Shaw Competition 2025/Main Barbara by George Bernard Shaw, directed by Peter Hinton-Davis, Royal George Theatre, closes Oct. 5. Tickets here.
Peter Hinton-Davis is thought to be a director of imaginative and prescient, and he has given the Shaw Competition an impressive manufacturing of Main Barbara.
This system essay is uncommon as a result of it takes the type of an interview between author Robert A. Gaines and Hinton-Davis. For level of reference, Prof. Gaines is a previous president of the Worldwide Shaw Society.
Hinton-Davis’ Method to the Play
In this system notes, we study in regards to the parts that underpin Hinton-Davis’s directorial imaginative and prescient.
Together with his design workforce, he created a set with a recent really feel that might nonetheless work for a 1905-time body however give the play a contemporary really feel (however extra about that later).
He included particular facets of each Christian symbolism and Shaw’s atheism, and that the play is each a drawing room comedy and a satire.
A serious throughline is Barbara’s journey (and to some extent Cusin’s) from idealism to realism, though the ending remains to be ambiguous, and every viewers member will see one thing totally different within the final result.
And eventually, an overarching theme is Shaw’s outrage on the poverty in Nice Britain that led him to develop into a Fabian Socialist.
Gaine’s essay definitely makes for fascinating studying, very mental, very educational, very informative for understanding Hinton-Davis’ strategy to the play.
What Was Left Out
Curiously, there appears to be one element that this system notes, both wittingly or unwittingly, have ignored, and that’s the sheer emotional influence of the play.
Merely put, Hinton-Davis has crafted an extremely highly effective interpretation that has a richness and depth I’ve by no means skilled earlier than in any of the a number of productions of Main Barbara that I’ve attended.
The Double Casting
Whereas there are different marvelous facets to be talked about, the glory of the Hinton-Davis’ imaginative and prescient is the second act that takes place within the Salvation Military shelter.
Solely the three main characters, Barbara Undershaft, a serious within the Salvation Military (Gabriella Sundar Singh), her Greek professor fiancé Adolphus Cusins (André Morin), and her arms producer father Andrew Undershaft (Patrick Galligan), play themselves all through.
What makes this manufacturing so very provocative is the double casting and the ramifications it presents by placing the drawing room within the slums. The opposite actors in Undershaft family additionally develop into the denizens of east finish London.
This isn’t the primary time this concept of double casting has been used.
In 2016, the Infinite Jest Theatre Firm introduced a Main Barbara with double casting in Los Angeles, however in that case, apparently, the actors intentionally hid themselves contained in the second characters and solely by studying this system would the viewers have identified that it was the identical forged.
Not so right here.
Because the acts change, we see Stephen Undershaft (Taurian Teelucksingh) start to undo his jacket to alter his garments to develop into Snobby Worth. Hinton-Davis needs us to concentrate on the double casting, and the contrasts of personalities that underlie the human situation.
The Double Characters
The decided mom Woman Britomart Undershaft, the daughter of an earl (Fiona Byrne) is Rummy Mitchens, an previous girl pretending to be a “saved” prostitute. Her doctrinaire, dogmatic son Stephen is Snobby Worth, a con artist and so-called “saved” mother-beater.
Sarah Undershaft, the youngest daughter (Lindsay Wu), is already engaged at simply 19, and is probably the most conventional member of the household. She transforms into the younger and caring Military employee Jenny Hill.
Her fiancé Charles Lomax (Sepehr Reybod), your typical upper-class twit present in so many drawing room comedies, turns into the threatening bully Invoice Walker who strikes Jenny Hill for taking his lady away from him.
Morrison, Woman Britomart’s butler (Ron Kennell) performs one other employee and is maybe the one real individual on the shelter. As Peter Shirley, he can’t get work due to his grey hair and has been pushed to close hunger. The the Aristocracy of the working man?
On the surface, the category divide is clearly seen, however strains are likely to blur once you have a look at them from the within. Apart from Morrison and maybe Sarah, the remainder of the drawing room personnel play questionable characters, and definitely a mess of themes could be conjured up from that situation.
Shaw’s Main Barbara
After which there’s the idealistic Main Barbara herself.
Appalled when Commissioner Mrs. Baines (Patty Jamieson) accepts Undershaft’s £5000, and £1000 from a whiskey producer which Barbara regards as tainted cash, she removes her Military badge.
On a darkened stage with a highlight solely on her face, (courtesy of designer Bonnie Beecher), a grief-stricken Barbara cries out, “My God why hast thou forsaken me?”
On this heartbreaking second, she is ridiculed by Invoice Walker.
“What worth salvation now?”
As everybody is aware of, Shaw had no time for sentiment. Bear in mind, he wrote the epilogue on the finish of Pygmalion to ensure everybody knew that Eliza Doolittle married Freddy, and didn’t find yourself with Henry Higgins as all of us needed her to do.
Equally, Shaw has to maneuver the third act previous Barbara’s anguished disaster of religion by first presenting a intelligent philosophical battle for Barbara’s soul between Undershaft and Cusins, after which by Barbara bringing her idealism onto a extra real looking aircraft, all by way of dialogue that may be a witty Shavian wordplay of concepts.
Hinton-Davis’ Main Barbara: My Takeaway
On this manufacturing nevertheless, irrespective of how a lot bravado or ethical readability Barbara reveals, she is broken items.
The Barbara that exited from act two was it damaged younger lady.
Hinton-Davis lets us know that Barbara can’t go from fierce warrior in act one, to the depths of despair in act two, to discovering a brand new mission in life in act three, by leaping simply over the deep abyss of her disaster of religion.
That trauma can’t be erased that merely.
Shaw would have us consider that Barbara might desert the poor of London beneath the guise that she was doing them hurt. That she is so mission pushed that she will, with no hassle in any respect, transfer from saving souls on the Salvation Military to saving the souls of manufacturing unit employees.
Shockingly, this could be extra fulfilling, giving her even a egocentric motivation.
Effectively Hinton-Davis definitely doesn’t go together with Shaw, though he permits his actors to have enjoyable with the dialogue. The tip of the manufacturing is so devastating as a result of he doesn’t allow us to overlook the heartbreak that lies inside. There’s an underlying unhappiness in Sundar Singh’s efficiency.
The Set
Gillian Gallow has designed a stark, stylized set resembling the adobe buildings one finds within the Center East, conjuring up the Holy Land with a cross embedded above the roof.
There are two very steep staircases on both facet of the stage, and the forged must be mountain goats to barter them, however one way or the other it provides to the battle of their characters. These stairs develop into fairly symbolic because of this.
Alternatively, portray the set a wealthy blue color offers a sense of serenity that lies beneath the turmoil within the lives of the characters.
There are two chairs dealing with one another on the entrance of the stage the place watchers sit. And sure, there are watchers, Jamieson and Kennell, who come and go. It’s unsettling to see them there. They current an edgy feeling, however then we’re coping with uncomfortable subjects.
Oddly, there’s a curb that individuals must step over to get to the entrance of the stage, and seeing the characters do their little hop is most peculiar. Nonetheless, it needed to be put there for a cause. For instance, Undershaft and Cusins do the maneuver earlier than their contretemps. Is it leaving the world of the play to intensify actuality?
Some facets of the set are a puzzlement, however then Hinton-Davis all the time contains parts to be contemplated.
The Music
Music performs an necessary function all through the manufacturing. On a number of events all the forged stands collectively like a massed choir singing stirring hymns, with Jamison because the lead singer.
Composer Allen Cole has written equally stirring authentic music that’s carried out all through. The music offers a really severe undertone to the play which provides to the emotional influence.
The Actors
That the actors in Main Barbara are a gifted group, there could be little question given the actual calls for of this manufacturing.
Extra to the purpose, they’ve fashioned a real ensemble, whether or not singing of their choir or performing their roles within the drawing room or within the Salvation Military shelter. You may really feel the chemistry between them.
That united bond provides energy to Hinton-Davis’ imaginative and prescient that there’s extra to Main Barbara then Shavian wit and knowledge.
Endgame
The unsentimental Shaw wouldn’t be happy by the impact that this Hinton-Davis manufacturing of Main Barbara had on me.
I used to be profoundly moved by what I felt was a robust if downbeat ending.
Beneath the veneer of enthusiasm, Barbara will proceed, however she is going to by no means be the identical once more.
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Paula Citron is a Toronto-based freelance arts journalist and broadcaster who hosts her personal web site, paulacitron.ca. For over 25 years, she was senior dance author for The Globe and Mail, affiliate editor of Opera Canada journal, arts reviewer for Classical 96.3 FM, and dance previews contributor to Toronto Life journal. She has been a visitor lecturer for varied cultural teams and universities, significantly on the function of the critic/reviewer, and has been a panellist on COC podcasts. Earlier than assuming a full-time journalism profession, Ms. Citron was a member of the drama division of the Claude Watson Faculty for the Arts.
