Mrs Warren's Profession and the Lord Chamberlain

Abstract

Prominently projected onto the drop-curtain for Sir Peter Hall's sexually charged (but not sexually explicit) 2002 revival of Shaw's Mrs Warren's Profession at the Strand Theatre in London's West End were two short statements: "Written in 1893. Banned until 1925." Eye-catching? Thought-provoking? Yes, indeed. But true? Alas, not really—or at least not the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. It would be folly, of course, to claim to know the whole truth about anything (let alone expect to see it displayed on a drop-curtain, or even revealed in the pages of SHAW), but through a review of key primary sources (including many unpublished documents) I hope at least in this article to add a little to current knowledge and understanding of the complex history of Shaw's (and his allies') struggles to overcome the Lord Chamberlain's refusal to license his notorious play in the years between the first request in 1898 and the first licensed performance in England at the Prince of Wales Theatre, Birmingham, on 27 July 1925.1 It's really a far more interesting (and much longer!) story than the Strand's drop-curtain theater historian would have us believe—a story, on the one hand, of obduracy, obtuseness, and, ultimately, pragmatism; and, on the other, of persistence, naÀ5Àvety, ingenuity, and determination. [End Page 46] The Independent Theatre, 1895 The drop-curtain's dating of Shaw's writing of Mrs Warren's Profession is accurate. He began it on Sunday, 20 August 1893, on a train journey home after a visit to Charles Charrington and his wife, Janet Achurch. Ten days later he had finished the first act. He worked further on the play through September, reading parts of it to Achurch (his choice for the first Vivie Warren, Charrington was to be Crofts) and other friends as he made progress. More train rides, a walk in the Mall, an afternoon on Primrose Hill—these and other occasions and locations afforded opportunities for further progress. He finished Act III—and read it to the Charringtons—on 24 October, and completed the play on 2 November before attending a performance of Berlioz's Faust at the Albert Hall (Weintraub II, 963-82, passim).2 In November and December 1893, Shaw read parts of the new play to other friends—William Archer, the Webbs—by which time J. T. Grein, founder of the Independent Theatre Society, had got to hear of it. Grein had produced Widowers' Houses in December 1892, and now inquired about Mrs Warren's Profession. Shaw outlined the play to Grein—describing Mrs Warren as "a woman of bad character, proprietress of two maisons tolérées in Brussels, and of similar establishments in other continental cities"—but cautioned him that "I do not think there is the least chance of the play being licensed" (12 December 1893; Laurence I, 413). Shaw hoped that Grein would be willing to mount a private production of the play, thereby evading the Lord Chamberlain's authority (as Grein had in March 1891 with Ibsen's highly controversial Ghosts), and in the meantime continued to read the play to his circle of friends. He read Mrs Warren's Profession to Grein on 13 February 1895 (Weintraub II, 1065), but Grein, while sympathetic to a Norwegian play about venereal disease, disappointed Shaw by rejecting his play because of its subject matter.3 There was no prospect either of a public performance, Shaw not even having thought it worthwhile submitting the play to the Lord Chamberlain for licensing (Laurence I, 470). Shaw hadn't entirely given up hope of a production, however, telling R. Golding Bright in November 1895 that he had proposed the role of Mrs Warren (who is "much worse than a prostitute," she is "an organism of prostitution") to Mrs. Theodore Wright (wife of a Fabian colleague...

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