Washington Stage Guild presents exceptional Bernard Shaw

 

(L-R) Will Rothhaar as Frank Gardner, Peter Boyer as Mr. Praed and Carl Randolph as Sir George Crofts in Mrs. Warren’s Profession at Washington Stage Guild/Photo by DJ Corey Photography

A prescient script from the 19th century matches outstanding performances by today's actors in Washington Stage Guild's current production, Mrs. Warren's Profession.

George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950), sometimes ranked as the greatest British playwright after William Shakespeare, won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1925. He wrote more than 60 plays, including Mrs. Warren's Profession which he finished in 1893, and one he considered one of his "plays unpleasant" since it weighed in on a controversial topic. 

(L-R) Lynn Steinmetz as Mrs. Kitty Warren and Rachel Felstein as Vivie Warren in Mrs. Warren’s Profession at Washington Stage Guild/Photo by DJ Corey Photography

It's about a reformed prostitute and brothel-owner who tries to forge a new relationship with her estranged daughter, outraged by her mother's profession.

Shaw believed the brothel business was one forced by economic necessity, not by moral failings, and ends his play on an unsettling note of which I had hoped the opposite.

(L-R) R. Scott Williams as Reverend Samuel Gardner and Will Rothhaar as Frank Gardner in Mrs. Warren’s Profession at Washington Stage Guild/Photo by DJ Corey Photography

Director Michael Rothharr has some experience with this drama: He directed it for the Guild in 1991 when his son, Will, pranced around the stage at age four and now appears in the show as Frank Gardner in a sharp, confident manner. 

"Frank" is a suitor, and a likely possibility to "clinch the deal," although somewhat manipulative and coy. 

Lynn Steinmetz is Mrs. Warren, also from the 1991 production when she played Vivie (and not looking a day older).

From my mother's perspective, Mrs. Warren's frailties deserve compassion and patience, while her daughter, Vivie (Rachel Felstein), is a cold-blooded, self-righteous, and heartless woman who knows not how to forgive. 

A mother's pleas go unheeded.

Both women present their characters in convincing fashion. 

Superb acting by the remainder of the cast matches the riveting content including the wonderfully likable, clown Peter Boyer as Mr. Praed, another Vivie suitor and welcome contrast to the serious business at hand.

Carl Randolph is Sir George Croft, the entitled wealthy financier of Mrs. Warren's business, her "pimp" who sets his eyes on Vivie, too.  Although a simple gesture when he lays his hand upon her shoulder, it was as if he had stripped her, exposing her vulnerabilities and sending shivers up my spine, for he took liberties with touch which was every man's right in Victorian England when it came to spouses. Women had no rights.  And she was not his spouse.

R. Scott Williams is the Reverend Samuel Gardner, a bumbling, stumbling mysterious piece of Mrs. Warren's puzzle and also, the father of Frank Gardner.  

Many questions are left unanswered for the pleasure of the audience to figure out.

Victorian costumes (by Sigríd Jóhannesdóttir), especially Mrs. Warren's colorful hats, are a delight and nicely complement the men in their dashing, upper-class attire.

Megan Holden designed an outdoor garden setting which easily transitions into law offices and more, all perfectly adequate for the show.

Shaw's play was years ahead of a more vigorous effort to win women's rights, a movement still underway in this, the month to recognize women's history.

In Britain Lord Chamberlain banned the play which did not reach the public stage until 1925, and when it came to New York in 1905, police arrested the cast and crew.

Other production crew members: Marianne Meadows, lighting; Marcus Darnley, sound; Arthur Nordlie, stage manager; Jenny Male, intimacy director; Laura Giannarelli, assistant stage manager; Bill Largess, artistic director and dramaturg; Steven Carpenter, associate artistic director.

What: Mrs. Warren's Profession by George Bernard Shaw

When: Thursday, 7:30 p.m., Friday and Saturday, 8 p.m., Saturday and Sunday, 2:30 p.m. Through March 27, 2022,

Where: The Undercroft Theatre of Mt. Vernon Place United Methodist Church, 900 Massachusetts Ave., Washington, D.C. 20001

Tickets: Thursday and matinees, $50; Friday and Saturday nights, $60.

For more information, call the Box Office, 202-900-8788 and/or visit the WSG's website.

Metro stations: Walk from Mt. Vernon Square, Gallery Place, or Metro Center.

patricialesli@gmail.com

Two Amelias star at the National Portrait Gallery

One of many occupations of women during the Civil War was that of spy.  Pictured is Belle Boyd of Martinsburg, Virginia (now West Virginia) and Front Royal, Virginia who became a Confederate spy after a Union soldier denounced her mother. Wikimedia Commons/Library of Congress

Was it coincidence that two "Amelias" opened at the National Portrait Gallery only days apart?

And “lost” persons are and were a central role in each?

There is One Life: Amelia Earhart now through May 27, 2013, and for one night only in the Gallery's Nan Tucker McEvoy Auditorium, there was Amelia: A Story of Abiding Love in the Civil War, a staged presentation about a woman in search of her husband, a Union soldier fighting somewhere between Pennsylvania and South Carolina in the 1860s.

According to the playwright, Alex Webb, who starred as the husband of Amelia, the play is based on the 400 to 500 women who impersonated soldiers during the war.

In commemorating the 150th anniversary of the Civil War, the National Portrait Gallery seeks to examine the role of women during the period of which Amelia played a role.   

Shirleyann Kaladjian (Webb's real-time wife) was "Amelia" who wanders from Gettysburg to battlegrounds down South, in search of "Ethan" (Webb), ending her journey at Andersonville, Georgia, the site of the notorious Confederate prison.

Several themes run concurrently in the play:  The search for love, the audience education about women in the Civil War,  and the horrors of Andersonville, not unlike those at the Union prison in Elmira, New York, where about the same number of inmates died.   

It was the first fictitious production of the National Portrait Gallery's Cultures in Motion performing arts series, "designed to educate, entertain, and promote mutual understanding of [America's] diverse cultures" and undertaken for this production with the Washington Stage Guild.

Webb and Kaladjian delivered powerful performances over the 90-minute playing time, remarkable in content and effect, propelling some members of the audience to leap to their feet in eager applause at the end.

And the play may be entitled Amelia but the show was all about "Ethan," one of many characters Webb portrayed.

His metamorphosis on stage from person to person without costume or scene change was one for acting classes, nothing short of exceptional since every person he became was lifelike, due to Webb's uncanny ability to transform people, mannerisms, voices, and inflexions. 

From turning around in a bent position and suddenly becoming Amelia's frail mother or her limping dad in the same scene,  to a Confederate guard, a sashaying Northern belle in a "ball gown" with 15-foot circumference, to a doctor, an escaped slave, Rebel soldier, guard, and more, Webb effected the personalities with stunning skill.

The couple moved frequently around the stage against a minimal but strong set design (a fence post, a bench and chairs, by Carl F. Gudenius) and, in one scene, they walked along a path strewn through the audience, talking the whole time.

Flashing throughout the production as backdrop were actual
Civil War scenes of battlegrounds, soldiers, farm and social life.

Taped music from the era under the direction of Stowe Nelson added to the mood.

"Every woman has got to find a husband," Amelia's mother tells her daughter, a refrain I heard more than 100 years later from the lips of my own mother. 

I do declare, Miss Scarlett, times have changed. 

Andersonville today is a National Historic Site dedicated "to all American prisoners of war throughout the nation's history."

Bill Largess directed; Jewell Robinson produced; Michael Kramer served as technical director and stage manager; and Sigridur Johannesdottir was costume designer.

The National Portrait Gallery is located at Eighth and G, NW and is open from 11:30 a.m. until 7 p.m. daily, except Christmas Day.  The closest Metro station is Gallery Place/Chinatown, or one may walk from Metro Center, a few blocks away.  For more information, call 202-633-8300.

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