Misalliance
By George Bernard Shaw
Directed by Kevin Jackson
With Adrian Adam, Danielle Antaki, Peter Astridge, Stephen Barker, Janet Gibson, John Grinston, Bronwyn Lim, Sean Ryan, Stuart Tye
New Theatre, Newtown, Sydney until October 26
Reviewed by Allen Myers
Shaw subtitled this play "A debate in one sitting". Taking small liberties, director Kevin Jackson has inserted an interval. A small thing, but it indicates the sensible and sensitive way in which the New Theatre has handled the manuscript. It is treated with respect, but not idolatry.
The play, after all is prewar — pre the first war. The world in which it is set has been gone, largely unlamented, for eight decades. It would not take excessive clumsiness to turn Misalliance into a boring period piece, particularly since the plot is flimsy to the point of evanescence.
Instead, director and actors have made Shaw's work sparkle like new. The witty dialogue skips about the stage like a precocious and boisterous child, so that you're never quite sure where it will land next. And like the child, it keeps you laughing, at least when it's not actually breaking something.
There's that sort of dramatic tension, at least latently, in Shaw's script, and this production succeeds so well, I think, largely because it makes the most of that uncertainty: is the boisterous child going to tickle your ribs or tread on your toes? Kevin Jackson's program note gets to the heart of things when it quotes Bertolt Brecht as saying, "It should be clear by now that Shaw is a terrorist".
If the idea of a Fabian terrorist strikes you as a bit absurd, that's also in the spirit of things. As Jackson's note also points out, there is more than a little of Monty Python in this play — although, since Shaw did it first, we should say that there is a bit of Misalliance in Monty Python.
Shaw the Fabian was not, of course, a great social theorist. He is not read, or performed, for his proposed solutions to social problems. But as a critic — ah, there, Brecht was right on the mark.
The misalliance of the title is, formally, the engagement of Bentley Summerhays, son of Lord Summerhays and Hypatia Tarleton, daughter of a successful underwear manufacturer. But the deeper misalliance that concerned Shaw was the enforced relationship between parents and children, and, even more broadly, between the generations.
The production may emphasise this aspect even a bit more than Shaw intended — which is a second important factor in its success. The Victorian courtship conventions which Shaw demolished in 1909 are increasingly only curiosities today, but the differing outlooks of different generations are a more persistent reality. Putting the emphasis here was the right choice.
When a production is as good as this, it means that the company is working as a real team, which makes it seem unfair to start singling out individuals. Nevertheless, it will already be obvious that I think Kevin Jackson has done a marvellous interpretation.
Equal praise is due the actors for an excellent fulfilling of the director's vision. Stephen Barker as John Tarleton has the most complex character to portray, and does so superbly. Danielle Antaki creates just the right feeling as the Polish acrobat who descends from the skies on unsuspecting English gentility (though occasionally the authenticity of her accent should be sacrificed for the sake of clarity). In a much less flamboyant role, John Grinston as Lord Summerhays creates a persistent memory of a sad agent and beneficiary of a social system which he finds, in the end, rather distasteful.