“Mrs. Warren’s Profession”, by George Bernard Shaw. Directed by Eric Tucker, Bedlam. Presented by Central Square Theater, 450 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, through June 29.
By Michele Markarian
A conference room table with leather chairs and a light fixture suspended above, bearing a ticker and dominating the traverse stage of Central Square Theater wasn’t what I expected when I walked in to see Central Square’s production of Mrs. Warren’s Profession. Yet it aptly set the tone for this timeless play about conventionality, morality, and a woman’s right to earn a living.
Vivie Warren (Luz Lopez) is a vaping, would-be lawyer who eschews the sentiment of romance and beauty, preferring reading and whiskey instead. She has a strained and distant relationship with her mother, the imposing Mrs. Warren (Melinda Lopez), who keeps young Vivie well situated with everything money can buy. Mrs. Warren is not short on male admirers: the naïve and boyish Praed (Nael Nacer), the lecherous Sir George Crofts (Barlow Adamson), and her neighbor, the Reverend Samuel Gardner (Wesley Savick). Vivie has an admirer as well, man-on-the-make Frank Gardner (Evan Taylor), who is the insolent, ne’er-do-well son of the Reverend. Nobody seems to know who sired Vivie, and Mrs. Warren isn’t prepared to tell.
When Vivie gets the chance to ask her mother just what she does for a living, Mrs. Warren tells her that she was forced by an impoverished childhood to go into prostitution. “It can’t be right, Vivie, that there shouldn’t be better opportunities for women”. Vivie is shocked and embarrassed by her mother’s past, but eventually comes to feel sympathy, as she believes her mother acted out of necessity. Later she learns that her mother is still actively engaged – Mrs. Warren is a business partner with Sir George, running five brothels – a fact that she can’t reconcile. “I must have work and excitement or I will go melancholy mad,” Mrs. Warren pleads with her daughter, who refuses to understand that the two of them are more alike than not. Vivie is bucking tradition to be a woman in the male-dominated field of law; her mother is bucking tradition in the only way she can, given the limited opportunities of her upbringing. In spite of her unorthodox life, Vivie is a rigid product of Victorian morality, while Mrs. Warren couldn’t care less.
Eric Tucker deftly directs his cast around David Gammon’s imposing yet versatile set. The cast is excellent, with the steady Lus Lopez as its linchpin. The others appear flimsy and obsequious around her. Nacer’s Praed is utterly absorbed by his visions of art and beauty, which he tries to get Vivie to appreciate. Taylor is oily and charmingly unscrupulous, while Adamson is oily and blatantly unscrupulous. Melinda Lopez does a nice job with Mrs. Warren, her cool elegance dissolving at the end in vulgarity and desperation. “Who is to care for me when I am old?” she cries to Vivie, revealing the real reason for keeping Vivie well taken care of. As much as I want to sympathize with Mrs. Warren, she’s kind of a jerk. But when she spits out to her daughter, “I’ll do wrong and nothing but wrong and I’ll prosper in it,” I had to admire her chutzpah and her complete disregard for convention. Too bad Vivie can’t.
For more information and tickets, go to: https://www.centralsquaretheater.org/
