'Do Not Miss The Joyful Run Up To Christmas Gifted By A 125-Year-Old Play'
Liz Vercoe reviews Candida – at the Orange Tree Theatre, Richmond
Martin Hutson and Joseph Potter
"Do not miss the joyful run up to Christmas gifted by a 125-year-old play that still makes audiences laugh out loud", says Liz Vercoe.
On a wet winter's night this play by George Bernard Shaw, or GBS to his Victorian friends, is a cosy as crumpets, even with him sneaking in a couple of slaps around capitalism's mutton chops. Santa's elf in the shape of director Paul Miller really delivers just what we need in the way of a Christmas 2019 package.
Martin Hutson and Claire Lams
Set in the 1890s home of charismatic preacher The Reverend James Mavor Morell, Shaw devised a comedy out of pomposity, personal blindness and how we humans insist on confusing our intellect with our emotions and weakness with strength.
Leading a cast of six, Martin Hutson elegantly brings to life the earnest Rev, doer of good works, thinker of good thoughts, and driven to change an unequal society for the better. In the view of his father-in law, he's on moral high ground so elevated he should wear an oxygen mask. From the gutter, literally, he has rescued poor little rich (oops) man Mr Marchbanks (perfect in the hands of newcomer Joseph Potter), an 18-year-old poet made so unworldly by his upbringing he would starve before knowing how to help himself. At Morell's side is his beloved wife Candida (Claire Lams), to him pure and perfect in every way and a creature so worthy of being put on a pedestal she could be a dried flower arrangement in his church.
Around this domestic triangle, and providing much of the comedy of the first act, spin the satellite acolytes of Candida's father, the profit-driven Mr Burgess, deftly played by Michael Simkins, who can sniff out a business opportunity like a truffle hound, Morell's nervously gushing curate Alexander Mill (Kwaku Mills) and the long-suffering secretarial devotee to Morell's causes, Proserpine Garnett, played by Sarah Middleton. Her sharp-witted putdowns of the curate, Mr Burgess and Mr Marchbanks reveal that women, then as now, might not be the walkover men wishfully assume. However, she is unmarried, which these men put down to her failure as a woman rather than even noticing her frustration at finding no equal.
Kwaku Mills and Michael Simkins
Trouble starts to brew when Marchbanks claims to Morell to have a better insight into the truth of Candida's thoughts, motives and even passions than her husband. Maintaining the civilised veneer of two men who simply want to knock the seven bells out of each other is comedy gold in GBS's hands. All is stirred up further in both men by Candida's attentions to, and belief in, this waif she has made her hobby to rescue. The scene of their fireside chat seethes with sexual tension. The men's anger is soon seasoned with a generous rub of jealousy, fear, and righteous irritation.
But the play is not called Candida for nothing. The laughs of recognition and relief come when she shows what she's really made of. Like Ibsen before him, George Bernard Shaw showed an out-of-era understanding of what makes women tick when he puts words into their mouths. Claire Lams delivers Candida's ultimate judgment in a way that would put even King Solomon in the shade. And is sure to give audiences a seasonal spring in their step as they leave.
Liz Vercoe
Images: Johan Persson
December 4, 2019