Candida

by Bernard Shaw

seen at the Orange Tree Theatre, Richmond on 28 November 2019

Paul Miller directs Martin Hutson as the Rev James Mavor Morell, Claire Lams as his wife Candida, Michael Simkins as his father-in-law Mr Burgess, Sarah Middleton as Miss Proserpine Garnett ('Prossey'), his secretary, Kwaku Mills as the Rev Alexander Mill, his curate, and Joseph Potter as Mr Eugene Marchbanks, an 18-year-old poet who is also a family friend. This is Paul Miller's fourth revival of an early Shaw play in the last five years; I've seen two others and this, like them, is excellent.

Enlarged Fabian tracts surround us as wallpaper on the upper gallery facades, and form the floor of Morell's study (a typically inventive design by Simon Daw); these serve to remind us of the intense seriousness of the minister's Christian socialism. He may come across as over-earnest and even in some ways naively coercive, but his aspirations to do good in his parish are undoubtedly worthy. Of course he is blind to the fact that a succession of secretaries - including 'Prossey' - harbour a passion for him beyond mere professional loyalty, just as he is unaware of how thoroughly his whole existence is enabled by the devotion of his wife. In the meantime he deals with his testy father-in-law - almost a prototype of the cynical Alfred P. Doolittle of Pygmalion, though cast in a much higher social sphere - and with his impossibly silly curate.

The real challenge to his composure arrives in the form of Eugene Marchbanks, a young aristocrat trying to slum it as a Romantic poet, desperately in love with Candida and convinced that she is being stifled by the presumed boredom allotted to a rector's wife. Though the two men had started as friends, Eugene's impetuous challenges really disconcert the older man, and his confidence in his wife further deteriorates when she discusses with him her worry that the 'boy' may be devastated if the wrong sort of woman finally teaches him about love.

The common judgement that Shaw's plays are the worse for being too full of ideas enunciated by cardboard characters is thoroughly debunked by this production, which evinces both passion and humour. Some of the comments - especially by the women - are wonderfully barbed, and Shaw has predictable fun pitting an idealistic pastor against a worldly business man in a series of paradoxical exchanges between son-in-law and father-in-law, who have been estranged for three years ('let us return to our old arrangement whereby you regard me as a fool and I regard you as a scoundrel' - not the conventional suggestion of a minister of religion). But the threat Marchbanks poses to the usually urbane Morell results in a fierce physical confrontation, followed later by real misery for both of the men. The minister feels himself on a precipice; the poet feels his whole emotional life is in jeopardy; it is Shaw's skill to rescue them both from disaster when the final crisis arrives.

But the play is not just about two men's squabble over the woman to whom one if them is married. There is also Candida herself to consider: Claire Lams shows us a woman with a mind of her own, secure and wise. Perhaps Candida's treatment of Eugene is too flippant as she shamelessly exploits his doglike devotion - it looks a little shocking - but it is not malicious. She can be amused at almost any manifestation of male folly and self-importance, until the two men demand that she should choose between them. Then she is quite rightly appalled and angry at being put in a false position; she deftly turns the tables by bluntly asking them what they will each bid for her. Her resolution of the problem is genuinely moving, another proof, if that were needed, that Shaw is a fine dramatist.

Martin Hutson gave a fine performance as Morell, stumbling into a deeper awareness of his insecurities and his utter dependence on his wife with an access of humility which was nonetheless all of a piece with his ordinarily unquestioned rectitude. Joseph Potter, in his first professional engagement, managed the extremes of adolescent self-absorption and flamboyant devotion to great effect, his face transformed from pouts and sulks to a radiant smile as the mood took him. Anyone who can convincingly roll on the floor in aesthetic horror at the mention of a scrubbing brush in the hands of his ideal woman knows what he is about on stage. 

All in all, Candida is another fine success for the Orange Tree Theatre.