There is something heroic in Orange Tree boss Paul Miller’s determination to revive obscure George Bernard Shaw plays, even the most exasperating ones. This is his fourth in five years, and its pleasures are hard won.
Time has not been kind to Candida, originally staged in 1895. First, it now shares its name with a yeast infection. Second, the author’s self-satisfied talkiness and his tendency to make characters mere mouthpieces for ideas have aged badly. That Miller’s lucid but over-emphatic production is ultimately more pleasing than irritating is down largely to Claire Lams in the title role.
Candida is the wife and helpmeet of a charismatic socialist vicar, Rev James Morell (lupine Martin Hutson), whose rhetorical skills are much sought after by the likes of the “Social Democratic Federation, Mile End”. Into the Morells’ loving, politically conscious home comes young poet Marchbanks (Joseph Potter, making an impressive but overamplified stage debut), rich and well connected but starved of affection. Besotted by Candida he challenges Morell to release her from her life of supposed drudgery into his airy-fairy embraces: scrubbing brushes induce “poetic horror” in Marchbanks.
Much of the play is taken up with Morell and Marchbanks storming at each other, pitting lyric passion against intellectual commitment, while Lams sails serenely around them like an elegant, well-appointed schooner. Candida’s dad (Michael Simkins) turns up to represent the forces of wicked capitalism, and there’s also a silly curate and a pert typist to chuck a few more arguments into the mix.
As so often with Shaw, one admires the cleverness while remaining largely unmoved. Until, that is, the final scene, where Candida gains a voice of her own, shaming the men for their indulgence. Lams does this magnificently, even though that voice is of course Shaw’s, and his view of the gender divide is almost as patronising as Candida’s lovers’. But this triumphant finale lifts this play from the level of engaging curio to something more emotionally satisfying.
Until 11 Jan (020 8940 3633, orangetreetheatre.co.uk)
