A GB Shaw Classic Comes to Life at the Garrick Theatre: Reviewing Imelda Staunton's "Mrs Warren's Profession"

★★★★ | Dominic Cooke’s modern adaptation of George Bernard Shaw’s Mrs Warren’s Profession incisively explores the moral complexities of parental and filial duty, economic necessity, and the position of women in Victorian society. The play opens with Vivie Warren (Bessie Carter), clad in a crisp white sundress, engaging in light-hearted and dramatically ironic conversation with Mr. Praed (Sid Sagar). The remaining characters, starting with the eponymous figure Mrs Warren (Dame Imelda Staunton), Sir George Crofts (Robert Glenister), Frank Gardner (Reuben Joseph), and Reverend Gardner (Kevin Doyle), are quickly introduced.

Dame Imelda Staunton (centre) and her daughter Bessie Carter (right) star in Mrs Warren's Profession. Photo Credit: Johan Persson.

This play is both a humorous glance at mercenary pragmatism as a counterweight to prudish morality, and a comic criticism of the emphasis on societal expectations (as Mrs Warren exclaims, “it’s only good manners to be ashamed!”) Unfortunately, in ensemble scenes, characters are reduced to nothing more than a farce, reflecting a lack of dynamism that this adaptation does not always salvage. Nonetheless, the private confrontations between the main characters set Cooke’s adaptation apart from prior versions. Staunton’s dramatic range is complemented by Carter’s portrayal of a staunch demeanour undercut by flickers of hesitation. Both unravel the edifice of each other’s claims to righteousness, revealing the moral ambiguities that Shaw probes. It’s particularly interesting that Staunton and Carter are mother and daughter in real life, which adds a meta layer to this relationship torn between estrangement and affection.

Chloe Lamford’s set is delightful, beginning with a garden in springtime, complete with an array of flowers which Carter’s Vivie flits around. The setting then devolves into an empty field outside the Rectory – mirroring the descent of Vivie’s edenic view of morality into a blank slate of moral judgement and a more grounded understanding of moral relativism. Throughout this, Mrs Warren's Profession's stagehands mutely swan around; their white nightdresses doubly serve as symbols of purity and promiscuity. By the time we reach the final set (Vivie’s office in Chancery Lane), we learn that the stagehands are meant to represent the countless prostitutes who have been exploited by Crofts, Mrs Warren, and indirectly, Vivie. Their faces are laden with both indifference and judgement as they walk up to Vivie, unsettling the audience with the play's defining question: do we truly have a choice to be moral? The inconclusiveness of Shaw’s answer is one that Cooke’s modern interpretation compels us to reckon with.

★★★★

Mrs Warren's Profession plays at the Garrick Theatre until 16 August.