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The basic story concerns a pragmatic young woman, Vivie, who has spent her life in boarding schools, seeing her mother only on rare occasions. Upon graduation, she now directly confronts her mother and learns the bitter truth: Mrs. Warren is a former prostitute who has risen to the rank of a high class madam, and all of Vivie's education has been built on the profits of her profession. But the play takes an unexpected twist, for instead of sensationalizing or sentimentalizing prostitution, Shaw gives us Mrs. Warren as a business woman who took the only opportunity available to her and through commonsense and a strong work ethic parlayed her meager beginnings into a fortune of note.
The obvious reason for public outcry against the play was Shaw's refusal to condemn Mrs. Warren for prostitution; less obvious but more powerful is the fact that Shaw condemns virtually every character and the society in which they move as grossly hypocritical. It is an incredibly hypocritical society that has forced Mrs. Warren to decide between the virtue of starvation and the sin of success; while easily the most sympathetic role in the play, Mrs. Warren emerges as a garden-variety hypocrite of limited insight; and while we may admire Vivie for her clarity of thought and apparent virtue, she emerges as a young woman of such ferocious self-determination that she is ultimately difficult to like.
MRS. WARREN'S PROFESSION was among Shaw's earliest plays, and it pales a bit in comparison to his later, more theatrically sophistocated works; consequently it is seldom revived today. Even so, it is a powerful example of the new style Shaw would forge in theatre, a dark comedy overflowing with complex ideas and wickedly funny ironies. Shaw's tone of voice is both distinct and unique, he reads from the page as well as he plays on the stage, and he would exert a profound influence on drama throughout the 20th Century. Recommended.
GFT, Amazon Reviewer
You can't help but root for Vivie as she cleverly deals with the hypocritical rogues around her in this hilarious tale.
This story was smart and funny. I loved it and wanted more when it was over. I'll have to buy another one of his books. I just love his style.
I can't resist any chance I can get to peek into the mind of a genius, and Shaw was a true genius. This story was delightful and brilliant.
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