Shaw Festival scores a winner with obscure comedy

My reviewing schedule at Shaw is underway at a reduced level this season due to my changed career path, but I am back nonetheless, thrilled to be experiencing some great summer theatre once again.

Earlier this month I was at the Court House Theatre for the St John Hankin comedy The Charity that Began at Home, subtitled A Comedy for Philantropists.  Directed by Shaw Artistic Director Emeritus Christopher Newton, this play defines what the Festival does best:  champion plays by George Bernard Shaw and his contemporaries.

Shaw's plays of course receive pride of place at the Festival, but he is such a larger-than-life figure even today many of his contemporaries have long been forgotten.  All the more reason for the Shaw Festival to dig into the theatrical archives to find rarely-performed gems that help us realize there was more to the early 20th-century in a theatrical sense we should be enjoying and learning from.

St John Hankin, as Newton reminds us in his Director's Notes, was one of the five major playwrights associated with the Royal Court Theatre in London.  Shaw was by far the most famous, but his equally-talented contemporaries who also made up that group included  Harley Granville Barker, John Galsworthy, John Masefield and St John Hankin.

Newton explored Hankin's plays in the 1990s and at the beginning of the new century he decided to take a chance of The Return of the Prodigal, which turned out to be a huge hit at the Festival.  Newton returned a few years ago with another Hankin play, The Cassilis Engagement, which I vividly remember as one of the best plays that season, due in no small part to the magnificent work of the late Goldie Semple in that cast.

This season, Christopher has chosen Hankin's The Charity That Began at Home, an Edwardian comedy that premiered at the Royal Court Theatre in 1906.  Assembling again a very strong cast and featuring the tasteful designs of William Schmuck, Charity pushes all the right buttons and makes us realize yet again how clever and cutting edge Royal Court productions were at the turn of the last century.

In the play, set at Lady Denison's country house at Priors Ashton, a collection of social misfits come together for a weekend in the country, at the invitation of Lady Denison herself, played with great style by the inimitable Fiona Reid.  Her misguided plan was to bring together under one roof - hers - several people who would never otherwise be invited to such a social gathering for any number of reasons, if only to prove to herself and the rest of her family everyone should be treated with respect and dignity no matter their station in life.

A noble gesture, indeed.  But it soon falls apart as we meet a blowhard General Bonsor, played by Jim Mezon; the chronic complainer Mrs. Horrocks, played by Donna Belleville; the fidgety Mr. Firket of Neil Barclay; and the approving minister Basil Hylton, played by Graeme Somerville.  It is Hylton who encourages Lady Denison in her social philanthropy early on, but being forced to reconsider his values once he too realizes perhaps this was not such a good idea to begin with.

If it is true you can't pick your family but you can pick your friends, there are surely times you would not choose either.  None of these invited guests would be worthy of becoming friends of Lady Denison and her family; her family for their part do her no favours either.  Lady Denison's daughter Margery is being wooed by guest Hugh Verreker, for example.  Julia Course is sweet and fetching as Margery, and presents a nicely human element to the story, but she chooses to overlook Mr. Verreker's shortcomings at least initially.

Lady Denison's sister-in-law, Mrs. Eversleigh, played by Laurie Paton, will have none of the charity being played out here; she sees through most of the characters in the household and tries her darndest to bring Lady Denison to her senses.  Paton is the strict school-teacher we all remember trying to avoid in our childhood.

While The Charity That Began at Home will not be the biggest box office winner at the Shaw Festival this summer, it embodies all that is great about the Festival, with a wonderfully brilliant ensemble cast under the knowing direction of Christopher Newton.  This play predates Noel Coward's Hay Fever by several years, but the humour is just as pointed and biting.  It's a shame Hankin is all but forgotten today.

Kudos to Jackie Maxwell, the Shaw Festival's Artistic Director, and former Artistic Director Christopher Newton for unearthing another theatrical gem for us to enjoy.  No charity needed here; this play rates a strong three out of four stars.

Th Charity That Began at Home continues at the Court House Theatre until October 11th.

June 28th, 2014.