Image Credit: Josie Barry of Mrs Warren’s Profession Programme

It was a muggy Wednesday afternoon in London’s Soho, lugging around my recent purchases and sweating profusely in my anti-chaffing pants, when I found myself scrolling aimlessly at last minute theatre tickets. Full disclosure… I’m a bit of a tart for acclaimed British actors, especially those of saintly persuasion (Dench… Smith… McLellan… tick… tick… tick…) So, I was in the mood for a bit of class. And there it was. Calling me. A £25 ticket to see Imelda Staunton (Hello Dolly to Dolores Umbridge) and her daughter, Bessie Carter (Bridgerton’s, Prudence Featherington), in a play I’d never heard of by George Bernard Shaw – he of Pygmalion fame, AKA My Fair Lady – so not too shabby.

I was relieved to settle into period costumes, (although pushed back to 1913  – apparently ‘less… costume-y’) and a whimsical, English country garden, stage-setting. I knew where I was. But did I?

Suffice to say the play was originally banned by The Lord Chamberlain and in 1905 New York, was raided by the police. Fear not dear reader – is the subject matter so salacious? (gasp… swoon..). Of course not – it just covers the age-old topic of man’s exploitation of women and the horror when she comes out on top (how very dare she…)

The story itself is rooted in the mother and daughter relationship – or lack of – skillfully portrayed by real life counterparts Staunton (all sturdy, cockney resilience) and Carter (playful, untouched by obligation or graft). We are introduced to Vivie – the daughter, as an unconventional woman of the time, well educated and not interested in love or romance with her head set on an independent, working life. After returning from university, she is due to meet her ever-absent mother, who has funded her life but does so from Vienna. Vivie’s paternal parentage is left as a question mark.

Staunton and Carter bounce off each other with their shorthand of familiarity as sparring mother and daughter. A notable point in the play refers to the lack of physical resemblance between the two – another plus point of this casting. This diametrical physicality, plays to the chasm between their expectations and lack of knowledge or understanding of each other, leading the mother to reveal how she made her money. A Dickensian tale of sisters, following a respectable path, only to lead to poverty, despair and ultimately – death, informed Mrs Warren’s choice to follow one industrious sibling, into the lucrative life of a Brothel Madame. Having funded her own daughter’s life and resisted the offers of surrogate daughters in her brothels, Mrs Warren is set on and actually demands that Vivie tends to her in her old age. Vivie is swayed by her mother’s plight on hearing her struggles and how she was forced to earn her living.

The male characters float around as thinly drawn props to the tale: Mr Praed (Sid Sagar) – I had to rack my brain to recall his purpose apart from offering some context to Mrs Warren; Frank Gardener (Reuben Joseph) a vacuous suitor/friend of Vivie, in desperate need to marry money but played as a foppish, camp, replicant from any Oscar Wilde play you can think of; Rev. Gardener (Kevin Doyle), offers that comedic, English awkwardness of a man (or cleric), fumbling his way round the hypocrisy of the church as an ex client of Mrs Warren and a contender as father of the year to Vivie. Add a dash of his son’s apocalyptic intentions towards Vivie and he barely remained upright. Robert Glenister holds his own as Sir George Crofts, friend of Mrs Warren, and after confirmation that he didn’t father Vivie, becomes her self-entitled suitor. When his irresistible proposal is rebuffed (to marry him as he wouldn’t be around for long and she’d be left a rich widow – what’s not to love?), he sticks the knife in by telling her that he is actually an investor in her mother’s business and she’s still at it.

Emotions are whiplashed as empathy for both women’s plights and ideals, tear at your perceptions of how far have women come (or not), in what still remains fundamentally, a man’s world. The clash of ideals for unashamed survival and advancement to benefit the next generation, who, from a perspective of entitlement – now judge, may resonate with many mother and daughter relationships of current times (or is it just me?).

Mrs Warren’s Profession, By George Bernard Shaw

Showing at The Garrick Theatre London until 16^th August

National Theatre Live in October