Widowers' Houses

by George Bernard Shaw

directed by Mort Kaplan

at the Lyric Stage

through November 29

George Bernard Shaw started writing Widowers' Houses in 1885, but it was first produced exactly a century ago. It was his first play, a tentative attempt at social comedy; the frequent harshness and lack of subtlety will come as a surprise to most Shaw fans.

The title, Widowers' Houses, is a vicious twist on Mark 12:38: "Beware of the scribes...which devour widows' houses, and for a pretense make long prayers."

Nevertheless, there are both advantages and disadvantages to the immaturity of Shaw's vision: Certainly, it is often hard to laugh, since the revolutionary spirit shows raw. On the other hand, the audience is not presented with a pre-digested, conveniently packaged view of the evils of our society and what to do about them.

It is easy to see foreshadowings of Major Barbara and Pygmalion in this play. It deals with the exploitation of the poor and the mind-set of a middle class which believes that it is "powerless to alter the state of society," and so will not even try.

Sartorius (Robert J. Bouffier) is the widower in question, and he has built his house on the profits of being a slum landlord and renting out crumbling tenement flats to the poor. As his name suggests, his social position is entirely exteriorized: it is in his clothes, his house, his manners, but he is still conscious of his working class origins. This makes it even more striking that he should say: "When people are very poor, you cannot help them, however much you may sympathize with them."

Bouffier provides a rather novel interpretation of Sartorius as a rather insecure man with a Pontius Pilate-like attitude to the nature of truth.

Louisa Grignon, playing Sartorius's daughter Blanche, creates a creditable version of this, Shaw's most confused character. Her success lies in the fact that she makes the audience feel a simultaneous attraction, revulsion, contempt and sympathy for her. Here, we see the beginnings of some of the rather questionable father-daughter relationships that Shaw went on to create. The director, Mort Kaplan, seems to have done his best to accentuate the suggestions of Blanche's Electra complex.

Diego Arceniagas, playing Blanche's lover Dr. Harry Trench, is a little less convincing. The character was meant to represent typical middle class attitudes, and is therefore the figure most relevant today. He has admirable sentiment of right and wrong, but he lacks the strength of purpose to put them into practice. His position as a member of London's upper class makes him shy away from socialism, and he hastily points out: "If I took the trouble to vote, I would vote conservative." Unfortunately, Arceniagas's rather flat interpretation fails to do justice to this character.

The two other main characters of the play exhibit Shaw's roots in Dickens. There is Mr. Cokane (Ron Ritchell) who fulfills the potential of his name by providing everyone with the opiate of justification: He is capable of rationalizing everything, including Sartorius's ruthless treatment of the poor. He is a master of the euphemism, who describes himself as "moral, but not a moralist."

While Cokane represents Dickensian farce, Lickcheese the rent-collector (John Drabik) represents Dickensian sentiment. Shaw is clumsy in his treatment of Lickcheese, and makes himself a little ridiculous by his continuous harping on the theme of hungry children and weeping women. The older Shaw knew how to tread lightly over such subjects.

Nevertheless, Widowers' Houses is worth seeing, if only for the set design of Charles Morgan, which lavishly recreates the era of wrought iron garden furniture, trompe I'oeil marble trellises and crazy paving. And there are hints here and there of the Shaw who was yet to emerge--the wry cynic who could create dialogue such as this:

Cokane: "The love of money is indeed the root of all evil."

Lickcheese: "We'd all like to have the tree growing in our garden, sir."