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Village Wooing

A devoted socialist who examined political, economic and social issues with a "Shavian wit," Irish dramatist George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) is the subject of the Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre’s 12th annual Master Playwright Festival.
   
"One could argue he’s the second most popular playwright of all time behind Shakespeare, so I think the festival is going to have a pretty broad appeal across a wide demographic in our community and across Manitoba," says Chuck McEwen, 48, executive producer of ShawFest.
   
Leonard Conolly is definitely intrigued. A professor at Trent University and president of the International Shaw Society, Conolly is an expert on all things Shavian. He recognized the man’s "master" status straight from the get-go.
   
"Years and years ago when I was in high school in England, one of the examination texts we had to read was Shaw’s Saint Joan," says Conolly, 70, who also works as a corresponding scholar to the annual Shaw Festival in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ont.
   
"I was only 16 at the time, but I remember being impressed by what I still see as a wonderful combination of ideas and human passions. Here’s the story of a young woman being burned at the stake, pretty dramatic stuff, but Shaw delves into the reasons why and how it happened, and what the consequences were.
   
"As the years have gone on, I’ve found that sort of approach remains true in many of Shaw’s plays. They’re always full of interesting ideas, but the best productions are also full of compelling human emotions. If you can come out of a play saying ‘That made me think, but it also made me feel,’ you got your money’s worth."
   
ShawFest features 11 plays by professional, student and community companies, two readings, one staged reading, a film screening, a radio broadcast, a roast and a free lecture series (featuring Conolly).
   
The companies aren’t afraid to get creative, either. For instance, zone41’s Village Wooing is running in conjunction with Eric Lesage’s Re: Definition installation at RAW Gallery of Architecture and Design. The set will incorporate the artist’s panels, which were created by weaving strips of the 1956 Webster’s Encyclopedic Dictionary. While Shaw’s vision for his 1933 comedietta may be changed, zone41 wouldn’t think of touching his text.
   
"It’s like doing Shakespeare, where you don’t want to touch a thing because it’s brilliantly composed," says Krista Jackson, Village Wooing director and co-founder of zone41.
   
"He’s a wizard with words and word play, antithesis, puns and wit. In Village Wooing, he’s got it going on, language-wise, but he’s also challenging England’s class structure at the same time. He has a village girl battling it out with an Oxford-educated man and he takes the piss out of this guy because she’s smarter than him throughout the whole play."
   
Although he died over 60 years ago, with the majority of his plays written pre-Second World War, Shaw’s significance remains.
   
"I think one of the reasons he’s not performed as much as he used to be is this sense that he’s no longer relevant, which is just plain untrue," Conolly says. "The production Mrs. Warren’s Profession (which the Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre is presenting) essentially has to do with the economic disadvantages of women and, in the case of the play, it’s the lack of economic opportunities that drives Mrs. Warren into prostitution. It would be a brave person who says women no longer have disadvantages in business or professional life. Heaven knows it’s still a very live and relevant issue."
   
Yes, Shaw’s importance is intact. McEwen believes Shaw’s ability to examine society in such a significant way was shaped by his early days as an arts critic.
   
"He doesn’t shy away from his point of view," McEwen says. "Coming from an analytical background really translated into how he attacked his playwrighting."
   
Speaking of stories behind the story, Talia Pura’s Queen of my Heart explores just that, detailing Shaw’s affair and lifelong friendship with British stage actress Mrs. Patrick Campbell. Like her production Harriet Bosse at last year’s StrindbergFest, the play is an adaptation of letters between lovers.
   
"It’s kind of my shtick to take women out of obscurity, women that you can actually find a lot of material on if you dig," says Pura, who plays Campbell and is joined by Brian Richardson as G.B.S.
   
"Also, I think it’s important to give audiences a glimpse of the person behind the plays. Instead of just going to a Shaw play, you can actually go and see Shaw. That’s really where my interest lies. While I enjoy reading and performing these fabulous pieces he’s written, it’s really very cool to examine the man and see where all these pieces came from."

   
For more information about ShawFest, visit www.masterplaywrightfest.com.

SHAWFEST
Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre’s
Master Playwright Festival
Jan. 19 - Feb. 5,
various venues

• • •

Arms and the Man
Black Hole Theatre Company
Gas Station Arts Centre, 445 River Ave.
Jan. 20, 7 p.m.; Jan. 21, 2 p.m. & 7 p.m.; Jan. 23 – 27, 7 p.m.; Jan. 28, 2 p.m. & 7 p.m.; Jan. 29, 2 p.m.
   
One of Shaw’s earliest comedies, Arms and the Man uses the love triangle between war-happy Sergius, logical Bluntschil and romantic Raina to satirize the psychological warfare that so often erupts in the name of love.

Augustus Does His Bit
Merlyn Productions
Ellice Theatre, 585 Ellice Ave.
Jan. 31 – Feb. 3, 7:30 p.m.; Feb. 4, 2 p.m. & 7 p.m.
   
In this one-act comedy, Lord Augustus Highcastle — a man as resplendent as his name — naively allies himself with a beguiling, self-interested woman and a cantankerous, battle-zealous old clerk. With top-secret Ally information at stake, Lord Augustus has to do some damage control.

Caesar & Cleopatra
Nomadic Players
Studio 320 (Theatre Incarnate), 320-70 Albert St.
Jan. 19 – 21, 8 p.m.; Jan. 22, 2 p.m.; Jan. 25 – 28, 8 p.m.
   
Ultimate strategist Julius Caesar meets the girl queen Cleopatra for as much a battle between the Romans and the Egyptians as between the sexes. As the play goes on, the relationship between moral betterment and civilization becomes tangled up and ultimately unravels.

Candida
Tara Players
Irish Club, 654 Erin St.
Jan. 19 – 21, 8 p.m.; Jan. 22, 2 & 8 p.m..; Jan. 25 – 28, 8 p.m.; Jan. 29, 2 p.m.
   
As the woman behind a good man, Candida is largely responsible for her husband’s success as a clergyman yet is unfulfilled. When she finds herself the object of a romantic poet’s affection, Candida must challenge the Victorian conventions in which she married.

Great Catherine and Annajanska, the Bolshevik Empress (double bill)
Shoestring Players
Colin Jackson Studio Theatre, Prairie Theatre Exchange
Jan. 22, 4 p.m.; Jan. 23 & 25, 8:15 p.m.; Jan. 24 & 27, 8:30 p.m.; Jan. 28, 1:30 p.m.; Jan. 29, 1 & 6 p.m.
   
In the first of these two satires of the Russian empire, an unsuspecting English officer becomes the object of Empress Catherine II’s affection and her advisor General Patiomkin’s incompetence in the courts. In the spicy one-act Annajanska, Shaw once again looks at the powerlessness of violence and warfare to transform, and ultimately better, civilization.

Heartbreak House
The Actors’ Fund of Canada
Tom Hendry Warehouse, 140 Rupert St.
Feb. 5, 2:30 p.m.
   
Heartbreak House picks up on the convergence of industry and democracy, and its detrimental effects on the residents of Heartbreak House. England is sinking further into the First World War to the impending doom of its leisure class, and this Shaw play fearlessly lampoons it on its way down.   

How He Lied to Her Husband
Resonator Theatrical
Rudolf Rocker Studio, 3rd floor, 91 Albert St.
Jan. 26, 30, 31, 7 & 8:30 p.m.; Feb. 1 – 3, 7 & 8:30 p.m.; Feb. 4, 3 p.m. & 7 p.m. & 8:30 p.m.
   
This one-act comedy tackles the love triangle between a writer, his muse and that muse’s husband. Foregoing any romantic pretensions, this play looks at the humanity in a situation Shaw himself often parodied with farce and madcap.

Major Barbara
Winnipeg Mennonite Theatre Society
Universite de Saint-Boniface, Salle Martial-Caron, 200 De la Cathedral Ave.
Feb. 1, 7:05 p.m.; Feb. 2 & 3, 8:05 p.m.; Feb. 4, 2:05 & 8:05 p.m.
   
A Major in the Salvation Army, Barbara Undershaft begins to question the morals of her Christian denomination when it accepts donations from two questionable sources — including her father. Major Barbara must face the hypocrisy of her pursuit and overcome her personal and professional disillusionment.

Mrs. Warren’s Profession
Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre
Tom Hendry Warehouse, 140 Rupert St.
Jan. 19, 20, 23, 26, 27, 30, Feb. 3, 8 p.m.; Feb. 2, 2 p.m. & 8 p.m.; Jan. 21, 28, Feb. 4, 3:30 p.m. & 8:30 p.m.; Jan. 24, 25, 31, Feb. 1, 7:30 p.m.
   
Mrs. Warren works hard to provide the good life for her daughter, Vivie, but when Vivie returns from her Cambridge education, it is Mrs. Warren’s profession that ignites a fiery tension between them. Shaw criticizes the undervaluation of women and the social causes of the world’s oldest profession in this frank portrayal of the blurred class distinctions in two unwittingly intertwined British worlds.

My Affair with George Bernard (reading)
Manitoba Association of Playwrights
Aqua Books, 274 Garry St.
Jan. 24 – 27, 8 p.m.; Jan. 28, 2 p.m.
   
Local playwright Daniel Theu-Eleff delves into a bit of historical fiction as he fleshes out the relationship between George Bernard Shaw and one of his actors, Florence Farr. Farr herself seeks to find out what happened to their budding relationship through a seance she conducts at Bernard’s house after he passes away, and gradually, their love story comes together.
 
Queen of my Heart
Theatre on TAP
Colin Jackson Studio Theatre, Prairie Theatre Exchange
Jan 22, 2 p.m.; Jan 23 & 25, 6:30 p.m.; Jan 24 & 27, 7 p.m.; Jan 28, 4 p.m.; Jan 29, 3:30 p.m. & 8:15 p.m.
   
Written by Talia Pura, this Shaw story is adapted from letters between the master playwright and British actress Mrs. Patrick Campbell. The pair shared a one-year love affair that many say was unconsummated, but Pura thinks otherwise. Starring Pura as Campbell and Brian Richardson as G.B. Shaw.

Saint Joan (reading)
PAL fundraiser
Crescent Fort Rouge United Church, 525 Wardlaw Ave.
Jan 30, 7:30 p.m.
   
Based on the life and trial of Joan of Arc, this reading of Shaw’s 1923 classic is in support of Performing Arts Lodge Winnipeg, a charitable organization dedicated to providing subsidized housing for elderly artists. Featuring Talia Pura as Saint Joan.

Village Wooing
zone41
RAW Gallery of Architecture and Design, 290 McDermot Ave.
Jan 19 – 22 & 24 – 29, 8 p.m.; Jan 21 & 28, 4 p.m.; Jan 22 & 29, 2 p.m.
   
Opposites attract on a pleasure ship, when a poet meets a village shop girl. The zone41 production takes Shaw’s 1933 comedy and places it in Eric Lesage’s Re:Definition installation at RAW Gallery. Actors Graham Ashmore and Tracy Penner will move between the artist’s panels, which were created by weaving strips of the 1956 Webster’s Encyclopedic Dictionary.

— Compiled by Jared Story and Emily Wessel