MRS WARREN'S PROFESSION. To 5 October.

Bristol

MRS WARREN'S PROFESSION
by George Bernard Shaw

Bristol Old Vic To 5 October 2002
Mon-Wed 7.30pm Thu-Sat 8pm Mat Thur & Sat 2.30pm
BSL interpreted 28 September 2.30pm
Runs 2hr 25min One interval

TICKETS 0117 987 7877
Review Timothy Ramsden 9 September

Less directorial fuss and more focus on character and dialogue would have helped this 'Unpleasant' Shaw revival.You may wonder why Mrs Warren needs a choreographer. It's part of the business Deborah Bruce adds, with more concept than deftness, before scenes, as young Vivie sees and hears any number of strange lighting and sound effects. Her consciousness becomes the story's location here: finally, free of her past and its associations, she sits down to a useful day's accountancy with a smile and sigh of happy relief.

It's unclear why the past should afflict her from curtain up, as she's not yet in the know about mum's brothel-keeping or Mrs Warren's titled friend's financial stake in their sex industry, let alone the local vicar as a former customer. Still, it might be argued that, coming home from Cambridge with her ace Maths degree, this businesslike young woman recalls things seen and overheard but not understood in childhood.

Yet when the theatricality's done there's the awkward matter of actors creating characters. Unfortunately Ruth Grey's Vivie begins by mistaking rapid utterance for a brisk manner, then collapses into blandness. She's can't match our interest in her mother. Isla Blair's brothel madam may be conventionally overblown, but her ample clothes and loud manner make their point: a defiantly confident businesswoman, she's vulnerable as a mother. (On her business, Shaw seems unresolved: she claims her 'girls' are better treated than factory lasses, yet details the repugnant job of having to please men).

Jeremy Clyde's lithe, faded elegance gives the corrupt old Crofts an unusual charm; there's even a moment of justified moral shock when he claims he would never have used Mrs Warren's profession against Vivie had she married him. Nor is Crofts seen off by Vivie's impecunious young admirer Tom Harper has an insouciant smile but is awkward with dialogue.

Paul Nicholson's a ripely comic clergyman and Malcolm James a creditable Praed - a difficult character; James can't entirely avoid the over-pleading voice this simple-minded man of artistic sophistication so often ends up using.

The formally-shaped garden surround is unhelpfully fussy and the blue wallpaper sky afflicted with a Jackson Pollock white cloud splash clashes against the realistic script.

Mrs Kitty Warren: Isla Blair
Vivie Warren: Ruth Grey
Praed: Malcolm James
Sir George Crofts: Jeremy Clyde
Rev. Samuel Gardner: Paul Nicholson
Frank Gardner: Tom Harper

Director: Deborah Bruce
Designer: Lucinda Bevan
Lighting: Tim Streader
Sound: Jason Barnes
Choreographer: Jonathan Howell

2002-09-12 00:57:29