NIAGARA-ON-THE-LAKE — This season, “Major Barbara” is the sole play by Bernard Shaw that’s being mounted at the festival bearing his name.
It’s a good choice, especially in Peter Hinton-Davis’s spare, effective production. The witty and provocative comedy of ideas still speaks to audiences 120 years after its premiere. If anything, the work and its themes — among them poverty, religion and war — feel more relevant today, even if its wordiness and philosophical digressions might seem antiquated to those unfamiliar with the prolific playwright’s style.
The aristocratic Lady Britomart (Fiona Byrne) has been separated from her husband Andrew Undershaft (Patrick Galligan) since their three children were young; she raised them on her own. But now that their offspring are adults, and two are engaged to be married, she needs his financial help — he is, after all, a wealthy weapons manufacturer.
When Undershaft discovers that his daughter Barbara (Gabriella Sundar Singh) is a major at the Salvation Army in London, he offers to visit her there to see how she runs things, if she will in turn visit his arms factory in a Middlesex village the following day.
And so begins a clever, biting look at how several institutions affect society.
Should an organization like the Salvation Army accept donations from sources that are antithetical to its principles — in the play, these include distilleries and weapons manufacturers?
And if such a weapons manufacturer provided utopia-like living conditions for its workers, is that such a bad thing? Is giving people jobs and a dignified way to live and support themselves better than leaving them to pretend to find God in order to eat free meals in a Salvation Army soup kitchen?
These are some of the questions that Shaw obviously wrestled with while writing the prophetic play. And they’re put forth clearly by director Hinton-Davis, whose lean, modern production serves the work well.
There’s not an ounce of chintz in Gillian Gallow’s spare, modernist set, which is framed by two staircases leading up to opposing doors. (These steep stairs must provide the actors with a demanding glute workout.)
The only bit of nonutilitarian life suggested in her set is a wall covering in Lady Britomart’s home that seems like a detail from a pre-Raphaelite painting its mistress might own and enjoy.
Hinton-Davis, one of our most esthetically eclectic directors, has great fun mixing moods and ideas — even in the look and sound of this production.
When we visit Undershaft’s munitions factory, for instance, we see gleaming metal warheads displayed like religious icons. And the score — including original music by Allen Cole — references folk tunes, hymns and the majestic opening bars of Wagner’s Ring Cycle.
Hinton-Davis’s spare production allows the play’s ideas to emerge without unnecessary distractions. And that’s important, because Shaw’s dialogue needs time and space to digest. For every well-known witticism (“He knows nothing and thinks he knows everything. That points clearly to a political career.”) there’s a meandering passage that feels more like a treatise than something a person would say in normal conversation.
The actors, for the most part, handle the Shavian dialogue well.
André Morin brings a freshness and spontaneity to Adolphus Cusins, Barbara’s academic fiancé and worshipper, while Sepehr Reybod stands out as both the silly twit Charles Lomax — who’s engaged to Barbara’s sister, Sarah (Lindsay Wu) — and Bill Walker, an abusive patron at the Salvation Army who’s on the verge of being “saved.”
Byrne delivers Lady Britomart’s amusing lines with subtle brittleness. Watching her manipulate her directionless son Stephen (Taurian Teelucksingh) is like witnessing a skilful militarist at work. Teelucksingh is very watchable as Stephen and in his other role as the delightfully named Snobby Price, an out-of-work artist who knows how to game the Salvation Army system.
If there’s a slaw in the casting, it’s Sundar Singh in the title role. The actor shines in her big scene at the Salvation Army, where we can see her ideals begin to crumble in the face of brutal reality. But in the other scenes she lacks purpose and weight. Certainly she’s no match for Patrick Galligan’s sinister, crafty Undershaft.
Galligan, a smile of amusement constantly on his face, seems a step ahead of everybody, delivering long swaths of difficult dialogue with commitment and — for the most part, at the performance I saw — precision.
Oddly enough, one of the most memorable performances comes from Patty Jamieson. Hinton gives the Shaw veteran a couple of haunting solos to sing in the hymns that punctuate this production. The playwright has often been accused of being overly cerebral. But in Jamieson’s impassioned delivery of these songs, she brings a humanity that, more than any of the arguments in the play, speaks to one’s emotions and stirs the soul.
