D.C. Review: Flawed Fanny's First Play Offers Sharp 'Shaw-Spouting Puppets'

In 1911, English theatergoers sat down to watch the premiere of a play by a writer who wished to remain anonymous. Similarly, the show itself featured four fictional critics heatedly debating the authorship of a play within the play.

One of them believes that George Bernard Shaw is the last person who could have written the play: "Shaw is physiologically incapable of the note of passion…it's not by Shaw, because all Shaw's characters are himself: mere puppets stuck up to spout Shaw." The joke was on the public as well as on the legendary Irish playwright himself. It was indeed none other than Shaw who wrote Fanny's First Play, an unfocused yet unfairly neglected piece that the Washington Stage Guild—a frequent interpreter of the dramatist--is currently showcasing in a lively production.

Vaughan (the critic in question) certainly has a big point about the playwright as an intellectual puppet-master, and stretches of the play are pretty dry.

But while no one would ever mistake a Shaw play for a Harlequin romance, Fanny's First Play contains passion of a different breed--the fire of Shaw's hatred for the hypocritical, smug and ignorant expressed through incisive and witty dialogue. In Fanny's First Play, that trio of traits is mostly concentrated in the older generation. As in any modern teen movie, it then becomes the duty of the younger to pry open their parents' closed minds. 

Fanny's father Count O'Dowda (Bill Largess) is a man who longs for the frills and frolics of the 18th century, whose mode of dress he has adopted for himself, as well as forced on his once-sheltered daughter. Now a Cambridge student and a socialist, Fanny (Jennifer Timberlake) is gifted with a rare birthday opportunity by the Count: to see the play that she has written performed by working actors and evaluated by a quartet of professional critics (two are anachronistically played by women).

Fanny's play is not quite the inoffensive fluff that the Count had in mind. It's a story in which two young people defy their narrow-minded parents by catapulting over class barriers. Bobby Gilbey (Jason Stiles) marries the jolly Cockney strumpet "Darling" Dora Delaney (Jessica Frances Dukes), while his suffragette ex-fiancee Margaret Knox (Timberlake) weds the "butler" Juggins (a deliciously droll performance by Michael Glenn). Oh, yes—Bobby and Margaret both have participated in a riot with the latter beating up an unruly policeman. The critics' reactions to Fanny's play are often as funny as they are off-the-mark.

"It's by a good author, it's a good play, naturally...Who is the author? Tell me that; and I'll place the play for you to a hair's breadth," reasons Bannal.

The ink of Shaw's poison pen spatters over many people and ideas: theatre critics, escapists, religious self-righteousness, prudishness, bourgeois values and the English (in the comic form of a Frenchman who mistakes the stuffiness of the parents for the forward-thinking freedom of the young people), among others. As a result, the often funny play (both those of Fanny and Shaw, in fact) sometimes feels dated and unfocused, and falls into potholes of ponderous dialogue. Yet some of Shaw's lines have a water-in-the-face freshness to them. "We've no real religion or way of telling what's right or wrong…we've only our habits," says Mrs. Knox, Margaret's religious mother who has been converted to her daughter's opinion that life is too wild and irrational to be lived in knee-jerk mode.  

Matched to minimalist but attractive production design, John McDonald's direction is crisp enough, if not always consistent. It's only in the second act when the play truly relaxes into fast-paced fun; the actors are allowed to accent the linguistic gymnastics with hilarious physicality.

The cast--doubly hard-working in dual roles--is generally skilled and energetic. Timberlake doesn't leave much on an impression as Fanny, but she gives a sparkling spitfire performance as Margaret. Recounting the spirit-liberating events of the riot to her outraged parents, she is like a girl who has gotten drunk from her very first bottle of champagne. Giannarelli, with her clear, rich voice and stately presence, is also a standout as the pious, excitable Mrs. Knox.

"Be true to yourself, Miss O'Dowda. Keep serious. Give up making silly jokes. Sustain the note of passion. And you'll do great things," Vaughan advises Fanny. The play doesn't quite sustain itself throughout, but the Washington Stage Guild manages to show why it's still a worthy piece. As for emotional passion...well, there's always daytime drama.

Visit www.stageguild.org for more information.

Pictured left to right: Vincent Clark, Laura Giannarelli, Bill Largess, Lynn Steinmetz and Michael Glenn; photo by Christopher O. Banks

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