Shaw Double-Bill offers up laughs along with food for thought

Most people - myself included, I must admit - have sort of a love-hate relationship with George Bernard Shaw.  You can admire his creativity and ability to tell a good story, but when it comes to sermonizing on subjects near and dear to his heart, which is quite often, well, most of us check out at some point.

It is, therefore, a delicate balancing act now for his namesake festival in Niagara-on-the-Lake to present Shaw's plays.  In an age when attention spans often last at most through the first couple of paragraphs of one of Shaw's patented diatribes, how do you you keep the public interested and coming back for more?

The answer, in recent years at least, appears to be avoid Shaw altogether whenever you can.  When you must, find someone to reimagine Shaw's work for a modern age.  Not a bad idea, in theory at least, but oftentimes it seems to muddy the water even more.

So kudos to the Shaw Festival and director Philip Akin for playing it straight with a comedy double-bill at the Royal George Theatre this season.  Of Marriage and Men:  A Comedy Double-Bill brings together two short Shaw plays demonstrating Shaw's interesting views on marriage, fidelity and relationships.

This is not the first time these two short plays have been paired together.  Indeed, the great Arnold Daley did just that at Toronto's Princess Theatre all the way back in 1904.  The first play, How He Lied to Her Husband, was first produced in New York in 1904; the second, The Man of Destiny, was first produced in England in 1897.

For this production pairing, Aiken has assembled a strong cast of Shaw actors, including David Adams, Krystal Kiran and Shawn Ahmed for the first play, and Fiona Byrne, Martin Happer, Andrew Lawrie and Kelly Wong for the second.

The first play, How He Lied to Her Husband, is about half an hour in length and full of lighthearted banter and unlikely scenarios.  It is perhaps the better of the two in terms of comedy.  The story involves young 18-year old He, played by Shawn Ahmed, who is hopelessly in love with She, Krystal Kiran.  Alas, She is married to Her Husband, David Adams.  The triangle intensifies over the course of the half hour, reaching an improbable conclusion before intermission.

In a clever bit of theatrical gamesmanship, director Aiken has the closing scene of the first play reprised as the curtain raises for the start of act two, before the cast of the second play shoo them offstage and orchestrate an enjoyable scene change that sees the set move from a flat in London to an inn on the road from Lodi to Milan in northern Italy run by Giuseppe Grandi.  The change offers much of the comedy relief to be found in act two.

The Man of Destiny involves Kelly Wong as Napoleon Bonaparte, fresh from another military victory, stopping at the inn run by Grandi for some rest and good food before moving on to his next military conquest.  While there he learns his hapless Lieutenant, played by Andrew Lawrie, has lost the important communiques he was to deliver to him.  Well maybe lost is not the correct term to use here, as another military man tricked him into turning them over and then he was gone.

But Bonaparte meets a Strange Lady at the inn, played by Fiona Byrne, who offers to return the communiques to him.  She claims to know who this military officer is.  Bonaparte sees through the ruse and realizes the man and the woman are in fact one in the same.

What ensues is the patented Shavian wordplay and exchanges that make up the better part of the hour-long act.  In true Shaw fashion they do tend to get a bit tedious, but to this audience member at least, following the many twists and turns as they verbally spar back and forth is part of the fun.  Just when you think you've figured everything out, Shaw lobs another verbal shot at you and throws the doors open to more speculation.

The cast for both plays are uniformly strong, with the first act team getting top marks for keeping things moving in such a short space of time.  In the second act things seem to drag a bit, but overall the cast does a fine job with Shaw's barbs.

The set design is simple and elegant for the first play, transformed in the second act to a rustic inn with grape vines and a sky backdrop that gradually darkens from day to night as the play unfolds.

While I have not seen everything Shaw has to offer this season, this double-bill was for me, at least, a little more entertaining than the other two we attended this season.  And it was good to get a laugh or two out of Shaw's plays presented here pretty much as Shaw wrote them.

Of Marriage and Men:  A Comedy Double-Bill continues at the Royal George Theatre until September 2nd, and rates a respectable 3 out of 4 stars.  Tickets are available by calling the Shaw box office at 1-800-511-7429 or by going to www.shawfest.com.

Have a great weekend!

August 11th, 2018.