Mrs Warren's Profession

A play about morality, hypocrisy and women’s place in a capitalist world, despite being well over a century old  and in Victorian dress (written in 1893 and banned from performance until 1925)  many of the arguments being made in this play could be happening today.

Vivie (Bessie Carter) is a modern young woman and has just graduated from Cambridge, with plans for a professional career.  Her mother (Imelda Staunton) has been largely absent due to travel and business affairs but today she pays a visit, expecting her daughter to conform to becoming a genteel young woman and marry well. Staunton as Kitty is as impressive as you would expect.  I loved the mix of grand airs all being undercut slightly by the London twang underlying her accent.  The four men appearing in the play are a mix of entitled, arrogant, selfish, immoral, venal or just plain unpleasant.  Robert Glenister (excellent as Sir George Crofts)is the embodiment of grasping bullying capitalism, we have the smarmy wastrel Frank (Reuben Joseph), the insipid Mr Praed (Sid Sagar) and the very funny Kevin Doyle as Frank's father,the venal and bumbling incompetent Reverend.  

The play really comes to life though when Kitty and Vivie are facing off against each other.  This real life mother and daughter pairing bring an additional energy to the already pretty lively dialogue.  A debate about morality and the treatment of women and limited options available to them is still pretty valid, as is the discussion of the treatment of sex workers versus their customers.  And drifting around the edges of the stage (and acting as stagehands) are the women that are the topic of the discussion, unnoticed and unremarked by all but still working hard.

Loved the staging for this - a small circular garden full of flowers, verdant and civilised, gorgeously fake, is gradually stripped back to a bare stage by the women chorus as the bare truth is revealed, before being replaced by a layer of genteel business.

Probably this isn’t saying anything particularly shocking these days, but what is most shocking is that it still feels true.  But whatever you think of the play, Imelda Staunton is a tiny but mighty force of nature.  Genteel, but also subtle and steely, the fine tuning she brings to Mrs Warren is a marvel to watch. Recommended. 

And I also squeezed in a second trip to see Nye at the Olivier on the last matinee of the run. I wrote about my first visit here   Still has a sentimental ending (the whole row behind me were sniffling) but very powerful.  It's going to be on NT live so I recommend that instead if you missed it.