A Shaw thing
Sunday, April 6th, 2008Just because it’s a truism doesn’t mean it isn’t true: an evening of George Bernard Shaw tends to be hard work. I can, like most of us, manage Pygmalion, perhaps surreptitiously whistling a tune or two, but after that things get trickier. I have horrible memories of the one and only production of Heartbreak House I’ve seen, which, as far I recall, ended around breakfast time the next day. With my colleagues’ hearty praises ringing ever more insistently, I finally stopped making excuses and caught Saint Joan towards the end of its run last year. Yes, Anne-Marie Duff was astonishing, but I can safely say that I found every minute of the production a trial. It’s just so uncompromising, weighing in so hard right from the start and allowing not a minute for us to acclimatise to the themes of the drama.
I was, therefore, not exactly counting down the minutes until I could get to the National’s current production of Major Barbara. However, last week, an early-evening Mark Ravenhill bill found me on the South Bank with nothing to do at 7.30pm, so I took the plunge. And it was magnificent: fluid, compelling and beautifully acted. Not for a minute did I get my mental pruning shears out and start lopping huge chunks off the text. I was gripped by the debate between right and wrong, a topic so enormous that it usually falls flat or gets reduced to banalities onstage.
As a critic, I feel it’s important to hold strong views, but also to be prepared to have those views confounded. Bring on Arms and the Man…