Mrs. Warren's Profession

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Mrs Warren's Profession is a play written by George Bernard Shaw in 1893. The story centers on the relationship between Mrs Warren, a prostitute, described by Shaw as "on the whole, a genial and fairly presentable old blackguard of a woman," and her "prudish" daughter, Vivie.^[1] Mrs Warren is a middle-aged woman whose Cambridge-educated daughter, Vivie, is horrified to discover that her mother's fortune was made managing high-class brothels. The two strong women make a brief reconciliation when Mrs Warren explains her impoverished youth, which originally led her into prostitution. Vivie forgives her mother until learning that the highly profitable business remains in operation.

Shaw said he wrote the play "to draw attention to the truth that prostitution is caused, not by female depravity and male licentiousness, but simply by underpaying, undervaluing, and overworking women so shamefully that the poorest of them are forced to resort to prostitution to keep body and soul together."

Shaw explained the source of the play in a letter to The Daily Chronicle on 28 April 1898:

Miss Janet Achurch [an actress and friend of Shaw’s] mentioned to me a novel by some French writer [Yvette by Guy de Maupassant] as having a dramatisable story in it. It being hopeless to get me to read anything, she told me the story.... In the following autumn I was the guest of a lady [Beatrice Webb] of very distinguished ability — one whose knowledge of English social types is as remarkable as her command of industrial and political questions. She suggested that I should put on the stage a real modern lady of the governing class — not the sort of thing that theatrical and critical authorities imagine such a lady to be. I did so; and the result was Miss Vivie Warren.... Mrs. Warren herself was my version of the heroine of the romance narrated by Miss Achurch. The tremendously effective scene — which a baby could write if its sight were normal — in which she justifies herself, is only a paraphrase of a scene in a novel of my own, Cashel Byron’s Profession (hence the title, Mrs Warren's Profession), in which a prize-fighter shows how he was driven into the ring exactly as Mrs. Warren was driven on the streets.^[2]

The play was originally banned by the Lord Chamberlain (Britain's official theatre censor) because of its frank discussion and portrayal of prostitution, but was finally first performed on Sunday, January 5, 1902, at London's New Lyric Club with the distinguished actor-manager, Harley Granville-Barker among the cast. (Members-only clubs have always been a device to avoid the eye of authority, but actors often also use it to invite their fellow-artists to a private showing of a play, usually on Sundays, when theatres are closed to the public.) There was another performance, this time on the public stage, in New York City in 1905. The New York police arrested everyone concerned, cast and crew, but it seems only the house manager of the theatre was actually charged.

Adaptations and Sequels

Sir Harry Johnston wrote a sequel, a novel entitled Mrs. Warren's Daughter, in about 1922.

A radio adaptation was broadcast on the BBC in 2002 and re-broadcast in January 2009 on BBC Radio 7 starring Maggie Steed in the title role.

References

v • d • e The plays of George Bernard Shaw Passion Play · Un Petit Drame · Widowers' Houses · The Philanderer · Mrs. Warren's Profession · Arms and the Man · Candida · The Man of Destiny · You Never Can Tell · The Devil's Disciple · The Gadfly · Caesar and Cleopatra · Captain Brassbound's Conversion · The Admirable Bashville · Man and Superman · John Bull's Other Island · How He Lied to Her Husband · Major Barbara · Passion, Poison, and Petrifaction · The Doctor's Dilemma · The Interlude at the Playhouse · Getting Married · The Shewing-Up of Blanco Posnet · Press Cuttings · Fascinating Foundling · The Glimpse of Reality · Misalliance · The Dark Lady of the Sonnets · Fanny's First Play · Androcles and the Lion · Overruled · Beauty's Duty · Pygmalion · Great Catherine · The Music Cure · O'Flaherty V.C. · The Inca of Perusalem · Augustus Does His Bit · Macbeth Skit · Annajanska, the Bolshevik Empress · Heartbreak House · Back to Methuselah · A Glimpse of the Domesticity of Franklin Barnabas · Jitta's Atonement · Saint Joan · The Apple Cart · Too True to Be Good · How These Doctors Love One Another! · Village Wooing · On the Rocks · The Simpleton of the Unexpected Isles · The Six of Calais · The Millionairess · Arthur and the Acetone · Cymbeline Refinished · Geneva · In Good King Charles's Golden Days · The British Party System · Buoyant Billions · Farfetched Fables · Shakes versus Shav · Why She Would Not