The Authorized Version

 

Today's plays at the Shaw Festival offered an interesting study of marriage. First, J. B. Priestley's "When We Are Married." Three couples, celebrating their silver wedding, discover that, due to a clerical error, they were never married. Is this a disaster or freedom? If freedom, what will they do with it? Past peccadilloes and problems; current longings and troubled relationships come to light as partners are suddenly freed to speak the truth. All this in the style of the classic English farce, which is one of my favorite genres.

 

My favorite line, when all is resolved: "I guess we'll all have to make the best of each other. I suppose that's what we're here for anyway." "Making the best of each other" Yes!

 

Then in the evening G. B. Shaw's "The Philanderer." This was Shaw's second play. He was advised to burn his original act III, so he wrote a new third act— which is usually the one audiences see. Occasionally "The Philanderer" is produced with the Act III rewrite, followed by the original as a postscript. (Which I suspect would be my choice.) The production we saw was only the second time the original script has been produced since Shaw wrote it in 1893. 

 

The sheer theatricality of the Shaw Festival production was absolutely stunning. Sets, acting, costumes and the choreography of the stylized Act III created the powerful take-you-out-of-yourself experience for which one attends live theatre. The beauty and impact of the images will stay with me always.

 

But what about the script? Well, Shaw is preachy. That's just Shaw and lovers of his drama just let him get on with it no matter how much we might disagree with him. Being his second play one can forgive a bit of an overdose— after all, he was young. And England's divorce laws of the time were harsh. The problem came with the "tacked on" feeling of the final act that jumped four years in time and the emptiness of the lives that resulted from living the philosophy of pure selfishness which Shaw espoused. It's one thing to rail against problems in the establishment, but offering a hopeful solution in its place would send viewers out feeling satisfied rather than empty.