Review: Shaw's "Mrs. Warren's Profession" still provocative after all these years

Shaw poses questions that horrified the play's first audiences, and still challenge modern sensibilities - when "women's work" is so often undervalued, should a woman be looked down upon for making a decent living through "indecent" means?

—Joff Schmidt, CBC Theatre Reviewer

The plight of the working poor, the struggle women face to get ahead in business, and a young woman's rebellious desire not to follow in her mother's footsteps - these are themes that wouldn't be out of place in a play written today. And they're still surprisingly fresh and relevant in the MTC Warehouse's solid production of George Bernard Shaw's Mrs. Warren's Profession, a play written in 1894 (but deemed so scandalous it wasn't performed until several years later).

The play centres around Mrs. Kitty Warren (Seana McKenna), a pragmatic woman of means, and her privileged, well-educated, and equally pragmatic daughter Vivie (Cherissa Richards). Surrounding the tough and sensible Warren women are men who are either childishly irresponsible, like Vivie's young suitor Frank (Tom Keenan); ineffectual, like Mrs. Warren's faithful friend Praed (Gordon Tanner); hypocritical (Frank's father, Reverend Samuel, played by Stephen Russell); or callous (Mrs. Warren's "business partner" Crofts, played by Arne MacPherson). In Shaw's Victorian setting, it's men who have made an utter mess of the world - the women seem the only hope for righting it.

But conflict arises when Vivie, who has enjoyed the fruits of her mother's wealth (a Cambridge education, for example) realizes that Mrs. Warren's profession is the world's oldest. Through the scenes between the two women, Shaw poses questions that horrified the play's first audiences, and still challenge modern sensibilities - when "women's work" is so often undervalued, should a woman be looked down upon for making a decent living through "indecent" means? Is it wrong for Vivie to profit from her mother's line of work? And is Mrs. Warren an unfit mother because of how she chooses to provide for her child, and herself?

These provocative questions play out over the show's 130 minutes with characteristic Shavian wit - sometimes used for laughs (and there are plenty sprinkled throughout the play, like Frank's assessment of Crofts - "the sort of chap that would take a prize at a dog show, ain't he?"), and sometimes to sharply drive home Shaw's themes ("The only way a woman can provide for herself decently," Mrs. Warren tells Vivie, "is to be good to some man who can afford to be good to her").

Of course, being a Shaw play, it's wordy. But director Alisa Palmer paces the dialogue briskly and smartly, and her cast deliver fine performances all around (of particular note are Tom Keenan, likably rakish as Frank, and Stephen Russell, who struggles delightfully to maintain some degree of dignity as Reverend Samuel). Cherissa Richards has the unenviable task of playing her key scenes opposite Seana McKenna, one of the country's finest stage actors, but handles the role of Vivie with style (in spite of an accent that wanders a bit). But the play truly belongs to McKenna, who delivers a graceful, wrenching performance as Mrs. Warren, a woman who simply wants to do right by her daughter.

Mrs. Warren's Profession may have lost some of its power to shock in the last 118 years. But this production proves it still has the power to pose provocative questions - and to move an audience.