Mrs Warrens Profession

Theatre at Baddow has an excellent reputation for choosing plays with a challenging content and this choice of George Bernard Shaw’s contentious (at the time of its first performances) play is another good one.

The cast were well chosen, each of them showed excellent characterisation and together they created a very strong cast.

Charlotte Gant was excellent as Vivie Warren, great character, clear diction and good projection.  She did, however, speak very fast and this was indicated by the fact that she sometimes stumbled over her delivery.   I overheard other people in the audience making the same comment.  Shaw’s dialogue is very well crafted, and it is important that the audience is able to understand the nuances of the speech as this provides the storyline and much is missed of the story is not clear. 

Claire Lloyd was outstanding as Kitty Warren; her character was extremely well portrayed and her degeneration from posh to working class accent in the final scene was a masterclass.

Mark Sutton (Mr Praed) delivered a well-rounded character with some great facial expressions.  As did Roger Saddington as Sir George Crofts, his glee when he exposed the true relationship between Vivie and Frank was excellent and the young people’s reactions to it were very well done.

Silas Powell played Frank Gardner, this was another excellent performance from a very talented actor and Terry Cole played Rev Samual Gardner, getting this character spot on, very entertaining, bringing out the comedy that is inherent in Shaws work but often overlooked.

The costumes were excellent, I particularly liked Mrs Warrens green costume in the first act.  The scenery worked well although the scene changes were a bit longer that I was comfortable with.  I appreciate that this play was written in a time when it was accepted to black out between scenes, but it did slow the pace of the play considerably.

Sound and lighting were good, with some appropriate music.

Overall, a very entertaining evening, my thanks to the Front of House team for looking after us.

 

Tessa Davies

Councillor NODA East

On behalf of Victoria Carey

Rep District 8

NODA East

 

© NODA CIO. All rights reserved.