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Club Director's Notes

Candida Brief Lives Grimm Tales Wind in the Willows Two Thousand Years She Stoops to Conquer Ivanov

• Candida

• 3rd Oct - 10th Oct
• Written by: Bernard Shaw
• Directed by: Lyndsey Meer
• Performance Times: Sat 19:45, Sun 19:45, Mon 19:45, Tue 19:45, Wed 19:45, Thu 19:45, Fri 19:45, Sat 14:45, Sat 19:45

Synopsis

Shaw was interested in concepts and in this play, written 1894, he uses the context of a seemingly ideal Victorian marriage to raise ideas about our behaviour and beliefs, about knowledge and control and about how we present and deceive ourselves and others. Although it was written over a hundred years ago, questions about what we hope for and expect from others, about the tensions between dependence and freedom, about what we say and conceal, are just as relevant today because they are about the behaviour of human beings.

Towards the end of the 19th century, women were starting to give voice to the notion of equal rights with men. In a highly patriarchal society this must have seemed a new idea to many and would have challenged many accepted norms of living and behaving. Then as now, playwrights used what was happening in society at large to comment on and reflect that society back to people. Not long before Shaw's play was written, Henrik Ibsen had famously explored the notion of men treating their wives as property and inferior creatures. In his play A Doll’s House his heroine notoriously rebels and leaves her husband. Hugely impressed with that work, Shaw borrowed the theme and turned the idea around. In Candida he makes us look, sometimes uncomfortably, at the notion of a man and a woman in a situation where the control issues are somewhat different from what might often be pretended.

Approximate running time: Two hours including an interval between Acts 2 and 3.

Director's Notes
What are you hoping for when you go to the theatre, especially if it is to see a classic play?

I think I still hope, mainly, to be entertained; taken out of myself for a couple of hours. Not much makes me laugh, though I still like to, and I like theatre that makes me think and sometimes challenges, provokes or moves me. Sometimes I hope I might learn something.

And sometimes I can sit in an audience and feel that I have somehow received something special and unexpected from a performance – an affirmation or an insight that was not anticipated.

Sometimes I can be surprised; and I hope you will be by this play of Bernard Shaw's.

In this fairly short work he examines a man and wife and a day in their life that lays bare some of the secrets within their marriage that might normally have gone unspoken. Many singular questions are raised. Is it better to voice the dynamics that are really at the heart of a relationship or to keep quiet and just let it run? What does it do to us when the persona we present to the world is challenged and broken down?

What happens to us when we think we want something passionately only to discover that we don’t? And what might provoke such disquieting honesty?

One of the main reasons I have always loved being in plays is because of the way a hugely diverse group of people, with all their different talents, skills, temperaments, opinions and passions get together to create a whole. Not a sentimental person, I nevertheless find that idea moving.

It has been my enormous privilege to direct here at Lewes Little Theatre and I cannot thank everybody involved with this production enough. At every turn I have been met with support, enthusiasm, effort and kindness.

I hope you will feel my wonderful cast and backstage team do justice to this subtle, complex and intriguing play and thank them for their work. Kirrily Long, John Whitley, Mike Truman, Barry Smith, Sandy Truman and Lewis Reid (making his debut at LLT) do justice to this subtle and intriguing play.

Lyndsey Meer, Production Director


Candida Review by Brenda Gower Regional Representative for the National Operatic & Dramatic Society
Shaw wrote this fascinating play, one of his Plays Pleasant, questioning Victorian ideas of love and marriage, well over 100 years ago but it is in no way dated and this production worked extremely well due to the hard work obviously carried out by Director Lyndsey Meer and her well cast team of players.

I was sorry to hear that the leading man, John Whitley as James Morrell, became ill during the run and do hope that he has now recovered. However, the company were very fortunate in that Stage Manager Chris Weber Brown stood in and read the part. This in no way detracted from the character of this Christian Socialist Church of England clergyman as the part was acted very well indeed, particularly in the hard hitting scene with young Marchbanks.

The play opened with Kirrily Long as Prossy, Morrell’s secretary, busying herself with her duties. She dealt with this character very intelligently – a young lady having to learn her living in a household of extremely diverse characters.

A good performance from Mike Truman as Lexy, the curate – a rather lazy young man but supportive of his superior. Candida’s unlikely father, Burgess, was played by Barry Smith who certainly managed to convey the extreme insensitivity to those around him of this bigoted businessman.

Lewis Reid gave a very good account of the poet Marchbanks – a complex young man who wanted to be adored by everyone, especially the woman who had saved him from homelessness, but was his love for her purely infidelity of the mind?

And then we come to Candida – a strong and lively Victorian lady well portrayed by Sandy Truman. She appeared to care greatly for her husband but maybe she encouraged Marchbanks just a little too much. We were left wondering how the Morell’s marriage would fare in the future after the departure of the young poet. This was a very thoughtful production with a really excellent set, enabling the audience to be transported to Victorian times immediately.