Mrs Warren's Profession: A Play (New Mermaids) - Softcover

Bernard Shaw

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0713679948 ISBN 13: 9780713679946

Publisher: Methuen Drama, 2012

Synopsis

'Shaw's refusal to moralise about the sex trade, only about the system that supports it, provides the play with its dramatic tension and surprising modernity.' Guardian

Shaw's 1893 play centres on the mother and daughter relationship between Kitty Warren and her Cambridge-educated daughter, Vivie, who is currently enjoying a comfortable and financially untroubled life. Kitty's own upbringing was far from easy, however, and meant that she eventually had to make money through prostitution and then through the management of several brothels. When Vivie discovers that her mother brought her up and funded Vivie's Cambridge education on the money made from these pursuits, she is horrified and can barely cope. What's more, Vivie discovers that her mother's brothels are still in operation.

Shaw said he wrote the play 'to draw attention to the truth that prostitution is caused, not by female depravity and male licentiousness, but simply by underpaying, undervaluing, and overworking women so shamefully that the poorest of them are forced to resort to prostitution to keep body and soul together'. Mrs Warren's Profession has proven to be an extremely durable play - as durable as the problems that it presents.

Students will find a wealth of information in this text to guide their studies: an extended introduction exploring the theatrical and historical context, critical reactions, background on the author, and stage history. It also includes Shaw's original Preface, and the play itself contains numerous notes and explanations throughout to aid students' understanding.

About this title

Review:

'Banned for over 30 years, this cautionary tale ruthlessly dissects Victorian family relationships in all its uncompromising forms voyeuristically witnessing breathtaking snobbery, arrogance, attitudes to lower classes and an unsavoury disposition to money and status... In a world where perception, morality, money and status form the basis of how society frames itself Mrs Warren's Profession is a caustic, revelatory tale of dysfunction.' --Jackie Cobham, Daily Telegraph

'The real pleasure of Shaw's play...is just how modern it can feel, whether it is pricking the balloon of morality or hypocrisy' --Lyn Gardner, Guardian

From the Back Cover:

One of Bernard Shaw's early plays of social protest, Mrs Warren's Profession places the protagonist's decision to become a prostitute in the context of the appalling conditions for working class women in Victorian England. Faced with ill health, poverty, and marital servitude on the one hand, and opportunities for financial independence, dignity, and self-worth on the other, Kitty Warren follows her sister into a successful career in prostitution. Shaw's fierce social criticism in this play is driven not by conventional morality, but by anger at the hypocrisy that allows society to condemn prostitution while condoning the discrimination against women that makes prostitution inevitable.

This Broadview edition includes a comprehensive historical and critical introduction; extracts from Shaw's prefaces to the play; Shaw's expurgations of the text; early reviews of the play in the United States, Canada, and Great Britain; and contemporary contextual documents on prostitution, incest, censorship, women's education, and the "New Woman."

About this edition

• Publisher: Methuen Drama
• Publication date: 2012
• ISBN 10: 0713679948
• ISBN 13: 9780713679946
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 224
• Editor: Brad Kent