Avanthika Srinivasan (left) plays Candida, Amber Reauchean Williams (center) is typist Proserpine Garnet, and Alexander Romano is the curate “Lexy” Mills in George Bernard Shaw’s comedy Candida.
It’s been 128 years since George Bernard Shaw penned Candida as an ironic commentary on Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll House. But the play is seldom staged, which is a pity because, as David Staller’s new adaptation shows, this 1895 feminist comedy is a gem. Staller has transported the play from the northeast suburbs of 19th-century London to Harlem in 1929. While some theatergoers might miss the British flavor of Shaw’s original text, Staller’s version brings New York grit to the drama.
Srinivasan with Avery Whitted as the young poet Eugene Marchbanks in the Gingold Theatrical Group’s adaptation of Candida.
The plot stretches credulity at times. Candida (the charming Avanthika Srinivasan), the heroine, finds herself in a love triangle with two extremely different men: her husband, the Rev. James Morell (R. J. Foster), a Christian socialist, and Eugene Marchbanks (Avery Whitted), an 18-year-old poet who adores her. Things become more complicated when Marchbanks shakes Morell’s confidence by declaring his love for Candida. Though the clergyman is worried about losing his wife to Marchbanks, he purposefully leaves them together one evening. But instead of resolving anything, it exasperates Candida, who cries out: “Oh, I see! I am to choose, am I! I suppose it is quite settled that I must belong to one or the other.”
While the juicy ménage à trois is at the heart of this drama, the other characters add spice as well. There’s Proserpine (Amber Reauchean Williams), who’s the soul of efficiency as Morell’s typist. But when she’s accused by the curate Alexander “Lexy” Mills (Peter Romano) of being jealous of Candida, she responds sarcastically, “Oh, what a profound knowledge of the human heart you have, Mr. Lexy Mills! How well you know the weaknesses of Woman. It must be so nice to be a man and have a fine penetrating intellect instead of mere emotions like us females.”
Then there’s Candida’s father, Mr. Burgess (David Ryan Smith), a clothing manufacturer who shows up like a bad penny in Act I. Although he hasn’t spoken to or seen Candida in three years, he has just read about his prominent son-in-law in the morning’s paper and hopes that perhaps the parson can connect him to people who might help boost his business profits. But, father-in-law or not, Morell refuses to go along with Burgess’s capitalistic game and quickly points out how he has exploited Morell’s parishioners in the past:
You paid worse wages than any other employer . . . to the women who made the clothing, working from dawn to dusk. No light, no heat, no air! Your wages would have driven them to the streets to keep body and soul together if I hadn’t stepped in. Those women were my parishioners.
Set and prop designers Lindsay Genevieve Fuori and Sean Sanford, respectively, have teamed up to create a delicious set that depicts the comfortable Morell household; it includes a pleasing arrangement of old-fashioned furniture and a potpourri of keepsakes, bric-a-brac, and stuffed toy animals for their two unseen children. The most eye-catching prop on stage, however, is a copy of Titian’s Assumption of the Holy Virgin, prominently placed on the living room wall. Though Shaw was no Catholic, this Marian image strangely seems perfect for this play. After all, the poet Marchbanks tells Candida that he wants to repeat her name a thousand times, and then piously concludes: “Don’t you feel that every time is a prayer to you?”
Srinivasan as Candida with Whitted as Marchbanks and David Ryan Smith as Candida’s unscrupulous father, Mr. Burgess. Photographs by Carol Rosegg.
Jamie Roderick’s lighting subtly changes in intensity with the passage of time in the play. What’s more, the blending of light and shadows makes for some pretty surreal shapes crossing the stage floor.
Candida was Shaw’s fifth play and is part of a group known as Plays Pleasant. Although some of its plot elements seem contrived and silly today (should Candida be castigated for chatting with a poet who is a house guest?), the playwright was still cutting his dramatic teeth with this work.
One of the most fascinating things about watching Candida is seeing the way Shaw hammers out his world views and how we can glimpse the Fabian socialist in the humanitarian skin of Morell. Under the direction of Staller, this old play on morals feels new and topical again. Staller, who dedicated this production to his longtime friend, the late Stephen Sondheim, reportedly would often debate with the late composer some of the issues in Candida.
While an audience might not be able to answer all the questions posed in this play, one can look to Shaw’s strong protagonist Candida and be grateful for her insights on love, marriage, and the ever-changing roles of women in the world.
The Gingold Theatrical Group’s production of George Bernard Shaw’s Candida runs at Theatre Row (410 W. 42nd St.) through Nov. 19. Evening performances are at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday and 8 p.m. on Friday and Saturday; matinees are at 2 p.m. Saturday and 3 p.m. Sunday. For tickets and information, visit gingoldgroup.org/candida.
