Playwright: George Bernard Shaw
At: ShawChicago at the Cultural Center, 77 E. Randolph St.
Phone: ( 312 ) 409-5606; free
Runs through: Nov. 12
It's a premise fit only for Victorian literature: Andrew Undershaft, CEO of a munitions plant supplying WMDs to the world, is bound by the wishes of his megamillion empire's founder to leave it, not to his own heirs, but to a 'foundling' willing to change his name and dedicate himself to the Darwinian practice of selling annihilative devices to whomever can pay for them. Complicating his plan, however, is his rebellious daughter, an officer in the Salvation Army.
The wisdom of jobs over charity as a remedy for poverty and its associated antisocial fallout should be manifest, as well as the benefits of employers providing community services—housing, schools, hospitals, etc.—for their workers ( though Shaw's utopian picture of Undershaft's 'villages' was later diminished by the Pullman experiment ) . But the connection between war and poverty seems to have faded from our prosperous American purview, so remote are we from the notion of citizens with little to lose in risking death. And while Englishmen in 1905 could hardly denigrate those willing to die for their beliefs, our author likewise acknowledges the value of material comfort as an obstacle making for sacrifice so great that only the strongest of convictions justify adopting this course of action.
Fortunately, Shaw wraps his brain exercise in a comedy-of-manners replete with romantic repartee and satirical insight. For Barbara has a suitor, Adolphus Cusins, a scholar of ancient Greek whose Dionysic credo enables him to embrace evangelism, capitalism or whatever ethos is needed to win his beloved. There is also the matter of her thickwitted brother's less-considered—and thus, even more unbending—opposition to his patrimony, and their proper mother's indignation at having her offspring passed over for inheritance.
The ShawChicago ensemble, led by Tony Dobrowolski as the hearty Undershaft, Alyson Green as the forthright Barbara, and Martin Yurek as the charming professor Aldophus ( along with a scene-stealing Kate Young as the formidable Lady 'Don't call me Biddy!' Britomart ) , harmonizes in three-octave dialects with such dazzling agility that we feel no loss at the absence of visual distraction in this chamber reading. When words dance as merrily as this, scenery and costumes would just get in the way.