The Philanderer

By: George Bernard Shaw

Directed By: Alisa Palmer

At: The Shaw Festival

Website: www.shawfest.com

Place: Niagara-On-The-Lake

2007 Season

Royal George Theatre

4 ½ Stars

Reviewed by: Kindah Mardam Bey

Playwrights such as George Bernard Shaw and Oscar Wilde reveal that over time the relationships between men and women have rendered little change. We may dress different, decorum may now be out the window, less ruffles and spats of course and terms like ‘philanderer’ have been changed to ‘player’ and ‘trysts’ are now called ‘hook-ups.’ So exploring Shaw’s production of The Philanderer at the Shaw Festival this year is like taking a dual highway drive down the past and the present.

The play is simple to surmise, Grace Tanfield is getting mixed up with infamous philanderer Leonard Charteris, who is presently trying to get rid of his previous girlfriend, the over acting and spoiled Julia Craven. Julia bursts into a romantic evening between Grace and Leonard, desperate to keep her man in whatever manipulative and childish terms she can. Leonard has clearly moved on in as much that he wishes to marry Grace Tanfield, but his reputation precedes him and her father doesn’t warm to the idea. Colonel Daniel Craven, Julia’s Father and Mr. Joseph Cuthbertson, Grace’s father, bump into each other at the opera and realize they are childhood chums. The two men descend on the love triangle between Leonard, Julia, and Grace in the Cuthbertson drawing-room.

The next day the cast of characters reunite at the Ibsen Club, dedicated to the theories about men and women by the famous Norwegian playwright. All of the cast but Colonel Craven are members of the club, and Mr. Cuthbertson is trying to get his old friend to join what is daughters are also a part of. Enter Sylvia, the overly logical second daughter of Craven’s who is the counterpart to Julia’s supercilious antics. All logic and clarity of mind, Sylvia has the strength of a man and feels bound by her female exterior, she is the third representation of the female struggle during Shaw’s day not to be undermined like Julia is, or too dignified like Grace is. The only one left to join in on these chaotic interrelations is Dr. Paramore, an overly obtuse and literal man that is best suited for no woman, but Leonard thinks he can trick into proposing to Julia.

Something Shaw always did well (as Pygmalion will attest to) is showcase women with dignity, class, and elegance – Grace seems to embody that persona. She is the ideal fit to Leonard and an equal counterpart; a discussion between her and Julia is truly riveting. Sylvia is too strong for Leonard, but shows an interesting perceptiveness on Shaw’s part of what the modern stoic feminist would appear as.

Originally a four-act play, and shown on certain times as a four-act throughout the Shaw season, this particular production was set in three-acts. The show is opened with a passionate kiss between Julia and Leonard, even before the curtain ascends. The audience chuckles as the two kiss, walk and grasp thin air in search of the chaise. The stage is dressed with Greco-Roman paraphernalia the Victorians clung to. The Philanderer music for the production was from Edvard Grieg’s Music For The Theatre, bringing the connection of Ibsen even closer to the plays core as Grieg and Ibsen worked closely together throughout their careers. The Ibsen Club was a delightful set of bookshelves and about eight bronze busks of Ibsen himself. The Ibsen Club was perfectly conceptualized. For the third act the Ibsen Club was stripped of its books and statues, and rearranged into Dr. Paramore’s abode, with clinical disparity, hanging skeletons in glass encasing and all the trappings of a Victorian doctors’ scientism.

Overall, the cast did exceptionally strong and cohesive performances, never outshining each other, but showcasing each other. Nicole Underhay as Julia had a hard task as she needs to be the obnoxious debutant with severe emotional outbursts without digressing into overacting and basically making a mess of the performance. Aside from a chronic British accent (was this meant to be a part of Julia’s stupid conduct?), Underhay brought the spoiled and self-absorbed character to the stage with great charisma without upstaging her fellow actors with less loud and limelight demanding characters. Peter Hutt, plays Colonel Craven, is the son of William Hutt and seemed to on the mark at times and a little less at others. Truly the standout performances were by the stunningly beautiful Nicola Correia-Damude as Sylvia, who made the character a strong woman with firm beliefs without the stereotypical ‘butch’ persona, Ben Carlson as Leonard who seemed to capture the balance between a good man and a selfish man that Shaw created beautifully well, and Deborah Hay as the luminescent Grace Tranfield made the stage shine.

The witty dialogue seemed to stay at the foreground for this production, a great deal of hilarious slap stick dialogue, and a great engagement scene between Dr. Paramour and Julia made The Philanderer at this year’s Shaw Festival a well executed comedy. The production ended perfectly on a famous Grieg tune, and a truly delightful rendition of Shaw’s play.