Alley Theatre presents Mrs. Warren's Profession at the Rickshaw Theatre, 254 E. Hastings St., Vancouver, until April 27. Tickets: $20 (advance), $25 (door) at mrswarrens. ca or 1-800-838-3006.
British playwright George Bernard Shaw wrote Mrs. Warren's Profession 120 years ago, but the social issues addressed in the story, such as prostitution and gender inequality, remain hot topics to this day.
Written in 1893, the play was banned for many years because of its controversial portrayal of sex work and its indictment of the limited opportunities available to women. Now, Alley Theatre company, under the direction of Marisa Smith, is staging the show at the Rickshaw Theatre in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside - a neighbourhood where sex work is a means of survival for many women.
"It marries this fantastic classic script that is so timeless and so well written with real social relevance," says North Vancouver resident Melissa Oei, who is taking on the role of Vivie Warren.
Vivie is the daughter of the eponymous Mrs. Kitty Warren (played by Linda Quibell), a wealthy and worldly woman who has secretly worked as a prostitute and brothel madam in order to pay Vivie's way through boarding school and give her opportunities she never had.
"She's very highly educated, she's very forward thinking, she's called 'unconventional' a lot in the show," Oei says of Vivie. "She's kind of the opposite of what would be considered a highly feminine woman. She's very self-sufficient, she has no interest in marriage, no interest in arts and beauty and romance."
But when Vivie returns
home from school she learns the truth about her mother's livelihood and the two women reach an impasse over what it means to be a modern woman.
"It's really hard for them to find common ground because they see the world so differently and have been raised so differently and also are quite estranged," Oei says.
Despite their moral divergence, Oei says Vivie
and Kitty are actually quite similar.
"They have a lot of the same qualities and characteristics in their personalities," she explains. "They're very driven, very ambitious, really self-sufficient, very strong women."
Oei, 34, is an Argyle secondary alumnus and a graduate of Langara College's Studio 58 program. One of her challenges as an actor, she says, is identifying and empathizing with her
Victorian-era character.
"Melissa sees the world very differently from Vivie and we have very opposite personalities," she says, adding that while she may not agree with her character all the time, she still respects her. "I really have such a deep affection for her and I admire her so much."
Alley Theatre's production of Mrs. Warren's Profession is billed as a "post-modern revisitation" of Shaw's classic work. The period costumes incorporate bits of modern
hardware and ticket-holders are invited to engage in a text message forum pre-show and during intermission.
"It's not just a show with a message. It's a show that provokes thought and debate and discussion and conversation about things that are really relevant in society," Oei says. "It's really meant to take what Shaw was talking about and what was happening at the time and for us to see how much has changed and how little has changed at the same time."
Alley Theatre has also set up an interactive website featuring five mini documentaries which reflect
the modern context of the play and delineate the history of sex trade laws since Shaw's time. Included are interviews with sex worker and social justice advocate Susan Davis, Dr. Ron Abrahams, who works with Downtown Eastside mothers and their children, and Kate Gibson, executive director of the WISH Drop-In Centre Society, an overnight refuge for women involved in the sex trade.
"I read the play when I was working at a women's shelter in the Downtown Eastside and it just struck me, some of the stuff that Shaw was talking about in
here is still pretty relevant, and so I thought why not try and stage it in a space in the Downtown Eastside that might be a little bit more abstract, and have people share that experience with me," Smith says.
There will be a panel talk on April 26 following the 2 p.m. matinee performance to discuss the play's modern relevance and current prostitution laws in Canada. In addition, $3 from every ticket will be donated to the WISH Drop-In Centre Society and PACE Society, a sex worker organization that provides peer-driven frontline support services.
