly.

You must see this. Imelda Staunton is amazing.

Imelda Staunton’s performance in Mrs Warren’s Profession at the Garrick Theatre is one of the best that I have seen for several years. She has the ability to convey every nuance of Shaw’s play, a demanding piece of work, and she never relies on mere intensity, anger, or loudness instead of tone, intonation, and expression. From her first line to her last she gives a commanding performance. When she does finally howl, it works marvellously. This performance is not to be missed, and if you are in London in the next few weeks I would urge you to do what it takes to get a ticket. The rest of the cast are strong as well.

In general, this production is pitch perfect. The old idea that Shaw writes for the head and not the heart (a foolish notion, that even the old grizzly himself was sometimes taken in by) is left behind as the arguments are made with the sort of passionate clarity that is unique to a good Shaw play (standard “television posh” imitation accents aside; the accents in fact were pretty good). Everything is delivered with the right emphasis and degree. But Staunton has the sort of presence that is rare to find. Bessie Carter is well matched as her opposite, and although she has not the same gusto for most of the time, she is so good that they act as a perfect pairing. One of George Bernard Shaw’s best plays is enjoying a very good run in London. Hurrah!

Alas, that this were all I had to say. The director Dominic Cooke has simultaneously produced a wonderful play and an irritatingly flawed one. At various intervals, emotional music and lighting like something out of a Netflix drama are used while the ghosts of the women who worked as prostitutes walk around the stage, looking gloomy and judgmental. This is not merely unnecessary (talk about pointing a moral and gilding a lily), but is an affront both to the play and the actors. For God’s sake, George Bernard Shaw needs no adumbration from Dominic Cooke. It is bad enough that various of the stage directions, and some of the dialogue, have been disregarded, but to interpose on the script in this manner is a terrible weakness.

It is quite evident throughout the play that Shaw is in direct competition with Shakespeare: he would have used the eminently Shakespearean device of the ghosts had he wanted to. He did not because it is bland and obvious: and most importantly it detracts from his words. To interrupt Imelda Staunton with this little trick in the middle of the play’s best speech, which she delivers superbly, is not just silliness but a gross imposition upon her performance.

They also play the very end exactly against Shaw’s stage directions. Seriously, who do these people think they are? It makes no sense at all to have Vivie nearly crying at the end, and is precisely not what Shaw writes. But, it does play well to our own prejudices! Don’t worry, she does have normal feelings like you really, she is upset just like someone on TV would be! It’s all repressed! It’s all deep down inside! And all that blather. Don’t they know something can be heartbreaking even if the person on stage isn’t crying? Get a grip! This is art for crying out loud. Oh how ironic that we do this to Shaw of all writers! In this of all plays!

But of course we cannot now put on such a moralising play without desperately grasping for the moral ourselves. God forbid we should allow Shaw to rant and rave at us; we must join in! Reading the rather dreary discussion in the programme between the actors and the director about how Mrs Warren’s Profession still reflects society today exactly as it did then reminded me of Shaw’s own comment on the play:

Anybody can upset the theatre critics, in a turn of the wrist, by substituting for the romantic commonplaces of the stage the moral commonplaces of the pulpit, platform, or the library.

Please, save me from all of this, and next time, just let Imelda Staunton give a first-rate performance of a first-rate play, and do what Shaw tells you to do; the rest is third-rate commentary, as if Shaw needs the equivalent of a sports announcer to accompany his work. “Oh look, now he’s snuck up on us all and pointed out the vast hypocrisy of all our lives. Really makes you think about those poor girls, huh?” Yes, yes it does, that is exactly why the device you used is ruinous to the power of the play.

Still, you really should go and see it. Despite the director’s worst efforts, this is a splendid production of a splendid play, and you won’t be able to see actresses of Staunton’s calibre treading the London boards forever.