Do3 - 3 July: Widowers' Houses

[french frank]

The first play by George Bernard Shaw, written in 1892, and the third in R3's 'Money Talks' season.

"What happens if an Englishman, decent enough in private, shuts his eyes and conscience to the monstrous abuses of the poor by slum landlords, especially if the remedy might affect his own financial security? The theme has resonated down the years.

"Widower's Houses became an immediate success and remains astonishingly relevant in the present property investment world. Funny, observant, incisive in examining moral dilemmas and business ethics."

With Ian McKellen, Charles Dance and Tim Pigott-Smith.

[DracoM]

Good production. The very smelly world of middle class, Rackman-esque [ there's a blast from the past!] very dodgy loot accumulated on the back of apparent legit business practice came through. Trench's caving-in at the end was just awful to behold, but presumably part of Shaw's vicious poking of sticks into kinds of respectability?

Pigott-Smith was the pick for me.

[french frank]

Good production. The very smelly world of middle class, Rackman-esque [ there's a blast from the past!] very dodgy loot accumulated on the back of apparent legit business practice came through. Trench's caving-in at the end was just awful to behold, but presumably part of Shaw's vicious poking of sticks into kinds of respectability?

Pigott-Smith was the pick for me.

Will get to this as soon as I can! Meanwhile, here's the cast:

Mr Sartorius ..... Ian McKellen
William Cokane ..... Charles Dance
Lickcheese ..... Tim Pigott-Smith
Harry Trench ..... Dan Stevens
Blanche Sartorius ..... Honeysuckle Weeks
Jessie ..... Siobhan Hughes
The Waiter ..... Jon Glover
Music specially composed by Mark Holden and Michael Lopez
Director: Martin Jarvis
Producer: Rosalind Ayres

And a useful Wikipedia article for those who aren't too worried about knowing what happens in advance.

I hadn't noticed that this was one of the 'Plays Unpleasant' - as Wiki says: 'termed "unpleasant" because they were intended, not to entertain their audiences—as traditional Victorian theatre was expected to—but to raise awareness of social problems and to censure exploitation of the laboring class by the unproductive rich'.

Interesting choice - I look forward to it.

[french frank]

Possibly one either likes Shaw plays or one doesn't. I do, and found this one interesting- especially this being his first play.

The agenda possibly takes over from the plot at times (the explictness and fullness of Lickcheese's revelations did seem to arrive very providentially, and the fact that both Lady Roxdale and Trench relied coincidentally on Sartorius's business conveyed Shaw's message and therefore had to be the case); but we know Shaw has an agenda and can't grumble about it if we read or listen to the plays. Sartorius, with his brutal treatment of Lickcheese and Blanche with the violent attack on Jessie epitomised the mistreatment of the working class, with the tenants so far below them living in crushing poverty, well out of sight of Trench, Cokane and Lady Roxdale. (Would Trench not have hoped to earn an adequate living as a doctor and not depend on his independent income? Oh, well ...)

I liked the production very much, the not quite sinister music, watchfully heard at key moments. And I wouldn't pick out any of the principals above the rest: I thought they all did a great job. The play is carried by Sartorius (McKellen), Trench (Dan Stevens) and Blanche (Honysuckle Weeks) and their characters came over beautifully. Good one!


Have I missed something? Why was it called Widowers' Houses? I know there was one widower ...

[Stanley Stewart]

GBS would always think pluralistically, ff! Probably an indication that the plot was also universal. I, too, am a Shaw devotee and even as a RADA student, living in penury, I managed to scrimp the dosh for a hardback copy of the Complete Plays of Bernard Shaw; I figured out that the alternative of buying single copies in Penguin paperback was a more expensive investment as the complete edition was around 30 bob. The Shaw Prefaces had to wait for a later date. Widowers' Houses prompted me to think of Mrs Warren's Profession (1894), "being the third of three unpleasant plays". I played Sir George Croft in a rep production, 1963, and the implicit suggestion of prostitution still had a shock value, even at the time of the Christine Keeler furore. There was something omnipresent about playing Shaw. If you changed an adjective, or even missed the nuance of a comma, or semi-colon, the inner- self heard immediate alarm bells which could create a fluff, or hesitation, - GBS would never condone a"dry" in his work - but a rebuke registered clearly.

Shaw's work seems to be out-of-joint, at present, but this ill wind encouraged a bargain basement offer of a DVD boxset, The Bernard Shaw Collection, a year or two ago: Arms & The Man, The Man of Destiny, The Devil's Disciple, Mrs Warren's Profession, You Never Can Tell, Pygmalion, Androcles & The Lion, Heartbreak House, The Millionairess and The Apple Cart. Top class performances from Patrick Stewart, Helena Bonham Carter, Lynn Redgrave, John Gielgud, Sian Phillips, Maggie Smith and Billy Connolly etc. BBC DVD.

[french frank]

Drama on 3 broadcast a John Tydeman production of Mrs Warren's Profession in 2007 (or should that be Mrs Warrens' Profession?).

The old MB discussion is here.Similar resonances, the honest penny and the dishonest penny.

[tony yyy]

Have I missed something? Why was it called Widowers' Houses? I know there was one widower ...

That's a good point - who were the other widowers?

I wasn't expecting much from Shaw's first play but in the event I thought it was well worth doing and the production was excellent. The central dilemma was an interesting one and the only element I felt was a bit out of place was Blanche's attack on her servant. I think I found this the most enjoyable of the 'Money Talks' series.

[aeolium]

I thought this was a good production but was not greatly engaged by the play (perhaps since it was a Play Unpleasant I shouldn't have been). I can't help feeling that the strings with which Shaw pulls his puppet characters to play out his own arguments are too apparent - the characters do not have an independent life (though arguably Blanche was a less predictable character).

I think the basic ideas had already been explored by Dickens in two of his novels - Great Expectations, where Pip unknowingly benefits from the ex-convict's wealth, and Little Dorrit, where Casby is the 'gentleman' landlord getting Pancks to do his dirty work (and in a sub-plot the great Merdle is operating a Ponzi scheme).