Paul Miller is almost single-handedly keeping the Shavian flame alive. This is his fourth production of one of the plays in five years and it induces in the audience a giddy delight that reminds me of the comment by Jorge Luis Borges that the work of Shaw “leaves one with a flavour of liberation”. That liberation takes many forms in this remarkable play, first performed in 1895. For a start, we see the eponymous heroine exposing the word-drunk absurdity of the two men competing for her love: her Christian socialist husband, Rev Morell, and the hyperbolic teenage poet, Marchbanks. When Claire Lams’s spritely, mischievous Candida mockingly asks them “pray, my lords and masters, what have you to offer for my choice?” we could be watching a comedic version of Ibsen.
But Miller has also grasped that there is something Dionysiac within Shaw. Far from being the desiccated brainbox people assume, he writes about the extremes of passion. Four of the characters are here described as mad and there is a wildness to the play that comes out beautifully in this production. You see that in Martin Hutson’s violently hot-tempered Morell who, after Candida has attempted to soothe his ruffled feelings, turns on her and cries: “I had rather you had plunged a grappling iron into my heart than given me that kiss.” Joseph Potter, making an impressive stage debut, captures Marchbanks’s frantic impulsiveness while suggesting that, like so many of Shaw’s characters, he is doomed to a martyred solitude.
All three leads are first-rate, but one test of a good Shaw production is that all the characters are buoyantly alive. Michael Simkins gives a richly funny performance as Candida’s grasping father, showing how an unscrupulous, exploitative businessman sees himself as a model of practical common-sense. Sarah Middleton captures perfectly the unrequited passion of Morell’s adoring secretary who, after breaking her non-drinking habit, announces: “I’m only a beer teetotaller, not a champagne teetotaller.” Miller’s production, which shows a rare understanding of Shaw, itself has the sparkle of vintage fizz.
