Reviews for Mrs. Warren's Profession

The average rating for Mrs. Warren's Profession based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2011-06-20 00:00:00 Zachary Paulsgrove Getting Biblical about this, should the sins of the fathers be visited upon the children unto the tenth generation? Does this apply to mothers too? Or shall we be a bit more modern and forgiving about it? The daughter in this play took the hard Biblical line and applied it to her mother, cutting her off from all contact when she found out that her extremely privileged youth and expensive education as a lawyer had been paid for by her mother's hard work first on her back and secondly running houses full of girls who also laid down to work. She didn't, however, offer to pay her mother back. Hypocrite. Tremendously entertaining read featuring lots of good-natured people and one or two who weren't. It puts the pros of prostitution - self-employment, self-determination and high earnings mostly - against the cons - social suicide if you are found out and paternity of a child might be difficult to identify, chief among them. At the time of writing, 1898, this was a shocking, distasteful story. Now whether or not it's shocking depends on who the prostitute is and her exact position in the world of whoredom. A friend's daughter who had been working in a secretarial position in Hong Kong, turned up on the internet in the missionary position and whether or not she took private clients was kind of irrelevant after that. The family was shocked, horrified and ashamed but did not in any way cut their daughter off, but she attempted suicide anyway. If we hear of a woman being a street prostitute to support her drug habit, we feel differently than if she had been doing it to support her children. And for women a little further up the scale, the call girls, escorts, part-time whores, there is a sort of good-luck-to-her attitude mixed with a bit of disgust as to why she couldn't find herself a more conventional job. For those at the top of the whoredom tree, the girlfriend harems of the late Hugh Hefner and his like, there is often fame! Look at The Girls Next Door - Holly, Kendra and the rest, moved on from their $1,000 a week 'pocket money' and sexual obligations twice a week! (See Bunny Tales for details of their job descriptions!) Mind, this disparity in reaction to prostitution has always existed at the top of society. The working-class girls were socially-unacceptable whores, but the aristocratic ones, working at the very pinnacle of society, were called 'courtesans' and the King's 'favourite' and other such euphemisms and much lauded for their beauty and connections. Now they are called 'celebrities" and "WAGS" (wives and girlfriends of footballers) and even 'trophy wives'. The main difference between those days and now is that then social opprobrium was the likely result on people discovering you were a whore, whereas now, its more likely people will sidle up to you and say 'what's it really like, do you uh, enjoy it?' and want to know the sleazy, details! It was probably the same then but manners didn't allow them to say it. Rewritten March 24th 2018 Original review June 28th 2011

Review # 2 was written on 2007-06-02 00:00:00 Matthieu Tardif Mrs. Warren's Profession (1883) was first collected in Plays Pleasant and Unpleasant, where Shaw classifies it as one of his "unpleasant" plays. And, boy, is Shaw ever right. Partly, this is because of the theme of the play: women are drawn into prostitution because of economic necessity, not because of a defect of moral character or the consequences of a disastrous love affair. This in itself is an uncomfortable truth for a Victorian audience, guaranteed to make 'em squirm in their seats. Moreover, Shaw makes it even more difficult for the audience by refusing to manipulate their intellects by enlisting their sentiments. Both the women, the prostitute-turned-madam mother (Kitty Warren) and her sheltered, disapproving daughter (Vivie Warren), are hard-headed and unsympathetic, and both their male friends are rather sleazy characters, capable of flirting with both mother and daughter. Stop looking for honor and love here, Shaw tells us, and get back to the economic issue. That's what's important. It is a noble experiment, and, although I think it could have used a little more heart, I found Mrs. Warren's Profession both thought provoking and satisfying. I enjoyed reading it enough that I would like to see it performed. Here are a few excerpts from Kitty's defense of her life choice to her unsympathetic daughter Vivie: But where can a woman get the money to save in any other business? Could y o u save out of four shillings a week and keep yourself dressed as well? Not you. Of course, if youre a plain woman and can't earn anything more; or if you have a turn for music, or the stage, or newspaper-writing: thats different. But neither Liz nor I had any turn for such things at all: all we had was our appearance and our turn for pleasing men. Do you think we were such fools as to let other people trade in our good looks by employing us as shopgirls, or barmaids, or waitresses, when we could trade in them ourselves and get all the profits instead of starvation wages? Not likely. . . What is any respectable girl brought up to do but to catch some rich man's fancy and get the benefit of his money by marrying him?--as if a marriage ceremony could make any difference in the right or wrong of the thing! Oh, the hypocrisy of the world makes me sick! Liz and I had to work and save and calculate just like other people; elseways we should be as poor as any good-for-nothing drunken waster of a woman that thinks her luck will last for ever. [With great energy] I despise such people: theyve no character; and if theres a thing I hate in a woman, it's want of character. . . Of course it's worthwhile to a poor girl, if she can resist temptation and is good-looking and well conducted and sensible. It's far better than any other employment open to her. I always thought that it oughtn't to be. . . But it's so, right or wrong; and a girl must make the best of it. . . I should have been a fool if I'd taken to anything else.