Mrs. Warren's Profession presented by Shakespeare Theatre Company at Sidney Harman Hall

Mrs. Warren's Profession

Sidney Harman Hall
610 F Street NW Washington

Originally banned from the stage, "Mrs. Warren's Profession" scandalized audiences upon its debut. The world of the idealistic Vivie is turned upside down when she learns that her family's considerable wealth comes from her mother's management of a chain of brothels. Is Mrs. Warren's profession an outrageous moral failure or a paragon of female achievement?

Presented by Shakespeare Theatre Company

Thru - Jul 11, 2010

Price: $10

Show Type: Drama

www.shakespearetheatre.org

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Mrs. Warren's Profession Reviews

Average Rating based on 6 reviews

Highly Recommended
Recommended
Somewhat Recommended
Not Recommended

Washington Post - Recommended

"...Ashley's earthy magnanimity proves a good match for the play's pragmatic matriarch, a lowborn woman of the Victorian era who could find no avenue to material comfort other than the path that ran through the boudoir. It's a character that in Shaw's time represented the demeaning limits imposed on female aspiration -- and in ours is, perhaps, a symbol of the disdain we sometimes unfairly heap on the compromises of older generations lacking our advantages."

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- Peter Marks

Examiner - Highly Recommended

"...Every mother should take her daughter(s) to see Shaw's “Mrs. Warren’s Profession” at the Shakespeare Theatre Company's Sidney Harman Hall through July 11. And everyone who enjoys excellent theatre should see this fine production, starring DC and Broadway favorite Elizabeth Ashley in the title role of the brothel-madam."

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- Marsha Dubrow

MetroWeekly - Recommended

"...All told, Mrs. Warren's Profession is not one of Shaw's wittiest plays. Nor will its appeal be universal. Yet it speaks with a timeless and, on occasion, starkly insightful voice. And for those boomers currently complaining of Gen-X complacency, it serves as a reminder that boomers themselves owe a debt to their forbearers and their own duty to take stock."

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- Kate Wingfield

Talkin Broadway - Highly Recommended

"...The Shakespeare Theatre Company in Washington, D.C., has created a gem of a production of George Bernard Shaw's Mrs. Warren's Profession in its larger space, Sidney Harman Hall. Director Keith Baxter has molded an ensemble out of a cast of all-stars who know exactly how to wring laughter from Shaw's witticisms while clearly setting out the philosophical issues."

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- Susan Berlin

Washington City Paper - Highly Recommended

"...Baxter’s production makes clearer than many the costs of that collision of generations and personalities: Shaw’s script gives us a “joyous” Vivie, settling “buoyantly” down to her work after a final break with her mother, confident that she can make her own way in the world and content with the prospect of an unsexed, loveless life centered on work. Baxter and Quaid, more sensitive to individual character than the old polemicist ever was, leave us with a soberer, more strained picture, a Vivie sitting rigid and grim at her desk, attacking her work with the fierceness of someone determined to drive doubt and despair away. She’s not wrong, this Vivie, but she’s not 100 percent happy, either—and that makes for as poignant an assessment of Mrs. Warren’s profession as I can remember."

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- Trey Graham

Washingtonian - Recommended

"...Director Keith Baxter has mounted a splendid production. The sets are beautiful, the lighting and sound direction perfect. Baxter employs some wonderful stage business to give the actors a chance to strut their stuff. Watching a hung-over Reverend Gardner try to manage a delicate china teacup is priceless, and his spineless son’s ability to loll about is also amazing to watch."

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- Leslie Milk

Mrs. Warren's Profession presented by Shakespeare Theatre Company at Sidney Harman Hall