TCU Theatre takes on Shaw’s ‘Misalliance,’ Wed-Sun.
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| Misalliance runs Wed-Sun at Buschman Theatre, 2800 S University Dr, FW. Tickets are $5-10. Call 817-257-5770. |
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A D V E R T I S E M E N T
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A D V E R T I S E M E N T
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To Be Shaw
Poor George Bernard Shaw. He was considered the pre-eminent English-language playwright and man of letters in the first half of the 20th century, but his stock has fallen considerably since his death in 1950. His modern, coruscatingly intelligent, intensely verbal plays, which struck such a chord with audiences of the time, are more or less neglected these days — how many revivals of Caesar and Cleopatra or Man and Superman do you see? Shaw’s earnest brand of dogma doesn’t play as well as the principled frivolity of his contemporary who rejected the importance of being earnest, Oscar Wilde.
Into the void steps TCU Theatre this week, as it takes on one of Shaw’s lesser-known comedies, Misalliance. First staged in 1910, it takes place in a quiet English country house owned by Britain’s biggest underwear manufacturer. His wife is so bored that she longs for something to drop out of the sky to change her life, and she gets her wish in the form of a Polish aviatrix whose plane crashes nearby. It’s only the beginning of a parade of odd visitors who wind up changing the lives of everyone in the household. Through it all, Shaw pokes fun at the lack of action and overabundance of talk in his plays. Theatergoers can compare this to Beckett’s Endgame (see Thursday’s entry) and see how little and how much has changed. Or they can just savor the trenchancy of Shaw’s dialogue in the diatribe against clerking and lines such as, “You’ll never have a quiet world till you knock the patriotism out of the human race.”
Misalliance runs Wed-Sun at Buschman Theatre, 2800 S University Dr, FW. Tickets are $5-10. Call 817-257-5770.
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