Arnold Daly first offered Shaw's play at a special matinee in 1903 with Dorothy Donnelly as Candida and himself as Marchbanks. The reception was such that additional matinees were given and then a four‐month run followed. Curiously, its good reception was largely the result of word of mouth, since many critics initially ignored the play. Its story of a woman who must choose between a visionary and a practical socialist was less beset by matters of passing topical interest and had more of a genuine love story than virtually any other major Shaw play, and so has retained a loyal following. Of its many revivals, most beloved were those by Katharine Cornell, who first played the part in 1924 when she gave it its longest run to date, five months. She brilliantly juxtaposed the heroine's frailty and strength, giving a performance Stark Young found “so delicate and translucent and moving as we rarely see.” Richard Bird was her first Marchbanks, but the role was assumed in her later revivals by such eventually more famous actors as Orson Welles, Burgess Meredith, and Marlon
Candida
| American Theater Guide: Candida |
| Irish Literature Companion: Candida |
Candida (1897), a play by George Bernard Shaw, written in 1894 and partly conceived as a reversal of the portrayal of sex relations in Ibsen's A Doll's House (1879), showing that ‘in the real typical doll's house it is the man who is the doll’.
| Wikipedia: Candida (play) |
Candida, a comedy by playwright G. Bernard Shaw, was first published in 1898, as part of his Plays Pleasant. The central characters are clergyman James Morell, his wife Candida and a youthful poet, Eugene Marchbanks, who tries to win Candida's affections. The play questions Victorian notions of love and marriage, asking what a woman really desires from her husband. The cleric is a Fabian Socialist, allowing Shaw—himself a Fabian—to weave political issues, current at the time, into the story.
Between 1904 and 1907 The Royal Court Theatre staged several of George Bernard Shaw plays, including Candida.
Contents |
Characters
In order of appearance
Miss Proserpine Garnett
The Reverend James Mavor Morell
The Reverend Alexander (Lexy) Mill
Mr Burgess
Candida
Eugene Marchbanks
Plot
The play is set in the north-east suburbs of London in the month of October. It tells the story of Candida, the wife of a first-rate clergyman, the Reverend James Mavor Morell. Morell is a Christian Socialist, popular in the Church of England, but Candida is responsible for much of his success. Candida returns home briefly from a trip to London with Eugene Marchbanks, a young poet who wants to rescue her from what he presumes to be her dull family life. Marchbanks is in love with Candida and believes she deserves something more than just complacency from her husband. He considers her divine, and his love eternal. In his view, it is quite improper and humiliating for Candida to have to attend to petty household chores. Morell believes Candida needs his care and protection, but the truth is quite the contrary. Ultimately, Candida must choose between the two gentlemen and she reasserts her preference for Morell, the "weaker of the two."
The characters of Mr Burgess, Candida's father, an unrepentant capitalist, Lexy Mill, Morell's assistant, and Proserpine Garnett, Morell's typist, add humour to the play.
In Bernard Shaw and the Aesthetes, Elsie Bonita Adams has given this assessment of Marchbanks, comparing him to two real-life artists:
Though Marchbanks has many of the external characteristics and some of the attitudes of the aesthete-artist such as Sholto Douglas or Adrian Herbert, he does not pay mere lip-service to art, his sensitivity is no pose, and he tries to rid himself of illusions.[1]
Adaptations
A Court Theatre Company production starring JoBeth Williams and Tom Amandes was recorded by the L.A. Theatre Works.
In 2003 the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation broadcast a production of the play.
An Oxford Stage Company production of Candida toured the UK in 2004, with Andrew Havill as Morell, Serena Evans as Candida, and Richard Glaves as Marchbanks.
In February 2009 BBC Radio 7 broadcast a radio adaptation of the play starring Hannah Gordon as "Candida" and Edward Petherbridge.
References
- ^ Adams, Elsie Bonita, Bernard Shaw and the Aesthetes (Ohio State University Press, 1986, ISBN 0814201555), p. 107 at books.google.com, accessed 25 January 2008
External links
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 | American Theater Guide. The Oxford Companion to American Theatre. Copyright © 2004 by Oxford University Press, Inc. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| Irish Literature Companion. The Concise Oxford Companion to Irish Literature. Copyright © 1996, 2000, 2003 by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. Read more |
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