George Bernard Shaw’s “Mrs. Warren’s Profession” shocked audiences when it was first performed in London in 1902, with its frank portrayal of sex work and the broader social norms surrounding women and work in Victorian society.
Vivie Warren (Luz Lopez), fresh out of Cambridge with a penchant for actuarial accounting, has never been close to her mother Kitty (Melinda Lopez), the wealthy, unmarried, elusive Mrs. Warren. She has kept her business and her life a secret until now, with the big reveal coming at the end of Act 1: She earned her money – the same money that sent Vivie to respectable schools – as a prostitute. Despite Vivie’s initial outrage, Kitty wins her over with a passionate diatribe about women’s choices, or lack thereof, until she learns her mother continues to operate a network of six brothels across Europe.
A century may have passed, but many of the themes Shaw explored hold true – exploitation, economic inequality, agency, class and the role gender plays in it all – and Central Square Theater’s production, running through June 29, is a reminder of how the issues persist.
There’s a lot of important work being done here, but the production, directed by Bedlam artistic director Eric Tucker, is not without issues of its own.
The play opens on the young, pragmatic Vivie typing on a laptop and hitting a vape in place of what would have been a typewriter and a cigarette. That suggests a modernized version of “Mrs. Warren’s Profession,” but this isn’t that. Aside from a few other modern touches – Vivie’s love interest (Evan Taylor) plays on an iPad, her mother Kitty’s friend Praed (Nael Nacer) appears in gold undereye mask patches and a few F-bombs are thrown in – the production sticks to the original text.
Since none of the language has otherwise been changed, the attempt at modernity feels half-baked and out of sync with the rest of the production. And that language is verbose: The dialogue is dense and wordy, and it is delivered fast. Sometimes it felt like the actors needed to take a breath and actually react to the line that had been said to them before launching into their next minimonologue. Without captions on a screen above the stage, it would have been hard to keep up.
The action takes place on and around a large, wooden conference table that makes up most of David R. Gammons’ sparsely set stage. Since this play is defined by its language, that largely works, as do the performances that happen around it.
Each member of the four-man ensemble that surrounds Kitty and Vivie, from Nacer’s debonair Praed to Barlow Adamson’s sleazy Sir George Crofts to Wesley Savick’s reformed Rev. Samuel Gardner, has their own memorable moments. Taylor is a particularly good Frank Gardner, playing the shallow, childish character with an intensity otherwise unmatched. Alternately opportunistic and explosive, he dominates most of his scenes.
Melinda Lopez is a strong Kitty, with an ability to convey vulnerability and strength. Though Luz Lopez sometimes struggles to keep up, their fierce and heartbreaking extended exchange at the end of the play is easily its best part.
“Mrs. Warren’s Profession” sometimes feels disjointed, but it asks important questions of its characters and of society that hold up today. In examining how poor women turned to prostitution because of limited options, it questions how much women still have to rely on men for economic advancement. Overall, it’s a cutting exploration of the limits imposed on citizens based on their class and gender that makes us ask: How can we create true relationships when capitalism renders most everything transactional?
“Mrs. Warren’s Profession” by George Bernard Shaw and directed by Eric Tucker. At Central Square Theater, 450 Massachusetts Ave., Central Square, Cambridge, through June 22.
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