Review: THE DEVIL MAY CARE, Southwark Playhouse

The American production of George Bernard Shaw’s The Devil's Disciple was, famously, the first financial success for the Irish writer. Though originally set during the Revolutionary era, Director Mark Giesser adapts it to a later war, perhaps in an attempt to modernise its themes and draw a parallel with contemporary topics of discussion. Rebellion and sacrifice unfold out against a field of racism, violence, and colonial dynamics, but none of it hits as hard as it should.

The personal motives that propel the characters forward are as nebulous as their dialogues, heavy with exposition and explanations of the political context. It's one of those plays where nothing much happens on stage but there’s a lot to make sense of. It turns into a problem when the information is an accessory to the core of the play rather than enriching the road to its denouement. Staged in Southwark Playhouse’s studio, it could be a calamitously intimate look at the price of colonisation, but it's just a two-hour slog.

Giesser writes and directs a fully period project filled with debates on military action, racist jabs, and a few accents of dubious provenance in the mix. Richard Conroe (the aforementioned devil's disciple) shows up at his family home after 15 years of absence in a villainous move that would strip his brother off his inheritance. The real villains brag about having bought the Philippine Islands from Spain for pennies and the good guys recruit natives to fight back, which is the reason the reverend becomes a wanted man too long into the narrative.

A selfless switcharoo sees the reprobate son offering himself up to save the husband of a woman he's just met but seems to fancy (though the striking lack of chemistry between Callum Woodhouse and Beth Burrows might say otherwise).

It's difficult to pinpoint a single specific issue that prevents the piece from achieving its best self. The set (by Intellectual Propery) is a good looking vintage collection, but it’s impersonal and bland. The lights (Sam M Owen) seek to carry a certain atmosphere but fail to focus the necessary moments: there's one instance where the design closes up on Woodhouse and his evil scheming, but it's a faint bid that ends up sticking out like a sore thumb instead of creating a pattern.

Woodhouse comes straight from Channel 5’s All Creatures Great and Small, holding his own with blunt, bitter sarcasm. He slots in well into this collection of morally pompous characters, but the extended chunks of one-sided dialogue slow him - and everybody else - down. The other billed television star, Jill Greenacre, is his defensive, thoroughly racist mother. While she wears a frankly appalling wig, she’s good baddie foil, endlessly mothering Enzo Benvenuti’s Elias, much to his displeasure, between his fits of insecurity masked with put-on assertiveness.

Beth Burrows and Izyan Hay complete the main cast as Judith and Isabel, while Richard Lynson takes on a handful of older authoritative roles. They’re a cohesive company, but none of them saves the delivery of the show.

We’re left with a few too many questions, primarily linked to the logic of the events and the very raison d'être of the project. Yes, it’s a look at power structures and the role of women, authority and injustice, guilt and self-sacrifice, war and independence, but none of the arguments is given the depth and space they deserve to make a rightful impact on the viewers. The direction suffers under the weight of the script, which would benefit from a trim and a beckoning pace. The text is well formed, but it has to put up with an elephantine disposition, more suited for the written word than spoken dialogue. As it is, it lacks pull and the starry names boasted by the blurb aren’t enough.

The Devil May Care runs at Southwark Playhouse until 1 February.

Photo Credits: Lidia Crisafulli

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